the government stimulation survival kit

Not all is gloom and doom - but finding the light ain't that easy either.
Bush and company decided to return a bit of money we had earlier payed them and put it back into our pockets. This is supposed to "stimulate" the economy and also take the edge off the down-spiraling housing market which contributed to the present world wide financial mayhem.
So far so good. We get a droplet of our money back, and then we are supposed to spend it again, to rejuvenate the machinery of consumerism. A capitalists dream come true by means of socialiststic measures. Ironic, to be presented by a Republican administration.
The first electronically transfered deposits are out now; paper checks will follow in May, all in the range of $600 dollars. But before you know it, that dow (stash) will be spend and gone. But on what? People on the street admitted, they will use it to pay off some credit-card debt, use it for gas, and try to counteract high food prices.
$ 600 (sixhundred dollars) - what a joke. No, it is not a joke - it is an insult! Six hundred will get you nowhere these days. It is a sugary lollipop to US citizens who didn't crave for this but will take it anyway because it is "for free" and sweet - free in the sense that it originated by the people, for the people.
The day I get my paper check, I will light a match and burn it. I will have nothing to do with it. And as I watch the flames leap, ponder about where the value of $600 dollars went astray.
I might be old, but I am still stuborn.

in other news:
-the devaluation within the US housing market has reached double digit percentage rates, houses get evacuated and stay empty - banks who lend the money in the first place simply drown
-the dollar is worth a whopping 0.68 Euro (used to be worth about three German Marks or 3 Swiss Franks when I arrived here)
-the crude is up $120 (was $20 when I got here - and I am not thaaaaat old)
-US main investments are overseas, about 4 billion dollars a month in Iraq
-US investments in their homeland is $600 per person ... not per month, just once for this year
-many US airlines get grounded because they neglect regular maintenance; business therefore comes to a screeching halt.
-Switzerland ranks first, the US 39th in a survey of 148 countries who are concerned about environmental issues
-I got new rims and tires for my truck
-we will have frost tonight

(Copper relief, 1986 - about 5 by 3 feet)

magnolia

two phrases, then I leave you alone. One from a movie script where Nicole Kidman played an interpreter (I just happen to love it), the other one is mine.

"Vengeance is a lazy form of grief..." (Kidman)

"My tattoos are invisible to the naked eye, only those who perceive my heart will see them." (me)

the world of bits, bytes and peas

I always forget that I still have a sketchy presence on "facebook" until that very moment when somebody knocks at my "wall". Then I am startled for a few seconds, click on the link and surrender.
It is both fabulous and also scary what human relations come up with these days; pixels on the screen and bits and bytes for the most. The perfect illusion for the diet of anorexic souls.
Here are two excerpts of my own examples. One in response to a surprise visit on that "facebook" today, the other a chunk of a plain old e-mail I responded to:

"...anyhow, you look pleasantly beautiful on the pics you posted on facebook, but my demented mind is not able to place you into the memory slot needed to illuminate your actual being in context.
In other words, who the heck are you?
Take all the apologies you possibly can and push them forward in a wheelbarrow, take them from me since I can not recognize you instantly. That will have to do for now.
So, who are you then for real?
You must help.
Please!!!!
No, I don't particular care for facebook - though it does amaze me who and what comes popping up at times...no punch intended.
I hate the surveys, they make a lame conversation; I hate the commercials and overcrowded options (blogger doesn't have any of this, so I guess you have to create posts without the help of "events", "fun walls", "super walls" and the like...)
OK, I bitched enough. Please fill in the blanks at your leisure."

.............................................................................


"... just take this then - I still have your tattoo engraved in my heart, unless you cut it out, it will stay there forever...and once in a while I wake up, don't worry - it's only once in a while. Then I see you quite clear, crisp as the inners of a freshly cracked walnut. Delightful. Of course when the day goes on, or the following days go by - all fades again into a blur.
But what I really wish to say I guess, is that I still care for you tremendously. So all your joy and sorrows, your ecstasy and pain, your hopes and dreams, your thoughts and passions ... all of those things still mean something to me, even though I am removed, half away around the globe."
.............................................................................

A tremendous amount of emotions - pleasure, pain, joy suffering and bullshit on the internet is posted each second of each day. But where can it be found, where does it go to, is it actually for "real"? Is such substance saved when my computer crashes or does it simply evaporate into thin air? What happens at a power outage, or even worse - how are we going to communicate when all oil and power runs out for good?

There once lived a decent initiate who said:
"If humans would have not invented the telephone and hence become completely dependent to this gadget, they would have instead grown inner faculties, replacing this primitive mechanical tool and communicate without hardware throughout space and time."
Somehow this "rings a bell" even though we have disassociated our mental (telepathic) capabilities, put them into dormant slumber.
The "web" has arisen to be the source of liberation ... on one hand. On the other, it suffocates and strangles true human emotions and virtues - and it has evolved to be the only crutch we didn't even asked for. Our dependency to this "machine" (computer and net) is close to birthing bad alive copies of virtual mechanical intelligence found in hard and software, with the difference of having to maintain eroding physical bodies - inferior, that is us, with "ERROR" written all over the forehead.
One of these victims is me.
Happy weekend though, and plant something for real, something like peas!
We'll eventually show who is stronger - me or the machine!

let us try this poll thing again, simplyfied!

Ok, I demolished this "new" poll as well. There is no sense in it - and worse of all, it stopped to work. There is no fun in that.
So therefore you have now the only sole option to shriek, scream, shout, whisper, mumble, or phrase your comments about "background music" from Rodrigo Y Gabriella's version of Stairway to Heaven and if this running app is an appropriate thing for this blog.

On other news. I listened to a commentary on PBS by Herb London (I think that is his name). He went out of his way to demonize Iran as the next culprit to slay, the next target for the US empire to crush. He said: Let's get them now before it is too late, before they get nukes. Now or never. What a retarded bitch. Let's blow everything up. Perhaps when the dust settles we can evaluate valuable rocks on the ground. So was his thinking.
This comment comes after Israel already had pulverized a secret nuclear plant six or seven months ago, flew planes over Syria and then bombed the shit out of the place. How come nobody knew then? Who gave this intel to Israel?
So Herb London is a late bloomer and worse, a creature with instant potato bud mush expanding by means of hot water in a skull that used to house a needed brain.
I feel sorry for misguided people like him. I also feel sorry for Public Radio who in the name of "equal speak" puts morons like him onto the air. A waste of my energy, a waste of your time.
What does this have to do with North Korea and their ambitions? I gladly say: I don't know! Perhaps the Syrian nuclear reactor was a similar design to what North Korea had produced. (wasn't their reactor an assembly put together by Russian technology)?

Whatever the case, without mercenaries (paid killers) the US will look bland on the circus of world events. So here is a hail to Blackwater and Halliburton and CO, the cronies who craved payback-time and got it delivered by Bush and Cheney.
As oil prices rise and the dollar drops even further, it is fascinating to see the dragon drown in black blood. Saddam was right on: Give me oil revenues in Euro's! His death sentence thereafter was historical. Had we just been patient and "waited out" his regime as we did with Tito in former Yugoslavia, the world world would run and spin with more content.
So I soaked some pee pods (seeds) today, will plant them later. You bet they will not be used to produce ethanol.

what does it mean?

Hillary Clinton got Pennsylvania - so what?
The fight goes on.
But does it matter, does it really do?
It is hard to tell, there will be losses,
on both sides, no matter what you do.
A tainted woman or a colored man - so is the Democrats ticket.
The Republicans go for an white-haired, aging veteran, a Vietnam Veteran. Awesome "color" choices for the slowly dying beast, ehh ...?
I like the tainted woman for her stamina.
I like the black guy for his continued enthusiasm for the US.
I like the white veteran who just can't give up.
I like them all, but would I vote for any of them?

You know, it doesn't really matter - because the "vote" has already been cast, the dice thrown from the cup held by shady "gray" men, tossed unto the table of destiny long before your own voices come to count. That is "US democracy" for you, the only so called export article we have left. Not necessarily a brilliant survival kit in times of economic decay I would say.

But don't be sad - cheer up and live your life joyfully.
That is all you really can achieve, this time around. (hint: reincarnation)
Kindle that spirit for your neighbor, your sisters and brothers - and you will have done much more than vaguely paste all your hopes onto the face of a useless paper ballot that may, or may not be counted at all.

Zee ya

crocuses in my garden today. Yes, old socks can even accumulate in kitchens - beware!

off tomorrow for three days to teach how to plunge peoples hands into clay - see you when I'm back.

Porch

It is not hard to sit on the porch and bitch, curse and mumble "fuck China" - liberate the red robed monks of Tibet, screw ethanol when half of the world is still starving, and food for the west ... or the rest, gets exuberantly expensive due to miscalculations by bureaucrats.
It is not hard to follow such lead, like the scent a dog would pick up.
What is hard is to keep composed, to see any light at the end of the tunnel.
The real torch is not a physical thing, run around the globe to end in Beijing.
That flame can be swiftly put out by any fire extinguisher. Re-ignition means nothing.
The flame we need today is of different nature. It burns persistent and forever, protected in the inner sanctuaries of our own being. Are we bold enough to let it show?
Humanity these days has one basic flaw: We have given up to hold the real torch and
paddle instead in a canoe that turns in circles. The vista is flattering, but reality draws different images, the ones we do not wish to see.
It is time to find new shores and let "the inner torch" burn bright.
So is my thinking, "on the porch" - during sunset, tonight.

168 spoons in 90 minutes - successful, but foolish

Kindergarten kids plainly drew a spoon footprint on a thin piece of wood and we cut it out for them. Then they were to sand...
First through third grade got a block of wood where they had to sketch a top view and a side view of their spoon design. With a band saw both contours were to be cut out. The block then was kept intact, taped together with a piece of tape to keep the seven piece puzzle together until the kids opened them up and found "their" spoon hidden in the middle. From 4th grade to high school, the children carved with gouges.
Unfortunately there was only two 45 minute sessions alloted per class. It is foolish to attempt to wing such a project in such little time. The prep and post-prep work was enormous, and that after having taught six classes every day.
But the children loved it, insofar this gig was successful. A small public school where the majority of children created their own individual spoon - somewhat unheard of!





So yes, I left the island on this morning ferry in peace, knowing that I put a droplet into the bucket of intellectual and abstract learning. May that drop dilute this illusionary materialistic vision that the human brain is the only isolated precious organ we have to succeed in this life.
Accomplishment is, in my view, not measured by what you think you can do, but by looking at what you actually have been able to create.
A surgeon transplants a heart. Only after the new heart starts beating, he or she can claim victory. All this has been achieved by the skill of human hands, not the human brain alone. If we don't bring the two together again, zombies will eventually inhabit the earth, incapable to take hold of the next task "on hand".

going back to the island ... for a week

You can hardly see it, but there is a beaver in this pond. Why would he choose this location, how did he get there? Even the cat shows semi interest.
Anyhow, I know that I have not been very communicative these days ...
I just want to warn you, it's even getting worse.
My nose dives towards North tomorrow, embracing the island I love.
Internet means little in such circumstances.

time to move into April

I am contemplating.
Thoughts are still buried inside - moving and undetected.
It is time to drive into spring.
Welcome April!
Somehow I feel
that the warmer weather
will release and free what was previously caged inside.







So, "Ascending" is still in progress, but it goes so slow. Maybe this process is co-dependent. The faster I carve, the faster spring will ascend...

OK people, the merry-go-round in my brain has only few ponies. And I have invested to describe all details of them before. Today I will refrain, no energy to elaborate. I suppose I can leave this post by saying: What color is your favorite pony painted with?
Mine is yellow with red stripes painted in diamexic order.
Your's must be white and blue ... striped?
But that is only a guess.

Nova-San's pony