kisses

thoughts ~

1. each story has two sides; different humans can see the same scenario completely differently, but ultimately only one side comes closest to resembling reality.
2. love does, indeed, choose us. its unbelievable ... something amazingly bigger than us. to control it seems tantamount to killing oneself by holding one's breath ~ impossible.
3. genetics plays a bigger role than i thought in the formation of character ~ i'm blown away at how siamese-ly alike distinct siblings can be in comparison to each other.
4. there exists a key which unlocks me; i had no idea.

expand the post for a haiku

[I DID NOT WRITE THIS]
good morning kiss
wing beats
of the hummingbird

for Robert Dziekanski

You did not have to die.
You should have lived.
Lived to see the pacific ocean
Lived to see your waiting mother
You should be in your mother's arms,
not in a box in some mortuary somewhere.
I want you to know
I am angry they killed you.
And that your mother has to know
the pain of a dead child.

Always the same hills
Crowd the horizon,
Remote witnesses
Of the still scene.

And in the foreground
The tall Cross,
Sombre, untenanted,
Aches for the Body
That is back in the cradle
Of a maid’s arms.

RS Thomas

Robert Dziekanski

"And I fell down on the floor. He was so strong, so beautiful, and I loved him so much."

Cisowski had worked two jobs for seven years to save enough money for her only child to join her in Canada.

"I was waiting for my beautiful boy [to arrive]," she said. "I don't know how I will live without him."



Robert Dziekanski waited 10 hours in the Customs' area of the YVR International Arrivals Terminal.
He could not speak any English ~ only Polish.
He did not pose a police threat.
He needed a translator ~ someone to explain WTF was going on.
Instead the RCMP killed him.
They made no attempts to revive him after suffocating and tazering him.
Watch the video.
Its all on tape.
Its chilling and brutal.

crisis intervention, RCMP style

This man was an only child.
His mother is devastated.
She waited 8 years for this day.

the CBC story
the same video from 24 hours.ca as a podcast

question ~ how many RCMP's does it take to kill an unarmed, frightened man who speaks no english?

answer ~ 4.

FUCKING PIGS!
COWARDS!
BRUTES!
i hope the 4 of you rot in hell.
i hope you hear that man's screams every night
when you go to sleep.
i hope this haunts you all your days.

a favourite hymn of mine

expand the post to see the lyrics

I vow to thee, my country

I vow to thee, my country—all earthly things above—
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago—
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

11.11

do you remember? i do
i never forgot, really
alas, many of us have
there are no longer WW1 vets alive


my internet service was down for 4 days.
martin fell friday evening and broke his elbow
he spent the weekend in the hospital waiting for surgery to repair the fracture
the fractured elbow tip travelled to his tricep muscle
they pinned and wired the joint
he waited 36 hours to have this surgery
he won't be working for a couple months
he is the sole income earner
if you ever come to vancouver, don't plan in injuring yourself
its only the best city in the world
if you're a shiny happy person ~
one of the 20 % that controls 80% of the wealth and resources around here
i fucking HATE the olympics ~ the IOC can go fly a fucking kite
and VANOC can EAT MY SHIT
so can sam sullivan
and so can stephen harper and stockwell day

i have my first real [freelance, i mean] web design client
i've built my website ~ check the link in my profile
i've chosen a name ~ even made myself a logo
you'll see it, soon enough
soon i will be on the prowl for a job

anyways ... let us not forget..

expand the post ... do you know where that is?

saturday morning post

where i've been ...

... where i'm going ...

Expand the post for excerpts from an article on "virtual addiction" [and its connection to our apathetic Western society] I found at adbusters.

If you turn on your television set and look away at a nearby wall, you will discover that the reflections produced by the light from the TV vary constantly in contrast and intensity. It occurs to me that every cell in our bodies has been programmed to respond to light – when a shadow passes over a field mouse, it becomes alert to a potential threat. Abrupt changes in the intensity of light are indications of danger that our neurological system has evolved to respond to. What effects can a lifetime of exposure to this assault produce? It’s obvious that the intensity of visual and audio contrast in our lives has increased through the years. I assume that our brains’ response is a protective deadening of our neural receptors.

I am convinced that the passivity of the American public is related to this phenomenon ... In our world, reality has been replaced by forms of entertainment that require little mental activity and encourage inertia and apathy. How else can we explain the incredible indifference to their own lives and interests that characterizes the American people at this time? The misrepresentations of government, the outrageous dishonesty of business, the attacks on our civil rights, the collapse of our educational system and the failures of our social safety nets have produced almost no response or indignation from the American public ... We no longer understand the relationship between cause and effect.

If illustration suggests illumination, then the shadow is central to its meaning. All of us who create imagery know that the relationship of dark to light is unavoidable. Although Freud, like all true artists, offered us only one way to view the world, I’ve always been attracted to his notion of the struggle between Eros and Thanatos, the pull towards life versus the pull towards death that seems to occupy the human psyche. Eros is the mother of sex, love, feeling and the desire to make things. Thanatos embraces darkness, obscurity, evil and entropy. Although the dialogue between these two forces predates history, the anxiety of this moment in time convinces us that the balance has gone awry.

The deepest role of art is creating an alternative reality, something the world needs desperately at this time ... I used to feel that it was strange that artists are self-anointed. Now I realize it could not be any other way, because, above all, art is a view of life itself: it cannot be given by others nor taken away by dealers or marketing men. The real artists are always working for nothing because they don’t see their essential role in society as being simply the exchange of goods. The real artists turn up first in the anti-war demonstrations, not because they lack patriotism, but because they revere life.
~ Milton Glaser ~

link here