My Blog

Yeah...check this site out at your own risk...

triclops — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:41:38 GMT

"Drawing from a database of all the scores given by city health inspectors. Type in any spot in SF and you'll get its hygiene inspection score and descriptions of any violations, e.g.: cockroaches (1pt deduction), "dirty utensils" (1pt), "hazardous materials improperly stored" (4pts), and the 12-point bonanza “severe cockroaches" (judgmental bugs who are unwilling to forgive mistakes). You’ll also see a graph plotting each restaurant’s scores over the past three years; one spot actually dropped from a 95 to a 43, suggesting an epically incompetent manager, or an unreasonable increase in bribery rates." Hopefully none of your favorites are hiding in the "Worst Locations" section. www.CleanScores.com Bon Appetit, Bitches! C

Possibly my favorite description ever of the IRAQ fiasco...

triclops — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:24:46 GMT

"This is the triumphant culmination of two centuries of flawed white-people thinking, a preposterous mix of authoritarian socialism and laissez-faire profiteering, with all the worst aspects of both ideologies rolled up into one pointless, supremely idiotic military adventure -- American men and women dying by the thousands, so that Karl Marx and Adam Smith can blow each other in a Middle Eastern glory hole." Matt Taibbi from http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle Doesn't get much more to the point than that.... C

Money = Debt

triclops — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:28:03 GMT

So, I have a business degree. Crazy story how I ended up going that route... Even though I was generally bored to tears by the curriculum, I did pretty well. Considering that I almost flunked out of High School, I got all A's and B's in college, except for one class....Financial Management. Economics was pretty tough as well (Statistics was pretty fuckin' awesome, though). For some reason, I could not wrap my mind around how money works. They would teach us how the monetary system works and about stocks and bonds and what not, but it always seemed like it was a shell game. I would sit there in total confusion, my mind flummoxed about how all this was logically possible. I'd ask the professor, "wait, how is all this decided...who decides this?" And he'd say, "the FED... that's just how it is." Everyone around me seemed to get it, they just listened to what he said and memorized it, but my mind would just crack in there. I know now that what my mind was doing was reacting to the complete absurdity of the whole thing. It's a hard thing to recognize that the whole system is a made up game that is by no means interested in the public good....that really, the whole thing is pretty much the grandest scam ever perpetuated. In business school, I'd get little glimpses at it, cuz I was on my way to being an "insider." All you have to do is drink the kool aid and not ask too many questions, just learn the rules and maybe you can get a cut out of the heist. My entire person was recoiling at the prospect, but at the time, I just figured I didn't "get it". Subconciously I did get it....and it all pretty much boils down to "What the fuck?" Even in 4 years of business school, they never really told us about what follows. This was just never mentioned, it was the man behind the curtain...it was just referred to as "The Fed". Anyway, I truly hope you all will take some time to review the following videos...it's an excellent description of an incredibly complex subject, and it's done with cartoons :) But beware, if you didn't know all this already, it's pretty disconcerting....but more truly informative than 4 years of business school.... Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy-fD78zyvI Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfXavRTM4Fg Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yvRZoM-2r8 Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0p8LepIuVM Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzXZ_Hs1g6U

I CHING, YOU CHING, WE ALL CHING FOR ICE CREAM!!!

triclops — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 17:12:13 GMT

"In the time of internal gathering together, make no arbitrary choice of your associates. There are secret internal forces at work, leading together those who belong together." ~~~I Ching Wisdom

Wrap your mind around this....

triclops — Wed, 16 May 2007 23:05:54 GMT

http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php or better yet, dip your BALLS in it!

Fear of Death...or...Duhism

triclops — Tue, 15 May 2007 23:48:59 GMT

So Fallwell being raptured up to the big pearly gates in the sky has me reflecting on something... Many of you know I was brought up Baptist. I never really got any farther than the hell-fire fear part of it. I absolutely did go through a bit of a spiritual dilemma in college freeing myself from that framework, and still find dusty corners of my life that haven't been cleared of the extreme duality of that model. What can I say...it's got some strong archetypes goin' on. But anyway, I've pondered alot on it out of the necessity of determining my own beliefs. And slowly, I've been becoming ever more comfortable with some form of reincarnation. I've started realizing that in general, many of my spiritual beliefs rely on some form of an evolutionary process that requires reincarnation in some sense. And as I've gone down that road, I've come to a realization... I used to believe fundamentalists were scared of Death, ...now I believe they are scared of Eternity. The fundy's believe in a very simplistic sense that if you "get it right" you go to heaven and if you "get it wrong" you go to hell. In either case, it's for "eternity." Now the whole issue I've always had with heaven and hell is that either one is just one side of the coin.. they don't seem like they could exist without one another. But let's just consider that you could. Either way you go, if you go in one direction for eternity, then you have ceased to change. The dance has stopped. You have arrived, the game is over and you "won" or you "lost". Pretty unambigous and finite. However, if you start screwing around with the cosmic, reincarnated, metaphysical worldview... you seriously got an existential problem on your hands. The shit NEVER ENDS!! It's eternal!! It's the ABYSS! And it's tortoises aaaaaaallll the way down. (pardon me while I go YAK!) That is some seriously scary stuff, man. There is no resolution. This is it. This is all there is and all there ever will be. The journey is the destination. And yet it's infinite. Now like many of you, I feel like something is going down right now. I know about all the talk about the consciousness leaps and the new dimensions and what not. But even if that goes down, I don't think it's over. It's just maybe a moment where the game is revealed and the board is changed. Sweet! But the point is that it still goes on. Even if God wakes up and remembers who he is, I doubt she'd go back to nonexistence. They'd just big bang again!! So anyway, I'm not so sure that the fundy's really want eternal life, I think they just want to get off the fucking ride.... which is why there's no "fun" in fundamentalism. Come to think of it, not a lot of "mental" either. Just alot of "duh" and "ism." Camtastic

Happy Birthday Sweet Cassalicious...

triclops — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 06:56:08 GMT

Presenting... The Queen of Cartoons :) Checkin it.... http://web.mac.com/seanfranzen/iWeb/West%20Sac/Povtown%20Cinema.html

Something I've been struggling with...

triclops — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 21:25:12 GMT

I was reading an excellent interview of Arundhati Roy and it really hit home on something I struggle with. This world getting absurd beyond belief. We're definitely in a very new time of human evolution, as I guess we've always been. Some would say that we've been here before, and I agree to a large extent, in as much as our human nature tends to continuously flavor our environment and and vice versa,. However, with the amount of technology, noise, doublespeak (tower of babel), globalization, neo-liberalism, and subjegation of all things to the demands of some idea of this thing we've created called "The Market"....for instance... things have gotten really weird. Weird in a way I'm not actually sure human beings are capable in their current state of dealing with. It's almost as something has taken on a life of its own that has actually disconnected itself from our own human needs. And I even mean the "bad" stuff like greed, fear, violence....it's as if "IT's" feeding on these things, but there's not really any human meaning to it... "IT's" got it's own agenda... Here's a quote from Arundhati that kinda gets at what I'm saying.... "It makes you wonder – is the last stop of every revolution advanced capitalism? Think about it - the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnam War, the Anti- Apartheid struggle, the supposedly Gandhian Freedom struggle in India…what’s the last station they all pull in at? Is this the end of imagination?" That's a good question. Is this the end of Imagination? Or are we in a prison of Imagination? Because I tell you this much.. most everything that controls our life is total imagination...imagination that's been crystalized in to things like law and tradition and culture from a collective perspective, not to mention whatever personal prisons we've concocted for ourselves. If there's one thing that seems to not be part of this whole spectacle, it's actual, REAL human needs and a sincere way to provide that to ourselves and others. What has taken place of the actual food for the human soul is a hologram. In our desire to consume this hologram, lot's of us are doing all types of shit to buy, hustle, or downright steal it...but the hole just gets emptier and emptier...it's like the Hell of the Hungry Ghosts the Buddhists wax about. Meanwhile, those of us who are lucky enough to manufacture, market, and sell these holograms (a miniscule percentage of people) enrich themselves on the real thing. Oops...did I say us and them? Forgive me. In the process of following all this to it's logical conclusion, you start to see patterns. You start to see similarities amongst things that shouldn't go together. Paradoxes begin to resolve...conundrums start to dissolve. And once you get to some ground that seems as real as it's gonna get, you have to ask yourself a few questions.... Am I ok with this? If not, is there anything I can do about it? If so, what should I do? If I do it, will it actually make the situation "better?" OR ....and here's the kicker.... despite my best intentions, does my struggle just entangle me in the web... and worse, enable that which I am not ok with? Am I just pulling at the knot and making it harder to untangle? A good example is protesting. Let's say you're a well educated progressive activist and you don't like what the fuck's goin' on 'round here. So you decide to put together a protest. You get your permits, your permission from the appropriate authorities, and you promote this thing to other progressives. Everybody shows up at the spot at the agreed upon time, and damnit you start marching. Next thing you know, a few crazy lookin' anarchists decide to kick it up a notch and begin to act in "unsavory" ways. TV cameras are on them...their creative protestations are blasted on the mainstream news, and all of a sudden, the medium is the message. Everyone can now dismiss you, because, "hey, you're all a bunch of crazy lookin' anarchists", and all the protest did was crystallize that idea into even more people's heads. At the same time, those same people can feel great that we have a country where those crazy anarchists can speak their minds...we're free after all. And my fine progressive friends can feel good about the fact that they "did something." San Francisco is even a more interesting situation when it comes to protesting...it reminds me of that western koan....if a tree falls in the woods and noone (who's not a tree) is there to hear it, did the tree really make a sound? Again, Arundhati puts it waaaaay better.... "We’ve entered the era of NGOs – or should I say the era of palthu shers - in which mass action can be a treacherous business. We have demonstrations which are funded, we have sponsored dharnas and social forums which posture militantly but never follow up on what they preach. We have all kinds of ‘virtual’ resistance. Meetings against SEZs sponsored by the biggest promoters of SEZs. Awards and grants for environmental activism and community action given by corporations responsible for devastating whole ecosystems." "How do we make sense of all this? The place is crawling with professional diffusers of real political action. ‘Virtual resistance’ has become something of a liability." "We are living in times, when to be ineffective is to support the status quo (which no doubt suits some of us). And being effective comes at a terrible price. I find it hard to condemn people who are prepared to pay that price." And so my struggle is this... Is it possible that doing nothing is better than doing something if you're not totally sure that your proposed action wouldn't just make things worse? Is the act of doing something better than doing nothing as long as your intentions are clear because at least you're taking a stand and making an effort? Is it all truly just theater? Whether you do nothing or something....it's something...as long as you do it with style, flair, and self-assurance (I have a feeling my friends on tribe will vote for this one :) I guess the true struggle within me is this need to do something, but the paralysis that comes from understanding how easy it is to contribute to the status quo through my actions. I want to find the weak spots and hit them there. But I see all these beautiful people around me just kicking at shit and that makes them happy. Results aren't the point. In some ways, it's as if they really want the status quo because they derive their identity from it by being "different" from it. And here I am, caught up using all my energy to figure out what all this shit is predicated upon.... where the cracks in the foundation are. I guess I'm just a conlficted Ninja surrounded by Pirates... but I do notice that Pirates always give me their knots to untangle... Here's the whole interview...good reading... http://www.countercurrents.org/roy260307.htm Camtastic

What's Valuable?

triclops — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:44:43 GMT

“All human beings have this burden in life to constantly figure out what’s true, what’s authentic, what’s meaningful, what’s dross, what’s a hallucination, what’s a figment, what’s madness. We all need to figure out what is valuable, constantly." -Maxine Hong Kingston Ahh, how true Maxine, but it's no burden for me, it's my passion...

Creepy effin BUGS man!

triclops — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 20:08:46 GMT

So back in my BUMPASS days, I was hangin out at my girlfriends house when I saw something I've never seen before... a cave cricket ...or camel cricket, I called 'em criders before I knew what they were, cuz they looked like a cross between a spider and a cricket. It was the most hellish bug I've ever seen, and it was aggressive, man. It came after me and wanted to eat my eyeballs. What reminded me of this is that the other day I was in my basement washing clothes and I saw this creature that was even MORE disgusting. It didn't move like an insect, but more like some alien creature all slow n' shit. God, it made me sick just looking at it. So I got on the web and found out what it was.. a potato bug. Blech, that's one disgusting hell spawn. Apparently they're all over californa, so I'm sure some of you have seen these little aliens. Here's a link...prepare to retch... http://www.potatobugs.com/ The FAQ says that they EAT CHEEKS!!!! AHHHHHH!

Check out this cool new project I'm working on for the defense industry.....that's me in the picture.

triclops — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:57:36 GMT

It's a pain ray for searing the skin of unruly crowds. Cool, huh? I was thinking about bringing it to burning man next year. Get it? Burning MAN?!?! LOL! http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72134-0.html?tw=wn_index_1

Came across this poem today...

triclops — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:41:10 GMT

I have a friend who had this poem up in his bathroom. Everytime I crashed at his house and brushed my teeth in the morning I would read it. I've know the guy since I was 16 and he was (and is) quite an influence in my world. I had forgotten about this poem until today when I came across it embedded in an article about Bill Cosby, who apparently likes to give it out... anyway, it's defintiely made it's mark on me, so let's share it... "IF" By Rudyard Kipling, If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you But make allowance for their doubting too, If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream--and not make dreams your master, If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much, If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

Are there any choreographers or dancers out there who wanna do something ridiculous?

triclops — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:59:35 GMT

I need someone to choreograph some dance moves for me for a random act of danceness I got in me mind. Also need some rhythmically astute hotties to dance them with a little extra time on their hands. Lo stress fo shiz. Anyone qualified or know somebody that is? There will be fun, gear, and potential infamy involved. Super much appreciated. Camtastic

This is my kinda peeps....

triclops — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 16:45:31 GMT

ALMETTO, Florida (AP) -- Mark Giorgio figured a 50-foot plunge was worth $20. Giorgio, 47, was counting his money and walking across the U.S. 41 bridge over the Manatee River Monday when a $20 bill blew out of his hand and flew over the rail. He followed. And plummeted 50 feet into the river. Then he swam about 100 yards to fish the bill from the water. "I got my money back, hell yeah," Giorgio told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. "Twenty bucks is a lot of money when you're broke." He was fished from the water by a passing Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer. Giorgio, who said he was already suffering from a broken collarbone, refused treatment for cuts and scrapes he suffered in the fall.

FEAR - Dispensed Daily....

triclops — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 21:27:18 GMT

So, Osama Walks into This Bar, See? and Bush says, “Whad’l'ya have, pardner?” and Osama says, “Well, George, what are you serving today?” and Bush says, “Fear,” and Osama shouts, “Fear for everybody!” and George pours it on for the crowd. Then the presidential bartender says, “Hey, who’s buying?” and Osama points a thumb at the crowd sucking down their brew. “They are,” he says. And the two of them share a good laugh! Isn't that a great story :)

Help me with a BM Art project!!

triclops — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 23:11:37 GMT

My Peeps! I'm making an art installation for BM this year. It's basically a personal temple where you can honor the divinity and beauty in yourself during the day. At night it will become a place to hold space, acknowledge, and honor your shortcomings and shadow side. So I'm putting out a request to the community for some small items that could go on a shrine that would highlight and honor the aspect of the light and shadow in all of us. This shrine is gonna be pretty small, so these objects need to be small. Something that would fit in your hand or smaller. I'm also looking for nice materials to cover the shrine and hang inside the temple. The objects could be mystical, artistic, wacky, freaky, dark, religious, inspiring, etc. Anything you feel would fit this theme. The idea is for people to reflect on their light and shadow qualities and place an object on the shrine that they feel represents whatever arises at that moment. Over the week the shrine will evolve. If you decide to donate items to this, you should be willing to lose it, as it IS Burning Man, and if someone wants to take an item, they are free to do so. So if you're not willing to lose it, keep it! If you choose to donate something to this experiment in co-creative self-worship (wrap your mind around that), there are a few ways you can get items to me. ~Personally give me the item (Yay, I like this option!!) ~Give the item to my Cuz, Jason if you see him at Mission Control. Chances are most of you will see him more than me. Please note that although Scott and Polly are a major inspiration for this project, they have their own project they're dealing with (PSMG), so please don't hassle them or bother them about this, go straight to Jason :) ~If you're going to BM, bring it with you!!! I'll be staying on the esplanade with the Lost Penguins around 4:30 - 4:45. I'll have a place to drop off items if you can't find me. ~The best option of all - find the shrine out on the playa (or ask me once you get there) and place your item yourself! Big LOVE!! Camtastic

White People...

triclops — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 19:18:58 GMT

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell Autumn, 1936 In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter. No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans. All this was perplexing and upsetting. For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. Theoretically – and secretly, of course – I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos – all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt. But I could get nothing into perspective. I was young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East. I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it. All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty. One day something happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism – the real motives for which despotic governments act. Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old 44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem. Various Burmans stopped me on the way and told me about the elephant's doings. It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone "must." It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their attack of "must" is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped. Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours' journey away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town. The Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it. It had already destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock; also it had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon it. The Burmese sub-inspector and some Indian constables were waiting for me in the quarter where the elephant had been seen. It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palmleaf, winding all over a steep hillside. I remember that it was a cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains. We began questioning the people as to where the elephant had gone and, as usual, failed to get any definite information. That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes. Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in one direction, some said that he had gone in another, some professed not even to have heard of any elephant. I had almost made up my mind that the whole story was a pack of lies, when we heard yells a little distance away. There was a loud, scandalized cry of "Go away, child! Go away this instant!" and an old woman with a switch in her hand came round the corner of a hut, violently shooing away a crowd of naked children. Some more women followed, clicking their tongues and exclaiming; evidently there was something that the children ought not to have seen. I rounded the hut and saw a man's dead body sprawling in the mud. He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, almost naked, and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut, caught him with its trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him into the earth. This was the rainy season and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of yards long. He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to one side. His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony. (Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.) The friction of the great beast's foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit. As soon as I saw the dead man I sent an orderly to a friend's house nearby to borrow an elephant rifle. I had already sent back the pony, not wanting it to go mad with fright and throw me if it smelt the elephant. The orderly came back in a few minutes with a rifle and five cartridges, and meanwhile some Burmans had arrived and told us that the elephant was in the paddy fields below, only a few hundred yards away. As I started forward practically the whole population of the quarter flocked out of the houses and followed me. They had seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant. They had not shown much interest in the elephant when he was merely ravaging their homes, but it was different now that he was going to be shot. It was a bit of fun to them, as it would be to an English crowd; besides they wanted the meat. It made me vaguely uneasy. I had no intention of shooting the elephant – I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary – and it is always unnerving to have a crowd following you. I marched down the hill, looking and feeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an ever-growing army of people jostling at my heels. At the bottom, when you got away from the huts, there was a metalled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across, not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains and dotted with coarse grass. The elephant was standing eight yards from the road, his left side towards us. He took not the slightest notice of the crowd's approach. He was tearing up bunches of grass, beating them against his knees to clean them and stuffing them into his mouth. I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant – it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery – and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided. And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then and I think now that his attack of "must" was already passing off; in which case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him. Moreover, I did not in the least want to shoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home. But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives," and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing – no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at. But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow it always seems worse to kill a large animal.) Besides, there was the beast's owner to be considered. Alive, the elephant was worth at least a hundred pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks, five pounds, possibly. But I had got to act quickly. I turned to some experienced-looking Burmans who had been there when we arrived, and asked them how the elephant had been behaving. They all said the same thing: he took no notice of you if you left him alone, but he might charge if you went too close to him. It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him until the mahout came back. But also I knew that I was going to do no such thing. I was a poor shot with a rifle and the ground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step. If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind. For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn't be frightened in front of "natives"; and so, in general, he isn't frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do. There was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim. The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theatre curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats. They were going to have their bit of fun after all. The rifle was a beautiful German thing with cross-hair sights. I did not then know that in shooting an elephant one would shoot to cut an imaginary bar running from ear-hole to ear-hole. I ought, therefore, as the elephant was sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole, actually I aimed several inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward. When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick – one never does when a shot goes home – but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time – it might have been five seconds, I dare say – he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay. I got up. The Burmans were already racing past me across the mud. It was obvious that the elephant would never rise again, but he was not dead. He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open – I could see far down into caverns of pale pink throat. I waited a long time for him to die, but his breathing did not weaken. Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die. His body did not even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause. He was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further. I felt that I had got to put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast Lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him. I sent back for my small rifle and poured shot after shot into his heart and down his throat. They seemed to make no impression. The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock. In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. I heard later that it took him half an hour to die. Burmans were bringing dash and baskets even before I left, and I was told they had stripped his body almost to the bones by the afternoon. Afterwards, of course, there were endless discussions about the shooting of the elephant. The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing. Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a mad dog, if its owner fails to control it. Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie. And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

Some Thought's on Guilt...

triclops — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 04:30:54 GMT

Guilt is the process of punishing oneself in response to a perceived or actual harm done to another. Its basis lies in justice, but of the eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth variety. It is the classic revenge scenario directed inward. You are taking revenge on yourself on behalf of the other person in an attempt to right the situation through the process of self-inflicted suffering. But, it seems, suffering doesn't settle the score. Only learning the lesson and taking action settles the score. In this way, guilt impedes one's self growth. Though it may seem that feeling guilty is an appropriate response, it only robs energy that we could direct towards learning and change. Guilt is old school thinking. We put great emphasis on it in our current justice system. "Do you feel remorse?" You get extra points for that. That means you're "normal". It makes us all feel better that that person is going to torture themselves, on top of whatever external punishment we throw at them. Their suffering will be harder than the steely eyed person who doesn't say he's sorry...who feels no remorse. This person we cannot fathom. He is not punishing himself as we would do if "we were him." His punishment comes only from the outside. And therefore the score doesn't seem settled. ..the blind lady's scales aren't even. Guilt acts as a substitute for real change. It's primary agenda is to "settle the score" and "make things even", whereas a lesson learned and postive action taken is actual transformation. Note to self...

Too Many Puppies!!

triclops — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 22:41:02 GMT

So over the July 4th weekend I went camping up in Trinity county. One of my friends has a little girl (in the pic) named Malia. Malia's dog had a litter of 6 puppies. Well, one of these pups, Malia got attached to. She shows up with this puppy and the whole camp goes apeshit over how cute it is (especially with Malia). Well turns out all of the puppies were going to the pound, and keep in mind this is a small town, not the SF SPCA. Then my friend put the idea in my mind that I should take her and find her a home. So by the end of the trip, I was screwed. I couldn't just leave her there. So Malia, after much heart and soul-searching, decided that she'd let me take her dog under two conditions. One was that I get her big brother to stop pushing her around and two was that I promise to find her a good home. Well I can't do much about her big brother, but I am trying to find this adorable, sweet creature a wonderful home. I took her to the vet a couple of days ago and got her first shots and de-wormed. The vet gave her a clean bill of health. She's a total STAR!! Heart meltingly sweet and just all around wonderful. I'd keep her but my lifestyle is no place for a dog. It's bad enough I have to leave her at home all day while I'm at work as it is. So if you're interested and would make a good owner or know someone that is, Tribe me, yo! Her name is Sula which means "little bear by the river." Can you stand it?!?!

On Colbert and the Power of the Fool...

triclops — Tue, 02 May 2006 18:52:14 GMT

So, Kitty posted this... http://people.tribe.net/purrverse/blog?topicid=35cf65f7-3571-4f81-b5ad-f9b87fdd85ad about Steven Colbert at the White House Correspondents dinner and the Prof posted this... http://people.tribe.net/scottlevkoff/blog?topicid=60218228-c2f6-4013-9a28-56883d373115 about the liberation of Playing the Fool When I read that Colbert monologue, it seemed to perfectly illuminate the Power of the Fool. I remember Scott weaving me a story a while back about the importance of the Fool (after pointing out how much fool I have in me, ha ha :) Specifically, he was talking about how the Fool or Jester was one of the Kings most trusted advisors as he was one of the only people that could tell the King the truth, without summarily having his head chopped off. Clearly this was because he did it in the spirit of play, in a way that could spare the King of losing face. Besides, he is just a Fool, and noone listens to a Fool. But people do listen. The Fool has enormous power to change the course of events. He is always on the forefront, saying what is on everyone elses mind. Saying it playfully and foolishly, yet illuminating that which is already there. So I consider Colbert standing up there in surrounded by elites, fat-cats, intelligensia, and most importantly...King George. And here he is, spouting off all of these things so many of us obviously see with our own eyes, but are never discussed in the mainstream without anger, division, vitriol, venom, obfuscation, perversion, and confusion.. I picture this same event playing itself out in the courts of the Renaissance hundreds of years ago. Once again, the fool illuminates that which is through humor, play, self-deprecation, and courage. "The Fool is the Grail Knight who may be destined to locate the Holy Cup, where greater and wiser men have tried and failed." "The Fool is the one teetering at the edge of Nietzsche’s abyss, at the cusp of dreadful knowledge that will pull him or her out of the cave." "He is the one who takes the fateful step into a new world." "The Fool is Hamlet before he decides to embrace his destiny." "He has protectors and advisors. There is a dog who appears in most versions of the card. The dog is the natural world. One path to knowledge, and a valuable ally." "When he appears in a spread, he is a signal to strip down to the irreducible core, and interrogate whether The Querant’s self vision is obscured. It may also be a warning that significant change is coming." Gandhi said once, “If you would swim on the bosom of the ocean of Truth you must reduce yourself to a zero.” The Fool is that Zero who can swim in the deeper waters. The Fool is the Zero card in the Tarot. and as Colbert has shown, the Fool is just as relevant today as ever. Thank you, Professor Violet for pointing out the power of the Fool to me, and for so exquisitely radiating that energy and wisdom... So don't PITY THA FOOL! Play the FOOL. Just make sure you're being a FOOL and not a fool!

Here's a warnin' for all you kiddies.....

triclops — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 21:55:57 GMT

From The Guardian... http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0,,1746333,00.html?gusrc=rss The strange case of the man who took 40,000 ecstasy pills in nine years Doctors from London University have revealed details of what they believe is the largest amount of ecstasy ever consumed by a single person. Consultants from the addiction centre at St George’s Medical School, London, have published a case report of a British man estimated to have taken around 40,000 pills of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, over nine years. The heaviest previous lifetime intake on record is 2,000 pills. Though the man, who is now 37, stopped taking the drug seven years ago, he still suffers from severe physical and mental health side-effects, including extreme memory problems, paranoia, hallucinations and depression. He also suffers from painful muscle rigidity around his neck and jaw which often prevents him from opening his mouth. The doctors believe many of these symptoms may be permanent. The man, known as Mr A in the report in the scientific journal Psychosomatics, started using ecstasy at 21. For the first two years his use was an average of five pills per weekend. Gradually this escalated until he was taking around three and a half pills a day. At the peak, the man was taking an estimated 25 pills every day for four years. After several severe collapses at parties, Mr A decided to stop taking ecstasy. For several months, he still felt he was under the influence of the drug, despite being bedridden. Hallucinations His condition deteriorated and he began to experience recurrent tunnel vision and other problems including hallucinations, paranoia and muscle rigidity. “He came to us after deciding that he couldn’t go on any more,” said Dr Christos Kouimtsidis, the consultant psychiatrist at St George’s Medical School in Tooting who treated him for five months. “He was having trouble functioning in everyday life.” The doctors discovered that the man was suffering from severe short-term memory problems of a type usually only seen in lifetime alcoholics. But evaluating the full extent of his condition was difficult as his concentration and attention was so impaired he was unable to follow the simple tasks involved in the test. “This was an exceptional case. His long- term memory was fine but he could not remember day to day things – the time, the day, what was in his supermarket trolley,” said Dr Kouimtsidis. “More worryingly, he did not seem aware himself that he had these memory problems.” With no mental illness in his family and no prior psychiatric history, the doctors concluded that his unique condition was direct result of his intense ecstasy use. “This is obviously an extreme case so we should not blow any observations out of proportion,” says Dr Kouimtsidis. “But if this is what is happening to very heavy users, it might be an indication that daily use of ecstasy over a long period of time can lead to irreversible memory problems and other cognitive deficits.” For 10 years, MDMA has been suspected of causing these kinds of effects in heavy users. It is thought to be due to its disruption of the regulation of serotonin, a brain chemical believed to play a role in mood and memory. It remains unclear whether these effects are the result of permanent neurotoxic damage or just temporary reversible alterations in the brain. A special two-part MDMA study in recent issues of the Journal of Psychopharmacology (available online at sagepub), suggests long-term side-effects may be temporary. The researchers from the University Of Louisiana could find no significant relationship between depression and recreational ecstasy use. In the case of Mr A, a structural MRI brain scan failed to show any obvious damage or atrophy in his brain. However, these results, says Dr Kouimtsidis, are difficult to interpret. “A scan of this type is not sensitive enough,” he said. Such limitations in brain scanning technology, along with ethical and legal barriers to giving MDMA to human test subjects, have limited direct observation of the drug’s effects in humans. Instead, scientists have had to use recreational drug users as subjects in their studies. Conclusions from this are often flawed because few, if any, drugs users use ecstasy in isolation. Cannabis user Mr A was also a heavy cannabis user, and when he was encouraged to decrease his use, his paranoia and hallucinations disappeared and his anxiety abated. But his memory and concentration problems remained, leading the doctors to suspect that these may be permanent disabilities. When he was admitted to a specialist brain injury unit and put on anti-psychotic medication, he did start to show some improvement. “Unfortunately, he discharged himself before we were able to complete the assessment,” says Dr Kouimtsidis. “We continued to support him. But he started to use cannabis again and he dropped out. We tried to re-engage him but we lost him about a year ago.” The Guardian made several attempts to find the man without success.

Bill Coffin

triclops — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 18:51:56 GMT

Never even heard of this guy before he died. As I was driving into work, he was on NPR and he brought tears to my eyes. http://www.npr.org/dmg/dmg.php?prgCode=FA&showDate=14-Apr-2006&segNum=1&mediaPref=WM&sauid=U131835071145644267956&getUnderwriting=1&mswmext=.asx A rememberance from Bill Moyers... http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0421-20.htm Feel the Love.

Any Mathmaticians out there?

triclops — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 16:47:57 GMT

Doing an art project. I want to make Merkaba large enough for a person to fit into. I need someone who could help me figure out the dimensions. I intend to make this thing out of EMT Conduit so we'll have to account for the bending at the ends. Anyone talented enough to help me work this out? Spanks! Camtastic

One more addition to my SWAT rant...

triclops — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 17:56:02 GMT

..so today I found this posted on common dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0321-02.htm An couple of excerpts... " Peter Kraska, an expert on police militarisation from Eastern Kentucky University, says that in the 1980s there were about 3,000 Swat team deployments annually across the US, but says now there are at least 40,000 per year." "An NTOA study of 759 Swat team deployments across the US, found half were for warrant service and a third for incidents where suspects had barricaded themselves in a building - 50 were for hostage situations." Read that again. HALF were for WARRANT SERVICE!!! Can you imagine waking up in your home and getting served a warrant by a SWAT team?!? "The problem is that when you talk about the war on this and the war on that, and police officers see themselves as soldiers, then the civilian becomes the enemy." Cameron sez... Everyone needs to see V for Vendetta.

Sorry, this is negative....

triclops — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 19:40:07 GMT

I once again turned on the TV to see what the hell everyone is watching out there. It's really quite difficult obviously, and most of you who will even read this blog don't need me to tell you how bizarre TV is. But as I clicked past the electronic demands to buy shit, I landed on a show that took absurdity to death defying heights. The show was called "TEXAS SWAT". Now this show...this show is pure insanity. And what really makes it disturbing, it that it's REAL (whatever that means). It's basically COPS on steroids. I mean these are meaty guys, each of them huffing around at least 100 thousand bucks of equipment on them alone. Bullet proof vests, sub-machine guns, shotguns, handguns, grenade launchers, riot gear, belts that have all types of unidentifiable gadgets on them, clearly designed to bring pain of one sort or another. And these guys travel in armored personnel carriers. And they travel in packs. In this particular episode, they didn't roll in less than groups of 8. So lets see here... 8 guys at 100,000 bucks for equipment each, not including their hourly wage. Armored personnel carriers. I'd say a five minute operation with these guys is probably about a half million dollar ordeal easy. So why would a city send in the SWAT team? Anyone? To break up a riot maybe? Maybe to take down a gang holed up in an apartment complex. Use your imagination people. Well there were 3 segments. The first involved the SWAT team going into an upscale suburban residential area to this guys house. Guess what the guy was gonna do? HE WAS GOING TO KILL HIMSELF!! He was all alone in his house. No kids, nobody. Dude's having a tough time, and they send in the SWAT team. I mean let that sit for a second. Ok one more second. So they're outside screaming into this house "we have you surrounded, come out with your hands up!" I can't believe I'm seeing this. In the background you hear the guys saying "We just want this to end peacefully" So after this "negotiation" goes on for awhile, they decide the best plan of action is to shoot gas grenades into his windows. Which they do. So they gas this suicidal guy out of his house. And everyhing ends "peacefully" BRAVO!! Good thing they didn't have to shoot up him and the neighborhood to prevent him from killing himself. Second segment involved 15 pussies in black taking down a guy who an undercover had just busted selling drugs. 15 SWAT team guys on one little dude who was already busted. Third segment? Another suicide. Damn I feel safer. I'm glad my tax dollars are going to get every city in america their own SWAT team. Now this is a negative rant. But I'm almost done. What were the SWAT team trying to accomplish? What threat did they have on the suiciders? Don't kill yourself or we'll KILL YOU?!? Could this not have been resolved with "regular" cops? And it was palpable, even over the TV. The guys in the back saying "We just want this to end peacefully" BULLSHIT, Bubba! You are just hankering to use that $65,000 sniper rifle. To see that guys head explode. To pat you and your buddy's on the back for a job well done. "It had to be done Hank, he was a "Bad Guy" (they actually use the term bad guy a lot) Inside Bubba is praying that this poor confused sap will move to the left instead of right or reach for a cigarrette. "POW!!!" God, Bubba, wouldn't that feel good!!!? You got all this equipment, might as well use it, right? Give our taxpayers what they're paying for!! I mean lets just get down to it. I even I felt it. Lets see you shoot suicidal Steve with that rocket launcher you got strapped to your back. That'll teach him. Hell, maybe you'll even get it up for your wife tonite after that one! It breaks my heart. In economics class (which I'll save for a later rant) we learned the concept of opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is the cost of whatever you give up to pay for whatever it is you choose. Can anyone think of some better things that we could get for our money than giving Bubba his macho hand job? And really it aint about Bubba, it's about all of us seeing somehing like that on TV and going "Now that's absurd, who's paying for that?" Well you are and I am. I'm not sure what to do about it, but I'll take the first step and say... Thats fucking absurd.