The Good

It's 2h30 am and the thoughts are running wild. Listening to Pink Floyd, having another smoke and trying to untangle this knot of thought into a coherent post. It has to be a post, see, since i cannot leave rip anyone on top for too long ... just wrong you know? Besides, too many other things that are wanting attention. Also living things ... ideas ... thoughts .... dreams. Aquila ka Hecate did a post about the year gone by. It's something i also should do, perhaps. I'm not the sentimental sort, pushes me more in the "mental" direction than anything else, reflecting on oneself too much leads to unfortunate perspectives.

This year has been anything but about me, which is either fortunate or not as per your perspective. Family foremost ... then toyrun, friends, work and daily life, then me. I suppose there should be a sub heading "problems" there somewhere, although i think it's safe to accept its synonimity with family. That warrants a grin, one can approach life armed with nothing but humour, but that also requires a large measure of truth in it to be effective.

I've looked at the year past, briefly already, the less said the better. I'm looking at now, and forward, the year to come, 2011 i'm reliably told, Anno Domini. Me in a small country at the south end of the most brutal continent on earth, a young(?) white guy with a family and bills. And a head full of silly ideas. That sums me up quite well, doesn't it? *chuckle* I have achieved very little to date, not do i have ambitions of any sorts, save to be left alone as much as possible, and the occasional bouts of sex, drugs, rock n roll and philosophy. And i get around on a motorbike. Which combines all 4 of the above (trust me on this). My zen is coming along nicely the christianity not so much. They're the same thing on so many levels, can't something just be simple for once? And why on earth would i get stupid ideas (ANY) about the future, least of which my part in it?

The reason pure and simple is "good". I use that word because it's simple, and accurate. But it's an adjective, usually, so i need to point out that its more of a noun, in this sense. A goal, an attribute, state of mind even, something that creates more good. You create what's around you because you stamp your mark on whatever is closest to you, and when in a time-based ritualised, closeted life, as we are, it is very difficult to be anything other than bland, and it is the blandness which drives the insanity. To strive for the good, and be the good, and produce good is good. And it's good, God said so when it was good. We never get anything that right, but as His (Her) creation it's a simple enough bar to stand against, be good.

Arete, that's the word. Good, that's all. And i have to be good, because that is the highest which i can attain to, and quite simply must. If the year past has taught me nothing else, it's that there most certainly is a bad, which frankly is stupid, ugly, and counter productive. So we go forward into the nether with humour, and idealism, a desire for truth, and a hatful of reasons to take the easier way. It's such a bloody HUMAN way to be. My cup gets filled daily with mud, and i can be all zen like about having a cupful of mud as opposed to anything else, but it's still a cupful of mud, you know? And "here boss keep it" didn't go down too well last time. You have to smile, accept the mud and THEN figure out what the hell to do with it. Traffic, radio, people ... too many of the damned things round here, they keep getting in each other's way ... i digress. Too much mud, to be polite, and all you want is a cup of clear cold water.

We all have it, and we all have our way of expressing it, and dealing with it. My taoistic approach has been working well, the less i interfere the better stuff works. Crazy isn't it? But how to do nothing, and still produce quality? Not do nothing, but not initiating, accept what comes my way with an open mind. But there's this demon driving me lately, it's telling me to go out and accomplish something. I'm stuck between a fear of the possible implications, and a very real fear of failure. Just because haven't achieved anything before doesn't mean i've never tried. My personal most glorious moments were all accidental, and usually i was the only one who ever knew. You walk your path, and assume all things as afternoon rain.

Put it this way, i'm really hoping that my path includes a glorious victory for doing nothingness, in the form of many smiling people, and perhaps a career more suited to my abilities, outlined above (motorcyles and associated). Of course, i do not choose my path, i merely follow it ... :D

I made a zen garden, and my boy wants to make a sky lantern (if he survives the new skateboard, one of the with only 2 wheels, i ask you???). I've sorted through the family holiday photos, some will appear here soon, and wifey has painted many, many things in this last week. By wifey i mean the wife AND the entire family. My eldest daughter is embarking on high school, and more importantly, she's doing a home cooking course from a series of recipes courtesy of her granny. I'm looking forward to eating i mean watching that. The youngest is just herself, a stunning example of how to BE and how to be GOOD. I think that's the other reason i'm closer to the ideals lately, i have such an excellent example living with me. Always singing, asking, offering and smiling.

And it it like this that i wait for the sunrise. There will be a sunrise soon, a great big fire in the sky, just sitting there, and we're flying around it at thousands of kilometres per hour, spinning and wobbling the whole time. This universe is a freaking bizarre place.

I'm done, thanks for listening. As a small reward, please accept the following beautiful, if leeched photoshop item. I can say it was tumblr, but i don't have the exact addy, so i can't give proper credit. Give tumblr a browse, very visual, try onestonedcrow.tumblr.com for starters, he's gotfantastic images, with particular focus on alice, and the hookah smokin catapiller.

I'm having hell with this keyboard, so i apologise for all the typos.

peace and love

RIP Ziggy

I wasn't going to post anything, and certainly didn't imagine i'd post this.

Ziggy died on christmas morning, of what we understand was a viral infection. Apparently it can be inocculated against, but we didn't know about it. We were also told that there was nothing we could do. He died over a 5 day period, and while obviously not well, he didn't show too much discomfort, we medicated and cared for him as best we could. I summed it up quite well for wifey: he not feeling well, he knows we know he's not feeling well, he knows we're doing what we can.

Hard hearted me is more upset than i'd let on, wifey is taking it very hard, for various (complicated) reasons, and the kids have all been distracted, i think they'll realise it today (we were out all day yesterday).

They grey lourie is a beautiful bird, hated by hunters because it is such an effective sentry for all wildlife. Hunters call it the "go-away " bird for this. I'll never hear the distinctive "kwaaaa" again without pausing a moment, and remembering. Smart, affectionate, inquisitive, bold and more, a really interactive bird that caught the fancy of all who came to visit, especially children.

Back to the one ... a small spark of life gone back the all and is now what we breathe, think and live out forever more. Ziggy was a link, a living piece of puzzle that creates this world, and it's impossible to convey the depth of meaning this little bird generated in his short life.

I'll miss him, i do already.

Note

It's a rather ... particular time of year, with all manner of things clamouring for our attention; year ends, parties, family, christmas, shopping, holidays and all the other glitz of the season.

I'm seeing this time now as year end, and renewal ... hopefully, a resetting of the clock ... which clock i'm not sure, but i'm reliably told there is one. It's been a year full ... of everything really, highs and lows in abundance, speaking about it here now, i cannot even pinpoint anything and say THAT was the bad or good thing. It all just flowed through us in an unceasing wave of experience, bringing both the life giving water and the flotsam it carries.

I have to express my deepest gratitude to people this year. Thank you. Without the people who surround me i would have had a much more unpleasant year. Bringing advice, friendship, company, assistance, and all other things we shared. Even to my bloglist sites, those people who put something "out there" at their leasure for our enjoyment, thank you. To the people who touched my life, thank you too.

I would say the highlight was about 6pm on the day of the toyrun. My duties had been carried out successfully, and while the toyrun wasn't entirely over, my part was done, and 28 000 children received a small token of love from a stranger. That alone is reason to smile, and more reason to be grateful for that which you do have.

I went out last night for coffee with a friend, and coming home around 12 i'd missed a massive amount of rain, as evidenced by the volume of water on the roads. The skies were heavily overcast, but not in a grey foggy blanket, but with the almost full moon highlighting all the cracks in the clouds, all the linings that silver colour. Brilliant white lightning added to the sky's display of grandeur, and an immediate pulse of ... adrenalin? or pride? or even lust for life surged through me. Our thunderstorms, like life, are both beautiful and dangerous at the same time. How can we approach them both with the right respect, enthusiam, and zest as they deserve?

I have no fixed idea really, that part of me is still debating the "best" way for me, but caring is part of it, and loyalty to self a second part. Saying NO a lot helps too.

This year rendered all my plans and schemes to dust. I sit and reflect on what could easily have been, what i thought i would do and achieve, and what actually transpired. What emerged is a different set of circumstances and rules and goals and materials, but there's something still begging for release inside me. A seed that has germinated, but now needs soil to be planted in, and so can grow in real terms outside of me.

I don't think of one thing when i say that, what i mean is more ... i have to make an impact. Something i've been avoiding for too long. It's a hope, a goal (even though i hate that word) ... it's a direction. Walk in the direction of the rising sun for 365 days, and you shall find the answers to your questions. So the wise voice in my head tells me ... i think he's having me on.

Peace and love ... i keep saying it, and it risks becomg a bland excuse for saying nothing, but i mean it. Everytime i say it, i think about it, and try my best to mean it. Peace ... may your heart be at ease with the world, and Love ... may you know it, feel it, and share it with others.

peace and love

Whale and Petunias

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Thank you http://thisisnthappiness.com/

Metaphysics of Quality

i feel like the screen on Tetris, and i'm doing ok for now. All these strange shapes dropping into place and forming a picture of their own, utterly unique. The pieces are ideas, concepts and facts, all seemingly unconnected and seperate, but ultimately having to fit into some sort of picture. Of the universe, my world, of me and you and how we share this place and time ... all very ... abstract.

The problem itself is age old, you have science and you have art ... and as per current thinking you cannot have both. But they are inextricably linked? The human experience ... on opposing ends, the look at the same "object" and give a totally different interpretation ... the chair as it is ... or as we understand it to be?

Enter Mr Robert Pirsig, a man who i am more and more beliving to be a true "prophet" of our times. His stories are surreal, more dreamlike than most, but here is the curious thing, his "novels" are so close to his life as to be indistinguishable from history. There are several investigations that have been performed on the book Zen, and everything reported, sights sounds places and so on are completely true to life. This is noteworthy i think, in a world where fiction is preferred, to have someone diguise reality as fiction.

There's a terrible sense of URGENCY in his books, of sincerity that is very often misunderstood, for sarcasm perhaps. Reading Pirsig, i can't help but feel his burden for us all, he cares, and that care was called insanity at one point. Obviously he was ill, manic, but that same mania that he lived, he used as a basis for both his major works. And probably the LEAST "woe is me" attitude of any other writers who have spoken of their experience as mental inmates.

His battle cries are QUALITY and VALUE, 2 words we've most come to associate with "discount shopping" ... and yet what an unfortunate place for two such grand words? Almost makes it appear intentional ... a conspiracy against quality. It would be silly, if it were not for this great dilema before us, of the differences between here and there, subject and object, that pervade everything from our daily interactions to atomic sciences and beyond. The problem is that we picked a pair of glasses, which worked well as a magnifying glass, but now we cannot see further than our hands. But when you try point out that the glasses are faulty, you are shown the last 500 years worth of innovation as proof that the glasses are not faulty.

The second part of the problem is that the scientific world cannot even conceive of taking the glasses off, as they argue that will render them unable to continue the last 500 years worth of innovation. Of course, the many things that science cannot perceive with the glasses on is said to be worthless ... when clearly it is not.

There is a serious problem here, and one that to scientific reality in NOT solvable. However, scientific reality is bound within certain laws of the glasses. The glasses being more than anything, a means of communication ... seeing the secret of the universe is worthless unless you are able to logically describe it to others. At some point both science and art have to touch us, otherwise it's like watching mental masturbation. And when they are both touching us, they are touching each other, and that is when truth and beauty become one ... and it not only makes sense, but beautifully so.

Subjects, Objects, Data and Values
by Robert M Pirsig

Print it out ... it's hard to read, as it's a presentation more than a book, and the topics are quite deep. But it nails exactly where the problem lies, and alo i believe, how to fix it. Not like a roadmap, more like a compass really.

It's something i'm going to dig deeper into ... there's so much here. It's also sobering to contemplate exxactly how far behind our philosophy is. Einstein warned of this, where the science is not balanced by morals, or values. We have almost reached that ... where science has no relevance to us past "convenience" and gimmicks, and science itself has forgotten it's own value systems, in the days of GLOBAL WARMING, no CLIMATE CHANGE, no, CLIMATE DISRUPTIONS, no ... the real worlkd vs our silly ideas of it.

peace and love

Reality

I've been having the most surreal time lately. Real indeed, but almost like a postcard scene, almost too perfect. No complaints from me ... just a rather bewildered admission.

I have new bike tyres, what an awesome improvement!! And i managed to fix a problem i've had for over 2 years now. The spark plugs caps had cracked, and i was experiencing a "missfire" when opening throttle, it's been really annoying for years, suddenly fixed. The magic of knowledge.

I haven't posted much, just thoughts that creep into my mind and swirl the colours and patterns for a while, most relaxing. But the mental winds and tides still flow, sometimes stronger sometimes weaker, bringing all sorts of smells, sounds and sights to me. Always shifting the perspective, always re-evaluating past concepts and seeing if perhaps there's a [i]better[/i] view of all this.

Better ... such a flighty word, so loaded with expectations. And of course the inevitable [i]here[/i] that needs improvement. Reality is. Not much we can do to change it. But our consciousness isn't fixed, it's driftwood on the open seas, sometimes up, sometimes down, always moving, swirling rolling towards some distant shore.

My post earlier this week, "Back to reality" was a thoughtless heading, but strangely apt. And when i read an essay by Robert Pirsig on reality, and escaping therefrom, well it synched in many unexpected ways.

Cruising Blues and Their Cure
By Robert Pirsig, Esquire, May 1977

If this is so, then it follows that those who see sailing as an escape from reality have got their understanding of both sailing and reality completely backwards. Sailing is not an escape but a return to and a confrontation of a reality from which modern civilization is itself an escape. For centuries, man suffered from the reality of an earth that was too dark or too hot or too cold for his comfort, and to escape this he invented complex systems of lighting, heating and air conditioning. Sailing rejects these and returns to the old realities of dark and heat and cold. Modern civilization has found radio, TV, movies, nightclubs and a huge variety of mechanized entertainment to titillate our senses and help us escape from the apparent boredom of the earth and the sun and wind and stars. Sailing returns to these ancient realities.
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But we cannot live in the reality of planet earth anymore. We are bound to playing this charade of civilised life day in and day out. Among a people who believe rain is to be avoided at all costs, well you could hardly imagine it being "reality" any more than reality tv. But it IS real, every day you get up and ... things happen. My reality is fairly pleasant, mostly. But the problem is in the escape, where i wish to be elsewhere, doing something else, being something different too. Which is the escape, and which the reality?

Most of our 9-5 is escaping reality, facades for the office, inventing relationships for profit, and speaking of surreal concepts which nature, humanity, and me feel absolutely fuckall for. Reality. Return to. Just give me some of that old time reality, and i think i'll be ok. A snarling dog, a screeching car. And suddenly your brains screams LIFE!!! At all costs. Rain, wet and cool and fragrant ... a small flower, your child, beaming as she discovers some hitherto unknown insect.

So i'm going to keep on living a little ... looking for that QUALITY in life. Making dynamic decisions that embrace myself and my challenges in to one unbroken form.

I wish you a fantastic day!!!

Simply Be

The philosophy of Lao Tsu is simple: Accept what is in front of you without wanting the situation to be other than it is, Study the natural order of things and work with it rather than against it, for to try to change what is ..... only sets up resistance. Nature provides everything without requiring payment or thanks and also provides for all without discrimination — therefore let us present the same face to everyone and treat all men as equals, however they may behave. If we watch carefully, we will see that work proceeds more quickly and easily if we stop "trying," if we stop putting in so much extra effort, if we stop looking for results. In the clarity of a still and open mind, truth will be reflected. We will come to appreciate the original meaning of the word "understand," which means to stand under" We serve whatever or whoever stands before us, without any thought for ourselves. Te—which may be translated as “virtue” or "strength"—lies always In Tao, or "natural law." In other words: Simply be.

Create Culture

"We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you're giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is #-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world." — Terence McKenna

Worthless vaccines

Myths and Facts: Study Verifies That There Is No Value In Any Flu Vaccine

"...industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies..."

"...reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin..."

"...there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions..."

The authors found that vaccines administered parenterally, that is, outside the digestive tract, usually meaning by injection, reduced influenza-like symptoms by 4%. They found no evidence that vaccination prevents viral transmission! (There goes the whole herd immunity argument!) They also found no evidence that they prevent complications, either.

In spite of the limited reporting on adverse effects, the authors did find some, including 1.6 Guillain-Barré cases per million.

The question that must be asked is: How can influenza vaccinations be justified when there is virtually no benefit—not even the oft-cited dubious herd-immunity—and cases of severe harm are documented, in spite of disgustingly limited reporting of adverse effects?

It is long past time to end the travesty of jabbing adults and children without a shred of evidence showing real benefit in spite of trying to find it, and with evidence of crippling harm, in spite of trying to mask it.

Back to reality

Yes, i've been away from reality. 800 kilometres away in fact, on the Natal south coast. An absolute break from the everyday humdrum. All day to swim, read, walk on the beach, and very little else.

The kids were brilliant, well behaved and enthusiastic about everything, and my youngest got to see the sea for the first time ... it's really mind boggling when you see it from her young perspective.

Stopped in at my cousin pn the way home, haven't seen her for 20 years or so ... how easily we continued where we left off, even though i now had a whole family. She'd met the elder two, but not the youngest, her kids are all grown up now too. Unreal how fast life happens when you're not watching.

Got back to family, at the seaside, which is always a different set of peceptions. Different time frames, different space, different attitudes. Nothing fancy of course, just simple and clear cut.

I read a few books, and had a whole bunch of thinking nothing at all. I'm going to post some ideas and maybe some pictures here soon, keep an eye out for it!

Peace and love

Toyrun

It's over, thanks be. Months of work, phoning, organising, begging and some more creative thinking came to a climax on sunday. Numbers were down, attendance, gifts, money spent, all down on last year. Sign of the times i guess. No incidents though, save one poor bloke who tried to cross the bus lane ... it didn't work.

28 000 toys ... i cannot tell you how awesome it is to stand before it, and know that each toy will make a smile. Helluva lot of smiling kids. The whole event has a way of warping your sense of space and time. It's too big, too short, and WAY too busy when comparing with normal life. The noise, dust, heat and myriad sparkling pointa of chrome. The 20 trikes and trailers, headed up by santa himself ...

The volunteers, literally slaving away at intersections in the sun, waving and smiling at the passing metal. Nerds-on-site ... here's some free advertising. Their team got stuck in and worked. Helpful, friendly, resourceful. If you need some help with your computer "stuffs" ... give them a shout.

Just a few pictures here, we didn't get too many this year, i was too busy for a camera, although it would have been nice. The kaleidascope of colours shapes and spectacles is incredible! I'll try add some links as i find them, Think Bike has a few, and toyrun will have some up by december end i hope. Makro was also phenomenal in having toys available to puchase on site, and had really great prices.

I think that's it ... so much to say ... but much has already been said. I'll leave you with a few pics that caught my eye. Please, if you can, buy a toy, or a few, and just give it to some kid who won't get anything this year. I don't care where in the world you are, within 10km is a needy kid, show you care.







EDIT: So now i'm getting e-mails from some of the homes (already) with kids and toys ... and each one has a great big smile. I can't post these pics, legal reasons (underage in special care homes) but um ... first time i'm just about in tears.
THAT's why we do this. All becomes so simple. A kid, and a toy. What's so hard to understand?

Peace and love people.

Be that friend ...

Thank you Clock at Think Bike

Every year we gather at memorial runs to remember our friends and family members who have passed before us. It is God’s will.

But, it is NOT God’s will if we knowingly taunt our own mortality. We love speed, we love the feeling of the open road – but let it be the open road where we do not endanger others or ourselves.

We love a beer or two or three or more – but let us do it in an environment where we know we will be safe.

Let us all be the guardian angel of the other.

Let us not point fingers but use that hand with the pointing finger to grab and hold on to those who stray from reality. It is our responsibility, yours and mine! Educate our youngsters and let them know the dangers we face every day on our bikes.

Warn them about the cars that surround us. Educate them on the use of the all powerfull right hand on the throttle!

In a year, which is probably the worst we have seen in many years, we have lost too many of our fellow riders!

YOU must be the wind of change

One person cannot change a community’s behaviour or attitude – but one person, you and I, can make a difference – one person, one day at a time – and with time, we can make so many more people aware.

You can be the person who tomorrow can lays his hand on the shoulder of a friend and ask him or her to either sleep over or get a lift home – you can be the person who takes a walk around a friends bike and check the chain, or if the tire is worn, or to check if a nut is loose – SPEAK!!

You are the one who can speak to the motorist – wife, son, daughter, mother or father - and ask them to please use their indicators – or to wait those extra few seconds at an intersection. Many motorists misjudge the speed of an oncoming motorcycle.

You can be the one who speaks to the neighbour’s daughter or son on a scooter, those with shorts and takkies or mini-skirt – tell them what a roastie feels like – tell the father or mother what their child will look like if not dressed properly

Ask your friend to be more carefull with the girl on the back - fasten the helmet – wear the gloves and ride carefully – she is someone’s daughter or sister!

Speak to your child – and be the example – YOU make the decision – make the decision to just think!

You don’t have to be a public speaker, a politician or a millionaire to help a friend or family member to be safe – just care about them!

Help Think Bike to get the message out there – SPEAK WHEN IT IS NECESSARY AND BE THAT FRIEND!!

TSA

Can't even say i know offhand what those letters represent, in language. But in life they represent backscatter xrays and sexual assault.

One guy with time fucked them around so much they let him go. Curiously, they have no "rights" to do this, they are bullying people into it. But bullying is only the start, what follows is ... disturbing. Got nothing to do with terrorists, further than the people are terrorized? He who uses violence to instill fear is a terrorist. And the blame passing doesn't pass muster. It's the ay-rabs ... gawd-damned ay-rabs ruinin' our cuntry. So why are muslims exempt?

The following blog outlines some of the basic concerns, from a medical perspective. Anyones else noticing how many are dying from cancer lately? Or even "surviving" it?? Everyone, just about. It wasn't always a problem? Anyhow, this is what we know about these machines, as told to us by the suppliers:



http://myhelicaltryst.blogspot.com/2010/11/tsa-x-ray-backscatter-body-scanner.html

"Our overriding concern is the extent to which the safety of this scanning device has been adequately demonstrated. This can only be determined by a meeting of an impartial panel of experts that would include medical physicists and radiation biologists at which all of the available relevant data is reviewed."
"The X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray. However, this comparison is very misleading: both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest X-rays have much higher X-ray energies and the health consequences are appropriately understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight/vol, possibly by one to two orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high."
"In addition, it appears that real independent safety data do not exist."
"There is good reason to believe that these scanners will increase the risk of cancer to children and other vulnerable populations. We are unanimous in believing that the potential health consequences need to be rigorously studied before these scanners are adopted."
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And much, much more ...

EDIT: Transportation Security Administration (TSA)

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/30286

"Obama not only endorses the enhanced security screening, but the measures outlined in this directive to be taken in response to public objections.

For “any person, group or domestic alternative media source” that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel “disruptions” at U.S. airports (as defined above) in response to the enhanced security procedures, the [applicable DHS administrative branch] is instructed to identify and collect information about the persons or entities, and submit such information in the manner outlined [within this directive].

It would appear that the Department of Homeland Security is not only prepared to enforce the enhanced security procedures at airports, but is involved in gathering intelligence about those who don’t. They’re making a list and most certainly will be checking it twice. Meanwhile, legitimate threats to our air travel security (and they DO exist) seem to be taking a back seat to the larger threat of the multitude of non-criminal American citizens who object to having their Constitutional rights violated."

Something Nice

I have this overwhelmiong urge to post something, nice. But i got nothing to say ... *chuckle*

Nothing bad, just quiet, you know? It's going to be a hell of a week, toyrun is this weekend. I want it over now ... too much stress, too many variables, too many things that are now fixed. Bring it on, let's DO this thing.

I'm off to make last minute frantic phonecalls, settle the work, as i'm taking a few days off for this, and trying to keep sane meanwhile.

Peace and love peeps, have a groovy week.

Aha ... found it. Your happy thought for the day:

http://saphotographs.blogspot.com/

Added to blogroll under South African.

School killings

IOL

Soshanguve teachers are fearing for their lives after three gunmen stormed into a school, terrorising staff, in the wake of the deaths of three people in shootings the day before.
______________________________________________________________

I feel sick. And one (stupid) dead rich foreigner gets more media. Come to South Africa, it's really safe here. If you don't go to Gugulethu ... or school.

Why I Ride

Why I Ride
By: Bill Hicks

Riding along on my two wheel machine
the pavement takes from me the painful reprieve

Thoughts and fears leave my "brain cloudy" mind,
but only those that are worried or unkind

The sky expands my horizons, inner peace and compassion's
my soul rides beside me and intercepts all distractions

Reality is around me, but I have a cleansed mind to confront it
frustration is behind me, the foe that cloaked and compounded it

Please understand that this is my sanction
its not the chrome or image or acceleration

It's not an escape or a good place to hide
it's approaching Zen that makes me ride

If this touches close to why you must ride
you are my brother or sister in kind

And I hope to share a few miles or a friendly high sign
as we pass while I'm out "untanglin my mind"

The Kraken Wakes

The Kraken Wakes
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by men and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

I found the book by John Wyndham. I'm enthralled, but also just a little freaked out. Like with the cthulu stories, it digs so deep into the subconscious ... primal fears. Astounding story though, and the common sense attitudes of 50 years ago are a breath of fresh air.

As an aside, i discovered that my most famous ancestor was good friends with Lord Tennyson. A very strange affair, since my ancestor was a hymn writer.

Daily satmaps

I FOUND IT.

Been looking for this blasted page for yonks.

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/#Africa

Now what that does .... go lookee ;-)

:D :D :D

letter from the interwebs

Posted today ... ATS ... by scott ... in arizona ...

In the interwebs talk, i ROFLMAOLOLD


I hear ya MrWendal!

If they come - they come. If they blow - they blow! If we die - we die!

I have my guns, my ammo, my portable solar panel, my Berkey water filter, my iodine tablets, my MRE's, my dried beans and about 25 bottles of peanut butter (don't ask).

I feel more than prepared, and I really don't care anymore what happens or when. I realized that spending time with the ones I love was more important than worrying about impending doom or waiting for some advanced entity to save us all.

We are all on this ride - when it ends it ends. It is still fun to look everyday and see where this is all going. I admit - at times on here I have done some wacky posts just for fun. I have also been caught up in the specific event dates and have worried at times. But, my wife grounded me (thank God). So whatever comes our way is going to come our way - there is no stopping it - no predicting or channeling has ever helped anyone. It is always a minute -day to late.

So, I am going to enjoy my life - and look at this site everyday just to be entertained or - on occasion maybe have a leg up on what might come - or not. Like everyone else says - it is better to be informed and prepared than to be naive and oblivious.

Cheers -

Record

Much of what i say here is for purely personal record. Feel free to comment but i just need to get someting out there.

November the 6th 2010 is a day of great importance. I'm not sure why though. It's new moon, always nice, but it's the most energetic period in my memory. ENERGY. Plenty of it. I can't say good or bad, guess as ever both. But noteworthy anyway.

It feels like someone has just untied a balloon, and today the pressure is being released. That pressure is going to drive action. I can feel it. I was up last night reading online, ats and various news, info sources. For the first time in my knowledge, several totally differing sources agree on this period as having great influence, and i mean politically, financially, socially, astrologically too.

Almost like a kite, how high must one's mind climb to see above the smog of our day? And how thin is the string? And what happens when you get there, and realise that the view is awful. Sometimes.

Obaman is in India for the biggest weapons deal in history. Not only that, but to cement the US missile grid around the globe. More war, more terror for millions. It's being put into place right now. It's being sold as "jobs for the us and india".

It runs so deep, the conspiracy against us, the non-limits of their greed, it's almost impossible to pinpoint, since it's so pervasive. Tracing all it's myriad twistings probably makes you mad ... staring into the abyss. But today a light comes out of the abyss, a blinding light that has purpose, and menace. It will reveal the landscape to many many people who have been lost in darkness. But will bring much sorrow too. Especially.

It's not the end of the world, won't be for a while still. But i can hear a tiktok and the scratch of a spring as it winds down. Maybe it's just me, but it's getting louder.

So there you have it, stare into the abyss and you blabber on blogs.
peace and love ;-)

Photos

So i don't have photo's, here are a few thousand words to make up for it ....

No, not really. I was sick recently, stomach bug or something. A good equaliser i think. Back to: you're just an organism mate, eat, be eaten, and sometimes just be borrowed a bit. Without permission of course. I'd be happy if my son hadn't caught it next. Sometimes you feel guilty for something you had no control over, know what i mean?

The photo: So i get home early, and the kids go swim. So i fetch my youngest from the creche earlier than usual. Seeing she didn't join her siblings outside, i go looking. I was inside looking out the window, and i see my little girl playing in the mud. Yup, sand, water, sticks for digging and mixing, and a purposeful air reminiscent of a master alchemist. I was transfixed. To be four years old, and absolutely enthralled with mud, all alone and happy. I can't do that anymore!! ... neither can you ...

Stranger still to think that some parents discourage their kids playing in the mud ... i cannot conceive of the mental processes required to come to a conclusion like that? I willingly fetched water, but declined to dig more mud out for her ROFL!!

Had a long chat with my son about stuff too. Got a very perceptive brain that young boy. His conclusions are often startling, not only for accuracy, but also for out the box, his thinking hasn't been malformed yet, so you still get true naivity and sometimes obvious connections that you overlook.

My eldest daughter is a teenager now. I've moved her to the spare bathroom, where she can remain until passing university.

Hyperion

Saturn's weird moon, Hyperion, measures about 255 x 163 x 137 miles in diameter along its three axes. Because moons of this size usually have enough gravity to pull them into a spherical shape, astronomers suggest that it may be a fragment of a larger moon that was shattered by an impact.

The planet's odd shape prevents rotational locking, because the gravitational torques from Saturn and it's largest moon, Titan, tug at it unevenly. This results in a rotation that's impossible to predict. with The days that are never the same and Hyperion's north pole continually points to a different location in space.

Astronomers know the equation to predict the moon's rotational motion, but small uncertainties in measurements of the moon's initial location or velocity turn into large uncertainties over time.

Sedition

Time to be serious now, but here is something that has to receive attention. Make it viral, make people know. Arundhati Roy is a writer, a beautiful humanist who sees the pain in people, and conveys it with such grace, and empathy, you cannot but feel you have been tranplanted into her world. As painful as that would be.

Dear all of you,
I am sending this from Srinagar. This is my statement in response to the news that I may be arrested soon on charges of sedition. It would be lovely if the whole statement is carried— which is why I am not sending it to the wire services.
All the best
Arundhati

STATEMENT BY ARUNDHATI ROY

I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. This morning’s papers say that I may be arrested on charges of sedition for what I have said at recent public meetings on Kashmir. I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators have written and said for years. Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches will see that they were fundamentally a call for justice. I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state.

Yesterday I traveled to Shopian, the apple-town in South Kashmir which had remained closed for 47 days last year in protest against the brutal rape and murder of Asiya and Nilofer, the young women whose bodies were found in a shallow stream near their homes and whose murderers have still not been brought to justice. I met Shakeel, who is Nilofer’s husband and Asiya’s brother. We sat in a circle of people crazed with grief and anger who had lost hope that they would ever get ‘insaf’—justice—from India, and now believed that Azadi—freedom— was their only hope. I met young stone pelters who had been shot through their eyes. I traveled with a young man who told me how three of his friends, teenagers in Anantnag district, had been taken into custody and had their finger-nails pulled out as punishment for throwing stones.

In the papers some have accused me of giving ‘hate-speeches’, of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one. Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free.

Arundhati Roy

October 26 2010

(See more on the background HERE)

Bike porn

Since i have very little to say, i won't. Well, i do, but i'll stop. Soon.

Biker porn. Those images that stir your inner bits, and make you shout YES! at no-one in particular.

I present: The BALI DOG, courtesy of our old friends the DEUS EX motorcycle crowd.











If someone said i could have ONLY 1, i don't know which it would be. They're a set, i'll have one of each please. What i will say, is we need more of this, small bikes that turn your head. Not much to ask for?

PS: ok so the images don't fit perfectly, go see at the origional page at HELLFORLEATHER, they have specs and and and ....

The Fazer

I keep going on about how much i love my bike, among fazer owners, i'm not alone. But imagine my surprise and then wonderment to read the following article:

Reader test: Yamaha Fazer FZ-6S

Dries is a fantastic guy i've had the pleasure of working with a few times, his wife and son have been equally enthusiastic of biking, and doing it safely.

Go read the article, and leave a comment, this is the kind of article i'd like to see more of!

For more of Dries' work, see Tripper on my friends blogroll.

PS: Another set of bike reviews done by Dries can be seen here:
http://www.bikereviews.weebly.com/

Mars (series)

Ride the Machine

Evocative manga panels from Fuyumi Soryo's romantic series Mars.

Ex Unitate Vires

From unity, strength. Most here should recognise it instinctively, and understand the basic truth it represents. Sadly, it's an idea that is completely absent in our society today. There is no unity, and there certainly isn't any strength.

In my own sphere of biking, i look at bikers, in south africa, as a group, a very small demographic of people. As soon as you begin to speak with people across the biking spectrum, you realise that there are many differences. You have the patch wearers, your average guys and girls who love biking, and the biking lifestyle. Then you have the scooterists, those who ride because it's cheaper than a car. Then you have the rich boys, race bikes and full leathers, who ride around on sundays to make up for their weekday traffic. You have the adventure riders, who use bikes as a means of holiday, who really prefer to be offroad. You have the offroaders, who don't ride on road, only on dirt tracks and veld. Then you have guys like me, just commuters, who prefer the freedom of movement a bike offers in the urban chaos, without any club affiliation.

Now these groups are all unique and fantastic in their own right, and we all have the 2 wheeled thing in common, something certainly more binding than many other groups today. The problem is that while we should be a tightly kit community who understand that we have more in common than not, we're not. Half the bikers will not even deign to speak to the other half, and you can divide that half any way you can imagine. On every level, you have people who feel that they stand out, and should stand out, no matter the detriment to anyone. In the vclubs, each club and each club president is struggling to be the biggest peanut in the packet, each group feels superior to the rest, and any negotiations are a direct assault on their superiority.

Why is this? It's a unnatural bent towards the self destructiveness that is so prevalent in society. Cagers hate bikers, bikers hate cagers, and everyone hates cyclists. Now i as all of the above can understand each unique perspective, and no-one is wrong in the whole. Bikers are lawless gangsters, cagers are brain dead morons, cyclists are lemmings and pedestrians are a deadly nuisance.

But: bikers are free, cagers are safe, cyclists are social, and peds are simple. Ups and downs in all of these. Why then the enmity between us all? I have been told a similar situation exists across all spheres, both serious and fun. It was pointed out as a "white south african" problem, something sadly very telling, but not entirely accurate. It's a WESTERN problem. We have been so indoctrinated into "group think", it's impossible to think outside this artificially created social reality.

I think of all the sadnesses we as a country have endured in the past few decades, none has been so galling as the blind obeysance paid by our dear leader to the bitch the queen. Hey zuma, your grovelling to the empire disrespected every single boer and black death against the empire. You fight the boers with every last breath but bow to the common enemy. They won, with their monetary social classifications, and egotistical selfishness, they have conquered by fraud what they could never win in battle, save by scorched earth.

And we, poor stupid mass of mankind, follow these rules and precepts unflinchingly. Perpetuating the stupid, in and amongst ourselves. Are people truly this blind? Yes. overwhelmingly yes. And these are the educated among us, the affluent, how much poor the poor man, so dependant on the good will of his neighbours for his health.

It doesn't have to be this way. It really doesn't. I see examples every single day where it is not so. In the office, old white guy and a young black girl, the old black driver and the white ladies who do support. They're all just people, they get along because, there's no reason not to. Myself, a bad christian, and Terri, a good pagan, we see through this stupid facade of society, deeper. That in fact, we are one. Not only with each other, but with the earth, the sky, the birds, and plants, everything. When you consider how much you have in common with a plant, differences between modes of transportation in an industrial society really are negligent.

But people can't see the similarities between each other, nor rejoice in the differences. I see this all so clearly, yet stand helplessly by as my entreaties towards unity are brushed aside with many variations of the same "we're unique, leave us out thanks."

I cultivate being different, how i despise the arrogant uniformity around me. But it's an attitude that needs constant attention, for as soon as anyone does step out from the mould, it's instantly recognisable and laudable. It also requires a constant re-evaluation of your beliefs, understandings and fears. Perhaps i am wrong in many things, but in this i know i am right. We are one. Really. The fact that many don't have this understanding is the cause of most of the world's unhappiness. One does not mean "alike", it means we are different. An amorphous blob is nothing compared to the intracacies of the human body, with it's various systems, specialised cells, and many chemicals.

Why then is society an amorphous blob, not so much colourless as grey, like when you throw all the colours together, making a dirty mud colour. When we have so many colours to start with, why are we making such an ugly mess?

The Legend

http://www.thecommutingmotorcyclist.co.za/

The Legend

He apologises for not writing for the past 4 months. But he's here now.

He asks if you guys ould leave a comment as he says it has been very lonely on his side of the fence.

Up! Ride with the Kelpie

Kelpie

There was a warm wind with the high tide
on the south of the hill.
When a young girl went a-walking
and I followed with a will.
``Good day to you, my fine young lady
with your lips so sweetly full.
May I help you comb your long hair ---
sweep it from that brow so cool?''

Up, ride with the kelpie.
I'll steal your soul to the deep.
If you don't ride with me while the devil's free
I'll ride with somebody else.

Well I'm a man when I'm feeling
the urge to step ashore.
So I may charm you --- not alarm you.
Tell you all fine things, and more.

Up, ride with the kelpie.
I'll steal your soul to the deep.
If you don't ride with me while the devil's free
I'll ride with somebody else.

Say goodbye to all your dear kin ---
for they hate to see you go
in your young prime, to this place of mine
in the still loch far below.

Up, ride with the kelpie.
I'll steal your soul to the deep.
If you don't ride with me while the devil's free
I'll ride with somebody else.

Thank you Jethro Tull

A Kelpie is a ... see here.

Crash

So the wifey just called to say she's been rear-ended. Taxi pulled out, wife braked, monkey didn't. So taxi, who caused the accident riders away, and we get left with the costs. I would also guess said monkey was on the phone, but what would that help?

This is just a small reason why this "life" we all seem to think so highly of is a crock of shit. Months from now i'm still going to be paying excess for the illegal and stupid actions of others. So typically south africa.

At least no-one got hurt.

UPDATE: the sticker on the bumper was scratched, basically. The other driver had to be towed away?
Wifey has a sore back, and neck, but not dangerously so. Nothing a rub can't help.
What an odd event.
peace

UPDATE2: ok so i was wrong. again. Nothing a neck brace for a few weeks can't sort out. Pinched nerve :/
I hope she gets well soon.

Sunday, bloody Sunday

I go along to this "biker teddy ride" on at the local mall. It was to be used as a "dry run" for the Toyrun. I'm shocked. The happy plonker who ran with it, guy by the name of Tiaan from Caxton newspapers, should be taken out and shot. Where do you get off making an event like this, and NOT having marshalls organised?
What the FUCK when i come to talk to you (after you don't return my calls) and immediately start talking about how you don't have enough badges? And seriously, if you advertise something like free food and discounts, then you bloody well ensure they are provided.
Not least of which, if you want to "organise" this kind of event, the least you can freaking do is be there on time. As usual, i'm ashamed to be a biker.

Fortunately, thanks to the CMA marshalls were provided, and it was quite cute listening to them talk about route a full 15 minutes after we were supposed to ride.

Nobody died, for which we should all be grateful.

Then i get dragged along to the barnyard theatre in broadacres. For a 70's show. Right. So i figured the parking lot would be more pleasant, where i befriended a fountain. But seriously, that's the one thing about going out somewhere in this mine dump ... you remember in painful clarity why you don't go out somewhere in this minedump.

Saturday was great ... i made a bird feeder, fixed ... something else, metal i think (?) and got busy with fixing a drawer. Oh yes, the leaking geyser. Bought some really fancy stuff, to seal the pipe joins, that didn't work. So tonight (hopefully) clean up the gunk off the pipes, and use silicon, i know how that stuff works!!

Then i had sunday, ah well, thank the gods a whole 5 days before weekend again.

Meet Ziggy

Ziggy is my friend. As you can see, Ziggy is a Grey Lourie, very common around here. Ziggy is the most sociable grey lourie in the world.



Ziggy is king of the ... well everything ...



He's almost a year old now, rescued as a chick after being cat prey, hand reared by some friends who have moved on. He spends most of his day in his cage, but evenings he is let out, and he'll fly around the house investigating us, and looking for any bits to eat. Apples are his staple, but almost anything gets tried. Toast is a surprising favourite, and leaves.

The importance of living .... reprise

Would you do me a favor? Find an easy chair, or better yet, go outside to a secluded spot and read this essay at your leisure.*

*The art of letting go ...

I've spoken of Lin Yutang before, and here i found a wonderful short essay by someone else on the book: The Importance of Living, by Lin Yutang, and some of the ... less popular of his outlooks. Go read it first, at leasure, here's a favourite part though:

"Life in the West, according to Lin, is "too complex, too serious, too somber, and too involved." He would agree with Henry David Thoreau: "Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify." Following Taoist philosophy, Lin warned against "over doing, over achieving, over action . . . of being too prominent, too useful, and too serviceable." The "perfectly square" house, the "perfectly clean" room, and the "perfectly straight" road rankle in him. He goes on to say, "O wise humanity, terribly wise humanity! How inscrutable is the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a living and forget to play!"

There's a thread, woven through our thinking, that stays the same no matter where it's found. It's a frail thread of sanity, of human human-ness and the triumph of mankind. Common sense, perhaps, but even that differs from culture to culture. It's a wisdom, that ultimately we are all doomed, our works and efforts like smoke on a windy day. And yet we are forced to smile at the sunrise, and make the most of our smoke break. Not in an industrious way, but a harmonious one, taking and giving in an endless flow, from the sunlight to the garden to the children playing in the water. Taking and giving. Communion with all around.

I don't like taking. It's a problem i have. And i give too cautiously, always wary for tricks and consequences. I block the flow. Admission for the day, late as it is.

I have the fortune of knowing what i ought to do ... and the intent to do it. What i lack is the strength, i guess. It takes a strong man to be calm, and himself, and in control of himself, in the daily whirlwind. To stand outside "society" and it's silly precepts, and yet to function within as part of it. For it is opposite to everything sane, and human, this ultra sane and ultra human world we have created.

I marvel at the motorcar, this creation which is utterly ours, it is designed entirely around the human form, it's needs and comforts. Yet how utterly inhumane it makes us? From the morning traffic to late night accidents, what has it given us but long commutes, death and disassociation from each other? Cell phones would be the next logical target. Given us so that we may "communicate" with each other, it's doing everything BUT. People wandering around in a daze consumed by the contents of their magic box. Speaking to everyone in the whole world except those in closest proximity to them.

These 2 are the most obvious examples, but starting from when you wake to an electronic NOISE to when you try ignore the night time traffic for some blessed sleep, the entire daily life we lead is working against our best interests.

To switch off the phone, ignore the metal metal madness outside, and to enjoy being who and where you are is a skill i am only just learning to enjoy. But i never can relax, not truly. I'm still connected to the machine. Plugged in. Hard wired. Dependant.

You cannot fight the machine, you can only let go it's hold over you. That hold begins in the mind, and is the only place you'll ever truly escape it. But that alone is cause for celebration!

Somali law

Please don't snigger yet. I found this most interesting article that defies the conventional view of Somalia, not as an anarchic wasteland, but a highly structured and traditional society. The basis of the countries laws are tribal, and unless you belong to a tribe, you do not exist. Hence killing a tourist has zero implications.

I quote:
Nevertheless, since 1991, the United Nations has made efforts to promote the establishment of a democratic government in Somalia. Van Notten strongly argues that such government is incompatible with the Somali customary law, which prizes life, liberty, and property. He asserts that democracy is not even a viable option:

"When the electorate is composed of close-knit tribal, religious, linguistic or ethnic communities, the people invariably vote, not on the merits of any issue, but for the party of their own community. The community with the greatest numbers wins the election, and the minority parties then put rebellion and secession at the top of their political agenda. That is nothing but a recipe for chaos." (van Notten, 127; 2005)

Questions arise as to rampageous warlords when discussing a country without a central government. Van Notten explains that warlords exist because of the efforts to form a central government, not because of its absence:

"A democratic government has every power to exert dominion over people. To fend off the possibility of being dominated, each clan tries to capture the power of that government before it can become a threat. Those clans that didn't share in the spoils of political power would realize their chances of becoming part of the ruling alliance were nil. Therefore, they would rebel and try to secede. That would prompt the ruling clans to use every means to suppress these centrifugal forces… in the end all clans would fight with one another." (van Notten, 136; 2005)

A very interesting look at what we could get soon, once the central government fails then we are indeed left to our own "clans" .. be they blood, belief or geography, that will cause us to form new social groupings.

I've joined the local blockwatch, and what i've seen so far is phenomenal, how in the total obsence of effective policing, people take over, and do what needs to be done.

Beauty will save the world.

Dostoyevsky once let drop the enigmatic phrase: “Beauty will save the world.” What does this mean? For a long time it used to seem to me that this was a mere phrase. Just how could such a thing be possible? When had it ever happened in the bloodthirsty course of history that beauty had saved anyone from anything? Beauty had provided embellishment certainly, given uplift—but whom had it ever saved?


However, there is a special quality in the essence of beauty, a special quality in the status of art: the conviction carried by a genuine work of art is absolutely indisputable and tames even the strongly opposed heart. One can construct a political speech, an assertive journalistic polemic, a program for organizing society, a philosophical system, so that in appearance it is smooth, well structured, and yet it is built upon a mistake, a lie; and the hidden element, the distortion, will not immediately become visible. And a speech, or a journalistic essay, or a program in rebuttal, or a different philosophical structure can be counterposed to the first—and it will seem just as well constructed and as smooth, and everything will seem to fit. And therefore one has faith in them—yet one has no faith.

It is vain to affirm that which the heart does not confirm. In contrast, a work of art bears within itself its own confirmation: concepts which are manufactured out of whole cloth or overstrained will not stand up to being tested in images, will somehow fall apart and turn out to be sickly and pallid and convincing to no one. Works steeped in truth and presenting it to us vividly alive will take hold of us, will attract us to themselves with great power- and no one, ever, even in a later age, will presume to negate them. And so perhaps that old trinity of Truth and Good and Beauty is not just the formal outworn formula it used to seem to us during our heady, materialistic youth. If the crests of these three trees join together, as the investigators and explorers used to affirm, and if the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light—yet perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar up to that very place and in this way perform the work of all three.

And in that case it was not a slip of the tongue for Dostoyevsky to say that “Beauty will save the world,” but a prophecy. After all, he was given the gift of seeing much, he was extraordinarily illumined.

Excerpted from Beauty Will Save the World: The Nobel Lecture on Literature by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Link

Say something

I noticed that i hadn't posted much in the last week. Sort of surprised me, not sure i have anything to say, or whether i should say anything at all. Like a book, you open it and expect there to be text ... you open the blog and expect there to be a new post, assumptions.

So i'm here saying something. I had no idea what i was going to say, until a few moments ago, and frankly, there's no way i could not post this :D

ONLINE PIRACY IS BAD yadda yadda ... But how is it that lawyers can break the law and nobody complains?

Then i found the Piece de resistance ... Anti Piracy gets nailed Wooyaa!!

More intruiging than the articles are the myriad comments following. My favourite quote of the lot:

“We are anonymous, we don’t forget, we don’t forgive. We are legion.”

We need anonymous. Desperately. We need the freedom to stand up and say what we want, WITHOUT reprisals for doing so. I use this blog because so far it is the most ... convenient way to say what i want. Until some lawyers decides he can extort money out of me, because well, he thinks he can. Criminal scum, that's what they are. ALWAYS. I mean, where do politicians come from you think? And if you have any doubt of my comments, these same lawyers then went on to open their entire email archives to the world, WHERIN there was much inside for an average person to get MURDEROUS over. Like attitude.

Anyhow ... Long live anonymous!!

Toyrun GP 2010 Press release

ANNUAL TOY RUN GROWS TO INCLUDE CARS AND BICYCLES

The annual Gauteng Toy Run, which was established 28 years ago, will spread its wings this year to include cars and bicycles as well as motorcycles and will now take place over two days – November 27 and 28 – instead of only on the Sunday.
A 35km training run for cyclists will take place from 07:30 on the Saturday and car enthusiast clubs will deliver toys to the MTN Expo Centre, Nasrec, between 10:00 and 15:00. The traditional mass motorcycle ride will take place from various starting points in the province to the Expo Centre on the Sunday morning.
“We are delighted at the big increase in interest in the Toy Run in Gauteng this year and the fact that we will have even more toys and educational equipment to distribute to underprivileged children,” said an executive of the organisers, the Motorcycle Toy Run Company, Graeme Cartwright.
The first Toy Run was staged in Johannesburg in 1982 by the Italian Motorcycle Club in an effort to uplift the image of motorcyclists by encouraging them to help underprivileged children. Since then the Toy Run has gone national and an estimated 70 000 motorcyclists take part in mass rides to more than 25 locations around the country on the last Sunday of November each year.
More than 40 000 motorcyclists are expected to take part in the Johannesburg event, starting out from seven different venues around the city between 08:45 and 10:00 and riding to the MTN Expo Centre. They will use the N3 and N1 highways and will provide an amazing spectacle for onlookers.
This year the SAPS Widows’ and Orphans’ Fund will be arranging entertainment to raise funds for recently orphaned children who have lost a police officer parent who died in the course of duty. Besides live entertainment there will be stalls selling a variety of goods and full catering will be available on the site. Additional entertainment this year will include drifting demonstrations, helicopter flips and displays of classic cars and motorcycles, with more attractions still being finalised.
Families who come to the MTN Expo Centre by car will have secure parking areas and they will also be directed on separate routes to the venue so will not be caught up in the mass ride of motorcycles.
In addition there will be a separate event for off-road motorcyclists at Dirt Bronco’s near Krugersdorp on the same day, with more than 3 000 motorcycles and quads expected to participate.
No entry fee is charged provided each motorcyclist, car driver or cyclist brings an educational pack or toy. (A selection of gifts and educational packs will be on sale at the entrance with the cooperation of Makro). Gifts are required for children from babies to 18 years-of age, with preference for educational packs, while toiletries will also be welcomed by the older children.
The items collected in Johannesburg – the target this year is more than 50 000 items – will be distributed to worthy welfare organisation by service clubs such as Rotary, Lions, Round Table, Ladies Circle, Rotary Annes and Rotaract, as well as the Salvation Army.
“We are looking to a record turn-out this year as we aim to make World Cup year a very special time for the underprivileged children we will be able to provide with gifts during the festive season,” concluded Graeme Cartwright.

Greek wisdom

Isocrates:

“Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.”

I'm also putting together some Rene Guenon quotes, brilliant writer along simliar lines. Why is it so hard for the westerner to see his faults, which lie so open to everyone else?

Eclipse

Fuck yeah

Update

Just me, here, still. Last week was a nightmare, i had a car to repair that wouldn't. Fortunately, i have friends. 2 of them arrived saturday afternoon and proceeded to make me look stupid. However, since the car is now running, and the wife is now happy, i can look stupid to anyone who asks.

So the stress is over, and my body and mind can start healing. Of all that i learned between metal and flesh, it was my skin and body that was really astounding. The blood and oil mixed freely, but the body heals itself. The metal needs to be beaten into submission, and any scars left stay. My fingers were phenomenal, often proving to be the best possible tools for getting into obscure corners and applying force. Really wonderful little tools my fingers are. Once they heal from all the nicks and scratches i'll feel even happier.

As has happened before, i tackled what was supposed to be a straightforward job. Remove bits, open box, replace inners, close box, replace bits, drive. HA! They lied with pretty pictures. There is no WAY to do this job without removing half the front end, selling your soul for all the odd shaped tools, and having at least 2 people on hand to put bits back. And patience. Lotsa patience.

I've also discovered my absolute favourite thing to do in the garage: clean tools after the job has been completed. There's an absolutely amazing feeling in cleaning the tools all nice and shiny, but especially when the stress is over, and the car is running better than before. That's my zen feeling for the day, total bliss and knowledge that the world is ok again. Did i mention how stressed i was over this?

Back to work, and the daily grind. This morning's ride was a mixture of flying and riding really fast ... like i had wings on. Traffic was the usual pathetic misery and fustration, for the cagers, shame, poor little fools. Perhaps one day they will understand how they are wasting their life and energy for nothing.

The other nice news was that i will actually have a holiday this year. First time in .... many years. So, if i make year end, it'll be a good one :)

peace and love

One Stoned Crow

I've made a new online friend, One Stoned Crow. First i found the blog, then i found the photo's ... and now i can't wait for more.

http://onestonedcrow.blogspot.com/

http://onestonedcrow.tumblr.com/

Some guy staying in Namibia, seems to travel a bit, lots of pictures from that side of the world, as well as other interesting bits and bobs.

Highly recommended reading for getting out the city. My favourite picture from him so far is this one:


peace

Stoned

From.

That round house

Tinyhouseblog.com

The house cost £3,000 (about $4,700) to build and is located on the edge of a wider sustainable eco-village. It’s about 6.5 meters (21 feet) wide. Tony and Jane try to get 70% of what they need from the land. They grow their own food, make wine from local berries, use a composting toilet, collect downed wood to make woodcrafts which they sell, and their water is piped from a mountain source and heated by a woodstove. Electricity comes from three photovoltaic panels on the roof and a small (200w) wind turbine situated about 70 yards away in a field. For cooking they use an old gas caravan cooker, the woodstove and a dutch oven. Guests sleep in another roundhouse called “the Den” nearby. They live on several hundred pounds a month and have no bills.

“We are not going to survive in these numbers for the next few hundred years – people will have to live a lot simpler.” -Tony Wrench

Floodland

Johannesburg - Residents of the Witwatersrand may in future experience more and bigger earthquakes due to water rising underground in mined-out basins.

It is unclear what will happen in reality, but the possibility exists that earthquakes will occur more regularly in Johannesburg and that some of them could register up to 5 on the Richter scale, said Olaf Goldbach, a geophysicist at the CSIR.

Also we covered this before:
Millions of litres of highly acidic mine water is rising up under Johannesburg and, if left unchecked, could spill out into its streets some 18 months from now, Parliament's water affairs
portfolio committee heard on Wednesday.

The acid water is currently about 600 metres below the city's surface, but is rising at a rate of between 0,6 and 0,9 metres a day,
___________________________________________________________________

Now aside from going under, were going to do an impression of a washing machine while we're at it.

An earthquake hitting 5 on the Richter scale is not to be sneezed at, we'll see a lot of side effects from all the badly built townhouses. Gonna be fun.

Freedom

"Freedom! To fill people's mailboxes, eyes, ears and brains with commercial rubbish against their will, television programs that are impossible to watch with a sense of coherence. Freedom! To force information on people, taking no account of their right not to accept it or their right of peace of mind. Freedom! To spit in the eyes and souls of passersby with advertisements."
— Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Bikers

What is up with bikers in south africa? Aside from the fact that they're mostly just average joes, they also happen to have the survival skills of fresh roadkill.

They are all coming out the woodwork now, with the cool mornings and dry air perfect for riding bikes. It's good to see all these bikes on the road, it's going to go a long towards fixing some of our many road problems. But, the more riders there are, the less friendly they seem to be (?). They also don't seem to consider other bikers, with everyone just doing their own thing. Very cager attitudes, not cool. For starters, we use 1 lane, between the right and middlae lanes. NOT all the lanes available. We don't use the yellow lanes either, apart from being where all the rubble sits, i do not want the pigs taking an interest in my route thank you very much.

It's all about SAFEST, has to be about safest. And part of that is working together to train motorists, where we'll be, and so on. Even if the slow lane is empty and you can go fast there, don't. You want to be in the same lane, always. It makes you safer.

At a meeting last night, representatives of a safety organisation were sitting potting back beers and quite a healthy rate, guarenteed over any legal limits. Have they no shame? Surely if you are represnting a SAFETY ORGANISATION you put on the "safety hat"? Let's not be hypocritical, but surely common decency would dictate that?

We are reaching critical mass in jhb with bikers, it's going to explode any day now. And nobody is prepared for it, not the dealers, not the govt, not the cagers, and least of all the bikers themselves. Think Bike has failed it's mandate rather pathetically, with nothing else in place to replace that. Again the dealers and clubs have no interest in biking safety at large, the demand is there, but not the profits. So every one sits around lamenting the dearly departed.

I'm working on some ideas to try fix some of it, but it's only me, and my good friends. Any and all ideas are welcome, but step 1 is find them, and hopefully help them switch on the safety light in their head.

1984

I watched the movie. OMG.

Just .. watch it. It's stark, brilliantly done, brings home the awful reality of it.

Thoughtcrime.

And how people will enslave themselves. How it's being done. Mindfuck movie of note.

I got the text and the movie, lemme know i'll get it to ya.

And i updated "the the debate begin" from a few posts back, dreamfoundary is a great site, keep an eye on it. But hitler et al, history repeats itself. Repeatedly. And there's thing thing where people get caught up in it, like, they think themselves or their ideas to be IT. And people follow. Fear and love, all over again. My colleague plays happy faces with julie, black up and coming young idiot. What to do? How to show the folly? We, kids and me, going to watch animal farm next, i am MUCH looking forward ;-)

Staying human. It's more important than staying alive. - George Orwell, thank you.

Mind unclouded

So after my earlier unburdening, i stumbled across this astounding blog.

http://www.mindunclouded.blogspot.com/

I would recommend you read in order:

Part 1
Part 2

False Shepherds: The Spiritually Inept Leading the Masses

Part of the problem of dealing with new age ideas is being able to deconstruct the disinformation. I am a christian, yet i cannot move without some or other misguided "Christian" label being applied. To show how wrong and misguided i am. In fact, almost any religion suffers the same fate at the hands of gods of the new age, that is, ourselves.

Here is an excellent look at a handful of of new age leaders, and exactly why they are misleading people en masse. A few ideas in common with all of them, such as you are God, you create reality, and that will be $100 please. The crux comes when you consider a half truth as a lie, since all of these leaders appear on the surface to have a new way to achieve happiness/etc, extolling a method by which you can escape the drudgery of your existance. (as an aside, isn't it wonderful how it is assumed you're a miserable worthless wreck ???[who needs to be saved!!])

What all of our current social fashions encourage, is personal egotism, and loss of all traditional values, including the existance of any and all "gods". It may seem a semantic, but there is a vast difference between enjoying creation AS a creation of God, and seeing it as God. It is only the gift, not truly representative of the giver. Only an insight, perhaps.

Why does society wish me to have affairs, climb the corporate ladder (at the expense of my family), have a divorce when things are no longer "happy", and even encourage my kids to have "safe sex". These things all have a common goal: to remove me as far as possible from my family, the health of which is my EXPLICIT responsibility, and away from God, our creators goal for us being here.

Again, the christian view sounds archaic, childlike, misguided perhaps. But why oh why in the midst of this chaos and pain around me, would i embrace it, sure that only more misery would follow???

Surely if you are lost, you try retrace your steps, to a place where you were surer of things? Haring further off into a direction you KNOW has led you astray so far is not only dangerous, but entirely illogical. Yet that is what is being asked of us all. The further we get from God, the more we place ourselves at centre. The more we place ourselves at centre, the more dysfunctional our world becomes. So the answer that is given us, in this dysfunctional time? Make yourself God, that'll fix it!!

And it's hard to see through this. Because we are so almost God it's frightening. Yet we are NOT God, we are man. Rather pathetic man in these days. So far from anything like we could, should be. No great minds and hearts in our age, only petty people living petty meaningless lives of gossip and shiny things.

To return to the source, not build our own brave new world. There's a novel idea?

Strikes

So this is getting worse and worse. Now even the soldiers are threatening to strike.

And all the white people rage against cosatu and teachers and nurses and the government, declaring it all wrong. Good for you. Sit in your ivory towers and throw cake at the masses. Stupid bloody bourgeoisie. Really stupid.

Let's be clear, the violence and intimidation and all that is bloody bestial, the only upside is the amount of rubber the cops are apparently using. Me, i'd rather have steel, make room for those who actually want to work. But this isn't about work, nor about salaries either. It's about expenses, and quality of life. And it's also about war. War of the elitist anc gang bosses, against everyone else. Remember: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The soon to be silent media has been vocal on a number of issues, like how truly screwed the matrics are. But that is the icing on the cake, and doesn't even begin to delve into the deeper issues at play here.

1. Many, if not most teachers do not support the strike. I would assume the same for nurses. Direct threats have been made against several schools that i know of, i would guess all. You cannot just make a phone threat against the school, the police can and will trace the numebr, and you will be arrested (a mate of mine got nailed once for trying to get a day off school). So how is it that every school in the country can get a threatening phone call, and nobody knows where it came from?
2. There is a concerted effort towards the intimidation and closure of every single school, with what appears to include scouts, communication, and teams of demonstrators who are ferried to schools where there is activity. The violence at schools, and again i infer hospitals too, is not being done (in all cases) by those who work there)but imported agent provocateurs and paid saboteurs.
3. These strikers are ANC voters. I cannot stress the importance of that enough. This is africa's shame, when the vote comes they'll vote anc, but they hate what the anc is doing to the coutry, but they vote it anyway. The anc cannot control it's own AGM's lately, never mind the angry workers.
4. This is not about teachers and nurses. It's about the tripartite alliance being torn to shreds by the ANC, who presumably think they will gain in some way from this. This is the far left rising against their supposed ally, who has done nothing but snub them since 94. 16 years it's taken for them to wake up, but now they are awake to the reality. The ANC fucked them over for votes. Pure and simple.
5. This is not about income. Most teachers earn more than i do (rightly so) and i am able to support a family and we're doing ok. This is about EXPENSES. You cannot talk about earnings when whatever number you name can be instantly halved by taxes. Then there is VAT, fuel taxes, emessions taxes, sin taxes, on everything. People who are earning a reasonable salary are not making ends meet, and THAT is the problem here.

If i earn R10 000 pm, at least 25% goes directly to taxes. For that, i will receive nothing but bad press about the government. There is no progress, i cannot sleep easy knowing that my taxes have installed water in some godforsaken location, because it hasn't. It should have, perhaps, but instead it's gone to ancyl leaders who have used it to buy supercars to drive around in the townships. And to everfeed the spawn of the elite families, look at zuma and co, all grossly overfed and over pampered in a hungry country. It is now going into a war against knowledge with the media bills, as bad if not worse than apartheid, and now we are going to waste BILLIONS bringing back the dead terrorists from all over north africa??

Look after the living, the dead can look after themselves.

This is what the problem is. SO many problems, and none of them being addressed. Those who are well paid to address these problems have become frightfully efficient at denials and obfuscations. Too busy setting up another slush fund to care about the pain that exists every day.

On a smaller level, the highways are the same story. People sit in 2 hour traffic to get to work, because of the inastallation of toll booths that will give nothing to the people who use that road. Where is the sense in this? It will only allow a few rich men to become richer, at the expense of everyone else in this country.

It is because we have forgotten God. That is why these things have happened. When we remember God, we remember others. When we forget God, we assume His place in our lives, living selfish, greedy, and essentially worthless existances.

(to pagans, muslims, jews, and other wierdos, i still love all of you. whether i think you are right or wrong is second to the fact that you have respect for God (ess/(s), and thus yourselves, and thus others around you. Keep your faith strong, and believe in love)

... i think i got that last bit right?

peace and love