OVO

Stencil by Trevor Blake. Seen at a popular web site by a good friend.

The Cold War was an attempt, using every means possible, by the United States and its allies in North America and Western Europe, along with other countries that had their own reasons for joining in, to prevent the expansion of Soviet power through military means or through other means, including the spread of the ideology of Communism. That Cold War began after World War II, even though from the earliest days of the Bolsheviks it had always been clear to some that Soviet Communism was inherently expansionist, totalitarian, and aggressive, and lasted until the time of Gorbachev, when the rulers of the Soviet Union conceded that on its own terms Communism had not delivered the goods, had failed. [...] Communism failed in the Soviet Union because it could not deliver. And instead of continuing to believe the stories that the stage of Communism had not yet been reached, and so it would be unfair and premature to judge Communism a failure, too many of those in the know, and in the Party itself, or close to those in the Party, realized that Communism was a political, economic, and moral disaster.

[...] Now the United States is the leader of a group of nations that are threatened in different ways by those employing different weapons, but animated by an ideology that in many respects, in its claim to regulate every area of life, may be called totalitarian, and that has hundreds of millions, indeed more than a billion, of claimed adherents. Those adherents control and dominate a large part of the world, and are moving aggressively, in every way they can, to make the rest of us, those who do not share that ideology, concede to their demands, and to make the world safe for the adherents of that ideology to work to remove all obstacles to its spread and then to its dominance. That ideology, with its Complete Explanation of the Universe (an explanation even more far-reaching than Communism, that limited itself to the sphere of economics relations and its natural epiphenomena) and its Total Regulation of Life, has a remarkable hold on the minds of its adherents. And unlike Communism, there is no one thing that Islam must deliver to prove itself. It is multidimensional and hydra-headed, and there is no one thing, no one failure, that would lead its adherents to question, much less abandon it.

[...] Along with Peace, the other great theme of Soviet propaganda was Colonialism, An End To. Since the main colonial powers were Great Britain and France, the most important allies of the United States, taking the side of all those seeking to be independent – ready or not, and no matter what the outcome – was a way to profitably exploit what was seen, too easily, as on-the-side-of-the-angels decolonialism. Furthermore, this was said to be the Side of History. The “winds of change” were blowing, said Harold Macmillan, and no one could stop it. It was not the Soviet Marxists who were the only determinists. Though a grouping of countries in Africa and Asia and Latin America became known as the Non-Aligned, those Non-Aligned, in solemn conclave assembled at Bandung or elsewhere, always seemed to pass resolutions against the West for its supposed machinations. But the machinations that counted were those of the Soviets and their collaborators, who manipulated these gatherings for their own ends. The Non-Aligned never seemed to worry about the Soviet Union, or about the new and unfamiliar kind of “colonialism” (therefore not recognized as such) that the Soviets practiced in Eastern Europe.

The Nonaligned Nations became, over time, what was called the Third World, and the playing off of the United States and the Soviet Union, or the invocation of the threat of now one, and now the other, allowed countries that were in fact always playing their own game to obtain aid, and then still more aid from the other side, in a bidding war for political affections. Unlike the economic aid given to the countries of Western Europe, countries that were part of the West, much of the economic aid given to countries outside that historic West was misused, or appropriated by local rulers, or spent on inappropriate projects. But this does not take away from the achievements of the original Marshall Plan, even as it should make one wary of invoking that Plan — as so many Muslim leaders, from Al-Jaafari (who preceded Al-Maliki) to Karzai, to Zardari, or their associates do. They fondly think they can inveigle still more money out of the by-now disabused Americans for a “Muslim Marshall Plan” that makes no sense, unless one really believes that “poverty” and “joblessness,” and not Islam itself, are the cause of Muslim economic backwardness and, especially, the cause of Muslim hostility to Infidels, including the Infidel Americans.

[...] The other part of the Cold War – the propaganda part that was fought – does not yet have an analogue in the war being fought, without a declaration of such a war (which is understandable) but even, alas, without a recognition of the nature of the war now being waged on us, but that many are still too tongue-tied or inhibited to discuss, even obliquely, metonymically. That propaganda during the Cold War was directed at two different audiences. The first was behind the Iron Curtain. To that audience, through Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and all sorts of publishing ventures, the American government provided material of many different kinds. It published émigré writers, and had those writers broadcast on Radio Liberty, or Radio Free Europe, to show that outside the confines of Communism, Russian and Polish and Czech and Bulgarian and other writers, even in their exile, had managed to continue their work, and some of that work was even about the miseries of totalitarianism. News stories about Western achievements were contrasted with stories about repeated failures – crop failures, technical failures, failures of every kind in the Communist world – were also beamed into the satellite nations and the Soviet Union. Special attention was given to those who had, like Arthur Koestler and others who contributed to “The God That Failed,” once been Communists, even fanatical Communists, but had managed to grasp the nature of the system and to fight their way out of it, and to become its most cogent because most knowledgeable critics.

And the other audience to which American and other Western propaganda was aimed, was those in the West who might have been most vulnerable to the siren-song of Communism, or Marxist-Leninism, or whatever it called itself. This audience included not only members of the Communist Parties in the Western world, but also those who, as members of left-leaning parties, were deemed in some cases insufficiently vigilant about Communist influence and Communist propaganda. It was understood that Soviet propaganda was clever, not clumsy, and that it would take an effort to counter it – one directed in the main by those who were advised by, or themselves had been, refugees from Soviet Communism, from the Soviet Union or from the Soviet-controlled nations.

Where is such a propaganda effort today? Who are the analogues of those refugees from Communism, from the world of Islam? And up till now, what has the American government done about disseminating, not behind some Iron Curtain, but simply by all the means now so widely available – radio, satellite television, the Internet, audiocassettes and videotapes – news about Islam’s failures, or the failures of states where Islam rules? How many Muslims have been told, again and again, about how much money the Muslim members of OPEC have taken in, and how little they have managed to do with it, save spend it on armaments, and luxury goods, and palaces, and every sort of decadence that goes far beyond anything the non-Islamic rich are known to routinely indulge in? How many Muslims have listened, in broadcasts from abroad, to economists discuss the economic performance of Muslim states, compared to non-Muslim states, and discussions of the reasons for this – the inshallah-fatalism, and the hatred of bid’a (innovation)? How many programs do you know of where the moral failures of Islam are discussed, discussed regularly, not intermittently, by the likes of Wafa Sultan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali?

[Article continues.]

Trevor Blake: Snow. Portland, Oregon USA. 29 December 2009.

Wall Street Journal, Club, Church Clash in Texas: Across the country, religious congregations are entering nontraditional spaces at an increasing rate, religious experts say, as churches seek to lower their rent and attract worshipers with an informal atmosphere. [These Christians are only doing as they are compelled to do in 1 Timothy 2:8.]

Delaware County Daily Times, Father kills son in domestic dispute:
Smythe said he personally knows Caldwell, a pastor at the End Times Harvest Mission for Christ in Philadelphia, to be a “very good man.” [Clergy killing their own children is how God knows one is a good man, says Judges 11:29-39.]

Gawker, Teabagger Worried His Magic Prayers Made God Kill Sen. Inhofe: A panicked teabagger called up C-SPAN in tears today, worried that he accidentally killed Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe by praying for Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd to die. [Prayer can kill people, as anyone who has read Numbers 21:3 knows.]

Des Moines Register, Man taken to hospital after castrating self: Police said he told dispatchers he did it for religious reasons. [Clearly stated religious reasons found in Matthew 5:29-30.]

Mail Online, ‘Four-year campaign of abuse from parishioners’ forces village vicar and his family from home: ‘It has been the worst time of my life. I used to be a committed Christian, now I am agnostic. ‘If this is Christianity in action I don’t want anything to do with it.’ [That big baby doesn't know he got off easy, compared to what should have happened according to Deuteronomy 13:6-10.]

Detroit Free Press, Black clergy to sound AIDS alarm at meeting: The nation’s black church leaders have been “woefully silent, even though this is something that is destroying people,” the Rev. Horace Sheffield III, pastor of New Galilee Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit, said Saturday. [Keeping silent is best, because sickness is only caused by lack of faith.  See Matthew 9:22.]

TPMMuckraker, Jetton Fought To Keep Ban On Gay Sex, Calling It ‘Deviate Sexual Intercourse’: Rod Jetton, the former Missouri House Speaker, fired a state lawmaker from his committee chairmanship in 2007 because the lawmaker had changed a bill in order to end a state ban on gay sex – or what Jetton called “deviate sexual intercourse.” Jetton was charged with felony assault Monday after a girlfriend alleged that he had beaten and choked her during a recent sexual encounter, in which she failed to use a mutually agreed upon “safe word.” The woman also suggested that Jetton may have slipped a date-rape drug into her glass of wine, causing her to lose consciousness. [That's what men of God do, don't you know.  Haven't you read Deuteronomy 21:1-14?]

IrishCentral, Irish Catholic nuns offer compensation for Church child sex abuse: The Sisters of Mercy in Dublin have offered $193 million in money and property to those who were abused by nuns in their order. [Those brats don't know how lucky they have it - try Psalm 137:9 on for size.]

NJ.com, Mom expected God to provide food, daughter testifies: Over three months in 2006, as her five children grew more emaciated and listless by the day, Estelle Walker made no move to find a job, no effort to scrounge up a meal, her kids told a jury yesterday. “We were supposed to wait for God to provide,” said Walker’s oldest daughter, now 21. “And that’s what we did.” At one point, the daughter said, she and her siblings went 11 days without food. When police were at last summoned to the Sussex County cabin by neighbors, investigators found the children so malnourished they had difficulty talking. [That's how God takes care of his flock, as seen in Exodus 16:14.]

All articles continue at links.  When you read about Christians doing crazy, violent, disgusting things, where do you think they get their ideas?  I have my suspicions…

Once again I have enjoyed the benefit of reading the words of those who are my enemies and of reading source documents as well as commentary on source documents.

Like many others, I have been reading about a proposed anti-homosexual law in the country of Uganda.  I have read consistently that the law would sentence homosexuals to death.  Then I read a press release from a group in England that supports the proposed law.  The press release made different claims:

In fact, the death penalty in David Bahati MP’s ‘Anti-homosexuality Bill’ is only for ‘aggravated homosexuality’; which is knowingly infecting others with AIDS, sodomy with minors and homosexual rape. Promoting homosexuality would however be punishable by a jail term.

It cannot be true that the proposed law both does and does not sentence homosexuals to death.  This was the benefit of reading the words of my enemies (Christian Voice, authors of the press release): I learned what I thought was true was instead in question.  One way to resolve this contradiction was to consult the source document, granting an equal mistrust to all commentators.  Here is what the source document says:

A person commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality where the (a) person against whom the offence is committed is below the age of 18 years; (b) offender is a person living with HIV; (c) offender is a parent or guardian of the person against whom the offence is committed; (d) offender is a person in authority over the person against whom the offence is committed; (e) victim of the offence is a person with disability; (f) offender is a serial offender; or (g) offender applies, administers or causes to be used by any man or woman any drug, matter or thing with intent to stupefy or overpower him or her so as to there by enable any person to ahve unlawful carnal connections with any person of the same sex.  A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death. [PDF]

The press release of my enemies is more accurate than the commentary of my friends and the mainstream media.  The section of the proposed law quoted above speaks of homosexuality in the way some laws in the United States spoke of sodomy, as a catch-all for anything other than genital-to-genital sex between a man and a woman.  Homosexuality in itself is criminalized with a jail term (life), not with the death penalty.

I am against all laws pertaining to victimless crimes.  Sex between consenting and informed adults is nobody’s business, and that includes homosexuality.  The proposed anti-homosexual law is bad enough as it stands.  Homosexuality does not merit life in prison or extradition, as the law calls for.  I am against this law, and against those who support this law.  But there is no need to exaggerate how bad this law is by falsely claiming it threatens homosexuals with the death penalty exclusively due to their homosexuality.

In the beginning God made man all messed up and prone to do bad things, which got God mad.  So God cursed man and even killed everybody except one family in a flood.  God was still mad but later said okay man here’s a second chance.  God sent God to man as a sacrifice to God, which pleased God so it was all good.  Christmas is that story.

Jesus Christ was the 28th or 43rd decendent of David.  Those two numbers are pretty close. The important part is that Jesus was a decendent of David because not one or two but three prophecies demand it.  But if there are one or two verses that say Mary was instead from the house of Levi then lighten up, okay?  Listen.  His parents Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem, they were already there because that was their home town.  Unless it was Nazareth.  Yeah, Nazareth, maybe.  One of those two.  Either way, they went from Bethlehem to Egypt to Nazareth.   Or maybe from Nazareth to Bethlehem to Jerusalem to Nazareth.  Don’t get too hung up in the details, it’s not like the Bible is supposed to be perfect or anything.  Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem because that’s what the prophecy says.  Or almost says.  Close enough.  And He had to be coming back from Egypt from somewhere (unless He wasn’t) because there was this other prophecy that said so, or at least had some of the same words in the sentence.  You have to grant me that.  Galilee, that’s for sure where He was born.  As to what really happened at Jesus’ birth maybe only His mother knew.

Just put all that to the side for a second.  What matters, what really matters is that Jesus was born to be the messiah.  Galilee is for sure where He was born, so just ignore that part where it says that can’t be true no matter how strongly it says so.  Jesus was God made flesh, which God said – twice – He would never do, and God never lies, so that’s a miracle right there.  Jesus was full of miracles.  He said there would be only one ‘kind’ of Christian, not thousands of denominations.  Jesus said He wouldn’t give any signs, then He did – hey!  He’s God, He can do that.  You can’t do that, can you smart guy?  Jesus came to save everybody, or maybe just some people.  You never know so you gotta be good, He’s more powerful than Santa like that.  Jesus said He’d always be with us or maybe not.  Jesus always followed the law, except about what He could eat, washing His hands, the Sabbath, fasting, adultery, divorce, lying and stealing.  Jesus even knew He’d be beheaded just like John the Baptist but Jesus used time travel powers and got crucified instead.

Okay you’re trying to use logic and science and stuff, big bang, you think you’re a monkey or something.  Well this monkey has his mind open enough to believe that Jesus came back from the dead, which is the slam-dunk evidence He was the real deal. When the women went to Jesus’ tomb it was open.  Or closed.  He had all this holy powers on Him, so you couldn’t touch Him or you could but it’d be like wow.  Jesus stayed on Earth for one day or eight days or forty-plus days or something, plenty of time for thousands of people to see him.  That’s how we know He rose up into the sky from the Mount of Olives.  Jerusalem.  Bethany.  Whatever, they saw it happen.  There’s really good evidence for Jesus.

Merry Christmas!

Yahoo News: Taliban blow up Pakistan girls school
Islamist militants opposed to co-education and subscribers to sharia law have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in northwest Pakistan in recent years.

The Nation: Woman sold in public auction in Pakistan – for $3,200
A 20-year-old girl was auctioned at village Badani Bhutto of Taluka Kashmore in consideration of Rs2,70,000 on Saturday. Azizan, daughter of late Allah Bux Bhutto, was divorced on the allegation of Karo-kari [roughly, adultery] some time back. She is stated to be mother of two children and was residing with her brother who held the open auction for her ‘sale’ at village Badani Bhutto.

BBC: Pakistan court orders ears and noses to be cut off
A Pakistani court has ordered that two men have their ears and noses cut off, as punishment for doing the same to a woman who refused to marry one of them.

Mail Online: Muslim police chef defeated in ‘bacon roll’ tribunal faces £75,000 legal bill
Mr Khoja, 62, lost his claim in May after a police employee told an employment tribunal how she saw Mr Khoja eat bacon rolls and sausages.

Mail Online: Islamic militants stone man to death for adultery in Somalia as villagers are forced to watch
Mohamed Ibrahim appeals to Islamic militants not to carry out the execution as he is buried in the ground as his villagers are forced to watch.

BBC: Uganda bans female genital mutilation
Anyone convicted of the practice, which involves cutting off a girl’s clitoris, will face 10 years in jail, or a life sentence if a victim dies.

Spiegel Online: Al-Qaida Kills Eight Times More Muslims Than Non-Muslims
Between 2004 and 2008, for example, al-Qaida claimed responsibility for 313 attacks, resulting in the deaths of 3,010 people. And even though these attacks include terrorist incidents in the West — in Madrid in 2004 and in London in 2005 — only 12 percent of those killed (371 deaths) were Westerners.

ABC News: Torture Tape Implicates UAE Royal Sheikh
A video tape smuggled out of the United Arab Emirates shows a member of the country’s royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails. A man in a UAE police uniform is seen on the tape tying the victim’s arms and legs, and later holding him down as the Sheikh pours salt on the man’s wounds and then drives over him with his Mercedes SUV.

BBC: Swiss minaret ban ‘security risk’
“Provocation risks triggering other provocation and risks inflaming extremism.”

Death By 1000 Papercuts: How Easy to Build a Christian Church in Muslim Countries?
These countries are the largest in the Muslim world.

New York Times: Muslim Prayers Fuel Spiritual Rebuilding Project by Ground Zero
“We want to push back against the extremists.”

All articles continue at links.  Part of a series that never ends… [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] and etc.  There are photographs of Mohamed Ibrahim being stoned to death at the above link.  Go ahead, take a look.  Islam is the religion of peace, and there is no compulsion under the religion of Islam.  You just need to level-up your cultural sensitivity to their sacred traditions.  Respect their diversity.  Sure, men get tortured and stoned to death and have parts of their faces cut off, all with the cooperation and enthusiastic participation of the Islamic government.  And yes, women have their genitals mutilated and are sold as slaves.  But just because these people are different doesn’t mean we should fear or hate them.  We need to walk a mile in their shoes before we can judge them.  For heaven’s sake don’t provoke them – provocation risks triggering other provocation and risks inflaming extremism.  See, it’s our fault!  It takes a signature from the President of Egypt to build a Christian church in Egypt.  No Christian churches are allowed in Saudi Arabia at all.  Turkey and Algeria forbid existing Christian churches to be repaired and often order that they be torn down.  Indonesia allows Christian churches to exist providing no worship services occur there on Sundays.  Pakistan Christians generally meet in private homes.  No wonder Muslims are angry that the Swiss have banned the construction of new mosques in their country.  Whether it’s eating pork or building places of worship, Islam is a ‘do as I say not as I do’ sort of superstition.

My opinion counts for little, but here it is.  I’m encouraged by the Muslims described in the last link, those pushing back against their fellow Muslims.  I’m for the free exercise of religion and I’m for secular government. Christianity survived secularization and Islam can survive it as well.  If it cannot or will not, Islam deserves to die out.  Does it seem impossible that a religion could die out, particularly a globe-spanning religion like Islam?  Then spend a little time walking around in the graveyard of the gods to get a little perspective.  Every religion dies out given time.  And a little bit of a shove.

Despite its good intentions, San Francisco is not leading the country in gay marriage. Despite its good intentions, it is not stopping wars. Despite its spending more money per capita on homelessness than any comparable city, its homeless problem is worse than any comparable city’s. Despite its spending more money per capita, period, than almost any city in the nation, San Francisco has poorly managed, budget-busting capital projects, overlapping social programs no one is certain are working, and a transportation system where the only thing running ahead of schedule is the size of its deficit. It’s time to face facts: San Francisco is spectacularly mismanaged and arguably the worst-run big city in America. This year’s city budget is an astonishing $6.6 billion — more than twice the budget for the entire state of Idaho — for roughly 800,000 residents. Yet despite that stratospheric amount, San Francisco can’t point to progress on many of the social issues it spends liberally to tackle — and no one is made to answer when the city comes up short. [...]

This city is a mecca for people in search of a government handout that they can hand out. According to a 2009 analysis, San Francisco spends around 41 percent of its discretionary budget — about half a billion dollars — on nonprofits, mostly to provide social services for the poor, homeless, elderly, and others. Many cities contract with nonprofits because it’s cheaper than using city workers. Government is now paying the tab for services that used to be undertaken by families, churches — or, frankly, no one. But a 2009 University of San Francisco study notes that this city is to nonprofits what New York is to big musicals: “Per capita expenditures by operating nonprofits in San Francisco are almost double that of the rest of the Bay Area, and more than twice that found in Los Angeles or [the whole of] California.”

We want the services. We’re willing to pay for them, if they lead to good results. Yet whether our gargantuan investment is paying off is a question no one has an answer to. Hardly anyone even bothers to check. As far as much of the city is concerned, ignorance is bliss. In 2007, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) held a seminar for the nonprofits vying for a piece of $78 million in funding. Grant seekers were told that in the next funding cycle, they would be required — for the first time — to provide quantifiable proof their programs were accomplishing something. The room exploded with outrage. This wasn’t fair. “What if we can bring in a family we’ve helped?” one nonprofit asked. Another offered: “We can tell you stories about the good work we do!” Not every organization is capable of demonstrating results, a nonprofit CEO complained. He suggested the city’s funding process should actually penalize nonprofits able to measure results, so as to put everyone on an even footing. Heads nodded: This was a popular idea. [...]

Research by professor Bill Watkins of California Lutheran University over the past decade reveals that San Francisco is shedding its middle-class population at double the state rate. The city, however, is not losing low-income people at nearly the state’s pace — and is gaining wealthy residents at far more than California’s overall rate. In short, we are replacing our middle class with a rich elite and a burgeoning underclass. Watkins’ research also reveals that San Francisco is going gray. The number of city residents between ages 45 and 64 has climbed, while the count of those aged 20 to 44 has dropped. The city, it seems, has become a target destination for the wealthy and retirees. These are not the people who want to make sacrifices now to shore up the city’s future. “Wealthier people are consuming,” Watkins says. “They don’t want to build a future. They don’t have a reason to invest in the community.” For that matter, neither do young people — because their futures likely involve moving out of San Francisco. According to Joel Kotkin, “San Francisco is Disneyland for adults, or a place people go until they grow up.” The stage is set for San Francisco to run on inertia. The city’s poor are unable to effect a sea change; the young, nomadic population is uninterested; and the wealthy and older are unwilling.

Article continues.  I’ve worked in homeless shelters, and I know by experience that it is both possible and beneficial to measure the success of services offered.  If things aren’t working, stop and do something else.  Make sure you have a way of knowing if things aren’t working before you even start.  I’d gladly pay a much higher tax if I knew that my taxes were being used for things that I enjoy or benefit from.  Lacking that knowledge, I try to keep my taxes low.  Wasting money in social services is worse than not offering services at all.  And if money is to be extorted by taxes and siphoned into the pockets of the clever, I’d rather that be done openly than under the mask of being a good guy performing a social good.

Reprinted without permission. From The Immaculate Conception (1930), quoted in What is Surrealism? (1978).

Don’t read. Look at the designs created by the spaces between the words of several lines in a book and draw inspiration from them.

Give your hands to the others to keep.

Don’t lie down on the ramparts.

Take back the armour that you took off when you reached the age of discretion.

Put order in it’s place, disturb the stones of the road.

If you bleed and you are a man, erase the last word on the slate.

Form your eyes by closing them.

Let the dreams you have forgotten equal the value of what you do not know.

I have known a railway signalman, five female gatekeepers, and one male gatekeeper. And you?

Don’t prepare the words you cry out.

Live in abandoned houses. They have been lived in only by you.

Make a bed of your caresses for your caresses.

If they come knocking at the door, write your last will and testament with the key.

Rob sound of its sense; even light-colored dresses can hide muffled dreams.

Sing of the enormous pity of monsters. Evoke all the women standing on the Trojan horse.

Don’t drink water.

As with the letter l and the letter m, you’ll find the wing and the serpent near the middle.

Speak according to the madness that has seduced you.

Wear sparkling colors, it’s not usual.

What you find belongs to you only as long as you hold out your hand.

Lie as you bite the judges’ ermine.

You are the pruner of your life.

Hang yourself, brave Crillon, they’ll unhang you with their That depends.

Bind faithless legs.

Let the dawn stir the rust of your dreams.

Learn to wait with your feet in front of you. That’s the way you will soon go out, all covered up.

Light up the perspectives of fatigue.

Sell what you eat, buy what you need to die of starvation.

Surprise them by not confusing the future of the verb ‘to have’ with the past of the verb ‘to be.’

Be the glazier for the stone set in the new windowpane.

When they ask to see the inside of your hand, show them the veiled planets in the sky.

On the appointed day, you will calculate the lovely dimensions of the insect-leaf.

To expose the nakedness of the woman you love, look at her hands. She has lowered her face.

Separate the chalk from the coal, the poppies from the blood.

Do me the favour of entering and leaving on tiptoe.

Semicolons; you see how amazing they are, even in punctuation.

Lie down, get up, and now lie down.

Until further orders, until further religious orders, that is until the most beautiful girls adopt the cross-shaped decollete: the horizontal beam showing the breasts, the foot of the cross revealing the belly, whose base is slightly russet-brown in colour.

Forgo that which has a head on its shoulders.

Adjust your gait to that of the storms.

Never kill a nightbird.

Look at the convolvulus blossom: it does not allow one to hear.

Miss the obvious goal when you are supposed to peirce your heart with the arrow.

Perform miracles so as to deny them.

Be the age of the raven who says: Twenty years.

Beware of wagondrivers with good taste.

Sketch the disinterested games of your boredom in the dust.

Don’t seize the time to begin again.

Argue that your head, unlike a horse chestnut, is absolutely weightless, because it has not yet fallen.

Gild with the spark the otherwise black pill of the anvil.

Without wincing, imagine swallows.

Write the imperishable in sand.

Correct your parents.

Do not keep on your person anything that would wound common sense.

Imagine that that woman can be summed up in three words and that that hill is a chasm.

Seal the real love letters you write with a profaned host.

Don’t forget to say to the revolver: Delighted but it seems to me I’ve met you somewhere before.

The outside butterflies are trying only to rejoin the inside butterflies: don’t replace, in yourself, a single pane of the streetlamp if it should happen to get broken.

Damn what is pure – purity is damned in you.

Observe the light in the mirrors of the blind.

Do you want to own the smallest and the most alarming book in the world? Have the stamps on your love letters bound and then weep – you have good reason to, in spite of it all.

Never wait for yourself.

Look closely at these two houses: in one you are dead and in the other you are dead.

Think of me who am speaking to you; put yourself in my place when you answer.

Be afraid of passing too near the tapestries when you are alone and hear someone calling.

Wring out with your own hands your body over other bodies: accept this principle of hygiene courageously.

Eat only birds in leaf: the animal tree can stand autumn.

Your liberty with which you make me laugh till I cry is your liberty.

Make the fog flee before you.

Seeing that the mortal condition of things does not bestow on you an exceptional power of lasting, hang yourself by the root.

Leave it up to the stupid pillow to wake you.

Cut down trees if you wish, break stones too, but beware, beware of the livid light of utility.

If you look at yourself with one eye, close the other.

Don’t abolish the sun’s red rays.

You take the third street on the right, then the first on the left, you come to the square, you turn near that cafe you know, you take the first street on the left, then the third on the right, you throw your statue to the ground and you stay there.

Without knowing what you will do with it, pick up the fan that that woman dropped.

Knock on the door and cry, ‘Come in” – and don’t go in.

You have nothing to do before dying.

Two years ago (24 November 2007) I wrote about Mamie Manneh. Manneh was accused of illegally importing monkey meat “for religious ceremonies.”  Her lawyer wanted the charges dismissed “because they impinge on the importer’s right to freedom of religion,” that “bushmeat has spiritual significance and Ms. Manneh’s actions were protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” “From her baptism in Liberia to Christmas years later in her adopted New York City, Mamie Manneh never lost the longing to celebrate religious rituals by eating monkey meat.”  Here is what I had to say about that…

Mamie Manneh is an attempted murderer who illegally imported the remains of endangered species into the USA for the purpose of eating them. Handling and consuming this animal can lead to some of the most nightmarish diseases known to humanity. Only spongiform encephalopathy and religion can soften the mind enough to cause a person to hold Mamie’s ‘culture’ or ‘sincere beliefs’ worthy of consideration in this regard. It’s easy to look around and see that no one around you is eating monkey and that almost anyone you ask would be horrified at the idea. It’s easy to not lie to customs. It’s easy to not run over people in cars. It’s easy to not have nine kids that you can’t take care of because you’re in prison for trying to kill a woman. I wish it was easy for judges to laugh and scowl and toss her superstitions out of the courtroom. But that would mean tossing out superstitions that are in better favor with the majority, such as Christianity and Judaism and Islam. How much better it would be if the Constitution of the United States were in effect, and there was no establishment of religion in America.

Time marches on.  In the past two years Manneh has had two more children, bringing the total to eleven.  And for her crime?  A crime Jane Goodall wrote could have “grave consequences on public health?”  A crime which could cause outbreaks of Ebola, measles, tuberculosis and retroviruses similar to HIV among even those who do not eat monkey meat as part of their superstition?  Probation.

Once again, religion is the get-out-of-jail free card.  You can chew off part of a baby’s penis, causing the baby to get herpes which leads to the baby’s death, then another, then another, and get… a warning.  You can neglect your child until they die of curable diseases… but if you are able to demonstrate you mumbled magic spells to an invisible monster that lives in the sky while you watched your child die and did nothing, you can get a reduced sentence.

Spitting contempt is all these morally retarded creeps deserve, and it’s all I have for them.  How much worse, though, that they are given leniency in court.

Dear Friends,

Thank you all so much for the generous support you’ve given me over the years!  I could never have reunited my family and gotten my life back if it wasn’t for all of you, so thank you once again for everything you’ve done!

I’ve finally received the paperwork for the Appeals Court dismissal of my ex’s bid to keep the case in New York State.  You can view them on Google Docs, page 1 here: http://tinyurl.com/yara369 and page 2 here: http://tinyurl.com/ydrzh2k.  Some people have asked me about the court order preventing me from having my own artwork and writing inside my home, so I have put those orders up on the web also.  The legal prohibitions against me having any SubGenius materials in my home are found in numerous court docs.  In the latest, currently standing order from Judge Punch it is found at the bottom of page 2 and top of page 3 here: http://tinyurl.com/yc727s9 .  It is also seen affirmed by Judge Adams on page 17 here: http://tinyurl.com/y8wozzt .

Essentially, the upshot of the latest Appeals Court decision is that for now the case is dismissed, but my ex has one year from the date stamp, September 22, 2009, to make another attempt to complete this appeal.  After that deadline, if nothing further is filed, the case will finally move beyond the jurisdiction of New York State entirely.  Never again would my family face the prospect of having to split up and find lodging in New York for months or years on end to fight the case.  Never again will I be handicapped by not having any of my local friends and people who know our family available to testify.  Although this doesn’t guarantee the case would be completely over, it would return it to a fair and level playing field.

So basically, I’m counting down to September 10, 2010!!  I’ll be sure to send out an update then if all is well so you can rest easy!

Of course the legal bills are still a huge burden.  I have a monthly payment of over $500 to pay back a legal loan that my father secured with his entire retirement savings, so until that is paid off I am always living under the fear that I won’t be able to pay it and everything my father saved over decades of hard work as a letter carrier will be snatched away from him.  Any donations would be greatly appreciated, as always!  The link to donate is: http://pledgie.com/campaigns/90

Another way to help is to visit my new blog!  http://revmagdalen.blogspot.com/2009/11/welcome-to-my-new-blog.html I started this blog because I’ve begun to feel like the terrible numbing effect all these troubles have had on my mind is starting to wear off, and I’ve begun really wanting to share my opinions and hopefully make some people laugh!  And I’ve monetized the blog with ads, so every time anyone just visits and casts their eyes upon the ads, perhaps clicking any that are of genuine interest, it helps out my legal bills!

I’m still in a legal grey area as far as whether or not I can blog about my case, so I’ve chosen not to risk anything by doing that, but I have become pretty involved in activism for the Iranian Green Movement, so I do blog about that and a variety of SubGenius topics.  There’s even a section where you can “Ask Magdalen” any questions on SubGenius doctrine, your love life, anything!  I’ve also written a post explaining in more detail the answer to that infamous question, “Why a goat?” referring to a costume I wore at a SubGenius event that caused much controversy in the courtroom.  Get all the answers here: http://revmagdalen.blogspot.com/2009/11/because-goats-are-funny.html

You can also follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/revmagdalen where I also plan to occasionally serve ads, so the more followers I have, the more it will help my legal fund!  Feel free to tell your friends to check out the blog and follow me on Twitter, for a great free way to help with a good cause!

Thank you all again so much for everything you’ve done for my family, I don’t know how to repay you except to tell you that you have made a huge difference in a family’s life, and without your help we would still be separated and miserable, but your generosity has allowed us to be reunited and we are so happy and grateful for that!!!

Thank you so much!!
-Rachel Bevilacqua

A preview clip of my animated and interactive application based on the poster by Fritz Kahn: Der Mensch als Industriepalast [Man as Industrial Palace] from 1926.  For more information about the project go to: industriepalast.com

Architecture. Portland, Oregon USA. 5 December 2009.

A friend recently asked me for recommended reading on the subject of ethics.  Here’s my reply, along with… “Note well that these are sometimes at odds with each other.  That conflict will help you ask the right questions, which counts more than having the right answers.  I’ve ordered the links from shortest to longest, from one-page comics to entire books.”

“Nice” books…

Tsai Chih Chung: Zen Speaks.
Some examples…
http://www.duke.edu/web/meditation/image/carrying.gif
http://homepage.mac.com/dave_rogers/ZenMtnPaths.jpg
http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/25/l_4c4c6e8e509048599029ac0584e7ec5d.jpg
http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/55/l_370aef5ce1e14275938aff692bae0b58.jpg
http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/66/l_8c90f97ed3d848a99c34f197249d9156.jpg

Julian Baggini: Atheism / A Very Short Introduction.
Chapter 3, on atheist ethics…
http://www.andrsib.com/dt/moral.htm

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

“Not Nice” books…

Anton LaVey: The Satanic Bible.
Related, but not necessarily in this book…
http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/Eleven.html
http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/NineStatements.html
http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/Sins.html
http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/MostPower.html

Ragnar Redbeard: Might is Right.
A sample chapter, the whole thing and where to buy the best edition…
http://www.feastofhateandfear.com/archives/redbeard.html
http://tinyurl.com/ycfb6lx
http://ninebandedbooks.com/?p=329

Egoism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_egoism
http://www.df.lth.se/~triad/stirner/theego/theego.html

Niccolò Machiavelli: The Prince.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince

The Peter Principle is the principle that “In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.” It was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle, a humorous treatise which also introduced the “salutary science of Hierarchiology”, “inadvertently founded” by Peter. It holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their “level of incompetence”), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. This principle can be modeled and has theoretical validity. Peter’s Corollary states that “in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties” and adds that “work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence”.

Article continues. I have never met anyone less than 40 years of age who knows about The Peter Principle.

If you bury a pixie the size of a lima bean in your garden, your house cat will become intoxicated.

FIVE people who stared at the sun in the hope they might be witnessing religious apparitions are being treated for serious eye damage, a top eye surgeon has revealed. Reports of pilgrims to Knock seeing the sun dance in the sky and changing colour indicate serious eye damage. And a number of people who attended the recent religious gathering at the Catholic shrine are reporting symptoms of damaged retinas, said Dr Eamonn O’Donoghue, of University College Hospital in Galway. Dr O’Donoghue revealed he is treating five patients for serious eye injuries caused by staring at the sun at recent gatherings at Knock organised by Dublin “spiritual healers” Joe Coleman and Keith Henderson.

Article continues. I hope that the five people who are now blind regain their sight. If the five are of diminished intelligence, or are very young children, then my sympathy is with them all the more. Their friends and family and society at large will now be caring for them in ways that they used to be able to care for themselves. Their lives have been made less. Having said that, I have discharged the entirety of my compassion for those five blind people. They engaged in a stupid act for a stupid reason and may be paying for it the rest of their lives. The spiritual healing prayers of every Christian on Earth offered night and day for a hundred years will do exactly nothing for them, but science may lessen their self-inflicted suffering to some degree. Perhaps they’ll recognize which team made them go blind and which team helped them see again?

Many plants have the ability to regulate how much exposure to the sun they get. So can insects. Most land animals have eyelids. People have eyelids, protruding brows and heads that can tilt. People have the ability to move into the shade. We’re inclined from the DNA level on up to limit how much sunlight goes in our eyes. Except for very young children and those with diminished intelligence, people have the sense to recognize staring at the sun is painful and causes damage to your eyes. It takes religion to go against all that and make a person stare at the sun until they go blind. So you know what? They got what they deserved. But spiritual healers like Joe Coleman and Keith Henderson deserve so very, very much more.