Thanks For the Commercials!

Being online is great!  Just consider the enormous amount and variety of things we can now buy over the internet that just a few years ago would have seemed impossible! 

One internet company currently making a big push is Stamps.com.  They have frequent radio commercials and today they sent me an info cd in the mail, offering a free digital scale, free this, free that, which would amount to $50 in savings.  I can open an account with them and never have to ride to the post office again!

It seemed like a great deal, offering convenience and savings of both time and money.  I've learned to look up other peoples' opinions of great offers like these, on the internet, very conveniently.  People are anxious to help everyone by telling about their own experiences with products and purveyors, and they bring up aspects that might not have occurred to me, which is appreciated.

After looking at every angle i decided to use the USPS website, which does not charge a usage fee.  But thanks to the vendor who put me in the mood to find out about printing postage at home.

Five Minute Friday: Quiet

Quiet inside is the best, most complete way to analyze reality.  To stop all the thoughts in the brain's stacked intersections, pull myself over to the shoulder of the road and watch, see, feel, be aware but so quiet i have to remind myself to breathe - just for a minute or even less than that.

It's like that phrase Check Yourself.  To me it means, stop and check if i'm really doing the thing that will get me the result i want, or am i defaulting to thoughtless behavior that will sabotage what i really want to accomplish.

The Voting Psychosis, by R. A. Childs, Jr., in 1968

Americans are largely governed by myths and illusions. This has always been the case with every "people," and may well be inevitable. But nowhere outside of America do we find the dominance of one single belief: the belief in voting. Everywhere and for every purpose, voting is seen as the sacred answer for any problem whatever.

Vote, politicians tell us, and you shall be saved from all disasters. You shall inherit the earth, and establish the kingdom of God here on earth. Peace, freedom, wealth, happiness - all shall be yours. Just vote. So, like a herd of cattle, Americans periodically round themselves up, file by the millions into voting booths, pull levers, and "cast a ballot." The question is:  Why bother indulging in this massive opinion mongering contest?

To vote is not to "govern yourself" or any other such absurdity. A nation is not a self: It is only an abstraction meaning a whole lot of people. Govern a nation? You are governing others. You are supporting a system founded on the principle of pushing people around. YOU can govern YOURSELF without any help. So why bring others into the picture?

You are choosing your own leaders? To lead you where? And if you don't really know, why pretend that you are really choosing your own course of action? You are making no "social contract" with anyone, for the terms are not specified, the agreement not explicit or written. No politician will be bound by his promises. Peace, or liberty, can only come when leaders are too weak or feeble to lead, coerce or command. Choose your own destiny? You are deceived, citizen. YOU are on a political leash.

You are electing "representatives?" Then you will be personally responsible for his action? How can you be, when you hide behind a "secret ballot?" Representatives to do something in your name? Can you, then, dismiss him when he breaks his promises, and does not do what he claimed he would? When he lies, and betrays you? You cannot. You are stuck with him. His will is sacred - it is "law" and he enforces it upon YOU. No representation here, citizen. He does not obey YOUR will, or conform to YOUR demands. You are subordinated to HIS. You are HIS tool, he is not yours. Who, after all, forces whom to do what? Who takes all he wants from whom? Who sends whom off to become cannon fodder and fertilizer in foreign lands? Who pushes whom around? Who imprisons whom? If a politician is indeed YOUR representative, how can HE tell YOU what to do? How can HE punish YOU for disobeying HIM? Strange representation, citizen.

Someone has total power - power even of life and death - over you, and you think HE represents YOU. You think HE is the servant, and YOU the master. Ah, delusion! What is it then, to vote? It is to deceive oneself, to pretend that YOU are not governed. Citizen, remember Proudhon:

"To be governed is to be watched, inspected, directed, regulated, penned up, preached at, checked, appraised, censored, commanded. To be governed is to have every operation, every transaction, every movement voted, stamped, rated, measured, counted, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, indulged, prevented, referred, redressed. To be governed is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be laid under contribution, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted, exhausted, hoaxed, and robbed. Then, upon the sightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, annoyed, hunted down, beaten, disarmed, imprisoned, shot, judged, condemned, banished, sacrificed, betrayed, and to crown all, ridiculed, derided, outraged, and dishonored."

Look around you, law-abiding citizen, taxpayer, filer of a thousand forms, gun bearer, warrior, victim, corpse, you with a thousand other scarred faces. Who governs whom?

Is this what you vote for?

Think It and Get It, Sometimes

 

Here is a nice tiffany-style lamp with the dragon flies and rose that i wished for everytime i saw it in my favorite show, McLeod's Daughters.

 

Just last Saturday i felt a powerful urge to head into our favorite antique/junque store in town, the Green Bean.  The closest parking space was available, which never happens!  Steve said, There must be something big in there calling us, and this way we won't have to carry it very far.

 

Well i didn't take more than two steps inside before i spotted the lamp of my wishes.  I said, LOOK, i found what i came here for! 



A Ship Much Loved, HMS Bounty

She was the beautiful HMS Bounty, a replica of the 18th century English ship famous for the story of the abusive captain whose sailors took the ship away from him.  This replica was built from the same blueprints in 1960 and starred in Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando in 1962.

 

She was kept for many years as a tourist attraction in Tampa, Florida, and I visited her and walked all around the decks, and inside the captain's quarters where the signature windows were located.  I had never been on a sailing ship before.

 

Two days ago she sank off the coast of North Carolina in a hurricane.  Her captain was attempting to sail away from the coast and around massive Hurricane Sandy, which he thought would protect her from getting pounded at the docks.  But something went wrong with the pumps, as she took on water in the high waves.  Her crew abandoned ship; one member who was a distant relative of the original mutineer, could not be revived.  As of this writing her captain has not been found.

 

 

 

 

Nooz or Snooze?

Our Atlanta newspaper is fun to have every day, fun to pick up every morning from the end of the driveway and devour with coffee.  There are always topics of interest to spark nice conversations and get the day going well.

We had a subscription for several years.  It was affordable and the delivery was dependable.  It was a good value for the money.  So why on earth would someone want to end such a beneficial arrangement?

I'll tell you why, just as i have told the subscription solicitation department of the Atlanta paper every time they call, which is a mite tedious but i guess they enjoy hearing it:

The dear paper delivery person's car coming into the cul de sac at 4:00 a.m. wakes me up and all the dogs, old people, school kids, working folks and everything else that lives around here.  I hate being awakened like that and then trying to get back to sleep is nearly impossible.  The thought of all my neighbors being disturbed out of their precious rest just so we have a newspaper delivered takes away all my peace of mind and my enjoyment of the paper.

"We get the paper at the store," I say to the salespeople every time they call.  But their records only show that i used to be one of their subscribers; they never note my reason for stopping the paper. 

"What can we do to get you back, ma'm?  We have a GREAT DEAL for you! Three months of seven days a week, including Saturday and Sunday, that's the SUNDAY PAPER, for $10.  No?  Okay, if you will just re-up right now, WE will pay YOU $10! That's right!  We'll send the guy out with the cash right NOW!  You cannot afford to pass up this wonderful offer!  Why, we'll wash your car, sweep your porch, we'll bring in the mail, we'll bring you coffee and doughnuts, we have GOT to get your subscription, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU??!!!....."

The MUSE!

This is a fantastic group of musicians who keep me company while i'm working - the music easily guides the mind into that creative focused oblivion which is the only way you can get any real work done!