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Concerning the Presence of Dust On History Books

It might have salutary effect on synaptic amplitudes

needed for production of reliable platitudes.

In any case dust is considered metaphoric

for anyone serious about waxing historic.

Words Or Expressions That Should Be Banished

Any expression, used without irony,

to make one appear more intelligent

than such usage would suggest.

Just saying.

the keening gone, the mirror shatters

then there would have been
an awful keening that slashed
the rainbow mooring joy
to the mirror's reflection,

but now is different,
there is only a hollow sigh,
the rainbow has no color and
the mirror has been shattered
by disuse.

would they do it?

Would they do it in the dark?
Yes, they'd do it in the dark or even outside in a park,
They might do it in the rain or at the bottom of a drain.
If they would do it in thin air they might do it anywhere.

Would they do it with a vole?
They might do it with a vole, they might do it on a knoll,
They might even do it with a cake, or out on a lake all alone with a snake,
If they would do it with time to spare they might do it anywhere.

Would they do it on a hike?
They'd definitely do it on a hike and even try it on a bike,
With rabbits too once they could hop, or in a zoo or barbershop.
If they would do it in a lion's lair they might do it anywhere.

Would they do it on a rug?
They would do it on a rug and put the picture on a mug,
They would do it when they dined even if they all went blind.
If they would do it without a care they might do it anywhere.

Would they do it when they dance?
They might do it when they dance, while in a trance without their pants,
They probably do it on the phone, especially when they feel alone.
If they would do it when they're bare they might do it anywhere.

I lay in bed last night with images of Gordon Lightfoot wailing in the bar as his ship was going down and then today this appeared~

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle.
Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole
one and prayed for forgiveness. - Emo Philips

The lesson seems to be that despair would kill us all for sure if we didn't have a sense of humor. The affect of laughter on feeling lousy is really quite amazing. Years ago I had an episode of terrible bursitis in both hips. As a result it was utter torment to get out of bed. It made going to pee each morning an exercise in existential fortitude as I would fall out of my bed to the floor, writhing in horrible pain, and then slowly crawl to the bath room, one painful knee slide after the other. Add to this that I always slept au naturel and you have the complete idea. The moment I imagined someone burting in to discover my slow, naked, moaning crawl across the floor nearly made me piss myself in mid slide. But mirth really made my pain much easier to bear.

I ran into the HOME trailer on youTube while looking around for environmental stuff. Visually speaking it is wonderful, with the kind of cinematics that howl global consciousness. After viewing the trailer I was ready to see something that promised to explain the current situation with the planet and what our species needs to do about it. The first thing I'll say about this film is that parts of it make Koyanaskatsi look like Pong. The rest of what I have to say means nothing unless you have seen the film yourself, so when time allows check it out and be prepared for a visual feast that may challenge your view of life on Earth.

If you took time to watch the film then you know that it puts forward the idea that we have ten years to alter how we live on the planet before reaching the point of no return on climate change. Should we fail to act we will likely be doomed to extinction. I expect that a lot of people will simply ignore all this stuff and many of those who do not ignore it will simply deny it. This sets us up for one of the great teaching moments in human history when we will all find out if wishes really do come true.

I wish we had more time to deal with this problem, but I don't think we do. What happens when some of us begin to realize that most of our lives will be spent suffering the consequences? What should we say or do about this?

Anything?

What happens if we allow ourselves to run out of options and have to ask if there is any point in having children who have no future? And if we do have children what will we tell them to do with themselves, go out and play a game of pretend like we did? And if they die before the game is over who wins?

But whatever we think about it, assuming we think about it at all, doesn't matter because time cannot be hindered and truth has no mercy.

Still there is time, not much perhaps, but maybe enough if we act soon. The election of Barrack Obama as president of the United States is a step in the right direction as is the recent passage of a climate bill that may provide an economic basis for reform. Others are chiming in, like writer and environmental campaigner Bill McKibben who contines to keep ideas flowing into the public imagination. It is good that these highly visible public actors continue to do this work, but it isn't them who really matter- it is us. It is us because only what we, the great, silent mass of humankind, decide to do will change the world. And we will do it by changing how we live today.

just streaming along

Some people like doing crossword puzzles, but for me it's writing javascript. It always begins with wondering if something exists, and if not, why, and if so, where, and it just keeps staggering along from there until something gets created or not. The latest quest involved finding a suitable music utility for a page I was designing to promote the work of my dear friend beep. It's something I've been thinking of doing for him for some time and the only catch was finding a good sound player. What I found was the XSPF player which turned out to be the cat's kazoo of music apps. Thus beep's page got finished, but many interesting questions drifted around after figuring it out, among them how to devise a cheap and easy method for streaming content like mp3s. A solution was right under my nose at youTube, where a resourceful programmer can learn to harness the power of their youTube player javascript API and access a copious supply of free content.

Not as easy as it sounds though. A lack of patience always makes me into an idiot. So, after routine banging of my impatient brain against the problem for awhile I finally figured out how it worked and immediately thought of an application for my other friend Owen, editor of a mighty fine little online publication called Island Life. Because Owen adores music, and takes pains to write reviews of musical events whenever he can, I knew he would really enjoy having a music gizmo for his website with a look in keeping with his sense of style. Another requirement was that the gizmo would have to follow along as visitors scrolled down Owen's looong page.

So now I was on the trail of some kind of sliding menu thingy, a really juicy problem. Googling produced the usual crop of lonely dead-end posts, howling unaswered into the vast and indifferent javascript void. But only a few clicks down the first page turned up a pretty groovy floating menu thingy that, though it had all the right kind of moves, had waaay too much code for such a simple function. Nevertheless this Goldilocks moment nudged me in the right direction, to a far less complicated version that works in a very similar way.

Another fun moment in javascript came, vexed and went, leaving a happy glow of satisfaction around a new addition to my bag of tricks. Some day I might figure out what to do with the stuff in this bag. Btw, this page plays sound using this basic technique plus a few home made bells & whistles, the former to make it work and the latter to make it sexy. If you'd like to try this application check out the YouTube JavaScript Player API Reference. A little careful reading (and manic shredding of scalp) is all it takes. But don't forget that sexing things up is done at your own risk. ;)

There is nothing we can do about the nature of Life except learn to live it with mindful equanimity. Only thus are we able to find the end of suffering we seek.

note & observations

It's odd how Satan's prosecution of Job's torment is mirrored in the behavior of the most vehement faithful. That secularists would find this outrageous is natural. That many Christians would not is appalling.

It may be true that quoting scripture instead of using your mind does a disservice to both.

The only nice thing about Fred Phelps is there are only so many words for shit before he runs out of things to say.

Shattering glass is the sound of rage.

You take in another murder and after spitting the brutality of it out of your mind the only thing you can taste is revenge.

If people feel pitiless know it isn't the way they came into life, they came into life with a blessing. And what some of them do with this blessing of life is enough to make you wish they'd never been born. This is the greatest pity of all.

Some people are like a diadem glistening in the eye of God and others are like a virus looking for a six-pack.

All money seems to do is make the poor more desperate and the rich more vile.

With slavish decades of desire now passed I breathe a free breath of indifference at last. Sex is such a pain in the ass.

When the PC crowd gets done with our dictionary the only word left will be 'yes.'

Every time I think that there are some things you can't say someone writes a poem and proves me wrong.

Language evolves. If it didn't we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Turn your back on weeds you've hoed
Silly sinful seeds you've sowed
Add your straw to the camel's load
Pray like Hell when the world explode
                                          -Buffy Saint-Marie

It's one of those moments when I think the world has gone mad because of a sudden flux in the psychic burden of events. It's one of those moments when it seems that the only way our differences with be resolved is with baseball bats and tequila in a parking lot somewhere. And at this moment I am learning that pregnancy is the new abstinance because Bristol Palin says "Regardless of what I did personally, I just think that abstinence is the only 100 percent foolproof way to prevent pregnancy" and is standing up to sacrifice herself for as much money as possible to prove it. And suddenly the vision comes of she and Nadya Suleman together in their own reality show called Too Fucking Many where in the background, beyond the sea of smiling faces in straw hats and i♥jesus buttons, a mob of Pakistanis chant "We are ruined" and then suddenly somebody drops the Bomb.

Much to the despair of dogmatists,
there's nothing sacred but the Truth.

I just heard Leonard Cohen say "My mind was untarnished by a single idea." Maybe we don't create anything, maybe we're just transmitters. Maybe this and freedom of thought is all we need to get closer to the truth. For thought to be free it must be free of denial.

The reason almost no one but his family can stand Fred Phelps is because Fred spews nothing but hate. And he spits his hate at everyone because they won't remake the whole world according to him. Fred says, "God hate fags!", "Pray for more dead kids!" and lots of stuff like that. People like Fred rationalize hatred with the Bible. It is something that they have every right to do. Unfortunately they also have the right to fuck up their kids in order to make them into fucked up people like themselves. Succeeding at this brings them great personal satisfaction while adding yet another public nuisance to the world. Hu-fucking-ray!.

Recently Pope Benedict XVI visited Mount Precipice in Nazareth and on the mountaintop proclaimed before a cheering crowd,

"Let everyone reject the destructive power of hatred and prejudice, which kills men's souls before it kills their bodies."

"Hate Kills Souls" is the essense of what he said. A review of the activities of Fred and his flock proves the truth of Benedict's words. If ever a church was filled with souless, hate-filled human beings it is the Westboro Baptist Church of God.

Gandhi said an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. I always thought it makes the whole world stupid.

A war is like a wildfire; it can't spread without fuel. Fed by discontentment, driven by zealotry into rage, once war gets going there's no stopping it until rage has been spent. The warmonger says to fight fire with fire, but the pacifist says if you cure the causes of discontent there will be no fuel for the flame. Such are my thoughts the day of Gyatso's visit. I didn't go out to see him, but instead read about the event online. On the margins of the story a war of words between people who didn't seem to see Gyotso as anything but as a reflection of their conceptions of him. Some people revere him like a buddha, others revile him as a hypocrite and all have agendas that keep them from hearing what he has to say about himself: “Some consider me as a living Buddha. That's nonsense. That's silly. That's wrong. If they consider me a simple Buddhist monk, however, that's probably okay.” Since the first time I saw him I felt I knew him, perhaps because he speaks of things I've thought about all my life.

The Supreme Court ruled against broadcast of "fleeting expletives" (as in the last thing we heard of Dick Cheney as he retired from office?) Add to this the ascendance of the digital press and how it presages web tv. Once television is online it will be possible to design content filters for it that can be configured by users. Imagine being able to replace every instance of an expletive with a sound or word of your own? This will mean that the power to censor content will lie only in the hands of the viewer and so ends the reign of Big Mother.

Alex Budovsky is a genius.
More here.

When it comes to religion all are just fine with me except the Church of Annoying Proselytizers and the Temple of Believe Us Or Die.

I've had a soft spot in my heart for Stephen Hawking since the first time I heard him speak with his new voice. It was a strange moment because we had never heard anyone speak with an artificial voice before, but it was also inspiring because it was like he was saying "I'm still here!" It was beautiful. An interesting thing about this is that his new voice has truly become his own and, though many improvements have been been made in the technology, Stephen is unlikely to upgrade it. It would be like becoming someone else.

There are many ways to build a website, most of them requiring minimal technical skills. Anyone armed with the right software or content management system can produce perfectly acceptable results that look and function like 90% of what's already online. Still if you wish to create something different, that is truly a product of your unhindered imagination, then the best way to build it is from scratch with hand written code. Now I admit I am evangelical when it comes to coding, but this is only because I enjoy solving problems caused by the things I create. To those who glaze over at the thought of this stuff I say this: If you enjoy solving puzzles you may be surprised how amusing coding problems can be. A few resources to get the curious started:

Inspiration: css Zen Garden designs
Tutorial: w3schools HTML tutorial
Tutorial: w3schools Javascript tuttorial
Reference: wdg HTML 4
Reference: wdg Cascading Style Sheet Basics
Reference: westciv's Complete CSS Guide
Resource: javascript Kit

Feel free to email any reasonable questions. And if you happen to be looking for web design help let me know what you have in mind and I'll see what we can do.

why?

These pages are dedicated to freedom of thought and to the idea that it is possible to live by wit alone. My purpose is to write and by doing so earn the patronage necessary to keep writing. If you enjoy what you read, and wish to support it, click patrons for details. Now to work.