on Phyrgian caps

While the American republic was still being formed – that is, before it outgrew its britches and started pining for global full spectrum dominance – the concept of Liberty was vibrant, and alive. Today, however, as we approach the 9th month of the year 2013, the colors of Liberty have faded from her shores; preferring conformity and convenience to individuality and self-sufficiency, preferring television and nutritionism to simple pleasures and real food, the American people are in a sorry state. How do we shake them out of their stupor? How do we shock them back into passionate dialog and community-conscious living? One method for awakening them from their trance is to show them that most actions done with a car can be done on a bicycle. Another way to quicken their tepid fluids is to don a Phyrgian cap and prove to a candid world that we few who are mocked and ridiculed and looked upon with scorn have doffed the shackles of materialism and freed ourselves from greed and need and avarice by wearing a red and floppy hat. Look no further than the War Office Seal, which features a Liberty cap; find its collapsed contours in the symbols of the American Revolution's own Sons of Liberty. Perhaps we pampered modern Ynki would be able to pull this land out of its tyrannical tailspin if we emulated the men and women who risked Fortune and sacred Honor to create a nation dedicated to the principle that all persons are created equal, a republic founded on the notion that all choices and thoughts and decisions should be allow so long as they do not directly violate the Life, Liberty, or Property of another person. If, however, a majority of the public keeps pumping gasoline into slaves' chariots and numbing itself out to five hours of TV each day, the idea of Liberty will continue to sputter and wheeze, suffocating from lack of believers. Citizens of America, awake!

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

fast bus found

As part of the ceremony honoring the time I spent in Houston, Texas, I went for a nice long bike ride through her bowels last night. The city she rewarded me, and honored my honoring, by revealing a shortcut to Hobby. And so, this morning, instead of taking the light rail to one bus and then switching to another, I simply walked from the 6th Ward to the Downtown Transportation Center (following the route I had pioneered the night before) and mounted #88 ltd., a direct bus to the airport. This is a hot and foul but beautiful and corrupt city, and I shall miss her eternal flatness and unpredictable weather, her friendly pedestrians and shimmering heat, her grinding grit and broken sidewalks, her lounging transients and steaming-hot phở. Fare thee well, fine city of Houston, until we mingle again.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

corporate rule falters

As a self-appointed bane of America's corporate ruling-class, I speak often of the risks posed by these quasi-humans and their propensity to homogenize and sterilize any and every process and action they undertake. I have been encouraged, however, in recent months, by what appears to me to be a slipping of the corporate hand. Contrary to the image they work so hard to portray in countless and persistent television advertisements, in home-improvement centers such as Lowe's and Home Depot, for example, I wander the aisles for long periods of time without being approached or spoken to by those stores' employees; if I am approached (by anyone other than poorly-disguised undercover police officers who shadow my every move, all but begging me to steal something), I am called such things as, “Guy,” “Bro,” “Man,” or “Dude,” and only rarely, “Sir.” Such is the laxity of these corporations' wage-slaves that they stand around frequently in clusters talking to one another about anything but work, about kids or sports or how much their lives such, in earshot of paying customers who might need help finding something; such is the impotence of their bosses in middle-management that mandatory training-sessions aimed at fostering within their hearts a sense of decorum or self-pride appear to be wasted effort.

Whereas I initially placed the blame for such unprofessional behavior squarely on the shoulders of the under-educated and fiscally-misguided employees who live in this area of South-Central Pennsylvania, in my recent travels I have noticed similar behavior exhibited by employees stemming from other regions, as well. Therefore, I suspect that the once-iron grip of corporate rule – a grip that for many decades has relied on employees' fear of retribution or job-loss, their honest desire to serve the customer, and pride in their small-but-important contribution to goals clearly defined in their corporations' mission statement – that such inherent and priceless values have been steam-rolled into oblivion by incessant demands to increase profits and the need to keep stock-values rising, to the detriment of service to the customer. I have noticed the grip of corporate rule slipping in states such as Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, at stores such as those mentioned above and at Sam's Club, Auto Zone, and at branches of different grocery-store chains.

Could my mind be so filled with vitriol for undemocratic, greedy corporations that I am seeing something that is not there, or could my observations contain a hint of the Truth? Am I so fed up with the way that corporations are destroying the fabric of American society that I nitpick even their slightest professional errors, making mountains out of mole-hills? While I admit to longing for a time when the Commons belonged to all persons equally and when we Yanki were self-reliant and self-respecting individuals who cherished things of intrinsic value and who contributed willingly to communal success instead of just looking out of ourselves all the time, I recognize the futility of my struggle to resurrect such lost values and my resemblance to a fool tilting at windmills; if, however, I do not fight to free the American Dream from the stifling grasp of materialism and conspicuous consumption, who will? If I do not sit here in this cold room every morning banging away at this netbook with a pot full of hot, green tea at my side championing the rights of gays and lesbians and hurling barbs at the creeping menace of homegrown religious extremism, who will? Few Americans are as stupid as I am to stake Life, Fortune, and sacred Honor on the notion that we as a people have a duty to defend Liberty at all cost, to work tirelessly to ensure that all of our fellow humans are treated equally, and to fight governmental over-reach with such foolish brashness as I tend to do; I blame this behavior in part on Silas Nickerson, my 18th Century ancestor, who took up arms in our War for Independence, joining a rag-tag band of homegrown terrorists who were fighting with a distant tyrant for their right to decide for themselves how best to make themselves Safe and Happy. I wonder if old man Silas would applaud my efforts, or if he would succumb to the siren-song of Me-First capitalism, signing away his hard-won freedom for 60 months of interest-free financing. Hrm.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

Commons, constitutional Right

The preamble to the U.S. Constitution states that the role of government is to provide for the general Welfare. We the people, together with local, state, and federal governments, can only accomplish this if we properly protect the Commons, something which neither our system of quasi-free-market capitalism nor today's re-election-focused politicians deem important. The average, hard-working American, however, relies daily on things that make up the Commons, including roads, bridges, radio waves, wi-fi, seams of coal, deposits of natural gas, clean and smog-free air (vital to the health of all persons), clean and potable water (vital to the health of all persons), and national and local parks. Where once, however, a person suffering cold had the right to walk into the woods and collect for herself a few armfuls of wood, now those trees belong to individuals who sell that wood for profit. When something that belongs equally to everyone is sold by one just person, for no other purpose than his or her personal gain, the beauty of the Commons is shattered, Nature's bounty serving not the interests of all persons equally but only the interests of a few, specifically.

Among the gravest dangers facing America today is our loss of appreciation for things that have intrinsic value, that have worth beyond the merely monetary; our system of Me-First capitalism has so infiltrated and poisoned our minds that we think that everything comes with a price-tag, that everything is for sale. If we just admitted to being a nation of whores, a nation focused on the accumulation of personal wealth, if we just fessed up to selling ourselves into wage-slavery in order to maintain our electricity-dependent, non-self-sufficient lifestyles, then our estimation in the opinions of mankind might not be so low; but, as things stand, we come across as childish and hypocritical assholes who complain about the poor state of our lives while sitting around all day watching TV and shoveling food processed by other downtrodden corporate wage-slaves into our ever-expanding stomachs. The notion of the Commons relies on communal sacrifice, on inter-personal sharing, and on the idea that some aspects of our lives – love, mercy, humility, equality, and generosity – cannot be pigeonholed but must remain beyond the realm of definition, classification, and exploitation. To bring about this state of affairs and to rescue our tender humanity from the ever-grasping paws of profit-hungry corporate interests and the greed of unscrupulous men, we must stand together, protecting what belongs to us all with Life, Fortune, and sacred Honor.

The Declaration of Independence defines government as that body which brings about the Safety and Happiness of the people. Furthermore, it grants us the right to alter or to abolish our government should it become destructive of our Safety and Happiness. Friends, Yankis, fellow patriots, we demand that our governments protect the Commons diligently, since clean air, pure soil, clear water, and guaranteed civil rights make us Happy and Safe and poisoned air, barren soil, polluted water, and preferential treatment for avaricious, self-interested individuals makes us Unsafe and Unhappy. The government of the United States of America does not exist to pay $400 billion to defense contractors, to cut taxes for wealthy corporations and rich individuals, to stop funding education, to stop funding programs that assist the poor and the elderly, to attack and kill persons merely suspected of committing grave crimes (such as Al-Awlaki, Osama Bin Laden), to subjugate foreign peoples in order to gain access to their mineral and fuel resources, or to restrict the ability of its own people to consume whichever drugs they decide best; the government of the U.S.A. exists to insure domestic tranquility and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, which it does best by protecting the Commons and making sure they stay free to all who may require their bounty. As long as we remain undisciplined and look the other way, however, and as long as we participate in the travesty of conspicuous consumption, we shall remain the enemies of the Commons, blind to the fragile truths which can save us from ourselves. To free the person, free her mind. Mahalo.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on trucks, ravens, and NOTW

Recently, while going somewhere atop my velocipede, I was passed by a pickup-truck driven by a solitary individual. Affixed to the back of this vehicle were two stickers, one reading “Ravens – Relentless,” the other, “NOTW.” While it will not shock this website's regular readers that I am once again writing about the idiocy of the loose affiliation of non-earth-bound, religiously-fanatical individuals who see themselves as being Not Of This World (NOTW), the dichotomy of the aforementioned stickers was, at the time, quite striking.

For starters, Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary from 1961 defines relentless as: “Mercilessly harsh, stern.” If anything is to be gleaned from the teachings of Yeshua (also known as Iesu, or Jesus), it is that one should – always, and without fail – be compassionate toward others, and that one should honor and love others as one would honor and love oneself. The teachings of this wise man focus, perhaps more than on anything else, on becoming a merciful and generous person whose only wish is to serve the lowly, to assist the meek, and to aid the disenfranchised. According to the Christian bible, the only time that this Yeshua acted in a truly harsh or stern fashion was when he drove – by whipping them with chains – money-lenders from temple in a brazen (yet obviously unsuccessful) attempt to rid faith of finance.

Next, the compassionate individual cares for the Earth and for Nature; he wishes to shelter and to promote the growing and the teeming things, no matter their size, shape, or color; the last thing that the true believer in the message of Yeshua would do would be to burn crude oil in an unnecessarily large (and lifted, or modified to ride higher and with inferior aerodynamics) truck by driving himself around the countryside in his two-ton vehicle at high speeds, to mow through clouds of insects, crushing them against the front of his car, or to live in such as way as to make any form of driving a (supposed) necessity. The last thing he would do would be to allow himself to become so engrossed in a foreign-born game that he would go out and purchase a sticker for his car instead of using that money to support efforts aimed at environmental conservation and the preservation of the myriad species.

And, finally, the true believer in Yeshua's message would not to spend his time watching, discussing, thinking on, or musing about the intricate details of such a decidedly earth-bound and petty thing as American football – the true believer would spend his time discussing, thinking on, and musing about how best to give to the poor, to help the needy, to uplift the downtrodden, and to live in such a way as to cause as little negative impact as possible to the health of this, our only planet.

To attempt to love Yeshua, football, and pickup-trucks at the same time is akin to trying to walk while sitting and standing; please, dear friends, remember the lessons of humility and mercy, and cast aside the creeping doubt of relentless and unbridled passion.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on the use of eyes in street art

(reasons, questions, and motives)

Stroll through downtown Los Angeles, up New York's Broadway, or along the avenues of Philadelphia's Center City, and look in the forgotten, in the grimy, and in the underused places. With a keen glance and a bit of luck, you will witness the riotous beauty known as street art. Oh, what a profusion of style and color, of shape and size, of message and image, all blending into a whole that, if viewed from afar, resembles little more than visual clutter; but get in good and close, and follow the guidance of your peripheral vision, and your most tender of sphincters will drink invariably of the intoxicating power of street art.

But why do we look? Why are we powerless against the urge to sweep our gazes into worn and sticky places and up onto soot-covered utility poles? Eyes, my friends, we look at graffiti because it is full of eyes (and not just any type of eyes, but human eyes). Perhaps they stumbled upon the technique accidentally, perhaps they copied it from advertisers, or maybe they just plain Knew to tap into one of mankind's most primal and deep-seated fears, but, however it occurred, street artists employ one of the most basic methods for getting people to look at something – to give it eyes.

Since our time as forest-creeping, prairie-running, skull-bashing troglodytes, the species homo sapiens has developed the uncanny ability to recognize the shape of the eye even if it should be obscured by layers of seemingly random patterns. While experts may argue whether this ability is restricted merely to recognizing the human eye, or if it applies to the eyes of all of our former predators (think bear, cougar, coyote), few persons dispute the fact that our brains are really good at figuring out if someone, or something, is looking at us. Advertisers exploit this evolutionary adaptation to our status as Top Predator Of One Another by blanketing the phaltscape with pictures of pretty people who nearly all happened to have been staring directly at the camera's shutter when it opened. (Now, however, instead of our powers giving us the upper hand in a fight-or-flight situation, they allow us to be convinced that we need that new and re-formulated cucumber body scrub; woe be unto mankind.)

All quasi-scientific, pseudo-evolutionary nonsense aside (I am not a scientist, nor am I particularly intelligent or well-versed) – why do graffiti-writers use so many eyes in their designs? Why in the name of Beelzebub do they wish for people to look at their works of art, and to what purpose do they make use of our aforementioned ability to pick eyes out of the ether? As the SDUBS (self directed urban beautification specialist) is wily and suspicious by nature, and since she maintains a level of honor, decorum, and discipline so profound as to make inquiry into her personal matters a life-threatening endeavor, these questions shall likely go unanswered for many generations to come. For now, however, please enjoy the street-side galleries of free-to-the-consumer art wherever you may be, and rest easily in the knowledge that, by looking back at eyes that look at you, you are merely executing a deeply-ingrained survival reflex that is as natural to humans as is laughter. Never forget, however, to keep an eye out for your fellow man, he who has been hunting you for longer than you shall likely ever know.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

no better than Nazis

in World War Two, we Americans fought bravely alongside Russians and English and Chinese and Frenchmen to conquer the aggressiveness and predatory nature of the Nazis and their allies. then, in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, we became the aggressors, we became the predators, and we invaded the sovereign nations of Iraq and Afghanistan with a ferocity and a disdain for the laws of civility that rivaled the ferocity and the disdain of the Nazis themselves. we Americans started wars of aggression without having declared war on these nations, thus robbing ourselves of the validity necessary to see our actions through, thus violating and invalidating numerous international treaties, thus sacrificing our precious honor for the fleeting promise of safety. America delenda est.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

on cigarette smoking and not giving a fuck

(or how smoking changes your attitude toward behaving recklessly)

I stopped smoking cigarettes five months ago after having smoked for more than fifteen years. Since stopping I have noticed that I am less likely to engage wantonly in dangerous and ill-advised activities, that I have greater control over my thought processes, and that I am taking better care of my body generally. This may be because of my advancing age, and perhaps it is due to aging-related changes to my brain chemistry, but I believe that since conquering the slavery that is tobacco addiction I am rediscovering a love for myself lost long ago.

It is a terrible thing that the United States of America allow their people to become enslaved to tobacco, that the States profit from their people buying into a self-imposed slavery, and that they punish the people for smoking substances other than tobacco, substances such as marijuana that do not ensnare the user in addiction. It is also a terrible thing that I have lost the recklessness and lack of caring associated with destroying my body through smoking cigarettes, but in their place is growing within me a ferocious passion, a deep and precious love for myself and for my life such as I have not felt for decades. It is this love that for the first time in my life allows me to force my ADHD into submission; it is this love that inspires me to live an honorable and a virtuous life.

The shackles of addiction do not easily fall away, and those who profit from this enslavement do not care if you live or die. So buck up, smokers of America, and secure for yourselves the Blessings of Liberty by quitting smoking cigarettes.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit