our enemy – television

Television is the creative person's bane, a threat greater than most others are. Watching TV feeds the human need for companionship without ever really satisfying it and crushes creative capacity by tricking the brain into thinking it is doing something and being productive when it is just sitting idle. Creativity, power, assuredness, and passion all reside in the 2nd and 3rd chakras, the lower half of the torso that extends from the breastbone to the genitals. Look down at your own belly for a moment. Can you see your belt-buckle or waistband as it sits atop the pelvic bone? Can you feel and move the abdominus erectus, that muscle that runs from the bottom of the breastbone to attach to the top of the pelvis? If you cannot, you are not alone – more than a third of all Americans are obese, and many of these individuals carry a large portion of this additional weight in the lower halves of their torsos. The decision to sit down and watch television has disastrous consequences on the 2nd and 3rd chakras – it numbs and dulls them, confusing and stifling the free flow of energy through the regions of the core, an area central to living the best of possible human lives. Man is a gullible animal; after seeing just a few commercials related to food he will get food from his kitchen and eat that food (without focusing on what he is eating) while staring longingly into the beautiful bright lights of his TV set. If he repeats this sequence often enough he will get fat, and his increased girth will further stifle the free flow of energy through the region of his core and exacerbate the unhealthiness that stems from a lack of regular exercise and from a preference for prepackaged foods ready to eat over meals carefully and consciously crafted. Persons who wish to lead lives full of creativity and passion avoid watching television; they know that there are more constructive ways to fill their time than by staring at an electric light-box; they paint, draw, dance, or write; they make educated and intelligent decisions about what to eat and what to put through their orifices of eye and mouth and ear instead of numbing out the intestines by shoveling in as much sugary and salty and fatty foods as the gut can handle without bursting; they lead happy lives untethered from groomed and glossy but ultimately vacuous material. Downtrodden and passionless masses of the world, awake! Turn off your television sets! Humanity, and Mother Nature, need you now more than ever. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on nine eleven

  On this day we mark a decade since the events surrounding the 11th of September, 2001. Many changes have taken place in our nation since that bright summer day, some that restrict us in our liberty, others that inconvenience to little noticeable advantage. Absent clear and defining purpose, we have foundered collectively among the shoals of short-sightedness and greed, bruised badly by the false promise of unlimited consumer credit, our public figures beating the drums of nationalism and xenophobia in tones ever more vituperative and religious, the cultural diversity of our peoples muted by creeping corporate homogenization, our inventiveness forgotten in the face of gadgets that rarely prove convenient to the economics of time, our artistic creativity lost in the mirror-maze of sequels, mash-ups, and gimmickry, our citizens willfully abusing the national flag in misguided attempts to prove to others their patriotism, that deep and pure sense of pride that shines most brightly when it is cultivated within the confines of the heart, a sense that shrinks when displayed too prominently.

  I was in Manhattan that day; I volunteered three days later in the dust and wreckage blanketing the North Cove; I lost a fraternity brother who had just started work high up in the North Tower. But, then as now, I will never succumb to fear, never believe in America-über-alles, never discriminate against someone because of their choice of religion, never accept torture as a means necessary to the common defense, never disgrace the Stars and Stripes to prove to another my love for country, and never cease in my attempts to secure the Blessings of Liberty to myself, my brothers and sisters, and our Posterity.

  My the people who died on that September day not so long ago continue to rest in peace.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp