Went to see the vigil at the former Jackson house in Gary on Friday, the saddest sack of shit this side of Pine Ridge. The town with a literal facade. Two blocks of nice looking convention center facing the South Shore line and the Indiana Tollway. Step into the downtown and you'll quickly notice the lack of a shop that isn't boarded up for six blocks. Liz told me to be careful via text and I promised her I would be back to the city by dark. This was a half truth. Crumbling apartment buildings, vacant lots that haven't been mowed in years, some with footpaths tempting the suicidal into the brush.
A man named Big Sweat drove me the last mile or so to the place in exchange for seven dollars and than twelve. I think it was the mild hustle that innoculated me from getting more seriously jacked. I had three hundred dollars in my pocket. Don't ask me why. It's okay to let the world know now.
All the marquees and electronic sings proclaimed Gary's love for Mike Jack. The Jackson family got the hell out of course as soon as the Motown checks allowed them to, and they are of course the only people from the place to ever strike it rich in any way. Sad doesn't begin to describe. They still have the signs up celebrating the town's 2006 centenial. Mayor Rudy Clay sprays his name and acheivements about the place more shamelessly than a Kim, and of course the city still boasts loudly about being of the fuck-ugly U.S. steel plant along the lakefront. The same U.S. steel that went moribund and took the town with it. Gary takes daddy's beatings as obediently as Micheal and LaToya did.
And it's abundently clear that the Jackson's are a tribe of Black crypto-Catholics. It may even be that Micheal's famous color change reveals betrays them as Sicilians trying to pass as African. The abuse they suffered is apperent in the entire clan's social and sexual stundedness. I'm confident that it was no mere occasional slap from drunken daddy's belt that they suffered. They have the sort of hangups that can only come from ritual sadomasichism of the Papist school. The house where they lived in is obscenely too small for seven kids and their folks. It could of been built for migrent grape pickers. I could go on and on with this.
Every network news van in the metro was there. On the corner facing the house was a man selling ice cream and on the other was a man selling vienna beef dogs. The mourners were busy cramming themselves in front of hand held cameras and singing "I'll Be There" for Youtube. There was a stack of filthy used teddy bears and roses by the front door and some wag left a cardboard tribute to the actual Billie Jean 'Jackson'. I'm afraid that none of it gets to me anymore. How absurd I guess. Yawn.
I took a side street back towards the South Shore that started in what was a clean-enough looking neighborhood before quickly changing back to Bogata once I crossed a set of frieght tracks. I stopped by a liqour store and bought a 40 of "Wildcat" which wasn't at all distinctive. I reached the station to find I had just missed a train by ten minutes and would have to wait an hour and a half to catch the last one inbound for the day. I texted Liz to tell her I was safe and asked her to send me a pic of her legs. I napped mostly until I got back to Millenium Station and met her there.
Saturday we slept until three and watched the FOD's below my window celebrate Pridefest 09. I live just off of Broadway and Halstead and was unsure of just who's ethnic enclave this was until I got here. We lounged until five until the unmistakable strains of "Shake Your Love" reached my room.
My sister was thriteen when Debbie Gibson was hot. I'm familar, and it was pitiful to see her face stretched and dried out by cocaine or surgery or both. Still she put on a hell of a show. Drag queens were rushing the stage like rapists at an ICP concert. After her came Crystal Waters, (La da de,la de da.) The gay night scene is every bit as much of a time warp as any Motley Crew bumping dive in the Nebraska sticks. Thursday night at this place called Bobby Love's they played a newish video from old Gibson rival Tiffany, catering to the glass dick and Eurotrash set now. It was several minites of delirium before I could finally believe that it was THAT Tiffany. My sister dug her too.
I missed the actual pride parade on Sunday as I was in a vein search for a TV showing the USA/Brazil soccer match, which we naturally lost in the most calculatingly painful way imaginable. I called Liz to ask her is she could skip work on Tuesday. She said no and asked why. I said it was nothing and I'll let you know on the when.
Dé Luain, Meitheamh 29, 2009
Dé hAoine, Meitheamh 26, 2009
The Object of Attacking is Attacking
President Obama is being criticized for having ice cream with his daughters on Father's Day. No, really.
"How in the tank is the mainstream media when we have people dying for the right to be free in a country like Iran that has been such a thorn in the side of America and the spread of democracy in the Middle East and the media thinks that covering Obama and his daughters having ice cream is news?! WTF!
This was, by the way, the day of the famous "Nedia" incident, in which an Iranian election protester with that name was shot dead by revolutionary guards. It is indeed enraging to see the woman lying on the ground, her eyes clouding and tearing as she sees the void and knows; a comrade forlornly trying to staunch the bleeding from a hole half the size of her chest. It is brutally effective propaganda for the democracy movement in Iran. Or you could use it to shit on the president for having ice cream. Whatever.
To the credit of the GOP, this trope has not caught on among that party's leaders. The top brass, at least, is not that stupid, knowing that attacking a man for having ice cream with his elementery-aged girls will win no votes. Still it does reveal a section of the far right that is consciously and deliberatly trying to be outraged by anything the president does. They are seriously going to go there. 'How dare the president have ice cream with his little girls.' If they really are that bothered by it, then I suggest they have some friendly congressman introduce the following resolution.
The president is hereby forbidden from engaging in recreational activities while there is somebody suffering/and or dying somewhwere.
Then again, considering the very noticible emphasis on "having been such a thorn in the side of America." Perhaps the resolution could be reworded like this.
Being that their are millions of human beings suffering and/or dying at every moment of every day. It is certainly too much to expect the president to personally address the pain of all of them. Nonetheless, the president is still forbidin from engaging in any recreational activities when their are people suffering at the hands of forces with unkind things to say about the United States, thus making their suffering trully important.
If middle aged-white men want to play the childish game of showing that they are not afraid of President Other, that they are perfectly willing to criticize him for quite literally everything he does and invent drama out of thin air when need be, fine. So long as they aren't downing a case of Keystone Ice and rolling to the Unitarian Church with their AK's, than we on the left are most profoundly unafraid of them. It would be easy to say that their behavior is that of a bully, but that wouldn't be right. Bullies tend to straighten out after getting smacked in the mouth once or twice, as conservatism certainly has been. Bullies are not religiously commited to believing themselves martyrs. Sara Robision at Orcinus does a fine job of explaing what's going on here on her 'blame the parents' blog post..
"... you learn that you're not entitled to have any physical or emotional boundries. The authorities have an unlimited right to intrude on you're thoughts, feelings, personal space, and even your body perimeter at any time, for any reason. You are not your own; you're entire being is at the mercy of those set by God to rule over you. You must trust that whatever they do, they do for you're own good, even if the reasons arn't clear to you right now, and in fact may never be explained to you. They know best. Just go with that.
.
.
.
.
On yet other fronts, they learn that they do have boundries, but only to the extent that they're personally able to fight and defend them. The far-right affection for pugnacious rhetoric and a strong defense comes straight out of this---
It is the soldier, not the minister, who has given us freedom of religion
It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial
It is the soldier, no the politician, who has given us the right to vote
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
- Charles Provience.
That was a little ditty I saw taped to the old Nebraska U. credit union next to ads for used cars and bastard puppies. It always did piss me off something fierce. Apparently there is no such thing as civil society. Saul Bellow would have never written a word on his own don't you see? His Russian-Jewish heratage, study of Hebrew, comprehensive education, time in the Merchant Marine, and stint of living in Paris would have never inspired him to create a thing. No, it was not until some specific set number of Nazis were killed, say 298,123, that his talent magically came to him.
There is a place for self-defense, both personal and national, and I can agree that part of national self-defense is defending the free thought and culture of a nation. But in order to defend a nation's culture the military must neccessarily be the servant of that culture, and they had damned-well never forget it.
There is nothing neccesarily wrong with a solid, tangible brain that shuns abstractions. I could not float away on this blog if some sharp and caffinated brain had not invented the microchip. Still it is understandible that the tangible mind would have trouble with grasping the etherial human liberties; freedom of speech, expression, belief, etc; freedoms that, at some level, exist independently of the person exercising them. It has of course long been noticed that one can record some controversial belief that one later dies for, and that after death somebody else can hear or read the idea and maybe agree. Many are inspired by this fact, others may be disturbed by such negation, unable to accept freedom beyond my freedom, will beyond my will. So among the far right, which loudly and proudly loathes the abstract and intangible, there are two methods for attempting to make the ideal of liberty into a physical thing.
1. The emphisis on property rights. Property is the primary, and perhaps even the only means, of determining a persons freedom and dignity.
2. The exercise of liberty is the violent defense of it, and nothing more. Freedom cannot exist unless it is imperiled. any violent crime commited anywhere absolutely must be a personal threat. Whatever the tax rate happens to be, it must be outragously high, any dispute with or threatining gesture from a foreign country absolutely must be the equivelant of the World Wars.
This mindset is mostly just irritating and amusing until taken to its absolute extreme, where the desire for tangibility reaches the point to where one convinces himself that the truth of his political opinions are as obvious to everyone as the color of the sky. There isn't really any such thing as disagreement. There are only those who pretend to disagree for reasons either foolish or evil, preferibly evil. It is this mindset that brings truckbombs.
"How in the tank is the mainstream media when we have people dying for the right to be free in a country like Iran that has been such a thorn in the side of America and the spread of democracy in the Middle East and the media thinks that covering Obama and his daughters having ice cream is news?! WTF!
This was, by the way, the day of the famous "Nedia" incident, in which an Iranian election protester with that name was shot dead by revolutionary guards. It is indeed enraging to see the woman lying on the ground, her eyes clouding and tearing as she sees the void and knows; a comrade forlornly trying to staunch the bleeding from a hole half the size of her chest. It is brutally effective propaganda for the democracy movement in Iran. Or you could use it to shit on the president for having ice cream. Whatever.
To the credit of the GOP, this trope has not caught on among that party's leaders. The top brass, at least, is not that stupid, knowing that attacking a man for having ice cream with his elementery-aged girls will win no votes. Still it does reveal a section of the far right that is consciously and deliberatly trying to be outraged by anything the president does. They are seriously going to go there. 'How dare the president have ice cream with his little girls.' If they really are that bothered by it, then I suggest they have some friendly congressman introduce the following resolution.
The president is hereby forbidden from engaging in recreational activities while there is somebody suffering/and or dying somewhwere.
Then again, considering the very noticible emphasis on "having been such a thorn in the side of America." Perhaps the resolution could be reworded like this.
Being that their are millions of human beings suffering and/or dying at every moment of every day. It is certainly too much to expect the president to personally address the pain of all of them. Nonetheless, the president is still forbidin from engaging in any recreational activities when their are people suffering at the hands of forces with unkind things to say about the United States, thus making their suffering trully important.
If middle aged-white men want to play the childish game of showing that they are not afraid of President Other, that they are perfectly willing to criticize him for quite literally everything he does and invent drama out of thin air when need be, fine. So long as they aren't downing a case of Keystone Ice and rolling to the Unitarian Church with their AK's, than we on the left are most profoundly unafraid of them. It would be easy to say that their behavior is that of a bully, but that wouldn't be right. Bullies tend to straighten out after getting smacked in the mouth once or twice, as conservatism certainly has been. Bullies are not religiously commited to believing themselves martyrs. Sara Robision at Orcinus does a fine job of explaing what's going on here on her 'blame the parents' blog post..
"... you learn that you're not entitled to have any physical or emotional boundries. The authorities have an unlimited right to intrude on you're thoughts, feelings, personal space, and even your body perimeter at any time, for any reason. You are not your own; you're entire being is at the mercy of those set by God to rule over you. You must trust that whatever they do, they do for you're own good, even if the reasons arn't clear to you right now, and in fact may never be explained to you. They know best. Just go with that.
.
.
.
.
On yet other fronts, they learn that they do have boundries, but only to the extent that they're personally able to fight and defend them. The far-right affection for pugnacious rhetoric and a strong defense comes straight out of this---
It is the soldier, not the minister, who has given us freedom of religion
It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial
It is the soldier, no the politician, who has given us the right to vote
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
- Charles Provience.
That was a little ditty I saw taped to the old Nebraska U. credit union next to ads for used cars and bastard puppies. It always did piss me off something fierce. Apparently there is no such thing as civil society. Saul Bellow would have never written a word on his own don't you see? His Russian-Jewish heratage, study of Hebrew, comprehensive education, time in the Merchant Marine, and stint of living in Paris would have never inspired him to create a thing. No, it was not until some specific set number of Nazis were killed, say 298,123, that his talent magically came to him.
There is a place for self-defense, both personal and national, and I can agree that part of national self-defense is defending the free thought and culture of a nation. But in order to defend a nation's culture the military must neccessarily be the servant of that culture, and they had damned-well never forget it.
There is nothing neccesarily wrong with a solid, tangible brain that shuns abstractions. I could not float away on this blog if some sharp and caffinated brain had not invented the microchip. Still it is understandible that the tangible mind would have trouble with grasping the etherial human liberties; freedom of speech, expression, belief, etc; freedoms that, at some level, exist independently of the person exercising them. It has of course long been noticed that one can record some controversial belief that one later dies for, and that after death somebody else can hear or read the idea and maybe agree. Many are inspired by this fact, others may be disturbed by such negation, unable to accept freedom beyond my freedom, will beyond my will. So among the far right, which loudly and proudly loathes the abstract and intangible, there are two methods for attempting to make the ideal of liberty into a physical thing.
1. The emphisis on property rights. Property is the primary, and perhaps even the only means, of determining a persons freedom and dignity.
2. The exercise of liberty is the violent defense of it, and nothing more. Freedom cannot exist unless it is imperiled. any violent crime commited anywhere absolutely must be a personal threat. Whatever the tax rate happens to be, it must be outragously high, any dispute with or threatining gesture from a foreign country absolutely must be the equivelant of the World Wars.
This mindset is mostly just irritating and amusing until taken to its absolute extreme, where the desire for tangibility reaches the point to where one convinces himself that the truth of his political opinions are as obvious to everyone as the color of the sky. There isn't really any such thing as disagreement. There are only those who pretend to disagree for reasons either foolish or evil, preferibly evil. It is this mindset that brings truckbombs.
Déardaoin, Meitheamh 25, 2009
She Seems to be Religious.
Like, seriously so. In the ghetto way you understand, the sort of religion that does what it wants but can't stand to hear impieties. I like impieties. She doesn't have Facebook I don't think. Doesn't have regular internet access, doesn't know I have this blog. Shhhhhsh.
I can do with it. She's a white girl from the South Side so she's probably Catholic, ummmm ummm.
I can do with it. She's a white girl from the South Side so she's probably Catholic, ummmm ummm.
Dé Céadaoin, Meitheamh 24, 2009
I Met a Part Irish-Englishman
Kyle is his name Touring the US over the summer. Down the west coast from Vancouver to San Diego, up to Chicago on route 66, then east to New York. Got in an argument with his travelling buddy and hit him. Travelling buddy hit him and Kyle refused to hit him back. "Talk about love but don't live love. I hate that." He says he's from Manchester. That's not what I've heard about Manchester.
Dé Máirt, Meitheamh 23, 2009
She's Been Waiting for me All Along
There was no cholora epidemic that killed a tenth of Chicago in the 1870's. Even a lot of people who live here think there was. It is an essential American trait that we need to be reminded that a hundred and thirty years ago was only a hundred and thirty years ago, that if there had been a plague that killed seventy five thousand people, there would still be quite a hell of a lot of evidence of it.
It's never been proven that Daley Sr. stole the election for JFK. He just probably did is all. Writers are sexually attracted to knowing what other people don't, and there's a reason why so many come from here. The layers of what you know and others don' what you don't yet know, and what you don't even know there is to be known, are inumerable. If any serious thinker grows tired and old here they were never a thinker at all. I know secrets you don't. I know the crack fiend who loves NPR and has a knowledge of city politics as encyclopedic as a librarians. The gays are more preternaturally kind than ascetic saints. The lesbians not so much.
When and where the buses run is a secret I still need to learn. The el station nearest Hyde Park is a mile and a half away. Vacant lots, condemned townhouses, a twelve-year old boy ruling his block with a 40-oz for a scepter. Not Hyde Park. Today the 'Sun Times' told me that the place where the Green Line stops over Garfield is the second most dangerous neighborhood in America. A man there asked me for change five times over a course of ten minutes. He followed me into the chicken shack where they put this thick hot sauce on the chicken and fries and it's delicious. I finally told him that not every white man who comes to his block is a Kennedy. But upon learning this new information that might actually be so.
Hyde Park is a jewel of a spot. You can see the South Side's downtown and the idol smokestacks of Gary from the beach. Lake Michigan is cleaner than people back home would think, cleaner than I thought, certainly better than the mudholes on the high plains. The water was so cold that I felt my blood pressure drop but it was humid and it was good. I was safe in the president's neighborhood. Thirty dollare in cash stuffed in my shoe guarded by nothing but a dirty sock. His house looks nice and unlived in.
I hope I never find out all of the secrets that women have. I hope there's always something about them that I don't know. The one right here. That one over there. That working girl last night. Yes I did.
The new one. The one who wants a straightforward thing, something solid and exclusive, without the mental S&M games. The one who came to me. The one who, I'll be damned, this one wants me right back. 'Im Liz. I like you. You got a girlfriend?" Harsh and quick. The Chicago bark. Just a hint of East Coast blending into the cadence. Just a hint, because we're not there. This is still the Midwest. Ask a stranger a question and they'll answer you with contrived annoyance condensation, but they'll still give you directions. The I-love-you's are flat and to the point, like how my Mom says it to Dad.
It's been claimed by many, Bouvier comes to mind, that men tend to equate cities with women. This is very much true, painfully obvious even. There's quite a hell of a lot of Joan Beran in you Chicago. You're a good fun broad who knows everyone and can handle grunt work just fine. Still you're stratigically soft to the ones you can trust, the ones you know you can rely upon. A city to mother me so the women don't have to. It comes so much easier now. Men and women alike are so direct that it can't help but bleed unto me. So I'm straight and real right back. The people I talk to seem to like me. I've been worse.
Here in the downtown library is a man who spends his whole afternoon looking at foot fetish porn. He's free to do so. This is a city library, and he's a citizen with a library card. He just needs to keep it softcore, and that's easy enough to do. The pussyfoot is just a myth.
It's never been proven that Daley Sr. stole the election for JFK. He just probably did is all. Writers are sexually attracted to knowing what other people don't, and there's a reason why so many come from here. The layers of what you know and others don' what you don't yet know, and what you don't even know there is to be known, are inumerable. If any serious thinker grows tired and old here they were never a thinker at all. I know secrets you don't. I know the crack fiend who loves NPR and has a knowledge of city politics as encyclopedic as a librarians. The gays are more preternaturally kind than ascetic saints. The lesbians not so much.
When and where the buses run is a secret I still need to learn. The el station nearest Hyde Park is a mile and a half away. Vacant lots, condemned townhouses, a twelve-year old boy ruling his block with a 40-oz for a scepter. Not Hyde Park. Today the 'Sun Times' told me that the place where the Green Line stops over Garfield is the second most dangerous neighborhood in America. A man there asked me for change five times over a course of ten minutes. He followed me into the chicken shack where they put this thick hot sauce on the chicken and fries and it's delicious. I finally told him that not every white man who comes to his block is a Kennedy. But upon learning this new information that might actually be so.
Hyde Park is a jewel of a spot. You can see the South Side's downtown and the idol smokestacks of Gary from the beach. Lake Michigan is cleaner than people back home would think, cleaner than I thought, certainly better than the mudholes on the high plains. The water was so cold that I felt my blood pressure drop but it was humid and it was good. I was safe in the president's neighborhood. Thirty dollare in cash stuffed in my shoe guarded by nothing but a dirty sock. His house looks nice and unlived in.
I hope I never find out all of the secrets that women have. I hope there's always something about them that I don't know. The one right here. That one over there. That working girl last night. Yes I did.
The new one. The one who wants a straightforward thing, something solid and exclusive, without the mental S&M games. The one who came to me. The one who, I'll be damned, this one wants me right back. 'Im Liz. I like you. You got a girlfriend?" Harsh and quick. The Chicago bark. Just a hint of East Coast blending into the cadence. Just a hint, because we're not there. This is still the Midwest. Ask a stranger a question and they'll answer you with contrived annoyance condensation, but they'll still give you directions. The I-love-you's are flat and to the point, like how my Mom says it to Dad.
It's been claimed by many, Bouvier comes to mind, that men tend to equate cities with women. This is very much true, painfully obvious even. There's quite a hell of a lot of Joan Beran in you Chicago. You're a good fun broad who knows everyone and can handle grunt work just fine. Still you're stratigically soft to the ones you can trust, the ones you know you can rely upon. A city to mother me so the women don't have to. It comes so much easier now. Men and women alike are so direct that it can't help but bleed unto me. So I'm straight and real right back. The people I talk to seem to like me. I've been worse.
Here in the downtown library is a man who spends his whole afternoon looking at foot fetish porn. He's free to do so. This is a city library, and he's a citizen with a library card. He just needs to keep it softcore, and that's easy enough to do. The pussyfoot is just a myth.
Dé Luain, Meitheamh 22, 2009
Lost My Fedora in The Move
Nobody here knows how I walk the fed.
Shaved my mustache too. Grows in too unevenly.
I thought the summers were supposed to be milder here.
Shaved my mustache too. Grows in too unevenly.
I thought the summers were supposed to be milder here.
Dé Sathairn, Meitheamh 20, 2009
Quick notes as Guest Internet User From Logan Park Library
1. Shared the train with a bonafide Amish couple yesterday. There were at least a dozen people more boring than they were.
2. Train showed up to Lincoln just twenty minutes late. Pulled into Union Station three hours late.
3. Rained hard last night. Humid. Not much wind.
4. I've passed by no fewer than eight Chicago cops without being savagely beaten. Daley Jr. is a pussy. No redlining the blacks by freeway, no verbal smackdowns of Jew motherfuckers. So weak.
5. I'm riding the train to Hyde Park today. Going to see the First Family's private home. Drink Old Style with Bill Ayers.
6. There's a bar uptown called "The Closet." Gay bar names really are as obvious as "Police Acadamy" makes them out to be. Who knew?
7. I have a most sincere hope of walking into a Polish Church and hearing an eighty-year old woman prophesy my future in backwords tongues.
8. Hell yes the food is good! You should see the condiment selection for a gas-station hot dog.
9. Italian fucking beef motherfucker.
10. I'm thinking White Sox over Cubs. Cubs fans have too much Plains-style mildness to them. Gotta go with the edge.
2. Train showed up to Lincoln just twenty minutes late. Pulled into Union Station three hours late.
3. Rained hard last night. Humid. Not much wind.
4. I've passed by no fewer than eight Chicago cops without being savagely beaten. Daley Jr. is a pussy. No redlining the blacks by freeway, no verbal smackdowns of Jew motherfuckers. So weak.
5. I'm riding the train to Hyde Park today. Going to see the First Family's private home. Drink Old Style with Bill Ayers.
6. There's a bar uptown called "The Closet." Gay bar names really are as obvious as "Police Acadamy" makes them out to be. Who knew?
7. I have a most sincere hope of walking into a Polish Church and hearing an eighty-year old woman prophesy my future in backwords tongues.
8. Hell yes the food is good! You should see the condiment selection for a gas-station hot dog.
9. Italian fucking beef motherfucker.
10. I'm thinking White Sox over Cubs. Cubs fans have too much Plains-style mildness to them. Gotta go with the edge.
Dé Céadaoin, Meitheamh 10, 2009
top 10 FC's as of right Now
1. Barcelona.
2. Man U.
3. Chelsea
4. Inter Milan
5. Porto
6. Liverpool
7. Real Madrid
8. Wolfsburg
9. Sao Paulo
10.Marseilles
2. Man U.
3. Chelsea
4. Inter Milan
5. Porto
6. Liverpool
7. Real Madrid
8. Wolfsburg
9. Sao Paulo
10.Marseilles
Déardaoin, Meitheamh 04, 2009
I put A Joke Ad on Craigslist
It was supposedly for naked mole rats. But in truth it was a ploy to draw attention to my car for sale. I've received one phone call and three e-mails for the mole rats in the four hours since the ad went up. Nothing on the car.
So...
I seem to have had a bit of an episode last night. I won't go into details, because in truth I really don't know what they are. Let's just say that I've become accustomed over the years to avoiding pressure, ambition, and burying my emotions in liquor or whatever else was available, and I've recently decided that I'm not going to do that anymore.
I really am better this way, overall. It just takes some adjusting, and being stranded in Lincoln for an indefinite period is quite literally maddening. But no need for any mates reading this to worry. Through it all I've always maintained a perfectly sincere love of myself. Rest assured that I won't do anything more foolish than I already have.
I really am better this way, overall. It just takes some adjusting, and being stranded in Lincoln for an indefinite period is quite literally maddening. But no need for any mates reading this to worry. Through it all I've always maintained a perfectly sincere love of myself. Rest assured that I won't do anything more foolish than I already have.
Dé Luain, Meitheamh 01, 2009
Crackpot syntax: Army of God Vs. DPRK News Service
Note how in both cases clarity and smoothness are sacrificed for the sake of cramming in slogans that denounce the enemy or praise the cause into every possible nook.
"JUSTICE AND RETRIBUTION
In the particular capital crime of murder, God has required the death of the murderer. The very principle, the “image of God” in man, both prohibits murder and commands that the murderer be executed. Just as men are required to refrain from murder, they are required to execute those who commit murder.
As with all forms of injustice in the world, God, who loves justice, will bring judgment in due time and right all wrongs. Those wrongs of which we have knowledge but are unable to prove in court will not go unnoticed or un-addressed by God. Vengeance is His and He will repay and He delegates to human authorities the task of executing vengeance (Romans 13:4). That which escapes His earthly courts will not escape His Final Judgment Day. In this we can find some comfort and hope whenever we see wicked deeds go unpunished before our eyes. But this sad delay in justice does not leave us indifferent to it. We are to love and to seek justice.
Temperance of justice may be afforded the offender by the injured party in the case of civil wrongs; e.g., one may forgive a personal debt and thus extend godly grace. But the case of first degree murder is another matter. There is to be no mercy shown. No judge has the right to reduce the sentence to prison time or flogging or fine. Because human beings are created in the image of God, those who murder them must forfeit their lives (Gen. 9:6). There is no alternative for execution; no substitute for the blood of the murderer (Ex. 21:12,14; Deut. 19:4-13; Josh. 20; Num. 35:27-30). “You shall not take ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death” (Num. 35:31).
The question of duty arises. Who is responsible to see that the guilty one is executed? In civilizations with developed legal systems, the answer may seem to require no thought: police, prosecutors, jails, courts, prisons, and electric chairs all compose modern justice systems so that responsibility never is in question. But in ruder or simpler societies, the question of duty might be less obvious. Tribal Israel was informed by the Law of Moses that the “avenger of blood” (goel ha-dam) was responsible for administering the justice. In a murder case this “avenger” is traditionally understood to be the nearest male kinsman of the victim though some scholars have argued that he may be a representative of the elders of the city, an official of government.
On the assumption that the duty of executing murderers resides with civil authorities whenever they are functioning legitimately as just authorities, what happens when such authorities flagrantly fail to carry out justice? When is “vigilante justice” tolerable?
This theme is popular in literature and the cinema. Gresham’s A Time to Kill featured the drama of a father sitting by as a court was poised to slap the wrists of two men who had raped and murdered his daughter. No reader or movie watcher reacted against the execution of the two men by the father when he grabbed the rifle from the sheriff on duty and blew away the two murderer rapists in the court room. Justice was served; it was only for the court to bless it after the fact when the jury acquitted the avenger of blood. One could find countless examples in popular literature from Homer to Shakespeare to Dirty Harry. And even in those instances of popularly accepted vigilante justice, it is not even so grievous a crime as murder for which retribution is countenanced. Ulysses executed the suitors of Portia for insolence: hardly a capital offense. And Hamlet took vengeance on his uncle on the basis of quite crude evidence: the testimony of a nocturnal visit from a shade.
So what if, in such a matter of murder, surviving kinsmen took it as their responsibility to see that just vengeance was executed upon the murderer of their relative regardless of the hand by whom the death blow should be rendered? And upon the failure of the authorities to execute the murderer, what if the obliged kinsmen believed it their duty to do what the civil authorities were derelict in performance? "
http://www.armyofgod.com/MikeBrayFathersRights.html
"The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppets perpetrated at least 200 cases of aerial espionage against the DPRK in May or 30 cases more than those in the same month of last year by mobilizing strategic and tactical reconnaissance planes with various missions, according to a military source.
The U.S. imperialist aggressor forces committed more than 110 cases while the south Korean puppet army at least 90 cases.
On May 28 and 29, the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces' overseas-based five RC-135s flew into the air over south Korea and were busy with aerial surveillance and photographing and electronic espionage against all areas of the DPRK.
South Korea-based U-2 made shuttle flights from the east to the west all day long on May 30 to spy on the DPRK. The number of cases of aerial espionage perpetrated by this plane reached 25 this month.
The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppets let more than 40 strategic and tactical reconnaissance planes fly in the air over the front areas to intensify the espionage against the DPRK side in the period from May 7 to 13 when they were busy with combined air battle exercises in the air over areas of south Korea.
In the meantime, the south Korean bellicose forces let two or three tactical reconnaissance planes make shuttle flights in the air over front areas in the East and West seas and the areas along the Military Demarcation Line day and night every day on spy missions."
http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm
There is believing in good and evil, and than there is thinking about absolutely nothing but how we are good and they are evil.
"JUSTICE AND RETRIBUTION
In the particular capital crime of murder, God has required the death of the murderer. The very principle, the “image of God” in man, both prohibits murder and commands that the murderer be executed. Just as men are required to refrain from murder, they are required to execute those who commit murder.
As with all forms of injustice in the world, God, who loves justice, will bring judgment in due time and right all wrongs. Those wrongs of which we have knowledge but are unable to prove in court will not go unnoticed or un-addressed by God. Vengeance is His and He will repay and He delegates to human authorities the task of executing vengeance (Romans 13:4). That which escapes His earthly courts will not escape His Final Judgment Day. In this we can find some comfort and hope whenever we see wicked deeds go unpunished before our eyes. But this sad delay in justice does not leave us indifferent to it. We are to love and to seek justice.
Temperance of justice may be afforded the offender by the injured party in the case of civil wrongs; e.g., one may forgive a personal debt and thus extend godly grace. But the case of first degree murder is another matter. There is to be no mercy shown. No judge has the right to reduce the sentence to prison time or flogging or fine. Because human beings are created in the image of God, those who murder them must forfeit their lives (Gen. 9:6). There is no alternative for execution; no substitute for the blood of the murderer (Ex. 21:12,14; Deut. 19:4-13; Josh. 20; Num. 35:27-30). “You shall not take ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death” (Num. 35:31).
The question of duty arises. Who is responsible to see that the guilty one is executed? In civilizations with developed legal systems, the answer may seem to require no thought: police, prosecutors, jails, courts, prisons, and electric chairs all compose modern justice systems so that responsibility never is in question. But in ruder or simpler societies, the question of duty might be less obvious. Tribal Israel was informed by the Law of Moses that the “avenger of blood” (goel ha-dam) was responsible for administering the justice. In a murder case this “avenger” is traditionally understood to be the nearest male kinsman of the victim though some scholars have argued that he may be a representative of the elders of the city, an official of government.
On the assumption that the duty of executing murderers resides with civil authorities whenever they are functioning legitimately as just authorities, what happens when such authorities flagrantly fail to carry out justice? When is “vigilante justice” tolerable?
This theme is popular in literature and the cinema. Gresham’s A Time to Kill featured the drama of a father sitting by as a court was poised to slap the wrists of two men who had raped and murdered his daughter. No reader or movie watcher reacted against the execution of the two men by the father when he grabbed the rifle from the sheriff on duty and blew away the two murderer rapists in the court room. Justice was served; it was only for the court to bless it after the fact when the jury acquitted the avenger of blood. One could find countless examples in popular literature from Homer to Shakespeare to Dirty Harry. And even in those instances of popularly accepted vigilante justice, it is not even so grievous a crime as murder for which retribution is countenanced. Ulysses executed the suitors of Portia for insolence: hardly a capital offense. And Hamlet took vengeance on his uncle on the basis of quite crude evidence: the testimony of a nocturnal visit from a shade.
So what if, in such a matter of murder, surviving kinsmen took it as their responsibility to see that just vengeance was executed upon the murderer of their relative regardless of the hand by whom the death blow should be rendered? And upon the failure of the authorities to execute the murderer, what if the obliged kinsmen believed it their duty to do what the civil authorities were derelict in performance? "
http://www.armyofgod.com/MikeBrayFathersRights.html
"The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppets perpetrated at least 200 cases of aerial espionage against the DPRK in May or 30 cases more than those in the same month of last year by mobilizing strategic and tactical reconnaissance planes with various missions, according to a military source.
The U.S. imperialist aggressor forces committed more than 110 cases while the south Korean puppet army at least 90 cases.
On May 28 and 29, the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces' overseas-based five RC-135s flew into the air over south Korea and were busy with aerial surveillance and photographing and electronic espionage against all areas of the DPRK.
South Korea-based U-2 made shuttle flights from the east to the west all day long on May 30 to spy on the DPRK. The number of cases of aerial espionage perpetrated by this plane reached 25 this month.
The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppets let more than 40 strategic and tactical reconnaissance planes fly in the air over the front areas to intensify the espionage against the DPRK side in the period from May 7 to 13 when they were busy with combined air battle exercises in the air over areas of south Korea.
In the meantime, the south Korean bellicose forces let two or three tactical reconnaissance planes make shuttle flights in the air over front areas in the East and West seas and the areas along the Military Demarcation Line day and night every day on spy missions."
http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm
There is believing in good and evil, and than there is thinking about absolutely nothing but how we are good and they are evil.
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