Fuck Yeah!

So we've been in Johanesburg for a day and a half, all really jet lagged, with not much of a story to tell of our travels so far.
We watched day 1 and 2 of the Boxing Day test from our friends house in Sydney. Things we're not going well for South Africa... We left early to get to the airport, and boarded the plane before day 3 started.
Silence from the cockpit, which is usually very good at giving cricket scores. We arrive at around 3 pm CAT, and ask my dad's aunt and uncle the score, expecting to hear it was all over, Graham Smith humiliated at the hands of Ponting once more. But no, the new boy JP Duminy, and the Tail ender Dale Steyn had saved the day and we were now ahead.
We wake early yesterday, thanks to jet lag and faithfully head to the television to see the Ausies get bowled out leaving a miniscule total for us to chase down.
We arose this morning to wittness what is speculated to be the one of the defining moments in South African sporting history. No South African team has ever beaten Australia in a test series in Australia. The significance of this goes far beyond sports trivia, and a likely rise of South African cricketing dominance. It affects the country in a way that EVEN Australians may not fully understand.
And I'm going to get to talking about that when I get down to Durban.
Gotta fly.

Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, Raucus Celebrations and a Petrifying Hogswatch

A treat from Terry Pratchett's: Hogfather, Merry Christmas and keep blogging.
Love you all.

Leg

The Cortisone injection appears to have worked. My leg still hurts, but the level of pain is back down to what it was 2 years ago. I can run again, although not very far. I'm not using a cane and I'm excited to be getting going on my epic voyage back to the Rambo-Nation, with limited levels of agony. I'm sure it sounds weird, but I feel I can be myself again. I'm already considering which sport I'm going to train for in 2009. I'm going to be getting my fitness levels back up with the help of my personal trainer-cousin (who shall in future be referred to on this blog as Tony) over the next 2 months, and will hopefully return to Tasmania as a revitalized young stud. (Obviously the stud part is wishful thinking, but you never know.)

In other news, I've discovered quite a clever young chap around the "blogosphere" who is doing a fantastic job of political ranting on an almost daily basis, and is pretty good at the comedic animations. He is also running for President in 2016 (Well, kinda.) check out Zaphod at commonliberties and Zaphodforpresident.

I probably won't post until X-mas, as I doubt I'll have time before then.
L8r n00b5

A Man's Gotta Do

I can't say I'm proud. I just lied to someone I care about. Made her angry with that lie. Made her angrier on purpose. Made her most likely despise me for a long while. All to make life simpler after I made the mistake of telling the truth at a bad time.

I think I must have been about 12 the first time I ever told a lie. I can't remember what it was, but it was tiny and still I felt awful. I used to make it a point to always tell the truth. In everything. If I heard someone make a mistake, I would correct them, because that was, in my mind, the right thing to do.

This pisses people off. I couldn't understand why. It took being told again and again that people don't like to be corrected all the time before I stopped. I still don't understand why. I don't mind. What's right is right. Truth is truth . It's taken a lot of practice to get to the point where I can lie about my feelings. I almost didn't when I had to. And right now I really want to take it back and tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
But the truth is confusing.
The truth hurts... Everyone.

I'm good at lying. I'm very convincing when I tell people the reason I limp is because I was shot. But I'll normally go back and tell them the truth when the joke is over. I can't allow for misinformation.

So this was hard for me. I told a lie that had to be told. Maybe, one day, when enough time has passed for it to be a joke, I'll correct that mistake.

Monster

For me to wake

wires and storms

to charge my sewn up shell

a monster made

of skin and bone

Send me straight to hell

I'm so Alive

I'm so Alive

I'm so Fucking Alive

(Its awake, its alive)

RUN!

Chase me away

am I not like you

RUN!

Aren't I just like you

But in pieces

BURN!

Stakes, knives and pitchforks

(Roar)

All it would take

A bolt of lightning

All I can take

Another stake to the heart

I'm so Alive

I'm so Alive

I'm Just as Fucking Alive

(Its coming Back to get us)

RUN

AWAY

FROM

ME

(Roar)

All it would take

swing of my fist

All you can take

Just a little bit

You're so fucking dead.

Post

In about a week I'm going to be flying up to the big Syd (as absolutely no one calls Sydney, because it's ridiculous.) I'm going to be spending Christmas up there, celebrating Catholicism's most loved excuse to get drunk: The Baby Jesus. After which, I'm shall travel on a perilous Qantas flight to Johannesburg, where I will celebrate being related to people who I haven't seen in 4 years. Onwards south again to the great city of eTekhwini, or- known to those who aren't so PC they have reserved a place in the 8th ring of hell (see Satan's Ass)- Durban, where I shall insist on partying in the New Year like never before... Which won't be hard because I've only ever actually bothered with New Year's partying once and that wasn't too hard at all.
Anyway, I'm going to be documenting the trip back to South Africa in all it's gory detail's possibly including all the gory details... I just need to remember my blogger password.

Later.

Fishing

"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats forever."

Fucking bullshit!

This is that simple minded World Vision, bleeding heart, fucking stupidity that brings out my goddamn apoplexy . Go into a poor country and teach some guy to fish. Whoopy! He can go on a nice fishing holiday to the fucking Bahamas when he becomes a fucking millionaire in the Democratic Republic of the Genocidal Maniacs National Lottery.
It doesn't fucking matter that this guy's family is only going to eat until some hungry son of a bitch who doesn't know how to fish kills him for his rod. No one thinks about the fact that this man used to be the only basket maker in his village, and he never got round to teaching his son how to weave because he discovered fishing, which bought him more HIV positive whores. Now he's ruined most of the baskets with rotting fish, and the village can't store grain for their cows during the winter, so they can't trade with the other villages who need meat in the summer because their cows got hit by foot and mouth. Which means they don't get any extremely high quality tobacco to trade with the Westerner, so they don't get any money to improve the village's infrastructure and improve their quality of life.
They can't store the grain any more so they have to expand the pasture for the cows, felling trees and destroying the grass land. The soil can't hold all the water anymore, creating puddles and swamps for mosquitoes and malaria, which kills the young and the elderly. The dead elderly can't teach the dying young how to grow maze any longer so they all begin to starve.
The starving people become violent, blaming other villages for their problems. Feuds turn into wars, and the Western media takes notice. Bleeding hearts rush to bring food and medicine which keeps those of fighting age alive, feeding the ever more brutal armies that are funded by the only thing left to them. Diamonds.
Not even the greatest bleeding heart in London or Sydney can say no to shiny carbon, twinkling on her finger.

So fuck you Tim Costello and every bleeding heart motherfucker like you. You fund and fuel the engine of destruction to further your own egos. Fuck all of you Mother-Fucking-Teresa, psychopathic, image driven Branjelina "do-gooders." If you want to be a real fucking hero and help poor people, stop voting for inverventionist leaders and allowing your parliments to pass those paradoxial "Free Trade Agreements" which forcebly divert the productive capacity of poor people away from living, to feeding our Western greed.

We aren't responsible for the lives of people far away, or even next door. We're responsible for the consequences of our actions. You really should think those through the next time you send off that tax deductable donation.

Lyrics: Rev 20:20- Puscifer

I find this funny...

Don't be aroused, by my confession
Unless you don't give a good Goddamn about redemption
I know Christ is comin', so am I
And you would too if the sexy devil caught your eye

She'll suck you dry
But still you'll cry, to be back in her bosom
To do it again
She'll make you weak
And mourn and cry, to be back in her bosom
To do it again

(Pray) Til I go blind
(Pray) Cause nobody ever survives
Prayin' to stay in your arms just until I can die a little longer
Satyrs and saints, devils and heathens and lies
She'll eat you alive

Jesus is risen, it's no surprise
Even he would martyr his mama to ride to hell between those thighs
The pressure is building, at the base of my spine
If I gotta sin to see her again then I'm gonna lie and lie and lie

She'll make you cry
I'll sell my soul, to be back in your bosom
Gladly now please suck me dry
And still you'll cry, to be back in her bosom
To do it again

(Pray) Til I go blind
(Pray) Cause nobody ever survives
Prayin' to stay in her arms just until I can die a little longer
Satyrs and saints, devils and heathens and lies
She'll eat you alive

My pulse has been rising
My temples are pounding
The pressure is so overwhelming and building
So steady they're fretting I'm ready to blow
What is she what is she what is she waiting for?

(Pray) Pray til I go blind
(Pray) Pray cause no one ever survives
Prayin' to stay in her arms just to die longer
Satyrs and saints, devils and heathens and lies
She'll eat you alive
[ Rev 22:20 Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

Self Esteem

The Western economy is suffering from sever self esteem issues, it's really important for us to take steps to address the problem. It needs to look itself in the mirror and repeat the words "I am not fat on debt. I am not consuming too much. In fact, I need to consume more and more!" If we don't improve the economy's self esteem, there is a chance it may sink into a depression and take drugs and have unprotected sex with other economies and die in childbirth while other little economies are born.

This is pretty much what all Western governments and central banks are thinking right now, but really it's bullshit. The economy is too fat. We need to go on diet, and get some exercise producing more than we consume. The economy feels bad, because it's a hideous mess, but our paternalistic big-brother's are telling us it's still beautiful and feeding us more doughnuts. We have waning car industries in Australia and the US, not because of a lack of credit, but because the cars suck ass and they're hemorrhaging cash on overpaid Union Workers and dumb executives. We can't bail them out no matter how much free money we hurl at them, because their costs are going to increase through inflation faster than Kevy-o-sevy can say "This is for working families."
Sadly, bailouts on in all countries, are going to hit those very families harder than just letting a broken system flush away. It's quite simple. More money is injected into the upper echelons of bad businesses, now whether or not these businesses get back on their feet is irrelevant, because that money otherwise would not be in circulation, therefore the money has been inflated and has less value. Which in layman's terms means that things will cost more, so by the time that money filters down to you and me the benefits have been largely negated. That's the best case scenario too.

Proposal

My proposal for my "class" up at the community center.

I would like to put forward a request that I would be able to run a weekly class on any one weeknight for about six weeks or longer during 2009. Each class will focus on various aspects of political philosophy in what I hope will be a threefold manner.

1) An interactive lecture on a political aspect or issue of my choosing. (see the First Six)

2) Responses/rebuttal from individual class members, with their points of view.

3) A discussion of recent events (And coffee etc.)


The First Six

Session One: The Paradigm
As an introduction to myself and everyone else in the group, I plan on exploring the left/right paradigm and where we all sit on our own little spectrum. However the point of the lecture will be to challenge that paradigm by looking at how much of it is based on word association and group pigeonholing. I hope to end the session having made mention of distractionary politics and how to combat it. (The stimulus for the session will be my own piece, Archetypes in Stereo.)

Session Two: The Failures of Logic

Following on from The Paradigm, I will be putting forward ideas based on "Big Picture Logic" in an argument against various policies from around the world, not pertaining to any set ideological grouping. However by the end of the lecture I do intend to have put forth examples of ideological failures that relate to logic.

Session Three: The Argument for Anarchy

A different type of lecture, where I will put forward a partially tongue and cheek argument for anarchism. Overall, this will be an attempt to explain how personal and economic freedom are interlinked.

Session Four: The Austrian

An introduction to The Austrian School of Economics, and economic freedom.

Session Five: The Smaller Picture

How do we stay free? How to get through the "Global Economic Crisis" on your own.

Session Six: The Revolution

The final session about how we can change the things that really matter and what personally would like to be doing.

With these sessions I hope to provide knowledge and information to members of the local community, and improve substantive awareness of politics in the wider world. I will endeavor to make the classes entertaining (I have a very dark sense of humor, and can make all kinds of horrible things funny.)

As for costing, this will depend on the center's policy and how many people come, but I would like to make a little cash out of this, or at least cover my expenses to a degree.

YOU ARE ALL DREAMING

For those of you with the time, I would like to direct you to a brilliant online book called Economics In One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt. This very short book beautifully explains the fallacies that our modern economic system is based on in a simple and concise manner. Even if you are ambivalent towards economics, I strongly encourage you read it anyway. Simple understanding of economic fundamentals is extremely beneficial financially, and is very important to everyone's future freedoms.

And for those who think this is dry and dull... Fuck you!

http://jim.com/econ/contents.html

House

For those who know me, you would know that due to something being wrong with my knee, I have taken to the use of a cane as my primary mode of transportation. I'm sure this is hilarious to see; a young once extremely athletic, man hobbling around the college, looking like he's about to yell at you to get off his lawn.

But as it turns out, my knee is somewhat the medical mystery. 5 years of increasing and generalized pain, where physio does not help, lead me to a Sports Doctor. Now after telling me that part of his job is to keep me away from surgeons, the sports doctor sends me to get an MRI.
I return to him with the scan, and he immediately shows me that I have a multiseptated ganglia, and I just need to see a surgeon and it will be all gone! Yay!!
But I get to the see the ortho-surgeon, and he is stumped by the fact that the ganglia is so small, and causing so much pain.
Off to get X-Rays, which are totally clear.
More confusing.
So I'm sent to another ortho-surgeon who is supposed to be a little better at soft tissue related things... He points out that the cyst isn't in the area where the pain is most severe, and it is not communicating with the joint. Added to this, there isn't much he can do to aggrivate the knee mechanically. (To tell the truth, it hurt slightly less while being prodded and twisted, but that could just be distraction.)
Big mystery!
Now I get a bone scan and if they still can't figure out what's wrong with me with that, I'll be taken along to a meeting of all the local ortho-surgeons who will all ponder the enigma that is my knee.

I enjoy the show, but it's a pity that House ever hit televisio. It makes my limp seem less... Origional.

Alive part 3- Cultivation

Read part 1 and 2

I've never had a near death experience and most likely never will. I'm not going to wake up force-fed the fire that will cleanse me of my failures. Sitting and hoping for it just got me burned.

We starve when we don't eat. I wasn't starving because I ran out of food. I began to starve, because I didn't eat when I was hungry and instead of dying, I gave in. I let the hunger take over. I filled my mind with all the disaster it longed for. I accepted it... and I ate.
I ate, and stayed alive. But I found that I had consumed everything around me. There were no more problems to solve that I could see. No more thoughts to bridge the gap. Nothing to cling to.

But I was alive.

This hasn't been a depressed, hopeless tirade. This has a happy ending, it just hasn't got there yet, and likely won't for many years.

I was alive, and that's the best place to start.
Life, creates more life... So I planted a garden. They're just small seedlings now, but I'm watering them, feeding them. Cultivating a crop that will feed the hunger, and keep me alive, keep me growing, and help me become strong again.

Being Alive isn't over, so there isn't a happy ending to this post. But I'm pleased enough to pause on a reasonably positive point in the story.

Alive part 2- Starvation

Read part 1 first.

Starving people become desperate.
I NEEDED, something, anything to fill that hole. So I began to try and feed off the people I relied on. I tried to gorge myself, so I was not swallowed whole. But you can't eat validation or drink pity. You can only exhaust it's supply.

Desperate people become delusional.
I fought for every last scrap I could, clinging to the insane hope that I could stave off disaster with other peoples thoughts. Deluded and starving, I managed to suck away the well of good care, that I believed I needed and relied upon. The craving continued to burn, continued to grow larger, I couldn't handle the thoughts anymore, couldn't sort through the delusion.

Delusions collapse into hopelessness.
Without hope to cling to, I drifted, ready to let the delusions swallow me hole... And I waited to die.

Also to be continued.

Alive part 1- Hunger

I wasn't meant to post on this blog, this week, but I changed my mind, and am posting a whole series :P

I've never had a near death experience. I've never seen the blinding light, never conversed with my creator or talked with my dead grandmother on the other side. I've never had holy purpose careen down the feeding tube, to fill my belly with righteous fire, as my brain shut down.
In some way, I used to wish that I did wake up one morning in a hospital bed, to find myself compelled to right the wrongs of my life, or find the zeal and meaning I surely lacked.

I have even hoped for disaster to strike, so I may be energized into action. Something to struggle against so I could fill the void that I felt in my personality. Something to feed the hunger. Some way to feel alive. I remember praying for war and economic disaster. Praying to nothing, and clinging to the empty hope, that someday, I'll find something meaningful for my ego and anima to devour, so they could become whole.

Some people drink to fill void. Some drug themselves into their own oblivion, in an attempt to fill the pit, or hide from it. Others will sleep around, hurt themselves, or even hurt the people close to them. Just to bridge the gap with feeling, or forget the emptiness.

I think. Thinking, planning, and solving problems helps to keep me sustained. But sometimes that can backfire. Sometimes it becomes impossible not to think of the hunger. I dwell on the hunger, until it grows so strong, I become afraid it will consume me, control me. I become afraid, I'll go and create the struggle I used to pray for. Fear makes the hunger grow stronger, too.

So in the end, there's only one thing to do. One thing to stop it. Render oneself too weak to think, plan, or even move. I have let my body waste, and strength wane. I have been reliant on others to survive. Reliant on them to give me the will to rise in the morning. But the hunger is still there, fueling hope for the terrible. Eventually I began to starve.

... Time for something to eat. (Literally, I need lunch.)

To be continued.

EPIC

I've been so bored over last 3 days I have made 8 posts (including this one) on two blogs, with one incomplete but scheduled for January. Woohoo!! This epic feat of internet usage has lead me to create, the EPIC awards. Awards that I give myself, and anyone else who has depressing amounts of free time on their hands.

And the winner of the first occasional EPIC is... ME!! Yes, me everyone! Patting myself on the back for being the biggest waste of bandwidth since RickRolling. I would like to thank my non-existant boss, for not existing and everyone else who should be harrassing me to do something important.

Something Interesting

Normally I'm all gloom and doom about politics but today a couple interesting reports have surfaced that give me heart.

1) Here : Voter turnout in the US has barely risen, despite a massive swing to the Dems. This indicates that a fair chunk of the Republican party stayed home this election day, which tells me they were not all that scared about Obama being the Anti-Christ that they would vote for McPalin. This says about 2 % of the GOP isn't completely insane and about 39% of the US figured there was no point voting for either. Why would such a dismal report on their democracy please me? Well basically it confirms my belief that Americans are still not satisfied with their two party system and if they aren't satisfied, they'll be more receptive to the Third Parties next time round. Here's to hoping Nader, Paul, Bawldwin and Mckinney etc. can get into the debates and finally get some real discourse happening.

2) Here: Finally they're at least partially admitting what I have been thinking all along. Georgia was at least mostly responsible for the out break of hostilities in August. This is an example of one of the many arguments I have against America's foreign policy, but that's something for another time.

There we go, some positivity. I' m glad I have Google News, it was quite a pleasant find today.

Unconditionally Irritating

After my post, "Love", I've had a thought on unconditional love and why we find it so annoying when people seem to show it to us. We all do. I get annoyed when people put up with my shit when they really shouldn't, and the people I love unconditionally get really annoyed with me. (Okay, I can be more annoying because I tend to make a point of telling them just how much I'll be able to put up with before it kills me, whether it's needed or not.)
But why is it so bloody annoying?
Well, as one of those people who hates so much of the world that I pathologically go out and search for things to love, I thinks it's partly because we don't understand how you can love someone for no reason; partly because it makes us feel awkward, and partly because these people have a tendency to suck all the fun out of life with their constant worrying over us.
This adds another dimension: responsibility. If someone loves you unconditionally, you end up feeling responsible for their feelings and they for yours. Plus you can't get rid of them, because they'll just keep coming back with a smug grin saying "I love you."

You start thinking they're completely insane. But in reality, only sane people can love unconditionally. Think about it, we all love some people like that, but only psychopaths can hack their family to bits and feel nothing.
So how do we put up with these annoying people? It's easy, we keep going on as normal. Keep getting annoyed when they annoy us. Keep feeling a bit weirded out by their insistence to help out. Keep holding back the desire to wipe that smug grin off their face and let them be themselves.
None of us have a choice with the people we love like that. No one can stop themselves. It's just life.

There you go, a bit of a break from the political.

4 Degrees

"Lay back and let me show you another way..."

Here's the beginnings of the pitch for my class.

The class is designed for challenging discussion between myself and those who attend. My goals for it are to broaden and intensify political awareness, as well as my own awareness of the local political psyche. I also intend (as everyone does) to get my own views out into the wider community. Mostly because the rEVOLution only requires common sense, I believe this may in fact be effective, and harmless. (By that I mean, I'm not trying to start violent rebellion.)

The problems I expect to face in this, are that many of the people who are likely to come, would be very set in their beliefs [old], and the people under my direction would most likely disagree with me fervently [stupid]. Fortunately, I love arguing my point of view.

I am going to approach the class/group (whatever) from the side. Meaning I'm going to first learn as much has I can about the personalities and ideals of the people who come along, before really attempting to provide information or inject my own.

My first session will be about definitions in politics. What means what to who. (Liberal/ Conservative etc) the ultimate goal of the session will be to help people make better sense of phylosophical debates, and or be able to spot political labelling.
(I will post my session plans... while writing I've decided to call the class/group a session now.)

As a side project, I will be attempting to improve on the Nolan Chart (google it), making it a three dimensional representation of one's political beliefs, rather than just two dimensional.

The revolution is all about education. So like Maynard sings; lay back and let me show you another way.

Classes

I am going to be planning classes/discussion forums on global politics and political philosophy at the community center near where I live... I'm obviously not a hippie, so I think I'm entering an empty market of ideas. I guess this is my way of spreading the Revolution (Okay, this may take some explaining later on, but go with it) or at least testing the waters as far as how I might begin to work towards it.
In a way I guess Barack Obama has inspired me... I don't agree with his philosophy, or the falacious left/right paradime that has brought him to power, but the response by someone I care about greatly, to my negativity about the state the world is in, and how he won't help, has pushed me into action. Basically, I've been told I can't possibly make a difference, because I'm just one tiny insignificant man... Well, I'll just have to prove this someone wrong :)

So I'm going to be planning my first class and an overall proposal for the entirity of the meetings.
I'm thinking once a week for six weeks at some point next year. If there are any questions, leave a comment. I have a lot of planning to do.

Remember The 5th

This was going to be a huge post, but the idea is so simple, so strong, I do not need pretty words to say... Freedom.
Search the internet, for all things for the free, and never forget the 5th.

Love

Hope. People love to hope. It's an incredibly comforting emotion. With hope we can feel safe in a war zone and strong when we're weak. With hope, desperation can be lessened and our spirits lifted. Yes, we love to have something to hope for, even, and in fact especially, if it's indistinct.
So, I ask you, what you hope for? What you want for your life? Now, I truly believe most of what you hope for will have something based in another two emotions. Happiness and Love.

We hope for both. We strive for both. We pursue both. Love and happiness. With hope we long for them. But the audacity of hope is not that it leads us to them, but that it holds us back in it's comforting paternal arms. We sit and we hope for things from On High and Hill. But only in the pursuit of happiness, and the cultivation of love can we find them.

Only in freedom, can we pursue happiness, and chase, guard or court whatever, or whoever, we love. If we choose to surrender to hopes of manna from heaven, and angels with penicillin halos. Hopes of unity and cohesion, we surrender our freedoms. There may be strength in unity, but through strength someone gains power. There may be victory through that strength in unity, but through victory chains can be shackled. And when we're shackled and clinging to hope, we no longer try. We no longer try break free, because hope has us confined in its warm caress. Wrapped in bandages of longing, so tight we can't move. We no longer pursue, because we fear to lose the hope promised by cohesion. We fear to leave the safety of the collective That is the audacity of hope. The audacity to steal freedom with its winning smile and silver tongue.

We can't always cling to our hopes and dreams, sometimes we've just got to let them go and follow them. This is my motivation. What leads me to the decision that I must pursue a world where all can chase their own happiness. This for the loves and fears of my life. For the loves and fears of their lives. For the loves and fears of the individual, not the lust and mass hysteria of the collective. I have been told as a single being I can make no difference, but this is not true. Because I know and love many single beings, who know and love many more. It will spread. Once awoken to the message, one cannot return to the chains.

So in closing, I speak to those who are awake. I ask that you do not let the assaults on freedom harden you. Do not let the jeers of those who are asleep dissuade you. The Revolution will succeed because we love.

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells...

Christmas is coming ladies and gents, and it's time to get buying, buying, buying... This year we really need you to spend, spend, spend, and spend it early, because nothing makes the economy feel better about itself than giant amounts of household debt! But don't you worry about paying those bills folks, because our fearless leaders have ensured that the banks don't need you to pay it back directly! The Government's going to pay it back for you... But wait! "That's our Tax money," I hear you say! Never fear, because we have this wonderful thing called a Central Bank, that lends money to the government, so they can buy themselves a nice big present too! It's called Re-election, or in Layman's terms a giant barrel of pork! Nothing better than Ham for Christmas lunch, eh?

Anyhoo, I'm prepping a two big posts for my favorite holiday, November 5th (Guy Fawkes Day), so this was just a quicky.

Some Lyrics: The Patient - Tool

I pretty much just love this song, and it's been my inspiration for a few things. But recently I've really identified with it, for the obvious reason of actually being a Patient. (Something I've never really liked the idea of, considering my desire to be on the other end of the health system.)

A groan of tedium escapes me, startling the fearful.
Is this a test?
It has to be. Otherwise I can't go on.
Draining patience, drain vitality,
this paranoid, paralyzed vampire act's a little ooold.

But I'm still right here, giving blood, keeping faith. And I'm still right here.
But I'm still right here, giving blood, keeping faith. And I'm still right heeeeeeeere.

(I'm gonna wait it oooout 3x)

If there were no rewards to reeeeap,
loving embrace to see me throuuuugh,
this tedious path I've chosen heeeeere,
I certainly would've walked awaaay by nooooow.

I'm gonna wait it oooout.

If there were no desire to heaaaal,
The damaged and broken met alooong,
this tedious path I've chosen heeeere,
I certainly would've walked awaaay by nooooow.

-And I still may. And I still may.-

(Be patieeent. 3x)

I must keep reminding myself of this... {repeats continually in background...

If there were no rewards to reaaaaap,
loving embrace to see me throuuuugh,
this tedious path I've chosen heeeeere,
I certainly would've walked awaaay by nooooow. ...finishes}
(And I still maaaay. 3x)
And I...

Gonna wait it out.
Gonna wait it ouuuut.
Gonna wait it out.
Gonna wait it ouuuuut.

Guerrilla Mattress-fare

With my armies ready to march, weapons primed, I suffered a surprise attack on my right flank. I sustained heavy casualties. Very heavy.
I told you in a previous post to go to war, but I left out that sometimes life goes to war with you, before you're ready. I'm not going to say that I've got the strength to fight back an win, like one of those aforementioned motivational cocksuckers. That's bullshit and life can't be won in a single charge; it can only be ended.
Am I giving up the fight? Nope. This is a fight for survival, giving up means losing.
So how do you win when you don't have the strength? With Guerrilla Mattress-fare.

The "How To?" of Guerrilla Mattress-fare

Increase mobility of your forces. If you can hit the enemy fast, take what you need and run, your strength will grow with each attack.

With increased mobility you can widen the area in which you can attack. Come at what's in front of you from all sides and within.

Learn to live off the land. Become self reliant so you can go where the enemy can't hurt you while you gather your strength.

Rebuild the relationships with your allies, but keep them back from the fight until you're ready. Too much involvement and they can become drained.

Now hit the enemy's supply lines, begin to weaken them as your own strength builds. This will rally more and more support to you, and your enemy will bleed and bleed some more.

As the enemy's structures crumble, allow your allies to invade.

Now burn the mattresses.

Should?

Expectations were high post 2007. Life was going to be fucking fantastic.
I was going to have the best year ever. Work hard at college, get into medschool, get my First Solo and be well on my way to finishing my Private Pilots License. I was going to celebrate my 18th birthday with my closest friends on the back seat of a limo as we drove from bar to bar tearing up the city. All doable things that should have happened.
But should is a bitch of a word. Insidiously it eats away at you until reality becomes just too damn hard to deal with and you crumble.
And as you crumble, all the "Shoulds" snowball and then one day, when you know you really should be booking that limo, you're sitting on a bed in PICU as a very friendly, but very large, male nurse offers you a little cup of medicine.

Nothing goes as you expect, or as it should.
My expectations of what would happen today were that I would be still wearing my suit as I woke groggily in my bed, with an empty bottle of beer on my bedside table, having to recover from the best night ever. I may or may not have been bruised, from calling my very anglo-saxon taxi driver Rangit all night. I would have messages on my phone wishing me happy birthday and saying thank you for an awesome night of drunken debauchery. I would spend the day with my family. Then be phoned by all my reletives in South Africa, who I miss every second of every day.
I'd chugg down a blue powerade, and my hang over would vanish. Then I'd spend my last week studying my ass off, ace the exams and be all set for a great year at Monash University.

Now, my 18th birthday being nearly over I'm sitting here with the flu, writing a blog post.
My phone has not recieved a single message.
My suit is still on its hanger.
Only my grandparents called. I was forced to explain that my flight medical has been revoked and I'm repeating my last year of college, to the people who've always had the most faith in me.
There was no Rangit. Not even a party.

I could talk about the causes of all of this, but that's not the point.
Nothing ever works out as you want it to.
My expectations have been stomped on, lit on fire, kicked in the crotch and sold into sex slavery to a flop sweating arab man.
If I could I'd delete the word should from my vocabulary.

Depression

Well, now that the US is officially in a recession, we have a lot to look forward to. Most of all, the depression the worlds fearless, uncompromising, and over all nice guy leaders are doing their utmost to hasten... I mean halt.
If it takes two quarters of GDP shrinkage to indicate a recession,how will we know when the depression hits?
As a part of his plan to save the world, Australia's Prime Minister has given us a great knew way of knowing when the worst hits us, (because no one could have predicted this disaster before it happened, and certainly not me at the age of 11 along with everyone else I knew.)

So how this is going to work, is we're all going to fill out this form here, and if enough people in the electorate feel that the economy is depressed enough, big K R is going to commission an awareness campaign to make the economy feel better about itself.

The Depression Test

Behaviours
1.	Stopped going out and spending lots of money
2.	Not getting things done at work
3.	Withdrawals from close family and friends accounts
4.	Relying on alcohol and sedatives
5.	Stopped doing things you enjoy because you can't afford it
6.	Unable to concentrate capital
Thoughts
7.	"I’m a failure at business"
8.	"It’s my fault"
9.	"Nothing good ever happens to me since the bank collapsed"
10.	"I’m worthless, bankrupt"
11.	"Life is not worth living expenses"
Feelings
12.	Overwhelmed
13.	Unhappy, depressed
14.	Irritable
15.	Frustrated with my situation
16.	No confidence in the credit market/banks
17.	Guilty for my families current lifestyle
18.	Indecisive
19.	Disappointed in the regulators
20.	Miserably hungry
21.	Sad... I couldn't afford to keep my mother alive
Physical
22.	Tired all the time from standing in the bread line
23.	Sick and run down... disease is everywhere.
24.	Headaches and muscle pains
25.	Churning gut from fear
26.	Can’t sleep on a flea ridden matress
27.	weight loss

Failing the awareness campaign KR has decided that it would be prudent to place the economy on a Standing Order, where it would be kept under martial... I mean hospital... I mean the IMF's supervision until it feels happy enough to go out and live a normal life.

Risky Business

Oh yes, here it is, another post about our fearless leader, Kevin Rudd.
Now rather than scoring political points on a soft issue, he's scoring points by attacking a tough issue; the economy.
The problem; he's made an awful mistake.
The Government has decided to insure all deposits in all institutions. Sounds great, right?
The Government has also sought to "guarantee" our banks credit ratings (in some way, I'm not too clear on), sounds great too, doesn't it?
WRONG!
Once again, this moron has tried to take control of something that is not in his realm of influence. He's trying to eliminate risk, and when you do that, you eliminate reasonable thinking.
By insuring deposits, you're allowing depositors to think their money may be safe no matter what their savings institution does with the money. So then, the savings institution can over extend it's lending without risking a run on the bank. Then the taxpayer is forced to pay up when banks mal-invest.
By guaranteeing the banks credit ratings (it doesn't matter how) you're adding to this false sense of security that the banks will abuse. This is how the American system got to be how it is. Not because of capitalism and greed, but because the government tried to eliminate risk. They made the most reckless decisions possible to lenders, through absurd regulation and a guarantee of intervention.
Australia is heading down the same path, all the while lording the benefits of our regulatory system and damning the free market for causing America's crisis.
It's bullshit! The free market died for America nearly a century ago when Daddy Rockefeller and his cohorts helped push through the Federal Reserve Act, and gave a quasi-government agency the ability to fix the price of the money in-order to regulate the market. Since then they have created agency after agency to eliminate the inherent risks of business, but all they did is cover up the danger. They hid it behind a smoke screen of low interest rates, mortgage insurance, the FDIC, a false CPI, and inflated housing prices to mask the reality of the GDP.
We are living in a fantasy world. There is no free market to blame for this situation, and regulation and intervention are not the solutions. Investors don't need to be reassured that their deposits are safe, they need to know the reality. Banks don't need more credit, they need to pay off their debts, increase interest rates, and give more incentive for people to save.
Yes, many mortgages will become unpayable. Yes there would be a recession, but the recession is not the problem, it's the cure. If people default, house prices will drop, and it will end the affordability shortage we're now facing.
People may lose their jobs, but not permanently. ALL prices need to fall, and unfortunately that includes the price of labour, it will need to drop for people to get re-employed, but if prices are going down, it doesn't really matter.
The Government is price fixing, with all the regulations and measures it's taking to combat a problem that has been caused by price fixing... It's fucking stupid. This is only going to bring us down with the yanks. They have basically ensured that the value of our dollar will drop, and inflation will go up. It won't matter if your savings are insured when it costs you $200/ day to live.
I'm not going to say things would be any different if we'd stuck with Howard and Costello, but Rudd and Swan just don't understand what they're doing.

Fireworks

The preschool (a bit like kinder) that I attended way back when was an interesting place to say the least. It was on the grounds of a Lutheran Church in the middle of Durban's tiny German enclave aptly named New Germany (The suburb itself is actually quite large, but there weren't all that many Germans.)
Before I get side tracked by my experiences with a certain Vrou, I should get to my story about the day we "saw fireworks."

*The official story*

I was playing on the scooter track (yes, someone had laid a mini roadway for us to race scooters around, all asphalt, very impressive), and somewhere up the street (the real street) I hear sirens and screeching tires and shouting. With enthusiasm I run to get a better look. With my own two eyes I see the kid across the street, or someone of the sort, playing with fireworks. The kids thought it was very exciting. End of story.

*Reality*

I was playing on the scooter track , and somewhere up the street I hear sirens and screeching tires and shouting. With enthusiasm I run to get a better look. I see a red car rammed up against the curb, drivers door flung open, as a young man flees two angry looking cops who's car was abandoned further up the street.
I was standing a few meters back from a wire gate, bordered by a low concrete fence, so I could see the entire incident unfold, despite being a bit clueless as to what was actually going on (I was 4). So haring along as fast as he could the criminal was still losing ground to the law. As he reaches the far end of the gate one of the cops pulls his gun and fires quite expertly at the suspect. The criminal drops behind fence out of view completely. At this point frantic teachers and minders usher the little ones inside and begin to adjust reality. We saw fireworks. No one got shot in front of me.

To this day I'm not sure what to think of my reaction to that incident, because I went home and told the story to my parents with great enthusiasm. "I saw fireworks at school and the police shot a car thief!!"

I wasn't much for finger painting and I already knew my times tables, so I only needed to take one lesson away before "Big School." A simple lesson that ended with the metaphorical words:

"Welcome to life kids. It's cheap here, so take as much as many as you want."

Anti-psychotic

I wasn't sure I should publish this, as the quality is dubious in my opinion.
I tend to find this sort of poem annoying from other people, so I'm not really expecting it to be liked. Just reflecting upon an interesting experience that I've had.

I'm floating on lava
cold lava, but it would sear me to cinder.
I can feel it beneath my thoughts,
Inside me like a vile sludge.

I feel it, but I don't think it.
My thoughts are truly clean
Empty.
The vile, icy-hot, lavarous sludge,
a river or a stream, flowing beneath thought.
Peaceful... perhaps.

I feel pain, but I can't think it.
I feel sick, but I don't know it.
I feel the lava burn me to my soul,
but I don't care.
My thoughts are pure and lifeless.

The Anti-psychotic was a yellow, dissoluble half-tablet.
It's how I got to sleep.

We

When I woke up this morning, I could not have been more grateful for my radio/alarm clock, that father got me for Christmas. The excited, worried and scared voice of the financial commentator ABC News Radio brought on at five a.m. gave me the chills... the good kind.
An almost whisper at the back of my head, heralded like the trumpets of rapture.
"We knew this was coming!"
Economic Collapse. I'm loving every second. Loving every sliding financial stock, and every blundering and foolish statement both Left and Right.
Vindicated Mirth. That's what it is. We were right.
I'm leaving the deep analysis for another day, possibly tomorrow. But tonight I'm celebrating the disaster. So should we all. We've gotta find something to smile about. :)
Tomorrow is going to be a long day. We have work to do.

Going to the Mattresses

I think it was from The God Father, "Going to the Mattresses", and it means something like going to war.
So I'm Going to the Mattresses with all the things holding me back, tying me down, and nailing me to their proverbial crosses. This isn't some bullshit motivational piece about how to unfuck your life up. I'm not going to tell you, to tell the universe to suck your dick, and give you what you want. If you're one of those idiots who thinks that shit works, you should fellate yourself, as it will give you more benefit.
I'm just going to say, go to war.
I don't care why, and I don't what with. If you feel you have to, do it. But do it right.
I've built my defensive structures, positioning them where they'll be a hazard to the enemy. I've picked my own ground, terms and weapons. I've sent scouts and spies to acquire the appropriate targets, and gather intelligence. Forged alliances and manuvered my troops...
She will hit that Matress. I'm very good at War Games.

The Hadith of Al-Kaffir (Song of the unbeliever)

I'm swallowed in the hollow
Where Christ doth hold my hand
And Mohamed pulls a sword
Drawing blood from the sand.

Holy Mother's in the meadow
Crucifying good and bad
With moses cracking rocks
Making water for jihad

I'm swaying on the spiral
Divined from Adam's sand
With Eve holding hearts and ribs
In her hollow yellow hand

Crown'd Beast and Burden ris'n
poking ad-Dajjal in the eye
All god's desert children
Will will doom us all to die

Mahdi guide me nowhere
Let Isa bring us home
Virgin blood to warm me
Let her child's-cry drone

I'm swallowed and I'm hollow
In palm of Evil's hand
Messiahs need the saviors
When blood pools in the sand

Binge and purge bitches

"Just because you have the tolerance of a small child, does not give you the moral high-ground on a non-existent issue."

For a man who got elected because he had a drunken experience at a strip club, Kevin Rudd seems to be negating any reason for popularity by increasing the tax on "alcho-pops". To be truthful, as I only drink beer, this affects me about as much as a tax on "electro-pop" music. But it's the principal of the thing. Our polylingual, show off, media whore of a PM, has taken it upon himself to be the engineer of people's social habits and that agitates me.

Binge drinking is not a problem for the government to involve themselves in. It is a soft and pathetic issue, to distract people from the political weaknesses a group of people elected simply because they could bullshit better than the other group of lying bastards.
If people (even underage people) want to get smashed, they will find a way. For instance the friend of mine who enjoys Codral- Cold&flu with his beer; take away one choice and someone will replace it with something else.

This is really just a page filler, but I hope I've sufficiently pissed someone off, so I can write a response to their moronic letter in the next issue. (Oh please, oh please write a letter!)
In the meantime; Eat what you like, drink what you like and have a fucking great day.

Soil and Broken Stone

The foul smell of ammonia greeted his senses as his head was plunged into ice an filled latrine bucket. His cheeks stung as sharp ice began to scratch them into a burning numbness.

I am a stone; hard and unbreakable, he told himself.

His scalp stung then tingled as a heavy hand yanked his head up and out of his own waste. He breathed ready for his next profane baptism.

Cold and unfeeling, he willed himself to believe.

His mouth now tainted, breathed the foulness into his lungs. He spluttered and gagged. His dark torturer forced him down again, with his mouth open to accept in full, the taste of his captive existence.

I cannot be broken, must not be soiled.

And then he was tossed aside, numbed and wretched his body slides to the corner of the cell, skin peeling away unnoticed, to strike his head against the wall.

Soiled! Broken!

*

There was a neat circle of stones around the rich, dark soil. A single seed had germin-ated in the center. A fleshy blossom of crimson and pink bared itself to the rest of his garden. He tossed a pair of sharp garden scissors into a basin of water, next to the car-efully coiled hose. They sank into the clear water through a slowly spreading patch of redness.

*

Tiny specks of sun penetrated the heavy, peach hospital curtains making tiny constellations float in front of his eyes as he woke. Mad laughter rioted from the bed beside him. “Wake up mister Stoney-face, the watering cart comes!” The voice from the bed chuckled. “Water for seeds to grow, but no seeds will grow in a solid rock, will they, Nurse?”

A trolley wheel squeaked somewhere in the room. “Whatever, Randal!” Came an aged and tired female voice. The nurse peeled away the curtains around his bed. “If you keep up with this stone nonsense I might just put something nasty in your IV, Randal.”

He rolled his head toward Randal’s. He sensed more than felt that the fool annoyed him. He tried to hold onto that sense, tried to force it to become a feeling, but all he felt was the ice and the beatings.

*

He lifted a stinking bucket of his homemade fertilizer and emptied it around his beautiful, new blossom. A glass of cool lemonade sat waiting for his parched gardener’s lips, ice floating, and rotating near the surface of his self produced reward.

“Randal will like this,” he whispered to himself.

*

“We can leave, mister Stone-face! I’ve found a way to get us out of the Hospital. Escape! Free! You can learn to grow your seeds, mister Stone-face!”

*

He took a sip, and offered a glass to Randal, who laughed raucously in amused declination. “She is beautiful, Stone my old friend.” A wicked grin painted Randals face and that sense of annoyance returned to him. He glanced at the beautiful blossom and he caught the slightest glimmer of a feeling. It--she--held his gaze, and the feeling grew deeper within him, pushing against his stone walls, pressure building. "There! It's growing mister Stone-face!"

*

They had run for long months, lying and stealing to survive. They ran until they found The Garden; a place of peace within the chaotic world. It had a small log-cabin and was well hidden in the woods. "We are free now," said Randal. "We can plant out own seeds here."

Then they had gone in search of seeds.

*

He stepped towards the blossom, touched her face. The feeling surged up.

*

The woman's unconscious body lay within the circular flower bed. He replaced the rock he had used to knock her out. Kneeling next to her he hesitantly snipped at her throat with the garden scissors. Blood sprayed out, gushing to make the petals of his first blooming flower. Beautiful!

*

There was a crack--a break--something, then he fell to his knees. The foul smell of ammonia greeted his senses--He cried out. I am a stone; hard and unbreakable--"I am a broken stone!" Cold and unfeeling--"Feeling everything!" I cannot be broken, must not be soiled--"Broken in fertile soil!"

*

"And now a seed has grown to full within the crack. We are whole, stone and soil!" Randal's voice rang in his ears, echoed in his skull. The mad fool stepped toward him, placed a weightless, non existant hand on his back, and they were one man.

The man called Randal walked into his cabin, where he lived alone with his blossoms.

Kufr

I was watching an old video of Osama on youtube. (Kill the infidels blah blah blah....) But then a word that was already in my vocabulary popped into his speech.
Kafir; (Spelt kufr in these particular subtitles) it means "unbeliever" and usually when uttered from the mouth of an Islamic Fundamentalist that implies Atheist. (And in this case Soviet, as well)
But in the Rambow Nation it has another meaning. A darker meaning. A mean meaning.
To call a black man a Kafir is possibly the worst racial slur I've ever heard. (Especially when the worst the black man can say back is "Stupid Mulungu") But I couldn't help but laugh at a story told by my cousin when I went back to visit.

"When I was still working for Grandad, [installing air conditioners] we were out at Riverside [hotel] and the technician [mike I think] turns to this black guy, [who was slacking off or something]... and shouts 'HEY KAFIR!' and the guy turns round, and I was like fully expecting him to klap (hit) [ mike] in the face, but he just turns around and says 'Yeas, Boss!' like apartheid never ended."

I cracked up!

Racism has never been an issue of import for me. I've used racial slurs, had them used back to me, and in my opinion South Africa wouldn't be South Africa without mutual discrimination between everybody. Blacks, whites, coloureds[a race uniquely South African, really], Indians, Asians, Jews, Portuguese, "Engles Manne" en "Boere Mense." No one could function in such a confusing society without making fun of everyone else.

My point about the word Kafir? I am one. More so than the labourer 'mike' insulted.

As a foot note one of the first people to call blacks Kafirs was a young intellectual lawyer named Mahadis K. Ghandi.

Rotweiler

"Attack dog commentary" is something I prided myself on until this point. Verbally bitch slapping the failures of governments and politicos as often as possible, with as much fervor as I could muster.
But today, as my first major journalistic task ever, I found myself in a tiny room, with a tiny girl who was intended to be the subject of my righteous, secularist ire.
My college chaplain is not an aging, balding man in a dog collar, who sits with a bible on his oak desk in the deepest, darkest corner of the College.
He is a she, no more than a couple of years older than myself, and about a head shorter (I'm not exactly tall). Her desk is chipboard and the only object that sat on it was an equally tiny laptop.
Basically, the goal of the interview was two fold: Ask basic questions for the purpose of the college news letter, and then ask harder questions for my own personal online publication (this one).
I was going to write my first major post with as much libertarian gusto, as Penn Gillette at a beer, guns and breasts festival.
But this girl was disarming, sobering and quite charming. I could not throw the book at her, (albeit, the libertarian manifesto could fit on one page) and I found the interview was over more quickly than I wanted it to be.
The closest I came to referring to anyone being offended by her position's existence, was jokingly saying that Jehovah's Witnesses may not like the Blood Donation drive she was organizing for the near future.
The idea of having a religious representative in a secular public school, is still reprehensible to me. I can, and probably will, still be able to find a hundred reasons why the chaplain program should be axed.
But... hopefully not too soon as it seems the attack dog has been left muzzled.

The Article

We at Hobart College have a chaplain. Not the old kind with a dog collar and a crucifix, but a young lady by the name of Jo Pang. Educated as a teacher at Utas, she came by the position of Chaplain through an ad put out by Scripture Union. As chaplain she's here to "help out", "get involved" and offer spiritual guidance to those who request it. For the last few months she been around, trying to get to know every body and establish a presence. Currently she is helping to run a Blood Donation Drive for the near future, and will be involved with organizing various other college activities. She can be seen around campus and found in the small office on your left when you walk into student services.

Like... like aaaa...

So, before I get into the swing of things with well researched/thought-out posts (with editing), I figure I should do something light and reflective, prior to eating my dinner.

Life sucks!
Life is awesome!
Life is a spiralling abyss!
Life is like road trip...

Metaphores and similes and adjectives bother me when describing things of import; they don't always fit, and when you're talking about something important, like life itself stuff needs to fit.

Life is like LIFE, there isn't much more we can say and I don't think we need to try.

A New Hope...

So, here I am writing a blog.
The shame is all consuming; I'm sitting thinking: "Am I gonna end up writing about how my life is a spiralling abyss? Am I going to be stalked by aging, gay computer nerds? Am I going to be called a homophobe for being worried that may happen? Or a sexist for not being scared of women stalkers (after all, they can kill me just as painfully as any man)..."
I feel immense trepidation; yet I'm still compelled to air my thoughts over this new medium...
I'm sure you're asking yourself questions too, most, if not all, beginning with the word "Why."
This may answer some of your questions.
You're reading this because your life IS a "spiralling abyss".
The blog is called Vokkoffazania, because that's exactly what I said as the plane's undercarridge left the asphault of Oliver Thambo International Airport three years ago. (My temper has been moderated since then.)
And the post is called "A New Hope," because I'm the guy who didn't play Luke Skywalker.

Here-in you shall find biased commentaries on everything I can think of, a few amusing anecdotes, and merely musings. The odd creative story might get thrown in the mix too.