excellent camping, can't say enough about it. more pix coming.

didn't quite make it out of the house today.but i am packed and ready to go. leaving early tomorrow for cousin moriah's and charlie's.

back sunday.

i saw most of the debate, probably over an hour. i thought mccain probably did himself more good than harm.

but it was like watching a punch and judy performance. an outdated, obsolete style of performance, akin to the old miss america contests. the format is ridiculous. by that i mean the stage, camera angles, lighting and graphics. i could not help but see both candidates with little earpieces like the talking heads wear, and at the bottom running flashing meters displaying realtime info a la nascar, and voice overs from the troika of commentators, perhaps speaking in low respectful tones as in a golf game.

a charade.

i will still vote early for obama. a no-brainer.

as an aside, i was fascinated by the quote "charactor is destiny". i may be wrong but i got the idea it was heard as a clever phrase made up on the spot. no referance to heraclitus who originated the idea close to 3000 years ago.

(hmmm... just discovered this is the title of a book by mccain. shows you how much i know.)

but obama could lose. we could lose if the election is stolen, or if iran is forced to defend itself by some form of surgical strike.

my insulin pump has ew meter in place and i am obligated by destiny to leave today for long delayed camping trip. i will be back in town by saturday, sunday at the latest. probably take me all day to wrap up a few dangling obligations and pack.

Lewis Mumford Quotes
"One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence."
Lewis Mumford

this popped up on screen this morning. it was a link on gmail menu. don't know if coincidence - nah, no such thing - or they knew that i was going to post some mumford quotes this morning.

i am finishing pentagon of power, one of his last books which i think i read when i was young. i am convinced that this book and 3 others do more to describe what is happening in our lives today than all the pundits in the world. read the comments on links below. better yet, read the books.

they are:
The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America by boorstin. published i think in early 50's, this is the book from which ideas like psuedo-events, the graphic revolution, photo-ops, public relations, advertising and the manipulation of your thoughts were introduced.

the myth of the machine:
technics and human development by mumford;
the long view of technical progress and coercive power.

the myth of the machine:
the pentagon of power by mumford
thoughtful analysis of the culture of today and power, compared to the early egyption and mesopotamian empires.

the shock doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism by naomi klein:
written 2 years ago, a text book analysis of heists like that just pulled by the oligarchy.

there ought to be a law - probably there is.
Greg Palast
"BBC-TV: 'Set up to steal it again.'
Is 2008 already fixed?"

illustrator. learning it,

and a lot more. talk about a habit. every day another lorez cyberdoodle.

last watercolor i painted. a month or so ago. had a bum day yesterday, glucose was high all day, finally got it down around 7 in the evening. discovered huge fauxpa in checking account which i am scrambling to fix today. did attack last room to simplify so living room is now full of art materials, paintings, cd-roms and dvds to sort. beautiful day out. that's where i need to be.

not leaving for famous camping sojourn. yesterday the blood glucose meter connected to insulin pump stopped working. this meant a day trouble shooting, on the phone, buying batteries etc. conclusion this morning is that the pump company sends me an RMA and new meter which i'll get next week. in the meantime use backup which works fine after i replaced batteries. the signs are clear: when i go camping i want to have both meters up and running. a no brainer.

so richard tom and myself took a serendipitous walk. through a sweet neighborhood just south of here.

and i'm stuck here for awhile. i'm not panicing plenty to do here.over the weekend i guess i will follow the spirit guides and start on the back room where i paint and sleep. i'll feel like an archeologist.

twenty-first century place to live
Uploaded by modernpeasant

example of my latest preoccupation. wanted to see how it played on this page. i'll have to fool with it to eliminate bars on each side. later. click on video link right side to see them all.

watched the debates last night w/ a friend at merrimon st asheville brewing company. very easy not crowded (unless you were in line for a beer). i dozed thru it. format was like an infomercial for cookware. a charade.

winners and losers: mccain held his own. won't change anyone's mind.

BlogAsheville

BlogAsheville

more - much more - on obama visit to aville. biggest thing to happen here in ages, reverberations still happening. bloggers covered it excellently.

Economyincrisis.org - America's Economic Report - Daily

 "Congress should focus the bailout on refinancing the troubled mortgages as the Home Owners' Loan Corp. did in the 1930s, not on the troubled institutions holding the troubled instruments linked to the mortgages."

Mad Dog Palin : Rolling Stone: 

"Palin's crack about a mayor being 'like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities' testified to the Republicans' apparent belief that they can win elections till the end of time running against the Sixties. (They're probably right.)"

foto: susan lee

mr obama was in town yesterday. still is. i had thought to go to rally yesterday but rethought it when i learned that folks had been arriving since 9pm the night before, waiting for the gates to open noon saturday.

so then i thought to go on my long delayed camping foray which i have been getting ready for since may. but remembered i was running out of a med i take daily so will have to take care of that today.

then my router took a wrong turn and knocked me off the net. trying to fix made it worse so i went to bed.

but as sen. obama said yesterday - while i could still access the net - "i will not give up".

so i am back up this morning but still have to get wireless talking to router.

{later} wireless is up and all is well. the lesson here for me is if i have to dig around hardware and software do it in the morning when i am a little more bright.

BTW democracynow.org features today a talk by naomi klein whose book the shock doctrine which i have almost finished is the clearest broadest description of the dysfunctional economic world we live in. if you haven't read the book the talk may not be totally clear but well worth an hour. the public sector, the commons, has been dwindling down to nowhere and the reason is what the book is about.

little of this and a little of that. a little less of this and a little less of that.

did this cyberdoodle in illustrator. haven't used it much since version 5 or maybe it was 7. it has come a long way.

watched a little of the debate. haven't yet got the buzz on who won lost blew it etc.

obama will be in town sunday. i'll probably be in celo or linville.

i've been remaking old animations and pieces of this and that into videos and up loading them. a couple more and i will try switch account to one with fewer restrictions - file size running time etc. you can view what i have up by clicking on video box right sidebar.

maybe you don't know what these pictures - the one above for instance - are. i grab one in the morning and see what happens. like a morning walk or meditation it gets my day going.

going somewhere,

so now i can eat breakfast, finish a video snippet, take a shower and hit the road. lots of maintainance things to do in town today.

M BZ.

obsessive. beautiful fall day i spent chasing various projects around the house. i yamwhatiyam.

as an inarticulate participant in "history" i am finding the $ meltdown a difficult thing to describe. the searching, tentative manner in which humans thought out loud sometime in the past , the ruminating, the silent mull, the personal discourse, all seems to have been buried under a tsunami of berserk images and instant cliche.

one puzzling aspect is the meme that it happened in one news cycle. but it didn't. it is merely the tail end of a 30 year process which of course is stage within a larger process. it is really implicit in the neo-cons' agenda. profit trumps nation state.

why should the obama folks think he must respond to each day's attack? because kerry didn't? because he taught constitutional law? right now he should use each sound byte to characterize the attack and then talk about this old tired republican talking point machine. how it works, why it works, and the new context in which it no longer works.

we hope.

YouTube - DENNIS KUCINICH TELLS THE TRUTH...

there is more to the news then the news.
YouTube - DENNIS KUCINICH TELLS THE TRUTH...

globeandmail.com: Dylan to stream next album

globeandmail.com: Dylan to stream next album:
"Bob Dylan's new album will be released one week early as a free online stream on National Public Radio's website.

NPR Music will stream the entire two-CD, Tell Tale Signs, beginning at 12:01 a.m. EDT Tuesday. It will be available for listening at least until Oct. 7, when the album is officially released by Columbia Records."

the endless simplification. yearlong cleanup at home starting to pay off. yesterday i was into closets and among the items found were two of the above. i-ching coins from who knows when. before new year i might even find the third one.

today i get into CD & DVD disks used in projects and backups. a headache job a more methodical person would not have to look forward to.

economic meltdown: the fix is or will be an extension of the problem. same oligharchs, same metaphysics - what is value? - and same answer - value is more value. the infinite regress of smoke and mirrors.

'nother beautiful day. been lashed to the computer for awhile. modernpeasant video presence should manifest soon.

was going to the BlogAsheville third anniversary do last night. to see a few old friends. haven't been real active in this group of late. but they are rolling and the 3rd annual extravaganza there were i'm sure a lot of new bloggers in attendance.

but i got a call from some friends that have just returned from a 6000 mile jaunt to glacier national park hauling firewood, a motorcycle and two dogs. adventure still has a place in the world so spent a quiet evening with (now) old friends,

photp iaken by the side if the road after a truck breakdown. few years back.

i've been assembling video collection online. ready in a few days.

i now have my first neighbor in a few years. turns out to be ninian's friend matilda.

i watched the debate. sort of. i was practicing scales on the dobro which kept my attention from the box whose look and feel to me was so archaic and stylized. it was like a bad memory. the camera angle on pbs anyway was of interest: camera on left showing both "contestants" put mccain closer, bigger and obama in background, apparently mccain had been dosed w/ some drug that made him totally unaware of another presence on stage so he monologued like a stump speech. obama was relegated to the background looking exaserbated at mcmain trying to get a word in edgewise. all in all i imagine the buzz this morning will be that mccain "won". i have no idea what either one of them said and don't think it matters

don't know about you but i had a very unusual day yesterday. endocrinologist appt at 11. the doctor took one look at my left foot and more or less freaked, sending me immediately to st joe emergency room to see an internal disease specialist. i arrived and was put into nice little cubical with one of those nice new very expensive hospital beds. blood was drawn and the very pleasant nurse was the last person i saw for 2 1/2 hours. i fell asleep. when i woke up i left the nap place and told the staff i had been forgotten. flurry of activity. i got dressed and ready to leave. the doctor who was in charge encouraged me to stay, that blood work had been done and the doctor was on his way. turned out to be a nice and very competent doc, and told me there was no problem.

the nap was about the most restful time i have spent in a long time and i guess i surprised the staff by being calm cool and pleasant. i mentioned to the nurse that it was absolutely the last time i would go to the hospital w/out a book. so she rustled up three, one of which was the first eagle by tony hillerman. i had thought i had read all of his books but this is a new one and i took it home.

so what happened? my endocrinologist simply was making sure the bad thing was not happening which would be cellulitus turning into drug resistant staph and morphing into "flesh eating bacteria" which is not happening.

the doc also told me to walk which was good to hear.

the republicans "have merely been using populism as cover for the Establishment's most enduring wet dream: an unregulated economy; that freest, hands-off, carefree, happy-go-lucky, socially Darwinistic marketplace of clear winners and losers."
buzzflash

what a mess. i've got a bum leg that may take 6 weeks to be right - i hope. was going to camp out for three days with a large circle of new old friends but that is not happening now. plus there is a problem w/ getting gas in the area that may take a week to resolve. of course it may take forever.

the masters of the universe have one day left to "fix" the economy. what a dismal joke. what is it, $300 billion to be used to buy what won't sell and no law applies? he could buy you and me and that would be that. come to think of it, maybe it is a good thing to make a law that law does not apply to the "fix", since the dept of justice has become an arm of the big criminals and little more.

a democracy requires the rule of law. a fascist dictatorship requires smoke and mirrors - and that is what our economy is made of today - and no giggling.

Crooks and Liars : The Shock Doctrine: The evil of “Disaster Capitalism”:
"There has been no shortage of books chronicling the dystopia that is the Bush Administration. And in this job, I’ve read quite a few of them. None of them have made as powerful an impact as Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine. I promise you, it will change how you look at government policy and responses. It also finally sealed forever, for me at least, the coffin of the utter bollocks of Friedman economics. Listen to me carefully, you free market fanatics: FRIEDMAN. POLICIES. DO. NOT. WORK. PERIOD. His version of ‘free market economics’ STIFLES democracy. They create an oligarchy that is the opposite of democracy."

Marc Cooper: We Want You: Join HuffPost's On-The-Ground Citizen Reporting Brigade

Marc Cooper: We Want You: Join HuffPost's On-The-Ground Citizen Reporting Brigade:
"As Campaign '08 comes to a dramatic close are you as bored, frustrated and often outraged as we are about the blizzard of totally predictable media bloviating that seems to blanket us 24/7? Then help fight back by enlisting in the growing army of HuffPost's OffTheBus citizen reporters. After you sign up for our Special Ops reporting team, we'll be issuing weekly assignments targeted at your local communities. Our ranks are open to everyone, everywhere, but we're especially interested in those living in battleground states who can regularly report. And those who are adventurous, curious, and passionate about communicating their observations and experiences to a national audience."

Donald Craig Mitchell: McCain Camp Lawyer Illegally Advising In Alaska; Palin Attorney General In Hiding

Donald Craig Mitchell: McCain Camp Lawyer Illegally Advising In Alaska; Palin Attorney General In Hiding:
"The first new development was the decision by the McCain presidential campaign to fly New York City attorney Edward O'Callaghan into Anchorage to elbow Palin attorney Tom Van Flein aside and assume command of the governor's effort to run out the clock on the investigation until after the November election.

O'Callaghan told Newsweek that 'he and another McCain campaign lawyer (whom he declined to identify) are serving as legal 'consultants' to Thomas Van Flein, the Anchorage lawyer who at state expense is representing Palin and her office in the [Troopergate] inquiry. 'We are advising Thomas Van Flein on this matter to the extent that it impacts on the national campaign. I'm helping out on legal strategy.''

The pickle O'Callaghan's wagging tongue has gotten its owner into is that, pursuant to Alaska Statute 8.08.230, a person who is not a member of the Alaska Bar who while physically present in Alaska 'engages in the practice of law' is guilty of a class A misdemeanor. And in Alaska the 'practice of law' includes 'rendering legal consultation or advice.'"

David Schrader: Last Exit Before The Abyss

David Schrader: Last Exit Before The Abyss: "after years of supporting massive de-regulation and profiting from unnecessary war, oil speculation, and the buildup of a phony 'ownership society' stuffed with junk loans, they and their cronies have finally driven the SUV completely off the cliff."

if the fictional "we" - you may remember "john q. public" - were living in other times, other places - we would know we had been raped and pillaged. the masters of the universe have run a con game on humans, and the old story is reaching another climax.

to be ready for it may be a contradiction in terms.

Congressional Leaders Stunned by Warnings - NYTimes.com

Congressional Leaders Stunned by Warnings - NYTimes.com:
"As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”"

September Surprise- by Justin Raimondo

September Surprise- by Justin Raimondo:
"I don't see why the defeat of the Georgians in Saakashvili's war on the Ossetians has to mean the plan to strike Iran via Georgia has been canceled."

Time: New McCain Attack Ad Plays Race Card

Time: New McCain Attack Ad Plays Race Card
surprise

Huff TV: Arianna on the CBS Early Show Discussing the Politics of Palin

Huff TV: Arianna on the CBS Early Show Discussing the Politics of Palin
a far sighted women, i hope she is right.

Menachem Rosensaft: McCain Campaign Cries Wolf Over Anti-Iran Rally Fiasco

McCain Campaign Cries Wolf Over Anti-Iran Rally Fiasco:
"The organizers had initially invited Governor Palin without ever contacting, let alone inviting, anyone from the Obama campaign. When they finally issued a belated invitation to the Obama side, it was accepted, and a prominent Democratic Member of Congress was going to speak at the rally. The organizers then disinvited both Governor Palin and Representative Wexler. And whom does the GOP hold responsible for this fiasco? Barack Obama, of course."

Dan Lyons: A Gloomy Vista for Microsoft | Newsweek Daniel Lyons | Techtonic Shifts | Newsweek.com

A Gloomy Vista for Microsoft :
"'Nobody here looks at Vista as a fiasco,' says Brad Brooks, a Microsoft marketing vice president. If that's true, and nobody at Microsoft thinks Vista has been a public-relations nightmare, then the company is in trouble."

nice photo. somewhere in NC.

am not hitting on all cylinders. bum leg but it is getting better. i can hobble along pretty well.

hope i'm well enough to camp out in surry county next weekend.

When Their Mouth Is Moving ... | BlueNC

When Their Mouth Is Moving ... | BlueNC:
"During the debates that took place during the Constitution's ratification conventions, it was specifically stated that lying to Congress about matters of war would be an impeachable offense. Congress has also made it a crime."

the election: third-world shenanigans. evade the noise machine and you will discover that high crimes and felonies have been looting and pillaging the nation's wealth for a long time, probably forever, but certainly since reagon.

i can't find the book i was going to quote which is a must read for anyone dissatisfied with rule by (fictitious) story line. disaster capitalism by naomi klien.

the only phrase i can remember from it is "rolling coup", a little more descriptive than my own "invisible coup".

anyway this century's fascist take over goes something like this: anything "public" is for sale. the military, the hospitals, prisons, infrastructure and so on. usually done via no bid contract. cost plus. to profit making entities. note that tax dollars paid for most of this stuff. also of great interest is the notion that should one of these unregulated entities fail to profit or actually lose money, they are backstopped by infusion of more tax dollars.

forget adam smith's dictum, "one man's greed can benefit the public".

the "tax and spend" rep that the republicans successfully trot out is, like most of the republican talking points, some sort of defense mechanism, complimentary to the truth. as the broad post ww2 middle class becomes a memory, the real action is "tax and steal it".

i'm layed up for a few days w/ slight but painful ding on the shin. antibiotics. will lay down elevate foot for three days. over and out.

Homeland Security team up for surveillance project :
"'They will analyze for subtle changes, such as people forming in groups or loitering,' said Nick Lombardo of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, project manager for the field test."

Medicare Reaches Out to Caregivers - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com:
"This is why we are a third world country.

Pay taxes for a lifetime and then find that we have no national healthcare system at the end of our days."

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | Vote USA 2008 | Washington diary: Troubled times:
"In the rolling, rollicking ballad that is American politics, last week was dominated by burlesque musings on pigs and lip-stick.
A trader on the New York Stock Exchange
The bad news from Wall Street now dominates the campaign

This week is overshadowed by the bleak realisation that we are all at the mercy of forces well beyond our control."

BBC NEWS | Business | Turmoil sends US stocks tumbling:
"President George W Bush has not answered questions on the economic situation and had cancelled a statement he was set to make on Tuesday.

When asked by a reporter in the Oval Office on Wednesday to comment, Mr Bush said he had not heard the question and joked: 'I'm old.'"

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | 'Emergency' fear for 220m people:
"the number of people living 'on the edge of emergency' has nearly doubled to 220m in just two years, one of the world's biggest aid agencies has said."

another day another holler.

still have not joined obama effort. knocking on doors and telephone banks are not in my skill set. feel the need to put into words what this election signifies. maybe tonight.

hope to drive to doug's hideout near celo tomorrow and camp out a day or two. might take a drive from there around the north of linville gorge to the base of hawk's bill mountain. might climb it and return to hideout for another night.

nicest day we've had since spring. that i remember.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden: The Change We Need | "Honor" -- On the air...
a new ad by the obama folks. it is exactly the right direction, i repeat what i have been saying, obama and biden quickly need to stop responding to each day's meaningless meme tossed into the cloud of attention grabbers and instead talk about the process pf cartoon electororial shennanigans.

Amazon.com:
The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America: Daniel J. Boorstin: Books:
"nor is this a book describing the ills of the world. it's an essay describing the changing nature of the world in which we live. if we are to be active participants on this world, we should be informed and study how it changes. technology's effects are not demonized, their impact is just described.

the age of the book, some 40 years or so, makes some of the events under discussion seem quaint or outmoded, but frankly they're just a foundation of today's media.

highly reccomended."

i read this book years ago and thought it was the clearest exposition of how and why commerce and poiltics currently bumble along in a haze of imagery instead of discourse. i thought it was out of print. but it is available thru amazon and you'd better read it.

Finance | Air America Radio:
"It was a busy weekend for the magical money people of high finance as they dragged more of the walking wounded from the killing fields of our economic meltdown."

reading naomi klein's shock doctrinehas reinforced my belief that the nation state is no longer the bedrock of our communal existence. it is instead the corporate power world: the small circle of good old boys who are tearing this world apart.

bubble after bubble collapsing, and when each does, they are paid for their pillaging by jail time (rarely) or money from the people.

1:30 sunday already.

the news has been canceled. throw away yr tv.

i got first batch of postcards, i'll go downtown monday and flog them. maybe i can stand under a bridge to do this. they look great, unfortunately i forgot to include copyright.

GOP Contempt: What This Election Is Coming Down To | BuzzFlash.org: "As the national conversation increasingly shifts from GOP charges to an examination of GOP charges and their contemptuous deployment, independent voters should start abandoning McCain-friendly territory en masse."

i like this statement, because it is exactly what obama must do. no tit for tat boucing sound bytes. instead RIGHT NOW he must respond to every lie by examining the republican methodology of making up anything to demean obama. the voters will respond to it, they hunger for discourse on the way the repugs take an obama posituve, eg big crowds, flip it to a negitive, eg a celebrity, and push it out the next day. and if it takes a lie to do it, no problem.

obama could change the discourse by not tit for tatting but simply point out why political discourse and the mccain stratagy cannot exist together.

another morning's work. my brother in law fred with his grandchild nic who i guess is my grand-nephew. photo from my sister i couldn't help messing with.

a morning's work. from an ink drawing circa mid 70's.

check this out: i got the email fwded sometime last week. wanted to post it to this blog. but didn't i'm well trained. so someone else did.

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 09/08/2008 | An e-mail to friends from Wasilla becomes Internet hit

My Way News - Creator of Web spots a flaw in Internet Explorer

My Way News - Creator of Web spots a flaw in Internet Explorer: "Tim Berners-Lee, the British-born inventor of the World Wide Web, says he doesn't like to express preferences among Web browsers. But he does have an issue with one of them: Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) (MSFT)'s Internet Explorer."

Tom D'Antoni: Cindy McCain's Family Ties: Suds and Murder
i had an uncle who worked in the liquor distribution. if a tenth of the stories he told about the bizzness, mafia, and outright crime is true, the above link is the tip of another iceberg.

another gossip point: the lipstick on a pig buzz actually is a cliche, a slang phrase used by many, including mccain last summer talking about h. clinton. yesterday this could be viewed on youtube; today it has been "removed by contributor".

new - to me - site. got an email today w/ link. good and robust presentation you won't see on the corporate media.

http://www.goasheville.com/election/

obama and folks are blowing it. he has to back of off he said they said he said political pr blather and go ahead and talk like you or me. forget about code, or better yet, talk about code words.

"experience": code word for political hack at home w/ status quo. "earmarks": something that has been built into system and yes all congress has had to deal with them to do their job, including him, but he would like to change that. "elite"; he has been around the block, familiar with more than the mono-world of dc.

i saw part of interview w/ (shiver) o'reilly. he succinctly stated he would increase tax for superwealthy and lower it for remaining 95% of us, o'reilly shot back "class warfare". code word for rich against poor. refine code. the rich have declared war against the poor. and not recently. his tax proposal is attempt to end that war.

etc. etc. obama needs to quit defending himself against republican talking points. shake it off. point out the meaninglessness of this type of discourse and say it plain and clear. and start now.

good live performance of grateful dead below, click the link and take a break.


Internet Archive: Details: Grateful Dead Live at Swing Auditorium on 1977-02-26

yesterday during the eternal kleenup i recabled all hardware. my phone was out all day as well as Internet (for a few hours). also was printing color, but somehow the calibration drifted off. i messed with the phone and color on and off most of the day until good sense told me to start fresh today. i sorted thru color prints and paintings i had stored successfully.

i fixed phone this morning and short story is... very long.

the image above is gum bichromate i did living in a small house with wife and 4 beautiful children. talk about working in a tight space.

yesterday the usual - eliminating redundant files from hard drives; getting there. printingpictures to go in frames; getting there. sorted and disposed of lots of tape cassettes; mostly old 4 tracks done in the nineties. some of the mixdowns were not bad. today the same, the end is not in sight. going to see the free movie at library this afternoon oh death by coen bros.

ah yes right around the corner.

which reminds me, the word "experience" is one i've been experiencing.

the political circus i mean. in that domain the battle is of course over which side has the team experienced enough to run the machinery.

and in this regard palin's nomination somehow makes obama look like an effete egghead etc. IMHO it is the cultural wars that has never entirely gone away during my current phase (adulthood).

there is still a vast fear and unease between groups and identity, experience if you will.

if you won't it's

still

already all ready.

but we all experience self. the shorthand "experience=competence" is not always the case.

the republicans are masters at this game show.

the election gets more and more like reality show. like high school gossip.

the know-nothings have proptrf up the power masters for some while now.

possible way to break up this pattern is full on obama ads where he ignores political form and talks from a higher logical and personal ground: damned if he does - eastern educated pointy head liberal with documented plans on all fronts

or

inexperienced fuzzy lack of political maneuvers, all you know is that yr taxes will increase and be spent.

his branding machine needs to let him talk about these word games.

monday evening at tom and erin's.

got this email from denise in denver who attended obamarama:

Hi Chris - Well, it was a cross between a carnival and a police state. The streets were packed with people - like living in New York; there was art everywhere, all kinds of performances, people from everywhere. The Code Pink women, anarchists, Tent State folks, along with gobs of celebrities, both political and Hollywood. The most indelible memory though, will be the incredible energy in the air. Denverites, at least a lot of us, were excited to have this historic event in our city and, in a sense, it made the significance of the event even sharper. On Friday, I was thinking that I had an emotional hangover. Party's over, everyones gone home, now what?

got this email today:

Hey,
like you, we're sharing the memory today of the vets who made it possible for us to be camping in this great national park, free and unmolested, and for you to visit family, make art, clean house and enjoy the blessings of liberty.
Have a peaceful Memorial Day.

pretty much says it all.

the vice presidential republican pick: IMHO it changes the picture. a lot. or it could change the picture. according to the modernpeasant hypothese whoever of the 4 players can come across in the debates and the video ad$ as a human, talking as most of us used to be able to talk, straight to the point, no political garbage, will win the election.

an example of this sort of speech is barney smith, citizen, who i happened to catch at the democratic extravaganza and who you might have seen to if you were not watching the corporate buzz machines.

the republican vice-presidential candidate may be capable of this. maybe not. but if she is,, the republicans might win.

notice that this has nothing to do with the endless punditry and expert opinion of the army of talking heads telling the us what to think. they are as out of touch as the political oligarchs.

i carted objects to the garbage this morning, taking a break every now and then to read category 7, a real pot boiler about presidential politics and weather used as a weapon by a crazed billionaire who creates hurricanes. big ones, hence the title. he aims it for the ancient by today's standards nuclear station near new york

then i drove to town to see the big libowski by the coen bothers at the library. it was ok, but obviously and i don't care how carefully the brothers coen storyboard their movies this is a make something up about the 60's, dope smoking, and collide it with the 90's affair. the coens were just having fun, winging it. i got a few chuckles out of it but it was nowhere near the quality of barton fink or raising arizona. drove home and began transfering files from one hard drive to another etc trying to create some kind of workflow that... works.

some directories being moved right now for the next 7 hours. i'm proud of myself that i finally approached this rat hole. by september i might have a rube goldberg assembly of obsolete equipment i can work with.

tomorrow i'll stick around the house and fill many empty frames with pictures. if nothing else i'll take them to the arts and crafts fair at greenlife next saturday and see what happens.

sometime mid september i'm going to camp out at linville gorge and climb hawk's bill.

last weekend in september camp out in surry county w/ a lot of good people. maybe i'll be able to play wildwood flower on the dobro by then. unfortunately i'll miss the bloapalooza here in town where i could get a little crazy with the blog people i haven't seen in awhile.

soon after visit the meher baba center.

and what do i do in between these hypothetical trips? brood, pace, watch the rabbit in the backyard who has been strangely silent about all this.

"the news has been canceled" - randi rhodes

if you watch television news to be informed, be aware that the corporate machine doesn't even pretend anymore. propaganda in it's most glossy deceptive form. throw the damn thing away and take a look around. walk downtown. visit a biker bar. ride a bicycle around the walmart parking lot and make faces at the surveillance cameras. sit under a tree - if you can find one. talk to someone about how the guy standing on the off-ramp with the sign "will work etc...." is really making big bucks. flip houses. dig a hole and then fill it up. do anything but watch the news.

or let the corporate television news fill your head with convenient and lethal lies. after all, it's a free country. right?


obama used this word last night. more than once. i think it says it all. i shot photo this morning, front of my truck.

modern life. more, better, faster.

didn't watch the dem convention last night. too tired, early to bed. but this morning realized there was another reason: too much like a high-school popularity contest, or a cartoon of the same. cliques, circles, gossip. i'll vote and work for obama simply because i don't think he is a crook.

how much is the corporate state - USA - worth? how much of that is in the hands of institutions? or, put another way, what is the amount of square footage owned by the corporate state? how much by the people? notice i said "owned", not permitted to use.

wet rainy day. thanks.

doc appt this morning. apparently walked the streets pf denver so much i picked up blister on foot, didn't notice it and no big deal but for those of us w/ type I diabetes this can develope into big problem. need to check on truck also, may have heater core leak. hope it's a rubber hose, replacing the core is not something i want to do.

if you can stand it read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. spells out exactly what the world we are living in is and why. briefly, the corporate state. profit matters and is real. you and i are we the people and we don't matter. grossly anti-life and not an accident.

of course a dummy like me asks profits for who? why?

answer: pure naked power.

don't want to read? try The Shock Doctrine Short Film | Naomi Klein

the democratic convention: what will it share w/ the olympics extravaganza? probably a lot in terms of the electronic bread and circuses state of the art. i hope more than that.

the olympics was a corporate-state presentation, a la Albert Speer.

"Speer was also directed to make plans to rebuild Berlin, which was to become the capital of a 'Greater Germany'—Welthauptstadt Germania. The first step in these plans was the Olympic Stadium for the 1936 Summer Olympics, designed by Werner March." the new corporate facism that has swept the world shares a fondness for the monumental carefully orhestrated context. only electronic.

asuming no october surprise, obama might prevail if he speaks directly and on a human, not monumental scale. wings it. makes a mis-step or two and shows a sense of humor about it. ditto biden (who the pundit world says might speak too much, let slip something real; let's hope so).

at the end of the extravaganza, sometime after the last pepsi ad, i think they both should invite the audience out for milk and cookies. a la andy kaufman. walk away from the pagent into human space. dellilo said "the future belongs to the crowds" and the mode of communication suffers from this.

both candidates need to step away from corporate institutional speak in order to win.

BTW the video that was up from last week doesn't seem to up any more, i get a "publishing is in progress" message today. maybe it is being redone, i certainly hope it is as sharp as the video featured on right sidebar ( a windy day) when it appears again.

photo: place unknown but it looks like north carolina.


early sunday morning. i feel like the space shuttle after it's landed. slowly being towed towards oblivion.

i took a look at some of the other presentations of the wallpaper project and sure enough the video is a lot sharper than mine. including the standard opening that is used in all presentations. i'll have to find out why. too bad. the dvd version is sharper by an order of magnitude.

so the creative whim that has been my bizness for so long now may contract to fingerpaints. any old folks home worth a damn should have them on hand.

meanwhile i'm headed for the woods, a few days camping will do me good. it's hard to believe the whole summer has passed since my last outing.

somewhere in colorado.

the video mentioned below can be seen at

The Wallpaper Project Presents "Modern Peasant" Project No. 30.5

this was literally a learning project, the first video i have done. some sort of compression must have been used, understandably, i don't think the resolution is as good as on a dvd. it is entirely made from a digital still camera and computer generated doo dads.

got back to denver last night, still in overdrive. i liked denver a lot more than 40 years ago which surprised me.

i liked yampa even better.

so now i regroup. a lot. finish filling every wooden frame i have and look for a place to hang them. somehow jump into the election, do what i can to blow away the smoke that obscures the process.

volunteer for hospice. throw out funiture - some of it anyway - casette tapes, zip disks.

go camping solo, a retreat of sorts.

move to fargo ND?

didn't quite make it out of town yesterday, but will today. then i'm going on retreat into the deep forest with a book and and when i get back throw myself into election. last night my work was included on the Wallpaper Project on URTV at 11:30.

here is the blurb:

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:Tonight:@:11:30pm:URTV:::::::::::::::
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:The Wallpaper Project:::::::::::::::::::::::
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:presents ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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:Project No.30.5::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:Chris_Wyly::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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This episode of "The Wallpaper Project" will be showcasing local(Asheville,NC) graphic artist Chris Parsons aka Chris Wyly. Though now retired - is working harder at living the life as an artist. You get the chance to see two short films:
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1) "The Way Home"
2) "Why the Wind Wonders"
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Also you'll see a short slideshow featuring a sample of Chris's works of his paintings, photography, animation and self-manufactured music all under the pseudo name "Modern Peasant."
Works by Modern Peasant are sometimes labeled as abstract, dreamy and surrealistic. Judge for yourself. This is a true media one man show.
To obtain ore information about "Modern Peasant", Chris Wyly/Chris Pasons visit:
http//Modernpeasant.com
Wyly.Chris@gmail.com
828-281-0552
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for those of you that can not witness TWP on URTV we have all our episodes up on Google Video
so just do a search for : The Wallpaper Project

deep in denver airport.

now back in nc. recovery day. aville by friday.

day of rest. photo above from bob's backyard. i am really exhausted, a rest day today while i gather my gear together for flight tomorrow.

travel definitely broadens the mind, but min e is already pretty damn broad. thinking - or dreaming - more and more of road trip in fall. but first a few weeks retreat camping out in wnc mountains.

great visit to steamboat o0r more accurately phippsberg and oak creek. snow, hail, wind, sun, one of the finest fire circles i've sat around in a long time. dinner tonight w/ Angela's mom and husband. i've seen a lot of youngsters this trip, say under 5, and they almost all have spoken Spanish as well as english. que bueno.

friend minor and i cancelled Trip tuesday to red feather lake. surgery for him instead. diagnostic i believe.

denver. got into town around 7:30 yesterday, eric drove on to work. i walked up colfax st. had interesting talk with homeless couple, got lost, finally made it to minor and denise's. very pleasant day talking, conversing, sharing pieces of the puzzle of - let's face it - growing old in 'merica. will drive to cousin bob's in steamboat late today, back sunday, barbecue at angela's mom's sunday nite. with a little luck spend Monday going to red feather lake and trongpa's stupa which has assumed more and more importance in my head as i realized how many of my friends helped build it. tuzday back to rdu.

granddaughter lily in chatham county.

in denver. rode thru part of town yesterday, i could sort of feel the streets and local from 40 years ago or however long ago i lived here. trying to hook up w/ minor this afternoon and enjoy a dip into nonaccellerated competitive mode so scarce today. granddaughter grace is a delight, very calm and looking out thru big beautiful eyes. more in a minute/hour/day.

pretty sleepless nite. repacking and heading out tomorrow.

made it to the triangle, not burmuda. regrouping this morning. lot of old friends in last night's dreams.

ready set go. i'm out of here.

leaving in the morning for denver. probably post from time to time.

part of me feels like an anachronism; the other part is an anachronism.

the olympics - fascist spectacle, forget about communism.

the american presidential election: process turned cartoon.

profit. the only justification for anything, including life.

USA today story about how we could learn a thing or two from the discipline chinese cuture exhibits, ie sweatshops, labor camps, secret police. (but note: we still lead in number of citizens incarcerated.)

the republicans: government for the sake of theft.

law - watch cops some saturday night.

disneyland for the many, a nightmare for the few.

if you don't see RSS feeds on the left reload page. i may have overloaded something. just finished talking w/ old friend minor in denver, we'll spend some time together next week. it's been awhile.

Earnest Harris: Obama Is A Joke

Earnest Harris: Obama Is A Joke:
"It was heard being used by Republican surrogates on several news shows in the last few days, from Joe Lieberman to Pat Buchanan. The message has been the same: Obama is a joke and if he and his supporters don't get the joke, it is further proof that he is taken way too seriously."

i got nothin to say except asheville's favorite son has a pretty good album out:

high and mighty - gov't mule

reminescent of early sly and robbie.

god's country


my country
Topless Women, Kid Rock, Bikers, And John McCain:
"Following McCain's speech, country stars Kellie Pickler and Kid Rock will be taking the very same stage for their own live performances. Then at 12:30 a.m., there will be the semi-finals of the 'Miss Buffalo Chip Beauty Pageant,' this time featuring Hawaiian Tropic Models."

today's pictograph. indicates that, as a friend of mine said in his email, that my dancing shoes still have legs in them.

spooky day. my training in the metaphysical ghettos of yore sure comes in handy. the outdoor temp with the solar wind factored in is about 145 degrees. indoors it feels like Bangkok in august.

The Open Road - The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay - CNET News.com:

"As suggested above, the report finds that attacks are shifting from the operating system to Web applications...but not necessarily Web browsers, which are becoming more secure. Instead, attackers increasingly rely on 'automated toolkits, obfuscation, and the prevalence of unpatched browsers and plug-ins' to attack users' systems. Indeed, plug-ins represent 78 percent of public security exploits affecting browsers."

Homeland Security: We can seize laptops for an indefinite period :
"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has concocted a remarkable new policy: It reserves the right to seize for an indefinite period of time laptops taken across the border."

New worm targets Facebook, MySpace:
"When clicked on they prompt the recipient to download an executable file that purports to be the latest version of Flash Player. Instead, it is the worm itself, infecting yet another victim."

had an appt. for overdue oil change at 10:30 this morning. missed it because i had written down in my extensive and well oranized organizer no it is not a blackberry but a piece of paper 11:30. this is not an unusual occurence.

went to mad tea party yesterday afternoon. this is a daily happening at URTV asheville public acess tv. i handed over 2 DVDs to larry for inclusion in wallpaper project and hung around for awhile. excellent conversation context, reminds me in a way of those long extended conversations at harry's or the tempo room before the earth was cool.

when i left i glanced up at the monitor in the entrence which displays what is playing and was knocked out by what i saw. lot's of blue screening, effects galore, pretty neat.

intend to check out a prosumer video camera tomorrow just to see how it works. will begin first project for URTV and as usual let it take form as it will. i have in mind a semi animated 30 minutes of traffic.

so today is catch-up day, all of the maintenance chores that i have ignored during another production marathon. i think i am probably addicted to hyperfocus.

BTW i started this blog long ago to be a means of communicating w/ friends and family. never meant to be a world wide billboard of my thoughts or work. so i have no idea of number of hits etc. once in awhile i google modernpeasant and found a bunch of my pictures scattered here and there. but you gotta dig deep.

busy busy busy.

finished all video. have every picture frame i could find stacked in living room. will use for paintings and prints, choosing each carefully or use whatever fits, anticipating a show somewhere some time.

next few days will also include sorting thru three immense piles of paper into trash, excluding that which needs shredding. i will use poor man's shredder, making a paper mache sculpture, sanded and painted. a nice touch would be to document it's creation with video, but we'll see.

camping trip to hawksbill w/ eli and lily is off. i may take a day trip to table rock instead.

following week will pack and drive to chatham county saturday. fly to Denver tuesday for a week long visit.

so i am alive and well.

picture from short but pleasant walk yesterday.

about (really) to finish 2nd video. soundtrack still glitchy but maybe i can get away with it.

figured out poor man's shredder. after i sort thru the biomass of paper i have gathered from every nook, cranny and file cabinet into throw away and guard with my life cause someone might steal what's left of my identity, i'll make a paper mache sculpture with it. cool.

also have in the living room all frames mats to fill and hang.

probably ought to grocery shop too.

A Reporter at Large: Dr. Kush: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker:
"Blue’s cell phone rang several times in succession, rousing him. His phone rings, on average, once every two and a half minutes between noon and 2 A.M., and I soon developed a Pavlovian aversion to his ringtone, a swirling, Middle Eastern-inflected electronica tune called “Lebanese Blonde.”"

looking for something to post ran across this short slide show:
A Glimpse Into the Life of Old Crete

there are a few slides of a beach called vai. i spent a month there in 1964. hitchhicked and walked from ierapetra on southeast coast w/ a young - we were all young then - woman from toronto, janet. the deal was speaking my primitive greek i had been told over and over that it was the only place in greece where something called "phoenixades" or similar could be found. they came from lebenon. no idea of what they were.

it was at least a two day journey, the last part on foot up a very windy gap to a monistery which we reached after dark and where we spent the night.

when we reached the village of vai we found it was one old structure divided into four living spaces for four families. about half a mile from that was the beach, whitest sand i've ever seen and totally deserted. the "phoenixades" turned out to be palm trees. we stayed about a week or two, never saw anybody else. a hike to vie provided food, usually potatoes and eggs.

i had one book with me which i read from cover to cover: "Ulysses" by joyce.

but that was in another country, another world.

i just realized that bele chere will be this weekend. a good time to drive to the mountains and hang out for three days. altho if the weather remains anywhere near what it has been lately it won't matter because i will remain sealed up in living module.

second video finished. i'm left with the not unfamiliar feeling of wha-a-a-t? i have no idea but i'm glad it is out of my hands.

i am currently reading 2 books, 3 if you count the mystery i'm pretty sure i've already read.

the 2 both shed a lot of light on the cultural conundrum the world in general and USA in particular are going through.

i'm about halfway thru both so i can't tell you how it will all unfold. (attempt at humor).

the myth of the machine by lewis mumford was written in 1966. it concerns both human and cultural development and attempts to show how building pyramids, the bigger, more costly the better, and coercion and slavery, and war are the attributes of civilization. sounds flaky but he is no lightweight the bush error is not unique.

Amazon.com: Myth of the Machine : Technics and Human Development: Lewis Mumford:
"Lewis Mumford was one of the 20th century's most important philosophers, and the two-volume set Myth of the Machine (Volume 1 is Technics and Human Development; and Volume 2 is The Pentagon of Power) are probably his most important books: the summation of his life's work. In writing as elegant as it is clear, Mumford makes plain the death urge that has always underlain civilization, which Mumford calls 'the machine,' and later 'the megamachine.' This is a social structure organized not around any organic human needs, but around the 'needs' of the machines that have come to characterize and control our lives. These are crucial, incisive, devastating books. I cannot praise them highly enough."

the second book is brasyl by ian mcdonald. sci-fi along the lines of william gibson and john brunner. excellent dip into future mediated memes. not to mention the european take over of the new world.

read some of it here: Brasyl

if you read them both you will have some notion of what the airwaves, print, film etc are doing saturating us with noise.

i've been looking for this picture for at least a year. found it cleaning up hard drives because i have no space left.

the rest of the day i hope to sort thru paper. cartons of old and not so old papers, bills, documents of varied sorts. after that it's my archaic shredder: scissors. there was a time i would have dumped them into a 50 gallon drum and burned them.

finished i hope w/ part two of video. haven't seen it yet on tv monitor. audio redone many times.

speaking of audio, i can't hear very well out of either ear. ear wax no doubt i hope. been using drops i got at drugstore. and it's worse than when i started. so it's a trip to the doctor, tomorrow i hope.

richard and i went to asheville after 5 on lexington avenue friday night. we got separated in the crowd, ie i wondered off but we connected at the end.

the crowd was monolithic. very few folks over 30. to me they appeared totally homoginous.

it must be 90 plus degrees outside. yesterday i continued insulation, down to duct tape and foam.

plan to drive up to table rock this week. daytrip. can't find pretty good map i used the first time i tried to get there.

Greenspan's Fraud -- Thom Hartmann's "Independent Thinker" Book of the Month

Greenspan's Fraud -- Thom Hartmann's "Independent Thinker" Book of the Month: "The result is that all that money - trillions of dollars - that has been taxed out of working Boomers (the ceiling has risen from the tax being on your first $30,000 of income to the first $90,000 today) has been borrowed and spent. What are left behind are a special form of IOUs - an unique form of Treasury debt instruments similar (but not identical) to those the government issues to borrow money from China today to fund George W. Bush's most recent tax cuts for billionaires (George Junior is still also 'borrowing' from the Social Security Trust Fund)."