beaverdam lake two days ago.

i want to end this blog with some kind of statement concerning the situation on this planet. but it is beyond me. and this is the only planet i experience.

so:

new happy year
don't believe everything you think
and if you do don't believe that.
be who you are
the Kosmos will thank you
even if you believe it.

this is a piece of a watercolor i did some time ago. it's large, and i have a few more that are a quarter of large watercolor paper i will be scanning.

have no idea of news lately, but armeggedon outa here. it's a setup. we've been pillaged, robbed, threatened and intimidated. i worked hard to get obama elected. but now it's time to stand up, speak up. we've been robbed and it was an inside job. the political must be transfomed or else.

Microsoft files pay-per-use PC patent | Tech News on ZDNet
"Microsoft's patent application does acknowledge that a per-use model of computing would probably increase the cost of ownership over the PC's lifetime."

"medical aesthetic marketplace"
what's it mean?

very pleasant xmas day, slow and uneventful. spent afternoon at tom and erin's where i snagged the above foto. early to bed.

if someone, somewhere, greeted me in the appropriate season with "happy haj" would i be insulted or offended?

no.

if they greeted me with "happy" anything it would be ok with me.

"it's dark out here, i can't find tomorrow"
john mellancamp

"i got a pain in my side but i keep travelin on"
john mellancamp

"it's not dark yet but it's getting there"
dylan

"there's no room to be anywhere"
dylan

memes and topoi. another new now.

there was a science fiction short story written in the 30's by two writers whose names i forget. a projection into the future, it featured a world in which a tiny minority enjoyed the privilege of time because they were not compelled to buy anything. the rest of the populace had to rush madly about in order to consume.

why do i bring it up now? to point out that the meltdown that blew in with no warning a month or so ago was always in the story, entirely visible and almost palpable for 2 or 3 generations.

who felt like they lived in a house of cards back then? or now? do you?

back in aville, the vortexes are quiet. too quiet. i intend to stop the contentless prose of the daily posts the last day of the year.
foto from back yard of eap.

if i had anything to say it is that the so called bad guys, republicans, are not the bad guys. the thugs, vandals and heistmeisters have made no mistakes the last 20 years or so. the last eight at least. they have robbed you, intimidated you, and gotten away with it. revenge is not productive, so where does that leave you?

whatcha gonna do?

Free Will Astrology : Aquarius Horoscope:
"Aquarius (January 20-February 19)
Would you like to consistently be in the right place at the right time in the coming weeks? Personally, I'd love you to have that knack. It would make my job more enjoyable, since I could fall asleep each night with the comforting thought that you are meeting your dates with destiny while you're at the height of your powers. So what IS the best way to ensure that you will have impeccable intuition and a great sense of timing? Here's what I say: Set aside all expectations about what the past implies and what the future may bring. Instead, cultivate a desire to recognize and respond to the raw truth of each new moment."

nice overnight camp w/ good folks, charley and moriah's, including her dad and susie, lot's of rain.

image above from the waterfall.

good morning. headed for the hills. i'll be at charlie and moriah's where cousin bob and susie are visiting. back friday. if the creek don't rise.

photo removed. richard said it looked like a power plant. it did. first time-exposure i tried w/ digital. first time i have removed a picture. it was richard and debbie's house last nite.

posting to let all know i'm still kicking. and shed some light on house of cards (tip of sombraro to sr. jeff)

> Subject: FW: Why we're in financial trouble
>
> Young Chuck moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a
> farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey
> the next day.
> The next day he drove up and said, 'Sorry son, but I
> have some bad news, the donkey died.
> Chuck replied, 'Well, then just give me my money
> back.'
> The farmer said, 'Can't do that. I went and spent
> it already.'
> Chuck said, 'Ok, then, just bring me the dead
> donkey.'
> The farmer asked, 'What ya gonna do with him?'
> Chuck said, 'I'm going to raffle him off.'
> The farmer said, 'You can't raffle off a
> dead donkey!'
> Chuck said, 'Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't
> tell anybody he's dead.'
> A month later, the farmer me t up w ith Chuck
> and asked, 'What happened with that dead donkey?'
> Chuck said, 'I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at
> two dollars a piece and made a profit of $998.'
> The farmer said, 'Didn't anyone complain?'
> Chuck said, 'Just the guy who won. So I gave him his
> two dollars back.'
> Chuck now works for Goldman Sachs.
>
>

winter... like everything, it's not what it used to be.

when i lived with my wife and children on big ridge in s. jackson county i noticed a yearly shift the 3d or 4th week of december. already very cold, it was like something flipped a switch and then it got cold. very cold. the topography, the earth itself became ice-cold. a real change.

wonder if it still happens?

tip of the hat to jeff in nm for the following:

> Subject: FW: Why we're in financial trouble
>
> Young Chuck moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a
> farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey
> the next day.
> The next day he drove up and said, 'Sorry son, but I
> have some bad news, the donkey died.
> Chuck replied, 'Well, then just give me my money
> back.'
> The farmer said, 'Can't do that. I went and spent
> it already.'
> Chuck said, 'Ok, then, just bring me the dead
> donkey.'
> The farmer asked, 'What ya gonna do with him?'
> Chuck said, 'I'm going to raffle him off.'
> The farmer said, 'You can't raffle off a
> dead donkey!'
> Chuck said, 'Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't
> tell anybody he's dead.'
> A month later, the farmer me t up w ith Chuck
> and asked, 'What happened with that dead donkey?'
> Chuck said, 'I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at
> two dollars a piece and made a profit of $998.'
> The farmer said, 'Didn't anyone complain?'
> Chuck said, 'Just the guy who won. So I gave him his
> two dollars back.'
> Chuck now works for Goldman Sachs.
>

heard a tale on NPR yesterday about chartres cathedral, modern art, and various other items that might loosly be called numinous. included was a short reading from dharma bums by jack kerouac. this concerned his departure from the fire lookout tower he had spent some months in. on his way down the trail he had stopped, turned around, kneeled down on one leg, and as he had been taught by "japhy ryder" (pseudonym for poet whose name i can not recall at the moment), thanked the cabin he had just left.

years ago i asked jack what the relationship was between his summer on the mountain and the moment we were then experiencing.

he paused briefly and then said "i'm talking to you aren't i?"

"Obama's thrilling election—something not long ago many wise heads said wasn't possible—also made more imminent the prospect that the dark night of the worst administration in history was ending. The American people had overwhelmingly rejected the Bush regime's stupidity, cupidity, its wars, its lies, its torturing and its secrecy, its ineptitude and its power grab that threatened constitutional government. The relief was palpable. Washingtonians were simply smiling as they hadn't in years. Something new was coming, and it was to be looked forward to. People felt cleansed."

Elizabeth Drew - NY Review of Books

thanks and a tip of the hat to richard for this piece so appropriate for thanksgiving.

drew's piece very upbeat. smiles are good.

(but)the very next long range and necessary phase is a removal of the power complex that has become enmeshed with all institutions and dominates them. until they are run along lines other than those damned meeting charades complete with power point bullets and decisions already made i don't think anything will change the confluence of power, domination, neoslavery, cheap thrills and the end of the organic. not far down the road.

the only solution is inside the head.

like my favorite line from r.d. norriss on zeke and the big wheel produced in '99:

"hang another millennium on the old clothes line.
we'll greet the next one on our knees,"

grabbed this picture from the vast assembly of "stuff" i have been relocating on appropriate HDs.

you know of course the word bibliomanacy? but do you know how to spell it? neither do i. if it is a word used nowdays it means flipping a book open to a page and and blindly putting a finger somewhere. then read the sentence. like this:

"So far from there being any spontaneous communication under this regime, these electronic media are carefully controlled to make sure that 'dangerous', that is, unorthodox views do not slip through. Such a system permits neither colloquy nor dialogue, as in genuine oral discourse: what takes place is for the greater part only a meticulously arranged monologue, even if more than one person is present on the screen. A population entirely dependent upon such controlled oral communication, even though it reached every human soul on the planet, would not merely be at the mercy of the Dominant Majority but would become increasingly illiterate and soon mutually unintelligible. Thus once again the parallel between the Pyramid Age and our own forces itself upon the observer: here in prospect is actually the electronic Tower of Babel."

Lewis Mumford
The myth of the Machine, v.2: the Pentagon of Power (1966)
p. 298

long day. lot of housekeeping (hard drives) (kitchen and front room). finished naomi klein book. interesting what a mind can do today, write a book the subject of which probably could not be found 10 years ago. her's is disaster capitalism.

finishing up lewis mumford's pentagon of power. if i could type i'd throw a few of his observation up here. longest , most penetrating view of where we are today. the culture which has replaced the kosmos as our world. based on power and domination. he argues that today is a replay of the "pyramid age" when monumentality was created through coercion, slavery and the whip. today it is enforced through the descended grid of science, the rise of the THE MEGAMACHINE:
"Before the 19th century was over the New World's promised land was destroyed by the very forces that had created 'civilization': the expanded bureaucracy, the conscript army, the centralized state, the slavery, the rise of imperialism. The mechanical world picture produced an environment in which the technological complex - the Megamachine became an end in itself."

your money or your life.

and just last night the local media used the words "time theft". an example is using email for personal life while at work.

YouTube - An anthropological introduction to YouTube

YouTube - An anthropological introduction to YouTube