11.5.08

hey punches to the pouch
straight to the face
covered by jolly fat
hahahahaaa
we laugh and we eat it up
it’s a cherry in my drink
it’s the many cherries in my very many drinks
and its readjusting my blood
its turning cherry red
and you can taste it on my lips
I see you looking, looking right at them
But you won’t
You can’t
You wouldn’t dare
So go ahead and stare and remember the taste of cherry
On your own lips
And hey
You can always go ahead and throw a punch
To the back of some guy’s head
Look, he isn’t looking
Go for it
All yours
And when he turns around I’ll say the other guy did it
And when he stays mad
I’ll make him taste my cherry lips
But he won’t forget
So get the fuck out of there

goodbye

Funeral
For an old idea
Funeral
For a dying box

May the dirt
Remain on top
May the fire
Burn down
the fear, the expectation, the confusion
of the same
mistakes

time to pay respects
for how
these feet function
somehow
on ground
and how
this back can bend
without pain
here is my respect
to my sick ideas
newly departed

there is no heaven
there is no hell
it’s cloudy sky
with sun behind
that’s not a secret
its not mine

Don’t trust
The killing instinct
As she wakes up
And pulls the chain
Towards the center

Revolt from the ground
Look up
Be blinded
I heard rumors that we develop eyes
If we try
And so I allow
Sun stabs
To swallow my head
In hopes
Of losing vanity

Don’t trust the thing in the ground
That growls
At you
When you begin to run
When you pick up speed
That seems to be beneath your heels
As you refuse
The temptation
To turn around and look back
Run

traveling in the belly

traveling in the belly, originally uploaded by alexistentialism.

union street, my home

boat sway

sky is moving up

from a tilting boat

The gods prefer

The sad soul

So as

To have someone

To sing for

It’s all

The self

Coming in

On

It’s self

The million to one

Forget-ability ratio

What a bet

It’s already gone

And I’m the millionaire

To one

Who reconsidered

And remembered

Today the sheet signed itself

A proclamation

With no author

No voice but it’s own

A sheet of rain, a sheet of voice

Drowning out the ink of words and letting them float back into the throat

By the process

Of reincarnated everything

The Long Countdown

it’s too late in the year

for a remedy

to dispel the facts as they surround us like barracudas

looking for a snack

it’s far too late

and the sun is nothing shorter than dead

nothing blacker than

her hair

staring at me

instead of her eyes

no one could say a thing

and I know this

‘cause no one did

And that’s all I needed to hear

For me to know

It’s time for me to turn my ticket in

And to

Give up the show

My witness is no longer needed

It’s time for hibernation

I can see the bear eyes closing

Slowly drifting in and out of here

Going back and forth

Between the living and the dead

Warm covenant of winter

Underneath and in the middle

A pile of consciousness snuggling

Rubbing noses against one another

Keeping the fur down

For my head

Loving sleep

Another answer for the quiet

Indispensable moon

That lets me dream in his bed

And curl between many downy sheets

Made from wheat, feathers, and foam

Until my eyes give

Up

All together

Attempt 3: why what you have is never good enough

Partly it’s the education

I know things exist

They are all pictured, exquisitely, on the internet

On poster walls

Partly it’s the feeling

An ache

That says

That something else is better

Something else is correct

Partly it’s the knowledge

That I didn’t want it in the first place

Partly it’s the knowledge

That I have exactly what I wanted all along

There is nothing in a couplet

that exposes meaning

it’s only in the word

alone

or in the middle of so many other words that it’s drowning and waiting for something to stand out from the bunch and just say something anything really that would have the potential to get at the heart of any matter that matters to you

but all

the talking

but all

the words

don’t amount

to that thing that very dream you wonder about.

Nothing answers the question

Especially when

Asking is unpermitted

Attempt 2: why what you have is never good enough

There was a thought

Rolling across my face

You saw it

I saw it

I can deny it

But the thought

It rolled

Slowly, creaking, stopped right smack

In the middle of my face

Undeniable

Tangible

Destructive

Space between what I know and what I don’t

Fills up with dreams

Tangible dreams

Asking me, slowly, what I think

Asking me, slowly, what I feel

(it’s the same thing)

Fickle animal, fleeing for the woods, on a whim

Following after rabbits, red and white

Behind cracked doors

Recreating the math

Why what you have is never good enough

Craggy river bottom

Pursues the top

Pushes her sea glass emeralds in all directions

Forces them to lose their edge

Before

Undressing them in front of the sun

But the effort

Is a loss

A thing changed

A pain

From a lost limb, a lost edginess

The sharp point

The collaboration of events

Urging each other together

Before splitting up again

Constant hum of a good song

One you’ve heard a million times before

The phrase that unarms you

Rhythmically

Needs compensation for the pleasure

Needs to take a break

While another newer thing is found

To take its place

Another attempt: Why what you have is never good enough

Work work working hard working

For the dream

Gold goal, pinnacle of gods

Little voices

Becoming the rabble of billionaires

Stallions running backwards

Back into their caves of coal and glass

They all know

They all work work and work and keep running

Because glory

Beauty and the love

is bathing

naked

in front of wolves

we run and run and run

the sword is clanking

guns are shooting

to save it all

to save it all now

because we know without looking

we all share it without speaking

we all know

exactly

what

we

want

pride

Objectivism, it would seem, is among the few philosophies and/or religions that list pride as a virtue. According to Ayn Rand, pride is one of the seven main virtues. In The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand wrote

The virtue of Pride can best be described by the term: “moral ambitiousness.” It means that one must earn the right to hold oneself as one’s own highest value by achieving one’s own moral perfection—which one achieves by never accepting any code of irrational virtues impossible to practice and by never failing to practice the virtues one knows to be rational—by never accepting an unearned guilt and never earning any, or, if one has earned it, never leaving it uncorrected—by never resigning oneself passively to any flaws in one’s character—by never placing any concern, wish, fear or mood of the moment above the reality of one’s own self-esteem. And, above all, it means one’s rejection of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation as a moral virtue or duty.^[3]

Pride is thus seen as a positive, correct life-affirming attitude to have, as it celebrates one's achievements and promoted selfworth. It is achieved by consistently practicing productiveness, rationality, independence, honesty, integrity, justice and all of the other virtues, and the end result is one of the three cardinal Objectivist values: self-esteem.

Reflections of a Dying May

When the owl blinks

I’ll give the signal

No one will be watching

It’s a blind flash

The whole forest

Of alpine

Will fall asleep

Together and think of nothing

While we wake up

While we let our eyes readjust

To black

You probably weren’t there

You were gazing with the ground

Seeking out a thought

That ended up all wrong

But I saw the whole thing

Unravel from my bed

I wish I had caught it in a jar

Before it was dead

Great white silence

Yelling back in hollow waves

Shattering against the hooves

Of things running far away

It’s not useless, of course

The corpse has a key inside

Its throat

waiting to sing out

But won’t

Until you give the word again

jonny greenwood

fitter happier--by radiohead

more productive
comfortable
not drinking too much
regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
at ease
eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
a patient better driver
a safer car (baby smiling in back seat)
sleeping well (no bad dreams)
no paranoia
careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
favours for favours
fond but not in love
charity standing orders
on sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
car wash (also on sundays)
no longer afraid of the dark
or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
nothing so childish
at a better pace
slower and more calculated
no chance of escape
now self-employed
concerned (but powerless)
an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)
will not cry in public
less chance of illness
tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)
a good memory
still cries at a good film
still kisses with saliva
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick
that's driven into
frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness)
calm
fitter, healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics

1. http://http://z.about.com/d/psychology/1/0/I/dendrites.jpg

wonder

I wonder

And no one can take that away

No one can steal the wonder

The thought

I imagine

I can see it

I can feel it beneath my hands, behind my chest

I know it

And no one can take that away

Except you

You could steal my thoughts

turn them from magic into the real

help me feel it in my hands, on my chest

And no one could take that away

Except me

I wonder

triumph

Triumph

In the form of stillness

Disquiet

Corrupting itself

The colors shake and leafs fall while birthing

References to the sun

Winning while the competition is dead

Players take off

Their coats

And walk naked, pink, brown, and red

Eyes closed

And groping for a safe landing midst the fall

Here again

Spreading out

Away from the

Seed

Breaking at the tips

Crushed by the impact

Of directly careless fleet

Running

In triumph

2 moons

Sacred posturing

Laying down earth incense

Lighting it in praise of the hidden second moon

The moon’s lover

Constant within the sun’s shadow

Keeps the shining ardor of his lover

On the path

Of godliness

In front the tide, ruling birthing cycles,

Insisting on paradox

Between chaos and order

In her cyclical way

The other side

The dark side

So often unnoticed, so often written off

Feels the fire

On his back and stays warm

By consistent contact

With his dualism

Everywhere

still waiting...

Wait, don’t tell me

I’ll find out anyways

Tomorrow

The day after next

At some point within the spread outside

I’ll enter that point

And never return

differential equations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_equation

THIS is the great American

Right here

Doing this

On her ass

BEHOLD the greatness

That is this American

Plugging away the dollars

Sleeping with his eyes open

Contemplating dead options

Again!

HOORAY!

I said HOORAY!

For the nothing and nothing and the nothing

Reading the Onion

Passing time over the clock

Ignoring the ringing

Letting the alarm

Become a rhythm to live life by

photo BOMB

hi, i made a mixtape if you're interested...http://alexistentialism.muxtape.com/
(its free...)

True Story

On the day of april 15^th

An hour after sunrise

A giant tree, the one in the front yard

Starting whispering stories

About a collapse

About splitting in half

No one could hear

But it so happened

I was sleeping

under a lazy sun snooping through window slits

But I heard no tree

I don’t remember dreaming trees

Only the simple tone

of my friend

telling me to go

To go in her car

To drive away

“its ok”

Next to the lot

Where the car was parked

A branch the size of a tree

Hollow and buzzing

Lay on asphalt

Looking innocent, out of context

My three roommates

Questioning me

“where did you go?”

“who said you could take my car?”

I don’t know, I don’t know

The branch teases me

Nonchalantly mixing with gravity

But the branch lay next to the car’s former spot

And not directly

Where the car would be

Teasing me

Young people who wanted you

Fade away

They move for the mountains

Slowly stay where they lay

But their colors become gentler

Don’t take it personally

Everyone who speaks

To you

Means the words they say

Even if you cannot decipher the meaning

They mean them any way

But don’t take them personally

Days are inches on a hem

Growing slowly towards the floor

The light grows quieter

In the late afternoon

As it softly surrounds former half shadows

That once framed your face

But don’t take it personally

It is all obliged to grow dim

The closer

You get

A gaseous mirage of oxygen

followed me

under water

I slipped down

closer to dirty sand

My hands

gripping rubbery vines running towards the sun

allow panicked breathes to escape

My lungs sucked out the air

from between sheets of

glass

I awoke tasting

a transparent film of juice on my lips

trickling to my tongue

There is a thought across from mine

faceless, opaque,

demanding that I follow

to the bottom

where I find

unpredictable doors

telos

“its gotta be about something”
looking at the his hands

Not looking at his hands

Simultaneously

“meaning. Maybe it’s a wall we can’t pass”

“maybe, but probably not”

Both looking at their hands

Both not looking at their hands

In a single motion everything acts

Exactly the same

Without touching a hair

The world reacts by feigning non-action

Or so he thinks to himself

Or so he is tempted to try to find common ground

About with

himself

Tessellations

http://mathforum.org/sum95/suzanne/whattess.html

hooray.

Authority withers

Descends into the hubris,

The hermeneutics

Of cloudiness

Blocking UV murderers as they penetrate

The green

Giving way to life

shuffling from one plank to the next

Chased by shark abandoned pirates

Gyrating with a million eyes

And patched knees

pre-given to falling

Into the ground

And becoming the delicate, long, finger pink brown worms

that work their way up,

their way around,

their way to a path

A moving from end to end

Traveling without traveling

Just traversing a span

On repeat.

people's court!!!! RBG!!!!

The less forward the more backward

maybe

bi-directional, eyes on the back of the head

one on top,
for breathing

in with a blink, out to shut off

another on bottom
for rooting
gravity to the sky
Seen
between blinks
accepting and denying the unpreventable
absorption
of what the sun has to offer

The less enlightened the more smarts

maybe

The thinking brain
creates a cloud
wringing itself
for rain
quitting while
in knots

The less delicate the uglier

maybe

Dirt wombs shout birth
for dying
intricate webs of dung
made gold
after baring the light
above ground

In Preparation for Later

Nobility found her place
Deep inside a mushroom patch
Constructed from band aids stuck
Patiently
By the semi focused minds
of twin sisters
waiting to rediscover their grove
of feelings
of meanings
in the space where
men
usually expect gold
or
time capsules ready to send them moonward

More Juice

New day
Because I said so
Because I keep saying it
Because no matter what I say
It keeps happening

Repeating, swerving
The same day
Over and over
Like a spiral moving forward
Revisiting the same arches
But in a different
Space, a future space
In comparison
To a past

artificial objects
sweet and sour drops
under the tongue
twisting

Past is in my left hand
And with future in my right
I juggle
And lick up the juices
Made from dropping
It all

Hopeful Monster

As an example of radical change, he gave flatfish — the flounder and its relations. These are descended from fish with the usual fishy symmetry: the same left-right symmetry that we have. Larval flounders have it, too. But as adults, flounders have a profound asymmetry — one side has been completely flattened. What’s more, they have deformed, twisted skulls, and an eye that has migrated from one side of the face to the other. It’s as though you had both eyes on the same side of your nose. How did they get this way?
Goldschmidt speculated that big changes like this could be caused in one step by a mutation acting on the developing embryo. Most such mutations, he suggested, would produce individuals that were plain monstrous, and doomed to die without issue. But every so often, one of these mutations would happen in an environment where it could be beneficial. Then, the individual sporting it would be a hopeful monster, because it might have an evolutionary future as the founder of a new lineage.

more beer for me Bee aches (all nytimes)

From Tap, Cask or Bottle

Blind Tiger Ale House, 281 Bleecker Street; (212) 462-4682; www.blindtigeralehouse.com.

d.b.a., 41 First Avenue; (212) 475-5097; www.drinkgoodstuff.com.

Jimmy's No. 43, 43 East Seventh Street (downstairs); (212) 982-3006; www.jimmysno43.com.

Standings, 43 East Seventh Street (street level); (212) 420-0671.

Burp Castle, 41 East Seventh Street; (212) 982-4576.

Heartland Brewery, multiple locations;www.heartlandbrewery.com.

Chelsea Brewing Company, Chelsea Piers, Pier 59 (at 18th Street); (212) 336-6440; www.chelseabrewingco.com.

Ginger Man, 11 East 36th Street, (212) 532-3740; www.gingerman-ny.com.

Waterfront Ale House, 540 Second Avenue (30th Street); (212) 696-4104, also at 155 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn; (718) 522-3794; www.waterfrontalehouse.com.

Spotted Pig, 314 West 11th Street; (212) 620-0393; www.thespottedpig.com.

Borough Food & Drink, 12 East 22nd Street; (212) 260-0103; www.chinagrillmgt.com.

BEER B*TCHES!

Tasting Report: Solutions for a Hot Summer Day

Brasserie des Rocs Blonde $9 *** ½
25.4 ounces
Perfectly balanced, beginning with lively citrus, fruit and malt flavors and ending with refreshing hop bitterness.
(Importer: D & V International, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.)

De Ranke XX Bitter $4.75 ***
11.2 ounces
Brisk and lively with great hop bitterness and saisonlike complexity. (Shelton Bros., Belchertown, Mass.)

Petrus Aged Pale $4.25 ***
11.2 ounces
Complex citrus and herbal flavors, refreshingly tart and sour.
(Win-It-Too, Santa Barbara, Calif.)

Orval Trappist Ale $6.50 ***
11.2 ounces
Spicy, bitter and very dry with a lingering touch of orange zest
and funk. (Merchant du Vin, Tukwila, Wash.)

Corsendonk Abbey Pale Ale $4.50 ** ½
(Agnus Trippel) 12 ounces
Brisk and refreshing with fruity flavors and a crisp bitterness.
(Phoenix Imports, Baltimore)

Brugse Zot $4 ** ½
11.2 ounces
Lightly fruity, smooth and refreshing; Pilsner-like with an ale texture.
(Win-It-Too, Santa Barbara, Calif.)

Affligem Blond $2.10 ** ½
12 ounces
Light, foamy and gulpable with well-balanced malt and hop flavors. (Star Brand Imports, White Plains)

De Koninck $3 ** ½
11.2 ounces
Amber with a malty, mineral earthiness and refreshing bitterness. (Belukus Marketing, Houston)

St. Pieters Zinnebir $12 ** ½
25.4 ounces
Light and lively with floral and spicy citrus aromas and flavors.
(Shelton Bros., Belchertown, Mass.)

BEST VALUE
Grimbergen Blonde $2.35 ***
11.2 ounces
Light, foamy and fresh with lingering fruit flavors.
(Scottish & Newcastle Importers, San Rafael, Calif.)

ahem, new year, new weird, new face of politics

Ron Paul's Bloody Victory
In cyberspace, no one can hear a disembowled libertarian scream
by Chris Thompson
January 8th, 2008 7:09 PM





Lettuce B-Free won't give out her real name; she prefers her World of Warcraft moniker. She grew up on Staten Island and moved to Florida, where she shares an apartment with a friend and works in retail. There are two things that get her up in the morning: online gaming and the maverick libertarian politics of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. "He's an amazing man, and I agree with almost every one of his positions," she says. "I was raised to have a deep respect for the Constitution, and wow, he wants to bring it back!" On December 26, Lettuce B-Free found a way to bring the two together: organizing a Ron Paul rally in the World of Warcraft universe.
"One of our members, who went by the name of whoisronpaul, came up with the idea," Lettuce B-Free says. "And we just jumped on it. . . . So at like three in the morning, me and a bunch of people got together and signed a group charter. And it's been really fun chaos ever since."
Ron Paul's supporters have already distinguished themselves by their unorthodox campaigning—the blimp that's been floating around the South for the last month, the Guy Fawkes Day fundraising blitz. But running a virtual-campaign rally in an Internet gaming site must surely rank as one of the highlights of the season. The word went out through the online magazine World of Warcraft Insider, ronpaulforums.org, and the Wired blog. Soon, hundreds of people pledged to don their chain mail and shake their broadswords for Paul.
Unfortunately, there was one small complication one rarely encounters on the campaign trail: In World of Warcraft, you can get killed, usually by slavering beasts eager to rip you to shreds. Since all the Paul supporters would be playing new characters, they would be weak and all-too-vulnerable to monsters waiting to ambush them on the way to the rally point. In the days before the rally, Lettuce B-Free and a few other organizers hit the World of Warcraft universe, frantically fighting zombies and ogres in order to beef up enough characters to protect the newbies and act as bodyguards during the rally. Meanwhile, other players who hate Ron Paul's politics followed them around, taunting them and spitting on them (virtually).
Finally, the hour arrived: 8 p.m., New Year's Day. Almost 300 characters—barbarians, elves, gnomes, and green, mottled things—assembled at the small town of Kharanos, near the great dwarven city of Ironforge. They had to pick a rally point outside the big cities, because assembling so many characters in a crowded environment would slow the server down. Just before the march, Paul supporters milled around and typed snippets from the Constitution into their computers, where their characters bellowed them as text bubbles in the game.
Dozens of Ron Paul opponents donned characters of their own and milled around the edge of the crowd, where they challenged players to fight to the death.
"Unfortunately, there were folks who were there to harass us and try to stop the march," says Lettuce B-Free. "They were trying to get us to flag for [player vs. player mode], so they could kill us. They were spouting negative things, but we had already decided that we were going to be quiet and respectful and stay focused."
At 8:30, the march began, and Paul's supporters lined up single-file and tramped into Ironforge. Hecklers dogged them along the way, twirling their battleaxes and typing text bubbles like "He can't win," "He's going to ruin the economy," and "A vote for Ron Paul is a vote for socialism." The marchers chanted slogans as they boarded the tram for the human city Stormwind, and then it was on to the hamlet of Goldshare. Because she had pumped up her character to level 19, Lettuce B-Free was too busy fighting off flesh-rippers and other random beasties to look back on the crowd. But in Goldshare, she turned and gawked at what she'd created. "There was just this sea of names," she says. "The entire town was filled. That's when I realized how huge this was."
But soon Paul's supporters stumbled into more dangerous territory, and as fish-human hybrids tore the players to pieces, priest characters frantically worked their resurrection spells to keep the crowd from breaking apart. Finally, they reached Orgrimmar, a ghastly, reeking city of the orcs, which Paul supporters had agreed would serve as a stand-in for Washington, D.C. If they could storm its gates, Lettuce B-Free says, they would be symbolically taking their country back from the Beltway elites. Unfortunately, an army of Ron Paul opponents waited for them. They knew that once they got too close to the gates, all the characters would switch to player vs. player mode, and they could slaughter them at their leisure.
The bloodshed was epic. Orgimmar's guards automatically waded into the crowd and slashed left and right. Poisonous snakes slithered from crevices and sank their fangs into libertarians. Ron Paul opponents charged and struck a blow for the status quo. "I died twice," says Lettuce B-Free. "There was so much chaos. It was a mass battle." But Paul's supporters won the day, as characters breached the gates and stormed the city. The Constitution, it seems, was triumphant.
According to Lettuce B-Free, Paul's supporters plan to storm World of Warcraft again before the campaign is through. They'll have to use a different server, because the strain of accommodating so many characters slowed down the game. But they'll be back, she says. "This was great, because it was a bunch of mature players who were able to express themselves and talk politics." And maybe decapitate a troll or two.

Alan Rabinowitz

December 18, 2007
A Conversation With Alan Rabinowitz
Zoologist Gives a Voice to Big Cats in the Wilderness

By CLAUDIA DREIFUS

Among zoologists, Alan Rabinowitz is known as the Indiana Jones of wildlife conservation. But he is actually more the Dag Hammarskjold of biology.
That is because Dr. Rabinowitz, executive director of science and exploration at the Wildlife Conservation Society, is a kind of international diplomat for big cats — jaguars, leopards, pumas.
For 20 years, he has traveled the world, imploring the power elite of democracies and dictatorships to dedicate large parcels as reserves for these imperiled felines.
In the 1980s, he persuaded the leaders of Belize to establish the world’s first jaguar preserve. More recently, this Brooklyn-born biologist prevailed on the junta in Myanmar to transform 8,400 square miles of forest into the Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve.
Dr. Rabinowitz, 53, recounts his Burmese adventures in a new book, “Life in the Valley of Death: The Fight to Save Tigers in the Land of Guns, Gold and Greed” (Island Press). An edited version of a two-hour conversation in New York follows.

Q. With so many of the world’s animals in danger, why do you mostly advocate for big cats?

A. Because cats get to the human psyche. People love big cats. If I go to a government and say, “If you don’t do something quickly, you’re going to lose your tigers,” they listen. If I say, “You’re about to lose all your wolves,” they won’t care. But leopards, tigers, jaguars — people have a huge admiration for them,
My real goal is to save large sections of pristine wilderness for all types of wildlife. One way to do that is to make sure that the top predators have enough safe territory to thrive in. Because big cats need so much territory, when you save them, you’re really saving whole ecosystems and you’re saving the other animals down on the food chain. This is what’s called the “apex predator strategy” in conservation.
The other thing I’ve seen is that no government, even if they are doing a lot of development, wants to lose their big cats. Even when you’re talking to the most authoritarian of dictators, none of them wants to be the guy at the helm when the last of his country’s tigers go extinct.

Q. How does a conservationist negotiate with dictators? Do you employ special strategies?

A. I don’t go in with a plan. I just talk from my heart. These guys, they are used to people coming to them with hidden agendas. I think they can see that I don’t have any other than the wildlife.
When I first went to Burma-Myanmar, for instance, there wasn’t a lot of trust there (laughs). I was told, “You don’t look like a scientist.” But the situation for the Burmese tiger was desperate. Between habitat destruction and hunting, they were almost gone. We did surveys, and in a lot of areas where tigers were supposed to be, you saw none. I was pretty blunt about that.
Sometimes, personal things worked for me. In 2003, I was diagnosed with a slow-growing form of leukemia. Some of the toughest leaders in the Burmese military, they just couldn’t fathom why anyone with cancer was repeatedly coming to their country and going into the jungle when in their mind I should be meditating or having a more easy life. “So what if I have cancer?” I told them. “The tigers still have to have a home.” I think my personal situation helped win some trust.

Q. Because of gross human-rights violations, the military government of Myanmar is under economic sanctions from the United States. There are people who wonder how you could work with such a government. What’s your answer?

A. Tigers have no control over what human governments they live under. If we’re going to draw lines on what is an acceptable political landscape for saving wildlife, where can we work? Wildlife always ends up taking a back seat to what’s going on among humans — always. If we’re going to save wildlife, I’ve got to give it a front seat. Nothing we do hurts the people of Burma.
But if I based conservation on what I considered moral subjectivity, I’d be doing the wildlife no favor. And we’d be virtually guaranteeing the extermination of tigers from Burma. They’ve been almost hunted out for their skins and for the traditional-medicine trade.

Q. How are the tigers faring since the preserve was established?

A. Tigers don’t come back so quickly. When you’re down to very low numbers, you have to get a male and female just even meeting. With so few, it’s not easy for them to find each other. Even when you get them meeting, the young stay with the female for about three years. She doesn’t breed again until those young leave her. So if the tigers are coming back, we won’t know it for a few more years.
For the meanwhile — since hunting has been banned and since we’ve started some economic development projects for the local people — there’s been an increase in the prey-species that tigers eat: wild pigs and sambar deer. We’ve set up “camera traps” on animal trails where you can photograph everything that passes. We haven’t seen a lot of tigers yet.

Q. We understand that you’ve been trying to negotiate with the North Koreans to set up a wildlife sanctuary.

A. In the Demilitarized Zone, yes. We think there are a lot of animals in there. It’s forested. And because it’s so heavily fortified, there isn’t human settlement. We reached out to the North Koreans. We thought, why not make the DMZ into a peace park?
We first approached the North Koreans years ago to try to study the Siberian tiger that migrates into there. They wouldn’t let any Americans in. We were able to get one British scientist to visit their capital city, a birdwatcher. They never allowed him out of the city. There’s no story to tell there.

Q. What originally drew you to conservation?

A. As a child, I had this horrific stutter. In school, I was put in what was called the retarded classes. I was very angry that people couldn’t see past the stuttering. From the second grade on, I stopped talking, except to the little green turtle and the chameleon I kept at home.
Talking to the animals, I realized they had feelings. I didn’t know if they understood me. But I saw that they were exactly like me. They weren’t broken, but people mistreated them because they can’t communicate. I thought if these animals had a voice, people wouldn’t be able to crush them and throw them away. When I was a child, I promised the animals that if I ever got my voice back, I’d be their voice.
It makes me feel whole, knowing that I’m allowing more animals to live in this world. Every time I set up a protected area, I feel I’m paying them back for helping me speak. When we got Hukawng established, I thought, all those turtles, otters and tigers, they now have a chance to live.

shibboleth

"Shibboleth” takes its title from the Old Testament story in which the ability to pronounce the word was used by the victorious Gileadites as a test to identify members of the tribe of Ephraim who were trying to sneak back into their home territory. Those who couldn’t say it correctly were revealed as Ephraimites and killed.

Gutai

The Gutai Manifesto
Yoshihara wrote the manifesto for the Gutai group in 1956. The full text of the "Gutai Manifesto" is available in English at the website of Japan's Ashiya City Museum of Art & History [2]. Among its preoccupations, the manifesto expresses a fascination with the beauty that arises when things become damaged or decayed. The process of damage or destruction is celebrated as a way of revealing the inner "life" of a given material or object:
"Yet what is interesting in this respect is the novel beauty to be found in works of art and architecture of the past which have changed their appearance due to the damage of time or destruction by disasters in the course of the centuries. This is described as the beauty of decay, but is it not perhaps that beauty which material assumes when it is freed from artificial make-up and reveals its original characteristics? The fact that the ruins receive us warmly and kindly after all, and that they attract us with their cracks and flaking surfaces, could this not really be a sign of the material taking revenge, having recaptured its original life?...." [3]

Transautomatism

Transautomatism
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Transautomatism is a modern style of painting, founded by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. It is a kind of surrealism, which also point of the viewer's fantasy. Different people see different things in the same picture. It is less what the artist wants us to see, more about how we interpret it. The transautomatism is based on the different styles which Hundertwasser developed, e.g. the spirals and drops.

Many of the Dream Last Night

Mental excretions
piling up
creating oily walls that talk
in the thousand languages of touch
Every brick every word
a window
leading between flicking dimensions
a dream
into
a dream
retelling the middle of tales
and letting go
of beginnings
and endings
as loose ouroboro tails
flailing to find one another
to make sense
of senselessness
under the guise
of sleep

the two of us

He knows the number
Of people he’s kissed

I don’t know the number
Of people I’ve fucked

He knows how it feels
When he is in love

I am not sure
That kind of love exists

He is a child who is a man
Who knows how to ask

I am a woman who is a girl
Who stopped asking

He remembers something easy
Without using his memory

I focus to understand easy
By abandoning my memory

He is not innocent
Because no man is

I am innocent
Because everyone is ignorant

from the room next door.

Near by
Huddled in the far
Corner-less
Horizontal wood
Left eye to the floor, seeing gravity
Feeling a long slant of light
Next on the nose
Guiding forward
As arms and legs slide effortlessly
Toward
Some forward
Some center
Now warmer, now less resistant
From wherever it is
You came

Popped Bulb-No ideas-Broken Glass

I can’t imagine
The spell
That took you into your own mind
And told it lies
That told it to love
What isn’t love
That told it to ruin
What wasn’t yours

I can’t fathom
The stories yourself told yourself
So that you could
Tell yourself
To tell others
Whatever fit the moment
A shape shifter
Manipulating the air so that the air could manipulate
The mind
The words are trapezes keeping
All souls up in the air
Bouncing upward in anticipation
In acknowledgment
Of imminent decline

I can’t think of
The way you walked
to prevent your own fall
The steps you took
To claim bodies
To cushion the road beneath you

I never imagined I’d be here
At this juncture
In this space
For these reasons
On this day
With no peace
And no mind
And no imagination to help
Light understanding

Technological singularity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

--was this touched upon by Ken Wilber in Boomeritus? Blade Runner?

The technological singularity is the hypothesized creation, usually via AI or brain-computer interfaces, of smarter-than-human entities who rapidly accelerate technological progress beyond the capability of human beings to participate meaningfully in said progress. Futurists have varying opinions regarding the timing and consequences of such an event.

My breath skipped a beat
But its back in synch
Because nothing turns my head around forever
It all twists back
To the origin

colbert

October 14, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
A Mock Columnist, Amok
By MAUREEN DOWD
I was in my office, writing a column on the injustice of relative marginal tax rates for hedge fund managers, when I saw Stephen Colbert on TV.
He was sneering that Times columns make good “kindling.” He was ranting that after you throw away the paper, “it takes over a hundred years for the lies to biodegrade.” He was observing, approvingly, that “Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream is driving a bulldozer into The New York Times while drinking crude oil out of Keith Olbermann’s skull.”
I called Colbert with a dare: if he thought it was so easy to be a Times Op-Ed pundit, he should try it. He came right over. In a moment of weakness, I had staged a coup d’moi. I just hope he leaves at some point. He’s typing and drinking and threatening to “shave Paul Krugman with a broken bottle.”
I Am an Op-Ed Columnist (And So Can You!)
By STEPHEN COLBERT
Surprised to see my byline here, aren’t you? I would be too, if I read The New York Times. But I don’t. So I’ll just have to take your word that this was published. Frankly, I prefer emoticons to the written word, and if you disagree :(
I’d like to thank Maureen Dowd for permitting/begging me to write her column today. As I type this, she’s watching from an overstuffed divan, petting her prize Abyssinian and sipping a Dirty Cosmotinijito. Which reminds me: Before I get started, I have to take care of one other bit of business:
Bad things are happening in countries you shouldn’t have to think about. It’s all George Bush’s fault, the vice president is Satan, and God is gay.
There. Now I’ve written Frank Rich’s column too.
So why I am writing Miss Dowd’s column today? Simple. Because I believe the 2008 election, unlike all previous elections, is important. And a lot of Americans feel confused about the current crop of presidential candidates.
For instance, Hillary Clinton. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to be scared of her so Democrats will think they should nominate her when she’s actually easy to beat, or if I’m supposed to be scared of her because she’s legitimately scary.
Or Rudy Giuliani. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to support him because he’s the one who can beat Hillary if she gets nominated, or if I’m supposed to support him because he’s legitimately scary.
And Fred Thompson. In my opinion “Law & Order” never sufficiently explained why the Manhattan D.A. had an accent like an Appalachian catfish wrestler.
Well, suddenly an option is looming on the horizon. And I don’t mean Al Gore (though he’s a world-class loomer). First of all, I don’t think Nobel Prizes should go to people I was seated next to at the Emmys. Second, winning the Nobel Prize does not automatically qualify you to be commander in chief. I think George Bush has proved definitively that to be president, you don’t need to care about science, literature or peace.
While my hat is not presently in the ring, I should also point out that it is not on my head. So where’s that hat? (Hint: John McCain was seen passing one at a gas station to fuel up the Straight Talk Express.)
Others point to my new bestseller, “I Am America (And So Can You!)” noting that many candidates test the waters with a book first. Just look at Barack Obama, John Edwards or O. J. Simpson.
Look at the moral guidance I offer. On faith: “After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up.” On gender: “The sooner we accept the basic differences between men and women, the sooner we can stop arguing about it and start having sex.” On race: “While skin and race are often synonymous, skin cleansing is good, race cleansing is bad.” On the elderly: “They look like lizards.”
Our nation is at a Fork in the Road. Some say we should go Left; some say go Right. I say, “Doesn’t this thing have a reverse gear?” Let’s back this country up to a time before there were forks in the road — or even roads. Or forks, for that matter. I want to return to a simpler America where we ate our meat off the end of a sharpened stick.
Let me regurgitate: I know why you want me to run, and I hear your clamor. I share Americans’ nostalgia for an era when you not only could tell a man by the cut of his jib, but the jib industry hadn’t yet fled to Guangdong. And I don’t intend to tease you for weeks the way Newt Gingrich did, saying that if his supporters raised $30 million, he would run for president. I would run for 15 million. Cash.
Nevertheless, I am not ready to announce yet — even though it’s clear that the voters are desperate for a white, male, middle-aged, Jesus-trumpeting alternative.
What do I offer? Hope for the common man. Because I am not the Anointed or the Inevitable. I am just an Average Joe like you — if you have a TV show.