the world's ultimate sustainable resource?

fear

the fat capitalist pigs and those with the biggest power hard-ons have and continue to build an entire layer of capitalism, based on keeping people scared, based on telling them that terror lies just over that next hill. check out this article, written by naomi klein.

so ... are ya feelin' lucky, punk? are ya?

starman~movie review

[originally written 4.11.06 and posted elsewhere on blogger]

Shall I tell you
what I find beautiful about you?
You are at your very best
when things are worst. (starman, Starman movie)

do you ever wonder why we bother looking for extraterrestrial life? i mean - why bother sending out signals to tell them we're here? what do we think we'd do if we ever found an extraterrestrial, on earth? i'm inclined to think we might very well kill it. kill the very thing that intrigues us so. because ... well .. that's we do. destroy that which we do not understand. i wonder ... why do we invite that which we cannot host? like ... perhaps as a planterary society humanity simply has not evolved to the point at which we could accept and co-exist with ALFs.

this does have a religious connection to ... because ... do we think we would recognize the messiah if he came in our life time? what if he did walk the earth - in the form of some one life anwar sadat or yitzak rabin or ghandi or martin luther king or JFK or RFK - and we killed him? because we did not understand him ... his message. what if? do we get another chance? this movie ... starman ... it made me think these things.

it starts out with that message we sent out with voyager ... a message representing all humanity and inviting the intergalactic listener to visit earth. and so ... the aliens visit. the space ship crashes. an energy source disembarks and assumes the form of a dead man ... having found some DNA on a hair clipping that the man's grieving widow had near her. the couple have quite an adventure, dodging police and federal agents and the military (who want to capture and kill the alien), as they try to get to arizona so the alien can meet his mother ship and return home.

as i watched more and more of the film the biblical theme ... symbolism ... struck me like a brick in the head. powerful. messianic, i found the story quite messianic. a special man, with healing powers and infathomable knowledge of the universe descends from the sky. the rulers of the society in which he lands find out about him and they fear him ... they have a morbid curiousity of him. he means them no harm ... not in a real sense ... however, they wish to kill him. just because they can. what really made me think of the bible ... of mythology? well, the fact that he impregnated her. she told him that docs had told her she could not have babies. similar to the story of mary, mother of jesus, the alien tells the woman that he impregnated her - that she will have a boy baby. that he will have his father's knowledge. that he will serve as a great teacher. the impregnation of a previously barren woman makes me think more of sarah, though.

the movie - its a good one. i won't spoil it for you by telling you of the ending. you gotta find out for yourself!

rhetorical questions

1. why do we live in a society that cares more about how sanjaya's wearing his hair this week, or who will win american idol or what will happen to jack bauer next season ... than about how many humans die at the hands of war, waste, and greed all aaround the world?
2. why do we hold in such high esteem fictional characters, like 'house', who execute behaviours and clinical decisions that would surely get him a suspended license (or disciplined/demoted/censured at the very least)? why is an arrogant, rude prick such a tv hero? is that the behaviour we value - the supreme asshole behaviour? when such a show gains such popularity, isn't that what we're telling our kids?
   
3. why does the country that fluff's itself up on the notion that freedom and democracy have made it successful, have such a stupid dictatorial regime at its helm?
4. where are the weapons of mass destruction? (i think they're in the white house and pentagon - and they don't look at all like what y'all thought they would)
5. why is the us coast guard firing live rounds 100 metres away from orca whales and the tour boats observing them?
6. why does fuel cost 1.20 per litre?
7. why are there still people living in new orleans without infrastructure, so long after katrina? how come a war plan can get executed faster than a disaster rebuilding plan? is there a plan? dare i ask?
8. how come so many revolutionary wannabees think helping eradicate poverty involves anything overseas?
9. why is vancouver building a subway line that links vancouver to the airport, when in the pre-olympic era, residents clearly indicated they did NOT want one?
10. why is it that, post-olympic bid, all of a sudden the [so-pathetic-it-has-already-caved-in-once-under-the-weight-of-all-that-construction- equipment] sea to sky highway (the only highway to whistler from here!) gets rebuilt, when residents have been begging for this for years?
11. why must all the summer fashions for women involve baring as much as much skin as possible, or vulgarly displaying as many curves as possible? do i really need to see that black thong - and a hint of its waistband peaking over top of your pants that look like yer mom left 'em in the dryer too long - ya got peaking thru those tacky, too-tight white capri pants of yours? do i need to see that belly ooze out from that crop top the store never shoulda sold ya? pulllleeeeese! someone call the fucking fashion police?
    
12. whatever happened to leaving something to the imagination? like - doncha know that a guy finds it much more intriguing - much sexier - seeing just bared ankles and bared feet, rather than seeing half of an ass cheek hangin' out of a pair of shorts?
    
13. why is pot illegal? when studies have proven, time and again, that its less harmful than either nicotine or alcohol?
14. why has every human out there convinced him or her self s/he needs a cell phone? get over yourselves! what did you do in the 70s, 80s, 90s? before the advent of cell phones?
15. what's the big fuss about organic food anyway? if organic means you only use 'natural' substances in the growing process, such as shit ... to fertilize ... then count me out. i will take my chances with cancer, or whatever weird disease i will get from the chemical fertilizers in the non-organic food that's already out there. why do i have this impression that organic = fast track to e. coli? hmmmm ... perhaps because e. coli's likely in the shit that gets used to 'naturally' fertilize the organic food? hmmm - do i want e. coli? no. NO. if given a choice i would pick chemotherapy and radiation over dialysis ... just a thought. things aren't ever as they seem, are they?
16. when will i hear about the by-law that will ban repressed anger? i have heard about the smoking ban, the trans-fat ban, the plastic bag ban, the ipod ban, even ... well, given that it's the single biggest causative risk factor in every major disease that shortens human life ... shouldn't we pay some mind to our friend repressed anger? or do we like the fact that it exists, because (among other things) all those insane video clips of all the road raging drivers amuse us?
17. why have humans become so fucking lazy and complacent? why do we need drive thru's? why do we need to drive our fucking cars so fucking much? why do we need to destroy everything, consume everything, pluck everything away from itself? will we evolve from that twisted little child-mind that gets off on pulling the wings from living flies? if so, when?
18. what's with reality tv? ain't reality real enough?
19. why do little children think that the white doll - as compared to the black doll - is the nicer doll? does not that disturb any of you? why have we cultivated a information/entertainment media that sends messages of inferiority to ordinary people who don't look like they've spend 50,000 dollars on tanning salons and plastic surgery? why do we expose our children to such messages? why does this generation grow up hating the way it looks?
    
20. how can love grow, in the shadow of self loathing?

any more to add to this list? feel free to add yours in a comment ...

addiction - part 1

ADDICTED
- defined - physically and mentally dependent on particular substance, and unable to stop taking it without adverse effects; enthusiastically devoted to a particular thing or activity.

- word origin - from an obsolete adjective/adverb, meaning bound or devoted; slaves given to roman soldiers to reward them for performance in battle were known as addicts. eventually, a person who was a slave to anything became known as an addict.

do a google search on the word "addicted" and the hits returned by the search engine include 'are you addicted to the internet,' the wikipedia addicted and drug addict entries , and a smattering of links providing the lyrics to a song of the same title.

the song reads like a lament of an addict. the song speaks to an entity that holds all the power, and entity from which one runs, but can never escape. the song speaks of the feeling of being unable to breath without a fix ... of being unable to see anything else. the song speaks to feeling stuck, to feeling haunted, to feeling lost and overpowered. any addict will know - the song truly speaks of addiction.

does this sound like a choice a person would make? does an addict really choose this life? i'm inclined to think its definitely NOT an informed choice. informed choice: knowing what the choice entails, its consequences, and side effects. does an individual contemplate the choice to use drugs in this way? its unlikely. and, this adds another dimension to the state of being known as 'addicted.'

society, the mass media in particular, villifies drug addicts. casting them in a blame-the-victim light. it seems to appeal to our initial intuitive reaction. after all, no one held a gun to their head and forced them to take the drug. still, this view of addiction simplifes the issue. addiction simply cannot be distilled down to such naive simplicity.

ask any street urchin who became homeless and street bound because of an addiction. ask him if he feels his life has settled where he envisioned it would. ask him if he feels happiness and joy in his life. perhaps his answer will shock you. perhaps you will not believe your ears when you hear the addicted street urchin wish for death.

i worked as a nurse, at north america's first official supervised injection site for illicit drug users. hundreds of nurses applied. and the applicants got distilled to 8 finalists. of which i happened to be one. in accepting this job offer, i unknowingly entered a dark and foreign world. of drugs. of desperation. of marginal lives. i felt excited at being a part of something so revolutionary, so new. i had no idea. no idea at all.

why hallowe'en?

hallowe'en. now known mostly as halloween. really, its a shortened version of all hallows eve - a pagan holiday that has its origins in ireland. the ancient celts noticed that the bright half of the year ended on october 31st of each year. the dark half of the year, winter, they associated with death. the end of summer the celts saw as highly spiritually resonant - when the boundary separating the living and the dead became blurred.

the ancient celts celebrated all hallow's eve with a fire feast - a bon fire would ward off any evil spirits that may travel to earth from the other side. the festival day sort of became solidified into celtic and saxon culture when, in the 8th or 9th century, pope gregory moved the catholic 'all souls day' - a day to remember all souls condemned to purgatory.

the tradition of trick or treating appears to have its origins in the all souls parades that took place in england. the poor would go door to door, begging for food, and families would give them pastries , called soul cakes, in exchange for a promise to pray for dead family members. in ireland, children would go door to door collecting nuts and sweets, etc for the festival.

so ... why do we still do the trick or treat thing? i mean, think about it. we invest so much time, effort, energy and resources teaching our children not to talk to strangers. remember, being a kid, and the constable would come to your class and tell you all about the bad people who want to lure you into their cars or houses with candy? so .... ? why do we spend soooo much time, effort, energy and money promoting a festival that involves our kids going door to door and begging for candy from strangers?!

i just don't get it. the tradition has gotten so warped by the commercialism ... the capitalism ... in our society. all hallows eve now seems so far removed from its roots. its not about remembering the dead. its just about consumption. how grotesque!