institutions wear out. history and pre-history is among other things the story of some utilitarian idea of how to organize human effort to solve some problem. the solution becomes an institution it works so well, and then, much later, slippage occurs and the institution no longer works so well. wilber defines this as "inner contradictions" rising to the surface. i characterize the process as the solution changing the problem, or the world,, so the once robust institution that worked so well loses it's effectiveness.

examples abound: hunter-gatherer bands, theocracies, commercial empires, all flourished then flopped.

now today's institutions are fading: think schools, health, hospitals, communism, democracy, electoral politics, adam smith's capitalism where one man's greed could benefit the many, academics, the nation-state, war, and a big etc.

why are they failing now? one reason is sheer numbers. in my lifetime the world population has doubled - i think. languages have disappeared. animal populations never in contact with one another are being thrown willy-nilly together.

so the idea of nations at war is obsolete. the idea of small groups using the pollution of the mercantile system (oil, guns, bombs, toxic chemicals) to harm the enemy is taking it's place.

and the confusion between these two worldviews is rampant. after the USA wins the war against terror, who signs the surrender papers? where are the POWs? the declaration of war? how do the participants of the war surrender?

the answers to these questions are not clear because the "official" institution of war on our side is not relevant. bush's war is a war in the world of brands and pseudo-events. read the image by daniel boorstein and the land of desire by william leach to glimpse the present day context. reality tv. infomercials. repositioning product (the war is being fought for what purpose?). the speeded up voiceover in ads that is not understandable, verbal equivalent of "small print".

the real world, as usual, is not that real.

==========> Later

it's so improbable that words broadcast to the world or your neighbor mean what you think they might mean, so much so that i had to get a picture up. and the strange thing is that to me the words and the image have about the same amount of meaning: not enough. enough.

spent yesterday moving slow, jaw and gums really swollen. i'll move slow today also. sometime this week i may be able to slip in lower dental plate. or not. don't you love these medical updates?

as the state of the union unravels i have been reluctant to write anything about it. it's hard to do justice to the hallucinatory newz cycle with words.

but i'll try.

the two most confusing concepts boggling everyone's consciousness today are "nation" and "war". whenever the worldview changes bigtime confusion reigns. and it is changing. the old world evaporates and something else takes it's place. the european enlightment was the last time we had to go thru this.

"nation" still has a dictionary meaning, and plays a huge part in the human experience. next to gender, it is probably how most of us identify ourselves today.

it was a useful concept that is playing itself out right in the middle of our lives. as ridiculous as it may seem, there is a trend towards identification with what i call "affinity groups". more and more people respond when asked what they are with something that they are involved with, which is not their nationality. it might be "poet", "musician", "artist", "bank-robber", "homeless", "insurgent", "lawyer" and so on. vocations and avocations.

"war" is closely connected to this metamorphose of meaning. when i was young it was pretty clear: we lived in a worldview in which one nation might declare war on another. uniforms identified which army was which, and conventions of the last 300 years held: if a soldier was captured by the enemy he was incarcerated in a stalag. the redcross knew his or her name and where he was imprisoned. he might receive a box of candy from home.

those that fought the war were defined differently than those that didn't. for example during the battle of waterloo, the nearby fields were being worked by the peasants just as they did every year.

technology and the moving hand of change put a stop to this distinction. the historical trend of war has always been to involve more and more civilians, for example the siege of tyre by alexander.

but during the last 200 years the change became complete. i don't want to go into the story here, but think WWI when the front stretched from the baltic to the Mediterranean. as it slowly moved back and forth any village or town in the way was erased. WWII air marshall tedder was quite explicit in targeting civilian populations and not factories of war. hilter did the same.

recently enemies are blowing up selected and random groups of civilians. if you think back about 150 years, the sterotypical european anarchist ran around with a beard and a bomb.

but he alsways threw it at somebody, a target, and not into a crowd of humans.

so "nations" at "war" is a whole differant thing now: you might say because profit on weapons of "minimum-to-maximum mass destruction" have been so high that the world is now flooded with everything from saturday night specials to atomic bombs. at the same time the non-military humans of the world are now on the front lines.

i'll be in recoup mode for a few days for sure. feel like i did when a sledge hammer connected with my face.

oh, wait a minute, i don't think that happened. but that's how i feel. finished the high window by chandler, all the time trying to spot what he does that makes his books so great.

no, i did not figure it out. attitude and metaphors i guess.

had lower teeth extracted this morning, ain't science wonderful. problem is upper and lowers don't mesh so go back tomorrow.

"missing" refers to my presence, not teeth. i'm swollen, distorted, in pain, drugged so i'll probably be hiding under the bed for a few days.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

saw dentist at 4:00, and now i can at least use both upper and lower teef at the same time. but put them together --- ie chew > zow instant pain. about a week with some return visits and i'll have a feel for them. both negative and positive of course.

picture from sunday walk.

35mm slides, photos, and computer hardware gone. a real hassle sorting thru these things but perseverance furthers.

tomorrow morning i get lower teeth extracted etc etc. i may be scarce for awhile.

today's icon from watercolor i just completed.

spring cleaning is what i've been doing. at first i couldn't give it a name. but i am lightening up. finished with photographs today, all slides will have been sorted by dark. i'll have quite a few pieces of hardware sitting on the street before tuesday.

picture is from a scanned gum bichromate i did early 80s.

this morning's before breakfast offering.

spent most of yesterday creating huge piles of paper, pictures, old mats, too many different categories to list here. stuff headed for the landfill. i'm clearing the decks, streamlining, hoping that by losing "stuff" i'll gain a little time.

i'm tired of doing this stuff. you'll find me for awhile with stuff you can handle like paint & brush.

7 AM & i'm headed for the grocery store. this week i have no appointments, meetings, or other reasons to leave the house. next week i get lower dentures which will be a one or two week space-out so it's all got to happen this week.

what i'm doing is throwing stuff out. went thru papers, paintings yesterday. 35mm slides? i got 'em, you want 'em? quick sort planned for today.

big pile of photos and negs are next. that'll probably take all week. next in line is kitchen cupboards, any thing over a year old is going to soup kitchen. not to mention doo-dads.

it's nice to have a mission in life: "live stuff-free"

might make a nice bumper sticker. i think i'll print several thousand and stack them in the garage.

this is the first watercolor i ever painted. i was living in phoenix arizona and working for intel corporation, electronic pre-press 'n' stuff. whatever it is that pushes m to paint started in, quietly nagging. so i went to the tempe library and studied every book i could find on watercolor. made charts and lists. bought the materials and one fine day painted the above.

beginner's mind. i kept at it for maybe a year and a half, painted maybe 20 pieces. then put everything away. about 3 years ago it all came out for another run and i been runnin ever since.

this is not a good habit. i can't seem to get the day going until i post one of these... images. they are quick and dirty, but once done the day falls into place.

on the plus side, maybe, they are all added to library of textures, surfaces, winking lights in the night that i can use later - if there is such a thing.

perfect march day in the mountains. gray, the occasional snowflake, the visceral reluntance to leave the home.

however i'm heading out for 2 quick stops.

watercolor. did it the last 2 days after such a long haul with oil with angel oil painting which is now finished i'll try to snag an image of it.

listening to lester young.

cover design for book i'm doing.

process has been classic: initially wondering around and picking up pieces of paper with marks on them, to an 81 page 6x9 paperback.

i'm at the classic penultimate phase: still lot's of things that could be done, but i'm so sick of it i just want it out of here. i'll upload book soon.

for me this feeling is a necessary part of any creative endeavor and i've learned to pay attention to it.

let's see what else? oh yes visited dentist yesterday. scheduled lower teeth extraction april 5th. could have pushed it out but now that i'm in the prosthetic jungle might as well proceed. much pain is involved in all this.

pain, like joy, bliss, suffering, fades away.

found this in a recent notebook:

"Much too loose
Bad for the Goose
All around town
Planes are the ground.

Pronouns last stand
Whereever we am
Outlast the dawn
Heaven's last song

As long as we're here
Have another beer
Distance in the night
Another oversight

Spirit of the Air
Breeze's everywhere
Do what you want
It's just another jaunt
Not enough to lose
Accept it or refuse."

raw day outside. seems like the last of winter is the only winter we've had this year.

i could be wrong. i've noticed that talking to people about the weather, this year's, last year's, i seem to be out of context and really cannot relate to what i'm hearing. expecting some snow tonight. but compared to some of the white-out zones i've driven thru, the black ice, i think it's fair to say the winters are diminishing here.

i'm pretty down lately, physically beat. house is a disaster, can't face cleaning it up. so i'm doing mechanical no-thought things, like sorting my socks. just kidding.

that's something i'll do when i return to a semblance of health.

man i feel bad. do not like plastic teeth. doesn't fit, too tight, hurts like hell. haven't eaten anything but yoghurt and ice cream since wednesday. now i read that having no teeth increases chance of cardiac mishap, and my chances are sky high already.

so i'm going to buy some kind of juicer or food processor (smasher) today. see the dentist tomorrow.

the week has been slow, and so have i. about the only thing i did was come close to finishing 80 plus page PDF for lulu.com.

it's early in the morning, i've been up for a long time. nearly finished zelda by nancy mitford. this is a very strange book. nobody in it looks too good, especially f. scott who comes across as some kind of elegant idiot savant.

while i'm on the subject, also reading the future of ice by gretel ehrlich. nice oblique sentences, no narrative in sight. a subject you can't quite pinpoint. my kind of book.

meetings with remarkable men by gurdieff. reading this like a national geographic, in no particular order.

a mind apart by antonetta. about the necessity for what she calls neurodiversity. eccentric unpredictable paragraphs. i like it.

parallel worlds by kaku. newton, einstein, quantum, string theory and m-theory. pretty lucid, lots of history.

timeline by chrichton. read about half, probably won't finish. like reading a movie, everything is cued ahead of time so you know what to expect.

off to the pharmacy.

mmm... sunday about noon. yesterday was too weird. i finished oil painting of angel person, immediately began watercolor. busy around the house, coolish weather so i decided to walk downtown, buy a small sketchbook that fits in my pack, walk back.

about halfway to town my new uppers began to pulsate pain. hurt. not too bad but noticeable. so i got some kind of drugstore creamy made for this kind of problem, walked home, took the damn things out and applied medication. then horizontal for a long time. mr syntax dropped by. we had interesting chat. and i gave him rough mix and probably last mix of muxak i've been so involved with lately. it is both interesting and curious that the source of creativity that produced the CD was cleaning house and throwing things away.

in some ways not recognized very much anymore, life can be considered a time during which, if you are of the blessed, you lose everything before you die. in a deep ecological and respecter of life way.

anyway i'm back in invalid mode because i cannot wear this half-set of dentures.

pic above today's special, you're not supposed to be able to read it.

ok ok i didn't walk to town yesterday. after lunch i took a dive and a long nap, then went to bed early. and to think years earlier i would have been out riding the waves, getting the word on where what was, and making the circuits. circus?

new book cobra I about the "run up" to bush's war. it interests me because i have felt during this slow motion debacle that the U.S. military has the best handle on what is happening and have been totally shut out by the troika that owns us, bush-chaney-rumsfield.

ever worked for a company where meetings to make decisions are charades at best? i have, more than one. in fact this situation has become a stereotype of our day, and in it you quickly learn to shut up, stay half-awake and agree to whatever the big man's hallucination of the hour is. you do not point out false assumptions, logical cul-de-sacs, or unmentioned show-stoppers.

the nation is being run this way. there was plenty of disagreement to the war before the war, and i don't just mean me. (my caveat was messing with an unknown culture, people that we have never known, and not knowing that this was the case pretty much guaranteed failure.

but the nay-sayers - note how in the context of our culture that attribute sounds so negative - were fired, dismissed, or otherwise ignored.

the concern is not that the nation screwed up a war, but that their mode of operation means anything the junta touches, deaf dumb and blind to the world we live in, will be at the least ineffective and more likely just plain destructive.

why were the democrats, the artists, the musicians, the small businesses, the little people so silent during "run up"? same reason those at a business meeting run by an autocrat are silent, they fear for their daily bread.

let's do better now that we are engaged in the "run-down" of of the war. and all institutions run by fear.

for a year or two i have been posting a picture a day here, usually done on the spot. it's been a great exercise.

now i feel like it is time to return to the written word. why? to see if i have anything to say. besides i'm redoing the art archive, dividing it into genres like watercolor, oil, pencil, photo, computer generated and so on.

then - and i dread this - enlarge the picture that you see when you click on the thumbnail.

it's early in the day and i'm about to walk downtown to get a portable - small - sketchbook i can tote around.

now as far as the written word goes, let's take a look at the word "war". since the enlightenment to vietnam, "war" has usually meant hostilities between nation-states.

the military of the nations involved do the fighting.

bush's war is a redefinition. the enemy is "terror".

it is worth noting that about 150 years ago in the west there were bearded bombers running around blowing things up. they were called "anarchists".

no war was declared against them. instead they were considered criminals.

personally, if i were a millenial politician i would declare war against nightmares, boom-boxes, and TV.

this is a time that institutions are fading away: schools, local govt., church, medical and nation-states don't seem to work like they once did.

institutions have evolved throughout history, and evolution means change now. to something new. new affinity groups. new tribes, bands. new families. and most of all, new ways of organizing collective human effort not based on fear, jobs or money.

i like this one better.

[10 seconds later] no i don't.

close up of an oil painting i have been screwing around with. it's a (sort-of) vague copy of a painting by thayer, english, around a hundred years ago. it's not finished.

every time i start an oil painting i can count on learning a lot of things because i'm always involved with something i've never done before. on this one it's painting with very small brushes.

got all my upper teeth removed yesterday and a denture slapped in. something else i've never done before. the dentist absolutely refused to have them made from stainless steel so i was a little disappointed. now i'm just in pain. later.

to the dentist at 10:30 this morning. all of my upper teeth will be extracted and - the picture in my mind says - a dental plate will be shoved in my mouth and i'm out of there. the visceral unease i feel is both very strong and a surprise to me. i imagine there will be a lot of surprises. postings to this conglomeration will most likely be minimal for a few days. wish me luck.

stepped outdoors and took this picture last night
here's my plan: today i have an appt w/ doc at 9:30. then a stop at the old fashioned pharmacy to fill a prescription. then if, as they say, time allows, an oil change for truck. back home pay bills.

tomorrow morning i'm getting all my upper teeth pulled and replaced with, not sure what you call it, an upper denture. (lower denture comes a little later).

finish a little movie i have been working on in flash. work on an oil that i have totally screwed up but learned a lot working on. i seem to be at a point where loading brush and brush strokes are coming into play.

have finished rough mix of latest CD, not a total success. it's much quieter than past work, maybe even a little "new age", but there are enough - i hope - weird sonic convolutions to keep it interesting.

i took this foto yesterday. it reminds me of goya.

on a ramble in the woods i ran across this character. someday we'll all live this way. if we all live. turns out he played tenor with basie and then hit the dream forest.

dang. can't remember a thing about yesterday, except it was normal day, ie stayed inside painted, mastered another CD, freed up disk space.

am i in creative rut?

who cares. i don't. trying to start a group blog of cohorts from chapel hill in the 60's. never counted on so many unable to traverse the maze of establishing an account on blogger.com. (it is pretty straight forward).

just dropped truck off to have new distributer "o" ring replaced.

beautiful day so i walked back, maybe 2 1/2 miles. first long walk this year. and it's already too hot for my system. (i run hot).

today's idiotgram comes from book that i am putting together. it is a mega wing-ding done in flash.

change oil, groceries, see what is leaking under my truck, really try and make drinking liberally downtown tonight, it starts around 7, a little late for me, but i have to start leaving the house. it's a mental health maintenance thing. i think i'll path thermal mattress i keep in truck for the delightful camping opportunities that are right around the corner.

plus in my living room right now are huge piles of fotos i want to sort thru, ditto 4 track cassettes i need to pitch, and a fat pile of papers i have made notes on over the years on subjects like how to play the guitar in open g - Spanish - tuning with the bottom string removed. this task is dictated by the lighten up prime directive.

and billz, balance checkbook.

another day in the floating life.

one of those. . . days. didn't, couldn't sleep last night, a periodic happening. got up and continued to pound out sounds out of bigger sounds and free up disk space. painted a little on current oil, i'm getting into it. at 2 i went to cardiologist for stress test and blew it away, tech said i was in the active 33 year old numbers. swung by dr. lane's to pick up button cover for pump.

it's 5:30 in the evening. think i'll rearrange all the furniture.

today's icon from a photo i took downtown day before yesterday i believe.

got this email this morning from armor folks:

"...He also has a campaign site at www.armorforcongress.com.

A lot of his writings are there as well.

Did I read what you said correctly?

I don't believe for a minute that he didn't know what the Eighth
Amendment was-- he's a attorney who specializes in constitutional
issues, for crying out loud!"

perhaps i neglected to fill in the context. the question was sort of a stunt, and the lack of instant response on the part of all in the room (at least myself), including mr. armor, means absolutely nothing. the least political of us could have refreshed our memory in a second with all the laptops present.

in my book no one is expected to drag around all details in his or her head 24/7. knowing where to find them, how to use them, yes. i work with dozens of computer apps every day but away from the computer would be hard-pressed to rattle of keyboard commands.

i suppose such a small incident could be blown up by the noise excuse me i meant news in say a presidential election.

mr armor seemed to get a kick out of it as did we all, which says more about a busy muti-tasking man than what he has memorized and when.

of course he knows what the eighth amendment is.

this reflects on one of the many problems institutional democracies face today: communication. i sympathize with, let's say a human being of good intention running for office today. i imagine a situation where as one converses there may be faint anticipatory echoes from the public domain: practicalities of the process keep the discourse constrained, so "handlers" keep a man from speaking his mind, which, lord knows, is difficult enough with everybody living on his own planet.

the meeting last night with John Armor, republican challenger to charles taylor, the entrenched congressman from western north carolina, was the result of efforts of BlogAsheville and Scrutiny Hooligans. turnout was light, presumably on account of the politically enlightened's relunctance to talk to the bad guys. Brainshrub.com was present and pushed hard for answers.

his question of the day was pretty neat: he asked gordon to pick a number. he picked "8". he then asked mr. armor what the 8th amendment was. (backgound: he said he had always wanted to ask a candidate this question). if it had been "jeopardy", nobody in the room including mr. armor would have rung in.

i had been pushing oil paint around all day and was late. i was set for conversation but quickly reset as it was more like a question and answer interview. he came across as a free market no government messing around with biz deals (like charlie), but one with integrity. in other words it appears as if he will run in the primaries against taylor as "i am of the right but not a crook". i have to say i admire his willingness to mingle with the hoi polloi, a quality missing from almost every politician in high office.

watercolor, 2 weeks ago.

happy birthday to mr. c who is taking it easy at his spread in chatham county.

watched the unc dook game last night, the first basketball game i've seen all year. i picked a good one, a classic that will be remembered a long time.

lost a rubber seal off my insulin pump. if i can't find it i'll be on the phone messing with fed ex and lord knows what, an exercise i shy away from. on the other hand the duct tape seems to work fine.

LATER<==== worked on a sound and a painting all day. time slipped away and i realized i was due for a meeting with the gentleman who wants to beat chainsaw charlie in the republican primaries, john armor.

yep, it's true. came home and finished sound, gained about a 1 1/2 GB disk space.

photo taken looking in back window of doug's place near toe river yesterday.

had a good evening painting and off loading music files.

most of yesterday spent riding with doug up to toe river and spending a few hours at camp. great break, all in order up there, the air and the wind were enough all by themselves to go.

photo my son eric sent me from st. george utah. he and angela live in sunnyvale and took a trip to utah to visit her mother and new husband. it sounds as if it has been "discovered" and well off californians are pouring in. there may be some small high-tech industries that are migrating there also.

last 24 hours have been a real hassel. i don't even want to write about it. the sudden low i had at the doc's office yesterday morning seemed to linger on all day: felt like i "was not myself". lay down in the after noon.

doug stopped by around 5 and we spent an hour or so catching up. i was still feeling a little shakey so i skipped carolina virginia game at steve's, went to bed early.

after going to the head about 5 times during the night, and not sleeping much, i finally figured out infusion set had detached so at 5 this morning changed sets and gave myself correction bolus for 500 BG.

it's almost 9 and i'm down to 353 (and up and out of bed). another correction, i guess by 10 i'll be able to eat. meanwhile getting battery alarm from insulin pump i have to take care of.

if i can get past all this biomedical frou-frou this morning i hope to drive with Doug up to toe river territory for the day which is another beautiful one, they're talking snow maybe by the week end.

since i wrote the above doug called, he's out eating breakfast and i'm getting myself together to hit the road.

scan of picture that i found in house we moved into in efland about 1970. it is some kind of die and fold paper similar to tie-dye. i don't know who did it. i refound it at sally's house when she died.

doc appt this morning. i did a correction bolus before i left the house, was fine when i got there, BG was 100 plus, and before i left i was acting goofy, remeasusred at 27 which was not pleasant. but it dropped that much in 20 minutes. now, about 5:00 i think is the first time all day sugar has been normal.

got a call from doug, he's headed up from old fort. talked to april who sent me some beautiful flowers. i couldn't figure out why. cause she thought it was my birthday. it used to be.

that slow flat winter depression. limbic disturbances. malaise. and now march is upon us, which when i lived high up in the mountains was definitely the hardest month of the year. the winter's were physically very tough there, and by march people began to snap.

there was one winter when march occasioned the suicide of two brothers in their 70's who had lived all their life at the bottom of the road. one of my neighbors, a farmer about a mile down the road was hauled off by the EMS or whatever they called it in those days after apparently drinking a bottle of rubbing alcohol. and the mail lady who live a couple of miles up the road had her husband committed to broughton after he chased her around the kitchen table with a knife. (he was back in 2 weeks.) they were staunch southern baptists and good folks.

there is one personal difference on my part to the end-of-winter doldrums. i just keep on working despite the ennui. paint scribble write, maybe a bit more slowly than i would like, but i don't spend much time staring at the wall.

from an old photo i must have taken. . . somewhere, sometime.

not this winter, that's for sure.

happy birthday to my nephew jon in phoenix az.

thanx and a tip of the hat to tucker for this - long - piece. read it anyway. print it out. make the onscreen fonts gigantic. you know the drill.

--------------------------------------

Swami Calls for an Up-Wising
The Evolution Has Begun!

By Swami Beyondananda

For years now, we've been hearing "shift happens," and
wondering when, where and how. Now finally, it looks
as if the shift is about to hit the fan. This is good
news for all those shift fans who've been wondering if
the new age will arrive before old age does. Of
course, if you're looking for signs in the news, you
won't find them. At least, not yet. The news might as
well be called the "olds," because the world still
seems stuck in greedlock, ruled by fossilized fools
fueled by fossil fuels. But I have been receiving
encouraging intelligence reports that say indeed,
humans are becoming more intelligent. Yes, people
everywhere are wising up. And that's great, because we
could sure use an up-wising!

The evolution has begun. But before we see changes in
the old needy-greedy, we humans must change our
consciousness -- and the first step is becoming
conscious of how unconscious we've been. As the saying
goes, the truth shall upset you free, and last year
saw lots of disillusionment. But what better to free
us from the far more dangerous condition of
illusionment? If we want to stop the abuse of power,
the first step is to disabuse ourselves. So, here's
some good news: Despite a massive media impropaganda
machine that feeds the public "babblum" (strained
bullshit made digestible for a simple child's mind),
more and more Americans are reading between the lyins'
and peering behind the Irony Curtain.

In 2005, Americans had to face the sad realization
that the Bush Administration's "pro-life" stance
appears to be limited to the unborn and the
brain-dead. Despite being panned by critics
everywhere, the Iraqi Horror Picture Show continued
its run, as thousands and thousands of born fetuses -
ours and theirs -- lost their right to life. While we
may or may not have saved face by staying there, we
have most definitely lost ass. And we've been assured
we'll be stuck in that morass until -- well, until
there's no more ass to lose. Meanwhile, more and more
Americans reached another sad conclusion: We're not in
Iraq to keep the peace, we're there to keep the
pieces.

The signs of up-wising are everywhere. Even the most
unpleasant stories are beginning to break through the
soundless barrier and defy the President's "don't ask,
don't tell" policy: "You promise not to ask us what
we're doing, and we promise not to tell you." Although
we've been inundated with "fear-gnomes" and ominously
warned we have to protect ourselves in this
dogma-eat-dogma world, a majority of Americans are no
longer comfortable with the notion that the only way
to defeat the "evil-doers" in the world is to out
evil-do them. Although our President has assured us
that "we don't torture," it is now common knowledge
that we simply send detainees to countries that do
torture when we want them to "testify under oaf."

As for those progressives who've been whining that the
President "never listens" to them, well it turns out
he's been listening all along. And thanks to the
so-called Patriot Act (which, I understand, is about
to be renamed the Eternal Insecurity Act), it looks
like he'll be able to listen in even more -- all in
the name of making us safe. But now even some
Republicans are beginning to see that there's a
difference between protection and the "protection
racket." And with the recent revelations about Tom
DeLay, Jack Abramoff and other gold collar criminals,
some of the more devout conservatives have come to
realize that the "family values" they voted for bear
an uncanny resemblance to Soprano Family values.

If there was any warm feeling in 2005, chalk it up to
climate change. Katrina hit, and in the government's
response we saw a future when at last all Americans
will be equal -- where everyone regardless of race or
creed will be treated like Black folks.


Alarming Policies Have Awakened Millions!


Fortunately this is the State of the Universe Address,
and from a universal perspective, things are humming
along quite nicely. It turns out that the Earth is the
talk of the Universe these days. In fact, the
odds-makers at the Intergalactic Enquirer say the odds
are actually in our favor: "We're betting on the human
race to reach critical mass before they get to
critical massacre." And we could beat the odds, if we
finally gave up our addiction to getting even and got
odd instead. It stands to reason. If each of us used
our unique oddness to improve the odds for everyone,
there would be no need for getting even.

Yes, the up-wising has begun, and intergalactic
observers are saying that we have none other than
George W. Bush to thank. How is that, you may ask?
Well, I am reminded of a story my guru Harry Cohen
Baba used to tell. A well-known minister died and
arrived at the Pearly Gates at the same time as a
cab-driver from New York. The cabbie was ushered in,
but the clergyman was left waiting outside. After
waiting and waiting and waiting, he finally called
over the attending angel. "Excuse me, but I'm a
renowned minister. How come you let that cab-driver
in, and I'm left waiting out here?"
"Well," the angel said, "when you preached, everyone
slept. But when he drove, everyone prayed."

For millennia, spiritual teachers have been calling on
us to go for the highest common denominator, but we've
always seemed to end up with the lowest common
dominator instead. And now, George W. Bush has done
what preachers, teachers and other far-sighted
visionaries have failed to do up until now: His
policies have been so alarming, that he has awakened a
slumbering body politic that slept through all
previous alarms. Where others have failed, he has
people all across the world praying, "God help us!"
And instead of waiting for an intervention from above
-- after all, we cannot expect to be fed intervenously
forever -- people are beginning to help themselves,
and even more importantly, help each other.

Sure, there are still plenty of Not-Sees out there who
insist on not seeing that we humans are all in the
same boat. The good news is, more and more Americans
are getting that sinking feeling that there's only one
Earthship, and ignoring a leak because it's "on the
other side of the boat," is a mistake of titanic
proportions.


We Are the Leaders We've Been Waiting For


America, the world's only super-power, doesn't need a
revolution. We've already had one, thank you. What is
needed now -- and what has already begun -- is the
American Evolution where enough of us wake up and see
that those two political parties have been partying on
our dime, and we the people haven't been invited. Time
to go beyond choosing the lesser of two weasels. If we
want to evolve the dream of our Founding Fathers --
instead of devolve into the nightmare of Big Brother
-- we must become the leaders we've been waiting for.
I've said it before. The only force more powerful than
a super-power is a Super-Duper Power -- the power of
the people plus the power of love. And anyone who
doesn't believe we are a Super-Duper Power, well they
have been super-duped!

It's true, many people still feel that the affairs of
the world should be left to the bolder and badder
among us. But look what that leaves us with: Are you
satisfied choosing between Saddam Hussein and George
Who's-Not-Sane? Now I know those "God, guns and guts"
Old Testament Christians might have forgotten, but
Jesus did say that the meek shall inherit the earth.
In all undue immodesty, maybe it's time for us meek
folks to boldly step forth and accept our inheritance.

For just as 2000 years ago Jesus stood up to a class
that placed the rule of gold above the Golden Rule,
today we face the modern version of the Pharisees --
the Phallusees, I think they are called. They
cynically cloak themselves in religious robes, but the
only power they trust is the power of the stick. Well,
there's another old saying: It doesn't matter how big
your stick is, if you stick your stick where it
doesn't belong, you're stuck.

Another sign of the up-wising and coming evolution is
that people are growing dissatisfied with the
positionality of "my side vs. your side," and are
seeing the whole issue of sides from a new angle:
Maybe we're all on the same side. For example, this
argument between creationism and evolution is just
another way for dueling dualities to steal our energy.
I believe in both. I believe the Creator created us to
evolve, otherwise Jesus would have said, "Now don't do
a thing till I return." I have it on good authority
that the Creator is pulling for us: "Come on, you
children of God. Time to grow up and become adults of
God instead."


Time to Overgrow the System From the Grassroots Up


The time for revolution and overthrowing has past. Now
we need an evolution where we "overgrow" the current
dysfunctional system from the grassroots up. You are
probably familiar with the story of the Native
American grandfather who tells his grandson that there
are two wolves fighting inside all of us: The wolf of
fear and anger, and the wolf of love and peace.
"Which wolf will win?" asks the young boy.
"Whichever one we feed," replies the grandfather.

And so when people ask me to predict what will happen,
I tell them the only thing I can predict with
certainty is the uncertainty of any prediction. The
future's just too unpredictable these days. This is a
Universe of infinite possibilities, so it all depends
on which futures we invest in.

There is something far more empowerful than
predictions, and that is Tell-A-Vision. If you're fed
up with the current programming, my advice is turn off
your TV and tell a vision instead. That way, we will
have healing and functional visions to step into --
and that beats what we've been stepping into. So I
will tell my vision for 2006: This is the year of the
American Evolution, where all those who prefer the
Golden Rule to the rule of gold get past left and
right, and come front and center.

I see Americans of all political stripes, plaids and
polka dots (not to mention solids), choosing to face
the music and dance together. Sure, we'll have to
learn some new steps, but it's time for a new dance -
A-Bun-Dance. That is where we get up off our assets,
move our buns, and dance together in rhythm and flow.
And what better way to turn the funk into function,
and leave the junk at the junction?

I see us in a new reality show -- Extreme Planetary
Makeover -- where everyone can play and everyone can
win. Just think. Something more compelling than
reality TV .... it's called reality!

I know, I know. Only a crazy person would dare to
propose anything that sane. But maybe it's time to
declare the current institutionalized insanity
illegally insane, and set about building a sane asylum
big enough for all six and a half billion of us. As my
guru Harry Cohen Baba has said, "Life is like a good
deli. Even if something isn't on the menu, if enough
people order it they have to make it." So what kind of
new world order are we ordering up? Do we feed the
wolf of fear and buy into the "it's every man for
himself" story? Or do we nourish the wolf of love and
evolve into the "we're all in it together" story?

If we're going to be a Super-Duper Power, we have to
be super-duper powerful in activating the power of
love, and cultivating the power of joy. So laugh more.
Why not? We all know there's something funny going on.
The wall of lies cannot withstand the vibration of
laughter. All seriousness aside, only a farce field
that combines truth and laughter can bring down the
Irony Curtain once and for all.

Release the old story -- been there, done that -- and
speak the new story into the world. Dare to imagine
what we could be doing if we weren't spending so much
of our livelihood on weapons of deadlihood. Think
about it ... think tanks where they think about
something other than tanks. Young people living for
their country instead of dying for it. Health and
education fully funded, and the Air Force having to
run a bake sale so they can buy a new bomber.

Can we change the course of history? Can we shift our
karma into surpassing gear? I cannot say for sure, but
if we choose to give up that old Dodge and trade it in
for an Evolvo, that's a good first step. So ... let
the Evolution begin. We don't have to wait until the
first Big Shot is fired. If we create a powerful
enough field, the Big Shots will end up firing
themselves.

May the FARCE -- as always -- be with us.

(c) Copyright 2006 by Steve Bhaerman. All rights
reserved. Find out more about the Swami at
Political humor, political satire, new age humor - Swami Beyondananda

restored black and white photo of my father's father taken in 1906.

got a bumper sticker phrase i may use:
"be more timeless"

it's still a little wordy.

i remain in a creative rut. not in the usual sense of the phrase. i'm getting a lot done. paying a lot of attention to unfinished creative business, or maybe i should say abanded projects still taking up disk space.

i'm closing pictures, scans, animation, and surprisingly a whole lot of muzak, by that i mean finishing them and putting them out to pasture. very tedious, being doing a little each day. on the other hand i find things that i have forgotten that maybe need to be completed, like the photo above which is from a hundred year old black and white.

plus freeing up enough disk space to do. . . stuff.

other stuff: if it's not one stuff it's another stuff.

i'm in the penultimate phase of laying out magnum opus whistling in the dark. above is one of the many neo-wingdings i've made to sprinkle thru the pages, along with other visuals.

received the following email yesterday:

"Hey there,
Just wanted to tell you that you are a googlewhack!
The words I used to find your googlewhack were - epicaricacy nether
Have fun!
Dan"

Googlewhacking: The Search for The One True Googlewhack

i think this made me famous for a nano-second. infamous?

Kat. my companion since around late last century, '92.

lots of cyber-antics yesterday. including off loading files to CD, ran into a problem where one file, maybe, glitches the write to CD process. will i take care of this problem? who knows.

probably today also, altho that remains to be seen.

i got a walk in around 5 in the evening despite the cold and raw weather.

from my inaugural walk yesterday. taken about 2 blocks from homebase. the photo is helpful to me because it reminds me that i am surrounded by beauty.

i forget this most of the time.

if you're feeling down about the shape of human life today, check this link out; always gratifying for a person like me to realize that others realize.

"The fight for the bottom line: Capitalism is a finished chapter in world history. Not politically, but economically. That is according to Arie de Geus, author of The Living Company, and former head of Shell's Group Planning unit. If today's companies want real success, their leaders must accept the production factor that has replaces capital as the most important - people."
Don't Stop thinking about tomorrow

today's cryptoscope: looking out the back window of my 86 mazda yurt.

i got out for the first walk of the year around 5-6 this evening.

such a beautiful day. short walk. i'm changing my strategy: short walk every day instead of thinking about going up sunset mountain while i stay locked inside the world of painting, electronic graphics, final mixes of dozens of unfinished music.

so what else is new?

example of home-grown wingdings that i am making for forthcoming book whistling in the dark.

spent yesterday in usual mode, multiplexing oil paint, photoshop, flash and constructing a Styrofoam castle. really.

today, among other things i'm going to take a walk downtown if it's the last thing i do. if it is you probably won't see much more of this blog.

it's funny: i can talk to the worldwide net and myself at the same time. i think i need to work a little on listening to both.

today's cybergram is from a shot i took while visiting him awhile back. we went on a looooooog walk.

gearing up for run to grocery store. i've gotten into some mindset where i'd rather stay home and putter than go anywhere. a little lopsided. i'm debating whether to sign up for any classes for old and in the way at unca. i guess i might continue on with piano.

today besides paint i'll scan photos from old "harry's" book. it'll be a challenge, they are xeroxes.

anything else?

politics: [shudder]:
if something is neither provable nor non-provable, it has been considered conjecture in modern times. now, because of a great many surprising twists and turns in the culture, "facts", particularly in the political arena, are incapable of being known as true or false.

a disturbing trend. thanks and a tip of the hat to karl rowe.

found shot in my computer hovel.

i mean a photographic image i made in my computer hovel.

i heard senator biden on one of the sunday talking head exhibits. he was saying - or i heard - that the only area where the dems score lower in the polls than the junta was "national security", where the republicans still maintain their "all bizness" image and can run a war like a PR campaign, effectively.

what to do about this?

i am going to write biden and suggest:

the republicans in their decadent organizational phase are not capable of effectively running any large enterprise. lack of capability runs thru the last 5 years, communications down, overriding the military and not listening to the, or the CIA or the american people. the initiation of bush's war included not only lying to the american citizenry, but willful, simple-minded ignorance of where they were going and who lived there.

snow this morning
bob brown died last week.
The Independent: News & Triangles: Features: Bob Brown, activist and inspiration, dies at 72

i hope his passing was gentle. he was part of a world that i encountered for the first time when i left high school and went to chapel hill. for me it was an exhilarating and puzzling time, plopped into an ambiance that seemed more real than any i had experienced before.

beday card from grandkidz corbin and lyly. it was nice to hear from them.

i don't think i have ever in my life been so snugged in. a combination of season, light, and inner activity just seems to keep rolling and as a consequence:

don't get around much anymore.

big snow didn't make it here.

it may never make it here.

bodega bay, northern california. my son eric emailed me this after he and his buddies spent what i suspect was a superbowl guys weekend in a rented beach mansion. of course i had to pretty it up, kind of an obsession with me.

here it snowed last night, actually leaving some on the ground.

which is ok with me, i got nowhere to go and a lot of paperwork to catch up with.

blogger seems to have misplaced it's posting preview. and it's spell check. hope they reappear.

replaced the pic below with the pict below. didn't much like it, not sure i like it now.

but it doesn't matter much.

cyberdoodle of the day. hey, i'm fine, it's probably something about the human condition.

trip to the doc's today, everything A-OK.

dr. R. paid a surprise visit this afternoon. a real pleasure.

working on an oil pastel on the back of a large antiwar sign. somekind of slippery, white corrugated cardboard. i just went into it with turpinoid.

i've been making final mixes of lots of half-finished muzak. mainly so i can throw out the source files and free up some badly needed room on hard drive.

i made several trips this afternoon: drove to the bank, library, home depot, and targets. i've been putting off these errands for weeks. the zeitgeist in these spaces was very topical, capture it in a movie and folks would immediately think "2006" or maybe "1996", but it is unique to our world now.

lost in the deep woods of the merchants of desire.

yep it's my birthday. in the "passed", i distanced myself from my birthday because i never felt part of the chronological sequence. my train had jumped the tracks.

today i feel exactly my age.
-----------------------------------

bush's war:
Are We Really At War?
maybe not "...because Al Qaeda is a free floating nihilism, not a nation, or even a network. "

photo from jemez mountains i believe.

yes i saw the rolling stones.

they are a rolling monument.

is the world a ghetto? or is it disneyland?

...

it's disneyland. just stumbled across this link:
Odeo: modern peasant - 01

working this photo i learned way more than you might guess. i guess.

took it while driving 240 around the north side of downtown. didn't get much. played with it and ran into the famous take out the telephone wires dilemma which i've never had to do in a careful way on high resolution print.

and some other stuff but that was 30 minutes ago so i forget.

blowing ever so little snow outside.

sunday has become clean the house day.

saw it in my backyard last nite? or was it the living room?

been listening to coasttocoastAM too much.

COAST TO COAST AM WITH GEORGE NOORY: SHOWS

it's almost 4 in the afternoon. i've successfully stalled all day on grocery shopping. think i'll do it now before it snows.

did it. yum.

now here is a quote from a mystery i am reading:

"the quality of light, the expression on her face,, the whole atmosphere of the dream, tell me it was a communication from her of some kind, though i cannot decipher its meaning. she and i occasionally discussed buddhism. she was a keen meditator herself, and our backgrounds were so similar we often speculated that we had known each other in previous lifetimes, perhaps a great many.. . . only when karma is very favorable do such soul mates succeed in having a full-blooded relationship; after all, that would be the next best thing to enlightenment itself. more often we look out for each other at a distance, like guardian angels."

from bangkok tattoo by john burdett.
Amazon.com: Bangkok Tattoo: Books: John Burdett:
"Burdett does an impressive job of depicting an often romanticized society from the inside out."

from my driver's license i renewed yesterday. no problem passing vision test. i'm good until 2011.

and 2012 is the year that it all flips according to various emerging opinions based on the mayan calendar, the toltek 4 agreements, the harmonic resurgence, and peale's how to make friends and influence people.

by that time my truck will be. . . let's see. . . a quarter century old. so maybe i'll park it and myself and enjoy the celestial searchlights that accompany these epic and startling kosmik changes.

at 11 this morning i get my eyes checked, find out if retinas will last or slowly disintergrate like a painting thrown out in the rain. before that, in other words in 30 minutes i'll hit the grocery store. then maybe (shiver) the mall. i found a coupon from lenscrafters yesterday and phoned them about it. if i bring it by they will knock off some of the price on glasses i got last week.

i'm finishing one oil and starting another, so i suspect a roll coming. i remember david of myrtle beach saying he was doing 5 at a time and that has stuck in my mind as a good way for a maniac to stay out of trouble.

ummm... my living room on an off day.

ive been reading wisdom of the ennegram by riso and hudson. about the ennegrammatic approach to personality typology. ran across this sentence:

that which is eternal in us experiences the world through our personal experience.

what is maybe eternal in us it seems to me is consciousness, experience, identity. the wilberian kosmos consists of consciousness all the way up and all the way down.

the experience of being "me" is universal and somehow useful to the eternal. remember: the real is that which does not go away, so reality is eternal, outside time.

"me", i'm stuck in time.

but there is a connection between the real and "me". the real experiences my experience, but the reverse is not true.

summary: i see my foot but i am not my foot. something sees "me" but is not me. that something is not only unknown to me, it is unknowable.

the absolute mystery.

beautiful day. nothing visual around the house or in my intentions to put up. oops, found a drawing i did over the holidaze. i have no idea who she is or why she is here, but i do have a clue: she's on the subway.

[little did i know the brouhaha this simple statement would result in. emails have been pouring in from far and wide stating in no uncertain terms that she is on an airplane.

ok she's on a southwest jet headed for guam.]

working on 2 watercolors and one oil. also a movie for my old friend in NM but lack of software and suitable hardware is making this project a loooong time coming. i may never get it done.

below i'll put up a page or two from book of pomes i'm working on when the time comes.