Reflections on Tookie’s Execution

Looks like someone fixed the bug, WTH.  What were you saying about assumptions?

LB,

Fooled me. A few weeks ago someone had a long list of more or less standard racial no-nos, and the one for Chinese was the only one which did not get accepted.
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By the way, I hope you and your family have reconciled.

Thanx, WTH.

More or less.  My step mother still does a good job of pretending I don’t exist.  We were never that well off, by the way.  Both my parents worked, which is why they hired a housekeeper.  They got close to their Midas fantasies, but before I returned to the fold, so to speak, their business collapsed.  According to my sister it was because they were trying to buy their way into influence in the local Republican Committee.  Karma bites!

LB,

My wife and I are both only children and were fortunate that our parents got along quite well.  But my wife had a couple of cousins who lived near us (Illinois/Wisconsin area) when we were first married and we used to get together for some really good times.

About thirty years ago they moved out to Phoenix and the brother cousin went to work for his sister’s husband. (Not a good thing.) For the past 10 or 12 years they did not speak to eachother and the sister found out about his death from a lingering cancer in the obit.

Life is too short and when it’s done it is too late. Lots of weeping and gnashing of teeth down there about now. It was all about money — very sad.

Well, family we inherit and our friends we choose, but perspective we can work on.
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Up until last September I may have been able to use my influence to get them in with the Republicans.  :-)

For three years the Republican Party (Tom Delay), wrote to me, then phoned last fall, saying they wanted me to be on a small business advisory committee to interact with the President. I am not and never have been a “member” of any party, but when pressured to consent and assured this was not a fund raising position, I asked for a written discription of what would be expected of me. (I told her I could not afford to fly to and from D.C. — “No Problem!”)

They wanted me to say yes right then on the phone, but agreed to send the info when I would not.

Page 2: “You will be in charge of fundraising for northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin.” I hope Delay gets hung out to dry.

My folks didn’t have any problems with having ins to the Republican Party.  One of my best friend’s dad was local party chairman, another was the son of local congressman.  My dad played football in High School with both these guys.  Yes, money is the cause of much weeping and gnashing.

Ironic note:  One of said congressman’s kids used to copy off my tests in Government in Action class.  Later became a Cabinet Secretary in W’s first term.  ‘s truth.

Dear Lord.  Promise me, all of you, that you’ll never ever go to Naples.  It’s like Phoenix by the bay.

re racial slurs: I think we need to create more, due to the greater diversifying of genes.  How does one properly offend someone of 4 distinct ‘races’?  We need to seriously reflect upon this.

Rocco,

You posed an interesting problem: “How does one properly offend someone of 4 distinct ‘races’?”

So far all I’ve come up with for this hyper-hyphenated American is the one most likely to get first consideration nation wide: VALUED CUSTOMER

Rocco,

“...what if affirmative action was instead based on socioeconomics (as I’ve often thought it should be)?  That is, schools must take a certain number of poor people into their university, as their high schools were most assuredly a hindrance to education (there’s not a powerful PTA lobby in the ghetto).”

Probably a better way to do it.  I have to say it’s the teachers’ union here that hasn’t done us any favors. Funny thing is that most of the teachers I know are quite liberal in their views of affirmative action, want gov. at all levels to allot more dollars to schools, BUT…

We could not and still cannot assign teachers to specific schools, their union is too strong. Therefore the newest, least experienced ones end up in the poorer neighborhoods. In the Army they told me where to go and what to do.  When I worked for a large corporation — the same.
We had a 12-year “discrimination lawsuit” here brought about by a black father because his neighborhood school was sub par.  I can’t fault him for it — in many ways he was right.

The outcome was unsatisfying for all but the Chicago lawyers who made $ millions. We were under the thumb of a Federal Magistrate and even now are still on a sort of probation.  The court assigned “advisors” (all black) who were more vindictive than any drill sergeant I ever had. We closed schools, built new ones and have been playing musical buses ever since 1991.

As evidence against us were such things as — “our” neighborhood school PTA had held fund raisers like spaghetti dinners and bought AV equipment just for “our” school. “Unfair!”

A good friend of mine, a high school teacher with a masters in English, took early retirement when an advisor said of eubonics, “If a student says, ‘I be...”, it is up to you to figure if he means… I be now, I be last week, or I be tomorrow.”
My older son had been in several college-level classes (The Honors Program). By the time his younger brother got to high school (three years into the affirmative action mess) Honors Classes had been dropped — the court said ALL classes had to be racially balanced regardless of student ability.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Oh, yeah, taxes on our home went from $2,300 to $4,000 in three years.  If it had helped anyone it would be acceptable, but student test results last year were at an all time low and we are worried about a state takeover (more taxes). Twenty three of our schools are on a state watch list. We are now operating with a large deficit and parents who can afford to, are switching kids private schools.

Between the Fed and the state interference, it’s tough for board members to accomplish anything.

whattheheck - I don’t know enough to intelligently speak on teachers’ unions, but I’ve heard the horror stories from relatives who are teachers, particularly in New York City, where my aunt is dean of a large presinct in Manhattan.  However it is a fact that poor schools are horribly underfunded, and Bush’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ program is so bad I won’t even dignify its existence by acknowledging it.  It’s a way to fund the rich schools over the poor.  Shocking.

I’m going to go off on a little tangent: the reason board members can’t accomplish anything is because they are Americans - educated in America themselves, hence probably deficient.

American politicians, American businesspeople, American professionals and American bureaucrats all suffer from the same disease of an American education - regardless of color, class, or creed.  They share the same narrow-minded assumptions, the same gaping holes in their historical recollections, and the same inability to learn from the history that was pasted to their collective memory with nationalist glue.

They cannot think critically nor logically; their focus is often self-serving, and they congregate like lemmings, ready to jump in unison off any cliff, so long as they are with the like-minded (which is stunningly easy to do). 

Am I being to heavy-handed?  One-fifth of this country believes the sun moves around the earth.  50% of us - one poll showed that close to 80% of us - disregard evolution as a working theory.  Most adults can’t find European countries on a map.  Some children can’t find the US on a map.  No one even tries to learn about quantum physics, zoology, ethology, anthropolgy, biology, or even botany.  We’re just not that curious (aside - in Mexico, all the radical students I worked with came from the sciences).

We are without a doubt the most ignorant country in the industrialized world, and we have been for a long time.  This isn’t recent.  Like many of our problems, it stems from one of the democratizing things we tried to do - educate everyone.  So public education at its inception was watered down from previous classical education, but it was offered to all.  America catapulted in the sciences. 

Like most things, we sputtered out.  We couldn’t go any further.  Everyone else stole our thunder.  We reverted to Jesus, who will love us unconditionally - little minds and all.

Incompetence knows no skin color, but it is partial to our fair citizenry.

A word on ebonics (I prefer Black English):  I wrote earlier that it is a dialect.  I stand by this due to evidence I’ve read.  Like most dialects, it was born from a combination of two languages, in this case West African dialects and English.  It was sustained through ignorance of formal standards, due to the ban on teaching slaves to read. 

This was compounded by the fact that West African dialects were oral anyway.  Therefore, much of their syntax was inflective, i.e. ‘musical.’ The way one said something was more important that what was said.  Also, word play was important. 

So that was carried over to the English words used, especially the musicality.  It’s infectious.  I read a letter written in the 1830s by a British woman who was horrified that her nieces in Georgia, raised by a black nanny, were mimicking her style of speech.  This of course leads me to wonder about the influence of Black English on white Southerners.  Why don’t they all sound like Shelby Foote, hm?

As far as the verb ‘to be’: in West African dialects, the verb ‘to be’ is flexible, in precisely the same manner as your example.  That makes absolute sense. 

PS. Don’t pull a ‘that was 40 years ago’ with this one.  Mussolini standardized Italian 80 years ago, and Sicilians still talk Sicilian, Neapolitans speak napoletan’; ditto Sardinia.  Jews still speak Yiddish, a German-Slavic dialect. 

Dialects are cool.  Don’t knock them.  Besides, Black English gave us the word ‘cool’.  It represents the West African concept of ‘itutu’ - remaining at peace with style.

whattheheck,
I agree with your assessment of the flaws in US society and about our basic incompetence and lack of curiosity.  We are woefully uneducated.  I am from the Chicago area so I really don’t see as much ignorance as people from other parts of the country.  To be exact I am from the North suburbs where people are pretty well educated.  I have met fundamentalist Christians who believe that the world is only 6,000 years old and that it was created in only six days to boot. Believe me its chilling.  Everything in the world that happens from an unforseen car wreck on the expressway to 9/11 is attributed to the nearing of the “endtimes.” There is never any ability to analyse beyond this belief.  There is no depth of reflection or knowledge beyond the bible with these folks.  It is very sad!  We are woefully stupid and organized religion has hurt our efforts to become more reflective and intellegent.  We ARE a nation of cretins!  If we could just separate Church and State we would be on the road to enlightenment.  Religion really doesn’t belong anywhere in the public sphere.  It’s held a lot of people back and has harmed our progress as a nation. Just look at our president!

cabdriverinchicago - I would argue that “well-educated” suburbans, while certainly know more facts and accept, albeit just as blindly, scientific theories moreso than fundamentalists. They do, however, lack the ability to critically think just as surely (if not more so) than the rest of their countrymen.  There are levels of indoctrination they will not challenge, sometimes more fervently than someone with no education at all. 

Rich, “well-educated” people rule us; and if results are any indication of intelligence, we need to rethink the definition of an education.

Ignore my terrible grammar, which was not ironic in the slightest.

Last point: re separation of church and state, why can’t we just ban it?  It’s really backward.  Please?  Can’t we be intolerant on this one?  Just this one thing?  No public worship of imaginary beings?  No mention of Jesus unless it’s in vain?  That way you could pray in the privacy of your own bathroom, especially when you get the shits.

I’m ‘hep’, rocco. I can ‘dig’ what you’re saying ‘man’.  I’d like to add that the general syncretism of African inflection, wordplay, and slang are a large part of what gives American English an amiable sense of dynamic and creative inventiveness.  Much as African modalities and percussive improvisation lie at the very heart of what has been called America’s only indigenous art form, Jazz.  I would think that encouraging the free expression of such a vibrant sub-culture is as American as pizza. 

I love Spanglish, too. 

Concerning a pejorative term for persons of mixed race there is the unfortunate Mutt People .  However, in this case used to describe poor whites.  Interesting essay, though.

Education is everything. You know it and I know it. And what the white working classes don’t know, because lack of education, has hurt you and me and them. So why in the hell don’t we help this group of people into college and into the institutions that are elite springboards to careers in law and politics? Why not have affirmative action for Appalachian kids from the Ohio Basin or from the Deep South or anyplace else where tens of millions of kids grow up in houses containing not a single book, except possibly the Bible. Why don’t we do these things? Part of the reason is that this stubborn proud people do not whine, beg or threaten their way to access to education, employment or anything else. And part of it is because we unquestioningly accept a system that calls greed and self-interest drive, thus letting the prosperous professional and business classes pretend there is no disparity around them for which they might just be partially responsible, even as they pay the maid and the gardener, who lack health insurance, a pittance . . . or see that their mechanic’s bill reads, “repare of fuul injection, $105.” And because liberals have driven secularism into the ground and broken it off, and need to actually adhere to some religious values—real ones—even if we don’t feel particularly inclined toward religion. (Psst! Everybody else in America DOES feel inclined toward it.)

So we will either see that Americans, religious or not, get educated equally so they won’t be suckered by political and religious hucksters. If not, then we must accept that uneducated people interpret politics in an uninformed and emotional manner, and accept the consequences. America can no longer withstand the political naiveté of this ignored white class. Middle class American liberals cannot have it both ways. It has come down to the simplest and most profound element of democracy: Fairness.

luminous - Nice essay.  One of the great tragedies of both the Civil War and its subsequent Reconstruction was the co-opting of poor whites by the landed gentry.  Even though their positions were comparable to blacks, and really had a lot in common with them, they were told, and wished to believe, they were better because they were white.  You can really see that historical thread run right up into the Jerry Springer era, and why phenomena like Eminem and the popularity of hip-hop in white America are no real surprises.

I would however like to point out that the blues pre-dates jazz, and is just as indigenous (a mix of poor white bluegrass, traditional African beat, and spirituals).  As I listen via iPod to Mississippi Fred McDowell goin’ down to the river, takin’ that right-han’ road…

‘American as pizza’...ooooh.  I can feel the city of Napoli ready to explode in irrational hand gestures.

rocco,

Have you heard Ali Farka Toure.  The straight blues, right out of Africa. 

Speaking of blues,
[url="http://afsc.org/iraq/cray-video.htm" ] DIG THIS!
[/url]

Hmm?

why can’t we just ban it?  It’s really backward.  Please?  Can’t we be intolerant on this one?  Just this one thing?  No public worship of imaginary beings?  No mention of Jesus unless it’s in vain?

Rocco, you don’t want to ban someone like tina1 for political beliefs, neither do I, but you want to ban speaking publicly about spiritual beliefs?

Sorry to drag out your last point but I hope you were being facetious?

rocco,

Are neopolitan hand gestures really that irrational?  Their pizza is surely better than ours.  I learned my hand jive from Mexicans, and I assure you it is an art of sublime semiotic significance.

luminous - re Ali Farka Toure, I don’t think so.  I’ll look him up.  Robert Cray, on the other hand, I have heard of.  Not bad, but it’s not my kinda blues.  I’m partial to the reeeeeal ooooold blues.  Of course with some exeptions, most any blues post-Hendrix is no longer relevant to me.

Re hand gestures, yes and no.  The gestures, like Mexican sign language (hey, can you say ‘asshole’ in Mexican? It’s all I remember) are, to use your words, ‘an art of sublime semiotic significance.’ However the Neapolitans themselves are fantastically irrational, which filters into all their actions. 

And I would trade all that I had and more to be back.

David - I guess I was being facetious.  Or just dreaming.  It’s really bothersome for me that we have these arcane institutions which hold such sway over our lives. 

And I don’t just mean the political power of the religious right.  I mean the artificial satisfaction of mental curiosity that comes about in the whole ‘faith’ process.  Christianity hasn’t been relevant since Magellan proved the earth was round.  Since then, inquisitive individuals have painted a pretty convincing picture of the universe, while leaving you with the strong impression that they’ve just scratched the surface, and all the theories are wrong.  It’s exciting and life-changing to embrace such an unstable, dynamic, radical and wholly mysterious vision of a universe.  No answers are given, and people can decide what to do for themselves.

So it’s a damn shame that we fill kids’ empty little heads with this religious nonsense.  We shouldn’t ban speech of any kind, obviously.  But no one bans talk of Wiccan, and yet no one ever mentions it, except those kids who play Magic the Gathering.  Why?  Because we know it’s full of shit.  Why don’t we know that the churches and the synagogues and the mosques are full of the same?

Simple - they’re state institutions, the lot of them.  If we taxed churches, confiscated their lands for the public good, and stopped funding ‘faith-based’ groups, I’d be a bit happier.  Not to mention, we should teach comparative religion and mythology in elementary school.  Good luck taking away the fascists’ li’l helper, however. 

So I guess I’m just dreaming...dreaming of a world without pictures of Jesus on the t-shirts of the poor people at the bus stop.

david - one last point.  I divide religion and spirituality into separate animals.  Religion is an institution; spirituality is the development of the human spirit.  It is not didactic nor pedantic.  Spirituality is personal and yet communal.  It should echo in the heart of any serious artist, scientist, or unemployed wonderer. 

Ban religion.  Keep spirituality.

You mean pendejo?  Thumb and forefinger pressed together with a little plucking motion?

I suppose people living for thousands of years in plain sight of an active volcano might have reason to be a bit irrational (I say smugly as I look out my front window at the last volcano to erupt in the continental US before St. Helens).  The pizza must be real good.

Funny.  I’m listening right now to Buddy Guy’s “Sweet Tea”.  Real rootsy with a bunch of Junior Kimbrough tunes.  He lights it up like Jimi might of if he’d grown old. (imho)

Thanks Rocco,

I like your long answer and like your short answer better.

Ban religion.  Keep spirituality.

But for some religion is the path to spirituality.

David - For some killing seven and going to death row is a path to spirituality.  Doesn’t mean society should encourage it.

You mean pendejo?  Thumb and forefinger pressed together with a little plucking motion?

Yes.  With the the hand inverted, and down near one’s thigh.  Always done with one’s back turned to the person, looking back at them.

Ah, Napoli.  The craziest place I know.  Maybe the volcano has something to do with it, I wish I could say.  The city is so alive and pulsating, I wouldn’t be surprised.  Some think volcanoes are the reason life formed in the first place…

This discussion has a heightened sense of irony for me, after returning from Naples, Florida.  The name itself is a grand lie.  The blandest, deadest, fakest place I know.  Built on the corpse of the Everglades.  Nothing makes me sadder than the continual destruction of Florida to make way for aging Midwesterners and rich people pre-empting bankruptcy laws.

I’m not real conversant on Buddy Guy, but I remember liking what I heard.  I should check him out.

Rocco,
I think that the separation of church and state is key to the further enlightenment of modern society.  Enlightenment era intellectuals like the French Revolutionaries and the US founding fathers were very skeptical of religion.  The French exhibited bold anti-clericalism as a response to the corruption and repressive nature of the Church while the founding fathers in the US like Thomas Paine remained deists not tilting toward any religious particularism.  Guys like Paine or Sam Adams couldn’t really denounce religion because, unlike revolutionary France, religion was popular in the US and because religious freedom was a big part of the struggle.  In the end, many conservative Americans didn’t even want Paine buried in the US because of his perceived anti-clerical stance.

What was common to each of the great enlightenment revolutions was the unprecedented recognition that in a diverse and democratically ruled society religious conflicts would make society strife torn and unmanagable.  Hence, the only real place for religion in a democratic society was the private sphere.  The government could neither support nor oppose any one religion but only guarantee the free exersize of all religious faiths. This is the proper role of religion in a free society lest we lapse into theocracy.

Religion is inherently anti-intellectual for the most part and is so full of rigid absolutes that it effectively blocks enlightened pedegogy, inquirey, discourse and culture.  In the end society suffers.  Look at the struggle over the teaching of evolution as an example.  A lawsuit against the school board in Dover, Pennsilvania showed how far fundamentalism could try and oppose modern approaches to education. The lawsuit was brought against the fundamentalist school board who opposed any teaching of evolution by many in the community-including devout Christians-who were both tired of the board’s bully tactics and its blatant disregard for the establishment clause of the US Constitution.

The enlightened position triumphed over extremism in Dover, PA but can we be sure that such will be the case in the future?  We need to return organized religion to its proper role.  It should be on tap not on top.  The future of our society as a democratic one which respects both human rights and the value and efficacy of scientific inquiry depends on it!

Rocco,

“We’re just not that curious (aside - in Mexico, all the radical students I worked with came from the sciences).”
Radical in what sense? What do you teach?
For those who may be curious aren’t the cards pretty well stacked against them. Large classes, discipline problems, mixing all levels of intelligence, (some totally bored and some totally puzzled) As you said…

“Like many of our problems, it stems from one of the democratizing things we tried to do - educate everyone.”

The problem may be trying to educate all of them the same with little consideration for various talents, skills or interests in public schools.
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“We reverted to Jesus, who will love us unconditionally - little minds and all.”

I believe this is really stretching. I know a large majority claim belief, but doubt very many have given it serious thought. There is a tendency to continue in the family religious tradition.

My doubt and questions stared forming at an early age, but I knew if expressed my parents would be hurt. Especially my Dad whose upbringing was fundamentalist and deeply ingrained.

Whenever someone brings religion up for discussion whether friends or a door to door salesman (if I am in an argumentative mood) I say, “Don’t just tell me what you believe, tell me WHY you believe it.

My generalization on religious authority: For Catholics it’s the Church… for fundamentalist and evangelicals it’s the Bible...for liberal theologians it’s the intellect.

It seems to me that religious belief is usually a combination of unquestioned tradition and hope — people believe what they want to be true.

Rocco,

“Dialects are cool.  Don’t knock them.”

OK, be cool, but I still maintain a single language by it’s very nature is unifying. Multiple languages more divisive — the more there are the more divisions.

Some of us may be able to overcome the handicap of not understanding, but the people you described as so uneducated and therefore — ignorant, will most likely remain the majority. Isn’t language one of the reasons for so many separate countries?

“As far as the verb ‘to be’: in West African dialects, the verb ‘to be’ is flexible, in precisely the same manner as your example.  That makes absolute sense.”

If “I be” leaves the tense in question it is NOT ABSOLUTE in any sense.  It is relative and vague.

“...West African dialects were oral anyway.  Therefore, much of their syntax was inflective, i.e. ‘musical.’ The way one said something was more important that what was said.  Also, word play was important.”

Try clear communication on the internet under the above description.

Not everyone has the same fascination with language as you.  Some see a refusal to speak English as correctly as possible as defiance and rejection. If we are concerned about melding the races into a single society, then I see Eubonics (or, if you prefer, Black English) as waving a read cape in front of a bull.

Isn’t legitimizing “Black English” in effect, pitting it against “White English” and therefore counter productive to integration?  Would “White African” be beneficial or acceptable?

Theoretical may be interesting to discuss, but if results are desired practicality is more workable.

Rocco,

Don’t bother grading my papers. I’m just auditing this course.

whattheheck - I meant ‘radical’ in the sense of active resistance.  About five years ago I went to Mexico in a humanitarian capacity.  It was right after the 11-month strike by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), but the situation was pretty tense.  When I returned a year later, 2 of the students we worked with had been stabbed to death by urban paramilitary.

The leaders of the protests were mostly from the Biology and Physics departments, to my surprise.  In the US, most activists come from the humanities: history, English, or maybe sociology.  I think for a Mexican, who ironically has more access to facts re politics, logic and scientific inquiry naturally lead to sound critiques of policy.  The difference is the violence that the Mex. government is willing to engage in.

Anyway, I’m not nor have I ever been a teacher. 

I did stretch a little with the ‘Jesus’ quote, but sacrilege is my great cheap thrill.  If you really care about my opinion on this subject, check my above conversation w/ David.

This is my position on Black English, or on any dialect, for that matter: to teach it in school is to kill it.  Dialects are cultural, and are almost always oral.  To study ‘ebonics’, as had been proposed (at I believe Berkeley), however, can be instructive if it allows educators to understand where their black students are coming from.

I watched a great special on PBS called “Do You Speak American?” They showed teachers of inner cities in effect translating the Black English learned at home into standard English. 

I agree that there needs to be an official language.  English is indeed the lingua franca of today, which I do not object to (in fact, am selfishly in favor of).  But I see no problem with tolerance for dialects which only enrich a fluid language by describing abstracts in often much more precise terms (like ‘cool’). 

And I also see room for other official languages, like Spanish.  We did conquer half of Mexico.  What did we think they were gonna speak in San Diego?

Re your internet example: like I said, it’s an oral dialect.  Written Black English is an impossibility, as the inflection is part of the syntax. 

Re ‘to be’: the nature of the tense is based on context.  If I were to say “He be doin’ that five years,” it’s obvious that this is imperfect past.  If I say, “She be lookin’ good,” it’s clearly continuous present.  Besides, if you were to actually study conversational Black English, you would see patterns of when ‘be’ is used and when ‘was’ or ‘is’ is chosen.  Like any dialect, the speaker and the listener understand each other well, hence there is indeed a structure.

WTH - One last thing I want to address:

Some see a refusal to speak English as correctly as possible as defiance and rejection. If we are concerned about melding the races into a single society, then I see Eubonics (or, if you prefer, Black English) as waving a read cape in front of a bull.

My own preference is an adaptation of Jeffersonian states’ rights, a pluralist society where different cultural groups can live side by side, exchange different points of view, etc.  Nothing scares me more than a homogeneous society, a la Adolf.

Instead of forcing everyone to speak English, why couldn’t we encourage multilingualism?  Educated Europeans are almost blanketly bilingual, and often can speak 3 to 6 languages.  Why go backward?

My experiences have taught me that it is very possible, indeed preferable, to allow for as much cultural diversity in a society as possible.  Only core values need to be established, which I think the Constitution did a reasonably good job of doing. 

Biology loves diversity - it ensures survival in the face of radical environmental changes.

Anyway, I can think of many successful models where multiple languages are official.  Switzerland is probably the best example, but South Africa is moving in that direction, as is the EU.  This is only undesirable for powerful minorities, who would lose absolute hegemonic control.

cabby - here, here.

Rocco might like to re-phrase an earlier remark referring to the rabbit as a Troll, however indirectly that might have been meant.

The adoption of a superior tone, without any just precursor for such an assumption, is hardly enough to allow someone who has begun with blatant “attempted” sleight of hand, oh great web master, to make disparaging remarks.  You may poke the rabbit and make silly faces at it, but be assured the rabbit is not only un troll like, the rabbit bites.

The following is prefaced with the understanding that Rabbit is an Gnostic.  He has always been an Gnostic and always will be, that is his Karma.  Having travelled a path of enlightenment with a will, through Occultism, Christian New age, to Fundamentalist through Budhism’s gentle admonitions and Native Sorcery and finally to a conscious shedding of all limiting dogma, the Rabbit is long since firmly in control of his destiny.  The learning of new things along this journey has not of necessity involved the release of what was previously learned.  In fact the journey was led by the search for answers to the same questions, and the answer came to me piece-meal.  Thus very little spiritual learning was ever wasted.  Rabbit’s don’t live long enough to waste time playing ring around the roses. 

The brush off given Astrology, demonstrating the misconceptions about the subject common to those who only think they know what it’s about, does the mask of intellectualism no favours.

The old adage of knowing first before you criticise is no less valid for the initial depth of misunderstanding or from your point of view contempt.  Often that which seems meaningless, such as calculus, eventually comes to have a fundamental simplicity and beauty which makes profound sense after all.  The difference is in learning about it first.

Just as you cannot teach me Calculus in a day or a week, nor can you learn enough about Astrology from reading maybe a few articles about it, or from observing the way the pop culture abuses the concept for instant gratification, to be seen in the Stars columns and radio segments.

The primary misunderstanding is that the Science of Astrology is somehow about predicting things.  Or that it is about the stars or planets “affecting” people.  It is neither.

Rabbit was given quite incontrovertible proof when he was at his most sceptical that there was indeed something very significant and real about astrology.  Since then I made it a point of learning enough that observations alone have filled in the gaps.  It is but a pattern of observations.  Via a long observed, quantified even set of correlations, people have found a set of relations of human life to a rythym of the surrounding universe.  Now as an Gnostic, this is a perfectly reasonable and expected correlation.

As with so many other things Dogma bound humans enforce upon their understanding by making a ritual out of it, this thing is not an invention of yours.  It is not as if someone just makes up the idea of LOVE and calls it his own.

It is no more that anyone can say God is their invention or Karma.  All these things, understandings, have come about through observations, and the interpretations of them.

The field of Astrology involves the attempt to interpret the likely human conditions dependant upon the aforementioned Astonomical correlations.  The interpretations are no more what Astrology is about than the preachings of a single preacher on a Sunday encompasses all that is Christianity, or even necessarily is trully Christian.

Over time I have found so many preconceptions turn out to be wrong that it is easiest to believe all things until proven otherwise.  This involves disproving things by knowing enough about them to be able.  Thus it becomes a lot easier to get along with your fellow man, or rabbit, because you will not be as likely to show cultural or intellectual ignorance.  The shame of an act of bigotry is not upon the subject of the bigotry despite the bigots interpretation.

Not that the humble most unworthy rabbit would suggest that Rocco would be a bigot,....knowingly.....but it does no harm to re-examine our attitudes to any subject once in a while if we are not always in tune with our peers on it.

In this way Rabbit has learned to despise Michael Moore for example.

The definition of Troll is something which has been discussed in detail and Wikipedia notwithstanding, the definition includes more than the limited and easily mis-identified characteristics in that volume.

It can always be extended.......................^^.....................but it does not include rabbits.

Upon re-reading his post, it occurs to the rabbit, in his unconscious humility, and simple nature he has written in such a way as to invite a response questioning his self described enlightenment.

So to forestall such frippery and to answer the matter for sure:  YES The Rabbit knows everything.  Absolutely everything there is to know.  Luckily he is too busy just dealing with one or two of these things at a time, that the whole world does not suffer his interference, for Rabbit loves to fix things and fiddle with them too.  You would too if you knew as much as the rabbit does.  You would see how many things are broken and how silly the little broken things were most of the time, and you too would want to fix everything.  rabbit isn’t smart enough to think of the the things he knows, so he relies on his friends and sometimes his enemies to help bring out the things he knew so we can see them together.

The end result of this and lots more, pages if I want, of spiritual rhetoric is to show that I Rabbit know everything.  It is not a boast, it is a fact.  Sometimes I have misunderstood something I knew, that is not the same as not knowing everything, but with the help of my friends and sometimes my enemies I get those straightened out too.

That is Rabbit’s final answer to WhatTheHeck’s perrenial “But nothing can ever be trully known” excuse for not facing when he is wrong.

WTH knows everything too, he just doesn’t realise most of it yet.

Rabbit has said he and WTH are similar.

Now Rocco,

you only think you know everything, this is nothing like either WTH or Rabbit.

rabbit - I admittedly know nothing of astrology.  I’m sure it has a rich canon.  And like any religious “software”, I’m sure that certain intuitive people can use it to break through metaphysical barriers.  But as far as sarcasm goes, it’s like hitting a pinata.  You can’t throw me a wiffleball and expect me not to whack at it.

Did I call you a troll? Even indirectly?  Can’t recall.  You really gotta stop taking me seriously.  It’s affecting your posts.  While you’re at it, stop taking yourself seriously.  It’s affecting your life.

The direction in which Physics is now takling our understanding, is furthermore quite supportive of the whole concept of Astrology, and of many previously “Twilight Zone stuff” like Ghosties Poltergeists Demons and ETs.

What was wacky yesterday becomes ordinary by the next morning.

Cabbie, the fact that the powers which seem o be directing the ground puppet show, and their koolaid drinking sheeple enablers, are into the whole end times paradigm, makes it the dominant paradigm for us all, by the same Physics. (and occultic understanding for what it’s worth.)

We need a major shift in humanity on a vast scale to break this paradigm or it is the one which will play out for all of us in this theater anyway.

Rabbit didn’t see that Rocco was under the rock their so to speak.  Between couple of quick postings he popped up.

The following is the source of my ire, mild and tongue in cheek as it was.  Directed as it was to I, Rabbit.

Despite my remarks, I place no preconception on any troll, regular, or in-between.  Except, of course, you.

Now to suggest that Rabbit takes himself seriously is a bit naif.

This rabbit takes Rocco seriously enough.  This is not to say he takes the Rocco’s proddings as anything but playful jest.  Since we are allies, like it or not, we march to the same tune, if differently.  Thus any skirmishes can only be limited to wackings with the rubber bat.  Notice do we that Rocco has not had his moniker altered in any way?  No Juvenile yet cutesy name changes from Tina1/ Andrew to Tiny Shrew, no Think4yourself to Thinky, then there is Minny Mind, Nat the Bat, Scorpy.

This even is a clue of rabbit’s respect, though you mustn’t expect it means he loves you.  He doesn’t do it to WTH either.  It is further evidence of hisless than serious approach to many things, himself included.

Try Jay DeCline if you want to study an example of someone who takes himself too seriously. 

I choose to indulge in third person dialogue, half of my postings involve Seuss type rhymes and Alice in Wonderland type imagery.  Though in my defence I submit it conveys a message no less accurate or sharp.

Rocco you are a clever fellow, and have knowledge of many things, you demonstrate an advanced ability to reason and have a sophisticated comprehension of the world around you.  All this and an American too. 

Nonetheless, if you persist in misunderstanding the rodential resident and projecting your own understandings into his perspective, you will likewise persist in falling short in your estimations of Rabbit.

The main thing to remember is that the rabbit knows everything, he has told you so and he has never lied to you before. 

This is not the same as taking oneself seriously.

Seriously.

Take note that Rabbit pokes those who poke him.  It is fair and fine.  If the rabbit’s pokes are a bit sharper, they tend to be well aimed, it does not mean a meaner intent, just that he aims a bit more carefully, when poking people for no better reason than that they poked him first.

This .......^^...... is a word in rabbit.  In fact it is a number of words, a symbol meaning certain things, depending on the context.  It is both flippant, and precise.  Concise and just as sharing a foreign language can give advantages in communication between friends in a public space, so too can others speak enough rabbit to know the meanings. 

This is neither taking oneself too seriously, nor is it actually so irresponsible or juvenile as LOLLING all over the place, and indulging in smilies when such hideous creations are available.  Thank God they are not here.  Thank you Seamus, and it would probably be Seamus who fixed the Chink Hijinx WTH is so delighted to see.

There is a fine line between all things, and the rabbit can walk it as a rule.  He does it with a weird motion and oddly, but for art for fun and for truth, never for self agrandisement.

Serious is what Mrs Rabbit is all about.

Rocco seriously though, Astrology is not a religion.  Your reference to it as such is utterly ill-informed.  You cannot actually offend anyone in the same sense by knocking it.  It is like i said a simple correlation exercise.  I have no time for religious dogma.  None at all.  Either it is scientific, in that it has been developed via observation and tested to show it’s efficacy, or it hasn’t, in which case it is faith based and religious dogma.  This is a broad brush, but the point is that you must cease all reference to a field about which you know nothing, for it weakens your standing when following your posts and in the instances where one must choose to take a person at face value when the issue in question is also beyond one’s own full understanding.

Don’t give away your credibility so easily.

By the way you certainly seem to conform to an Aquarian mindset.

Rocco,

“Ban religion.  Keep spirituality.
But for some religion is the path to spirituality.”

BINGO! (Translated from the Catholic language.)

I would like to see classes in comparative religion for those who question. I also agree with David, for some it is truly meaningful even (especially?) when not taken literally). My own confusing upbringing took nearly forty years to overcome, pretty much on my own.

A nearly universal longing or curiosity for something beyond this life is evidenced in all cultures. It is dogma which grates.
-----------------------------
“Nothing scares me more than a homogeneous society, a la Adolf. “

As in all societies some people in Nazi Germany were more homogeneous than others. Hitler was a supreme showman, practiced his gestures and delivery and knew his audience well.

I guess we don’t disagree in principle — it’s just my lapsing into wanting action to establish a workable approach to integration. (The 1964 Civil Rights Act is a disappointment I have never really gotten over.) For that we need all to buy into the goal while accepting some degree of individual uniqueness. Instead we seem to continually find new ways to alienate each other. An In-Your-Face attitude on both sides must be avoided.

It seems to me Europe’s multilingual history has produced a pathetic track record.  Countries have pretty much ignored talk in favor of force. The exception: Switzerland has definite geographical advantages and has always been well armed and trained with — and an economy based on being Safety Deposit Box of the World.)
-----------------------------

I would like to see the Constitution followed. We could start with fulfilling the goals of the preamble.

-----------------------------
I found your comments on the student resistance interesting and must admit I don’t recall it. Maybe we should just offer Mexico U.S. statehood and eliminate the border controversy. Fox seems to favor our dealing with their problems he wants to ignore.

WTH,

Bloody oppression and resistance have a 500 year continuous history in Latin America.  History quite studiously ignored in the US.  Especially when we are the primary oppressors, which is often the case.

An entertaining and enlightening read is
Eduardo Galeano’s “Memory of Fire”.

rocco,

For a seriously unserious take on religion, or vice versa,
Ben Tripp offers some risible observations.  For one of them Hollywood Buddhists, anyhow.

HERE is part deux.

I think you’ll enjoy it.

rabbit - I wrote: Despite my remarks, I place no preconception on any troll, regular, or in-between.  Except, of course, you. Why didn’t you think I meant you were a regular or an in-between? 

Not that it matters much.  To tell me that much about the ‘method behind your madness’ is to take it seriously.  If you didn’t, you wouldn’t tell me.  It’s like a Bond villain who must explain his genius, giving 007 enough time to press the button on his exploding pen.

Astrology is pseudo-scientific.  That doesn’t mean it doesn’t rely on observation, but it definitely requires more faith than, say electrical engineering.  See my next post, where I’ll address this at greater length.

All this and an American too Have you ever been here, Rabbit?  There are 300 million of us.  How many Aussies are there again?

whattheheck - Religion is of course a path to spirituality, but as I alluded to in another post, that doesn’t mean that it should be encouraged.  Like you said, it took you 40 years to overcome it.  Why would we as a collective keep such obviously damaging and contradictory philosophies at the forefront of spritual practice? 

I guess we don’t disagree in principle — it’s just my lapsing into wanting action to establish a workable approach to integration.

The conspiracy theorist in me sees the mouthpiece of the corporate structure - the media - accentuating divisive points.  It’s much harder for us to organize if we think we hate each other.  And we won’t stop them from going to the bank.  We can only choose for ourselves whether we’ll judge others based on actions, and then decide further whether or not to empathize with them.  You don’t hear much about empathy on the O’Reilly Factor.

Europe has only begun to become integrated, post-WW II.  Give them 100 years to see who’s right on this one.  I think they’re adjusting quite well.

whattheheck - Re Mexican strike: you didn’t hear about it because no one reported about it.  I think I can answer why.

After the first major Zapatista insurrection, the Mexican stock market tanked.  Since this was post-NAFTA, the US was compelled to bail out Mexico, the largest in history.  A memo from Chase Manhattan Bank to the Mexican government somehow got made public.  It read: “Eliminate the Zapatistas.” (I know it may sound like I’m making this up, so check for yourself).

One of the stipulations to the bailout were IMF-proscribed implementations, the kind that wreck every developing nation.  One of these was privitization of the Mexican university system, which is unconstitutional in Mexico.  The government started by raising the tuition of UNAM something like 300%.  The students and professors freaked out.  They went on a massive strike, and took over the university.  The University of Oaxaca also followed suit, but I must admit I lost track of that situation.

It was a mess.  Molotovs, paramilitary infiltrations, and all-around bad blood.  But the students held firm, and the tuition was not raised.  They were the bravest people I’ve ever met.

For some reason, the New York Times et al. found little interest in this story.

luminous - Thanks, I liked that.  Although it appears he’s a New Hampshire Buddhist, which is completely acceptable.  Nah, not really.  Why concede at this stage of the game?

It’s especially interesting because I was just discussing humorism in a similar vein on a different thread with wiley (who apparently hates me).  To wit:

The ironist can always point out contradictions more fully than the true believer, and the humorist can do the same to the ironist.  The ideological fundamentalist - whether Islamic, Christian, or “liberal” - cannot afford contradiction, lest it destroy their chosen belief system, and start them at square one.  The ironist is always at square one.  The humorist doesn’t even believe in squares.

rocco,

You don’t want to fuck with wiley.  She’s very passionate.  She can, if pressed, hand you your balls in a sack.  Sometimes (usually) the sarcastic expression of irony is most difficult to make clearly understood.  Hence, the ubiquity of emoticons. 

The standard opener here in the land of fruits and nuts is, “Where are you from?” People are often amazed to learn I’m a native.

“The world began in Eden, but ended in Los Angeles.” Phil Ochs

You have my personal permission to be yourself.  Concede nothing! (subtle buddhist irony)

Now who is taking someone too seriously?  All this and an American too could obviously only be meant in jest for the rabbit in company of Americans for whom he has a significant respect. 

Rocco your presumptions are showing again.

To tell me that much about the ‘method behind your madness’

You are presuming Rabbit is telling you anything which was in any way secret, when in fact he told you in exasperation what should have been obvious to anyone actually paying attention.  Methinks someone is in love with his own words, but it is not the rabbit. 

You assume that describing oneself is in some way giving up some sort of advantage?  It is true that some pretend to be something they are not.  For example they wear their father’s medals, cross dress or pretend they are someone important and more than they are, like for example a site administrater.  Such people may see some sort of machiavellian purpose behind the simple desire of others for Truth for it’s own sake but I assure you Rabbit has no “Master Plan” Rocco and any madness is purely reflected.

In view of your inability to do more than parrot dittohead response to Astrology and since Rabbit has no Irons in that fire, he recognises it’s actual nature, has learned as much in reverse by having once comprehended the core idea, and assembled many obseravtions of his own which have been consistent.  This is not something that you could even understand Rocco, as an Aquarius you are fairly limited in your flexibility in this regard.  The least likely to benefit from the Mythical awakening consciousness are older Aquarians who have already found their “New Way” and are thus locked on course.

Rabbit is not interested in Astrology either Western or Chinese beyond an awareness of their simple efficacy and the logic and sorry old son, knowledge presumes here, Science.

The Science of Physics, has now as pointed out before come to not only support the idea of Interconnectedness of all things.  Quantum Physics marks the end of the separation of Science and many traditional ideas which were previously scorned by science.  Recall please that virually all cures and medicines, drugs etc have been engendered as a result of traditional remedies.  these things were used for thousands of years in some cases without ever being understood.  Science, mans word for his present state of hubristic belief in his own cleverness, begins by rubbishing these things, examining them, finally quantifying an effect, and then they pretend they invented the thing in the first place.  It’s the same thing with God.  Man discovers an idea aboiut God, and thinks he inveneted God, that God is his, to define as he will.

This is why I have contempt for religion.  I don’t wish them any more ill than that I look forward to the day most of the religions go belly up when things get beyond their paradigms.  Budhism will cope, it is far older in essence and so is the idea behind Christianity and the other desert dogmas.  This idea will live on in another, hopefully more simple form.  That much is sure. It is no more connected to the fate of Doctrine or Religions which sprang out from it’s existence.

Christ was not a Christian, he was an Gnostic and all he was saying was you, me we are all connected to everything, there is always consequences for what we do.  If you recognise this and take responsibility for it, do unto all things in a manner consistent with respect and harmony, you will be a happier being and the world you inhabit will be improved.

Do unto others as you would have them etc…

It isn’t any different from one to another and the trappings or further understandings of some, like Re-incarnation, or baptism for the dead etc, are not important as anything but cultural markers.

The Earth is a Living Entity

The Electric Universe theory is going to turn all human science on end by the way, and it seems to be the new paradigm in this regard.  Iron Sun is quite a good argument too.

luminous - This site provides many things for many people.  I like the friction of a sound debate.  So I’ll fuck with the good, the bad, and the rabbit, so long as I follow my own rules of debate and etiquette.  The play’s the thing! ...and not the actors.  But actors are often such a vain and tempermental lot…

I don’t mind that she’s cross with me.  But I think my balls aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. 

Re “Where are you from?” Tell me about it.  I’m a native Floridian.  And Phil Ochs ain’t seen nothin’ yet (nor will he, I suppose).  I’d move to LA tomorrow if I didn’t love this awful place so damn much. 

(subtle buddhist irony) - Is it subtle because it’s a parenthetical?  Or is that an ironic device?  But it can be subtle if it’s pointed out.  Or maybe that’s more irony...malfunction...malfunction…

rabbit - Everything I say is in jest.  Except that.

But you know us Aquarians.  Trapped in bubbles of our own design.  Pity me.  We also, as you must know through your trenchant study of astrological charts, know that we also don’t really care about the inner workings of others, which is why your rabbit-dissertations grate on me.  We’re a self-centered bunch of assholes.

We do agree on quantum physics, though.  And I like reading Gnosticism.  And maybe someday when I’ve got the time I’ll crack some astrology books.  Why not.  So long as you don’t take any of it seriously.  But you knew that too, didn’t you?

PS - Didn’t you initially think I was a Leo?  If my posts are so transparently Aquarian, why the initial mix-up?  Again, I know nothing of astrology, so perhaps Leos and Aquarians are peas in a pod.  Or perhaps it’s all conjecture and happenstance.  So hard to know these things…

Rocco,

“You don’t hear much about empathy on the O’Reilly Factor.”
I tend to lump the “screamers” at either edge like O’Reilly or James Carville, as entertainers more than news sources. Once in a while they may come up with a rational point, but their target is the emotional fan their slant.

I’m not so sure Europe is adjusting all that well. The EU was a doubtful venture in my mind from the word “Go.” So far as I know, only tiny Luxembourg has abided by their deficit rules. Germany and France have both violated it big time. Isn’t their Constitution still in limbo?  This, like so many “bold new ideas,” is the creation of economists not a grass roots call for unity.

Wealth and Power are incestuous and are totally in favor of abortion when any society’s majority threatens their control.

WTH - Unfortunately, O’Reilly and the rest of the “screamers” at Fox are most American’s source of news.  And MSNBC and CNN are complete jokes.  It’s easy to manipulate the undereducated with outrage and contempt.

Europe is definitely going through growing pains.  The points you raise about the EU are legitimate.  But I was referring to the population.  They are travelling within Europe as we travel within the states, and their level of tolerance is pretty high.  I think that’s a good case for the plusses of multiculturalism.

Wealth and Power are incestuous and are totally in favor of abortion when any society’s majority threatens their control.

Interesting metaphor.  And I just had eggs…

rocco,

Without vanity and temperament, the play would be dreadfully boring, don’t you think?  What makes the drama worthwhile for me (besides a well plotted, coherently directed, believable story) are those moments when the persona of the character in the play is pierced through by the authentic being of the actor.  It is even so much more electric on the stage which is ‘all the world’. 

I learned Kung Fu and Ballroom Dance from the same teacher.  Very similar disciplines with quite different functionalities.  He left it for me to discover for myself how life normally expresses itself somewhere between the two.

I have to say I agree with W.C. Fields that comedy is a very serious business.

“Stop breaking down.
Please, stop breaking down.
This stuff I got’ll bust your brains out, baby. 
Oooo-oo, It’ll make you lose your mind.”

* Robert Johnson

Maybe not so subtle?  Elephants all the way down, though.

You’d have to drag me kicking and screaming to LA.  Unless you’re picking up the tab.

Back tracking a bit as to what is worthwhile on the Boob Tube…
Do you get “Democracy Now” where you are, WTH?  It’s on Public Access Cable channels in a lot of places. Or you can stream it or download as a podcast.  It is unapologetically progressive, but open to oppositional argument.  I would ask you to compare the depth and level of discourse to anything else out there, including the Lehrer Newshour on PBS.

LB,

Thanks for the link. But I can’t get it on TV according to the station listing on their website.

I find C-SPAN to be about the best I can get and often tape Senate hearings and other programs which look interesting. I’d rather not get a filtered version of events as much as possible.

WTH,

I don’t get sat or cable or I’d probably be a C-SPAN junkie.  As it is I find it an excellent resource on the net for inside-the-beltway politics and stuff.  Picking over Booknotes I can find the gems without suffering the tedious policy wonks and fatuous conventionalist historians.  It is pretty useless for understanding what’s going on in the real world, though.  I used to love getting worked up over the call-ins in the morning Journalist’s Roundtable.

DN is on the radio, also. (It started as a radio show.) Should be possible to stream even with dial-up.  The kind of political filters that DN doesn’t have, which I think makes a significant positive difference, are those imposed by being dependent on Corporate ownership, Corporate underwriting, or Corpororate advertising.

luminous - Without vainity and temperment, the play would be dreadfully boring, don’t you think?

No, not really.  My actors better leave that shit to the curb.  And if they don’t engage in their performance full-on, they’ll never work in this town again.

Why separate your two disciplines at all?  Ballroom Kung Fu Dance sounds pretty kickass.

“Me and the Devil was walkin’ side by side.
Me and the Devil, ooo, was walkin’ side by side.
I’m goin’ to beat my woman until I get satisfied.”

Robert!  You can’t say that here!  Anyway, not subtle at all.  And I thought it was turtles all the way down…

LA has a lot going for it.  West Palm Beach has nothing.  Not one thing.  No, not even that.  And all the trees are conspicuously absent.

When one is completely into either one, the discipline is very, very, very, very much the same.  But in one, one is hoping to avoid bruises and in the other one is hoping to avoid inflicting them.  A small matter.  When you’re pushing the edge of the envelope there are bound to be bruises.

“She got a .38 special, and it do very well.
She got a .38 special, man, and it do very well.
I got a .32-20 an’ I’s disappointed.”

Funny how things get evened out.

I wouldn’t be going to LA for the trees.  The City is where it’s at.

“When I send for my baby, and she don’t come,
When I send for my baby, and she don’t come,
All the doctors and hot springs sho’ won’t help her none.”
- 32-20 Blues

I think RL had some intimacy issues.  Could be why a jealous husband poisoned him to death.  (speaking of which, you might enjoy a book by Walter Mosley called RL’s Blues).

What I meant was: when I group up in South Florida, it was a forest.  Now, the whole east coast has been nicely paved over.  It makes me physically sick.  While I’m not a massive fan of his prose, Carl Hiassen is a definite kindred spirit, if you’ve ever read any of his books (Sick Puppy is probably my favorite). 

Last book you might like: City of Quartz by Mike Davis.  An native Angeleno who writes the history of LA from the perspective of class warfare. 

It’s highly relevant for a South Floridian as well.  We use bridges and gated communities to keep out the undesirables, gentrify low-cost houses, and pave ever westward.

That word ‘group’ was supposed to be ‘grew.’ Strange…

Sucked down Mosley when it came out, Davis is definitely on my list, and “Sick Puppy” is on my table.  Hiassen’s prose ain’t nothin’ flashy, but he shore do funny good.

Raise your window.  I ain’t goin’ out that door.
Raise your window, babe.  Ain’t goin’ out that door.
‘Cause there’s a man out there.  Might be your man, I don’t know.

One Way Out - Elmore James

What would the blues be if not for intimacy issues?

What would the blues be if not for intimacy issues?

I’ll tell you what they would be - R&B;.  Yeck.

I was waiting for something as disengenuous as this

Didn’t you initially think I was a Leo?  If my posts are so transparently Aquarian, why the initial mix-up?  Again, I know nothing of astrology, so perhaps Leos and Aquarians are peas in a pod.  Or perhaps it’s all conjecture and happenstance.  So hard to know these things…

Rabbit asked if you were a Leo, because certain things about you could have been interpreted as such, but this was to at least rule such a possibility out, not because Rabbit thought you were any such thing.

Rabbit ‘s views are trenchant in that he i=understands the concept, and it makes sense, and observably so.  You think you know what that means but you don’t.  The idea that I could have even imagined it possible to know your Astrological sign from a few words like this.  The point is that knowing you are an Aquarius allows a different interpretation of things you say and attitudes etc.

Frankly Rabbit knows best those with whom he has had most contact.  Geminis, Libran’s, Pisces, Taurus Virgo’s and Aquarius.  The simplistic view which suggests that yours posts could be judged as either Leo or Aquarian is what makes for such profound misunderstanding.  We are all born with ceratin potential.  In an ideal situation we will evolves towards what we were most meant to be, in the worst we could become something foreign to our own souls.

A Leo who truly enjoyed great power, a virtual dictatorial role and who was a happy well adjusted Leo with a good family background may make a great and noble king.  The same person subjected to abuse and forced to remain always in second or lower place, will certainly end up a petty spiteful and cowardly sneak.

Tthe Cancer or Libran may adjust to the worse treatment and still manage to come up as a great and noble soul.  Put in a position of power, unchecked and either could become a disaster to themselevs and their kingdoms.

This is a highly simplistic example, but is as you may notice, a complete opposite way of looking at it to what you have been doing.

The best part about being a Gnostic is feeling free to use what ever works. 

If you understood the concept at least, which is about all I do, then the apparent competing astrology of China is actually just more confirmation of the same relationships between people and the universe around them.

It is more or less mathematical, and even so in precision.

Remember if you are aware of Physics as it is evolving today, Astrology now has science on it’s side.  For anyone to call any of the ancient life sciences unscientific, is to show lack of knowledge of science as it is currently understood.

Knowing that both the Witch and the Rabbit are Aries, it is easy to see the correlations in our styles of argument, and especially our temperaments. 

A much more knowledgeable person (about Astrology) would in fact be able to detect that Wiley and I are Aries, of that I am certain.  We are one of the most unambiguous signs there is.  There is also elemental astrology which is older and tends to have a profound impact on both types.

But the Stars, the signs themselves have no more impact on the players, the souls, than the names of animals eventually have on what they are and how they live.

Oh and by the way.  Anybody with a modicum of knowledge about astrology would give up talking about ego just knowing the subject is an Aries.

The following is obviously tongue in cheek but most funny if one knows the actual characteristics normally attributed to each.

Here is Rabbit:

Aries: (Mar 20th - April 18th)
You are pioneer type and think most people are dickheads. You are quick to reprimand, impatient and scornful of advice. You do nothing but piss off everyone you come into contact with. Basically you are a prick.

How about this?

Aquarius: (Jan 21st - Feb 19th)
You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. You make the same mistake over and over because you are stupid. Everyone thinks you are a jerk. You enjoy getting screwed by large inanimate objects.

Personally Rabbit can wear his, it works for him.  Rabbit is a Prick, and proud of it.

I know what the biggest difference with us is Rocco.  It is that Rabbit takes the world too seriously, and you don’t take it seriously enough.  Seen each from the other’s perspective of course. 

Reflecting upon Tookie’s execution, it occurs to Rabbit that the grass and trees have already grown over his grave,metaphorically speaking, and his memory would have a better chance if it was imortalised in Blues.

(Oh what a good rabbit, getting back on topic like that.)

rabbit - I’m glad I could afford you the opportunity to talk about these things you so obviously relish.  Isn’t it nice to have a nemesis?

You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. You make the same mistake over and over because you are stupid. Everyone thinks you are a jerk. You enjoy getting screwed by large inanimate objects.

I guess I can handle that.  With a fate like that, how could anyone be expected to take all this seriously?

Rocco - Excellent retort. Nice to see you and Rabbit enjoying one anothers company.

Isn’t it nice to have a nemesis?  Rabbit would not know for he has no such thing. 

Rabbit would rather not talk about Astrology for he is hardly qualified or particularly interested.  However it is his habit to make correction to assumptions when he comes across any which are clearly unsupported.  Minor enough an issue as it is, any opinion, if not based upon secure facts; knowledge of what the actual contentions of Astrolgy are: is wasted and since you are meant to be among the enlightened, Rabbit see’s it as his duty to correct the misunderstanding.

As for taking things seriously, as I just said you don’t, but I might add you do seem to take yourself seriously, and joking about that will not alter the fact.

Rabbit who takes himself less seriously, does take the world seriously, for that is his job whilst a part of it.  Responsible rabbit.

Thus we are different you and I, which is good.  Rabbit is a pyrotechnician and Pyro’s should appreciate variety.  I do.

It is good you appreciate the thing about Astro signs, which actually was originally posted by Dave, interestingly enough everyone who has seen one of this list feels comfortable with their own.  I personally would choose the Aries description before I’d want to be called any of the other descriptions too.  Personally Rabbit would be mortified to be called those things you are happy with, or Dave’s for example.  This is just a little hint about how the old claim that the things written could apply to anybody, doesn’t hold up.

In the meantime as Rabbit is your elected nemesis, he will fullfil the role with his usual attention to detail, but until informed otherwise you are not yet become a nemesis for Rabbit.  He is not sure he wants one.  They eat too much.

Hi Dave.  Rabbit is not much enjoying the wasteful banter with Rocco actually, it is distracting and he is learning more about Rocco than he needs to know.  Still, it is a new experience being poked at so tenaciously by a friendly, and any new hop is a good hop.

not much enjoying … but at least a little?

I wouldn’t characterize the banter as wasteful . There is always something to be learned even if the revelation is delayed.

The thing about Karma is that the soul you are become, via successive journeys is who you are when born.  That is to say we are not all equal when we are born.  This is not even a natural law, it is a man made and completely trite slogan.

“We are all equal when we are born”, is the most ridiculous thing Rabbit ever heard.  We are not equal.  Some are born carrying a massive Karmic Debt, for past mistakes, or more or less issues to deal with in different areas of spiritual enlightenment.  Some are born with intellect, or intuition or senses less or more than the average.  We are all individual and unique and not only do we not begin in this life as equals, we will never leave this life as equals.

It is a wholly artificial process of trying to strive for equality while alive.  This isn’t to denigrate it or deny it is a better way.  Just making clear it is not a God given or natural thing.

Some are born as Rabbit’s and some are born as trees too.  Luckily diversity of life isn’t our problem, the only life which matters to us is our own.

We are born at a time decreed by something greater than we know at this time. Being born in that time slot so to speak, becomes a marker for the class or group to which we best correspond.  What the reasons for this are is not known at this time, but some can be surmised.  It would first and foremost however suggest an intelligent design.  Not the usual random type of organic agglomeration one finds in Nature, for example.

It is however only one’s karma to date with which the soul is furnished upon arrival.  From thence we each develop according to what we have begun with and what we experience thereafter.  If seen from this perspective it should not seem so strange a thing that there is a cycle of human nature even as all other things of lasting significance have been shown to be cyclical.

Rabbit is not speaking as a believer in anything, this is from the rabbit who knows everything.  How or if you understand the truth is now up to you.

Perceptive Fish knows the rabbit’s qualifiers.  Yes, a bit. 

The wasteful comes form it feeling like a loose end when Rabbit has yet to return to Don’s campfire and finish a few things promised.  The above relates to the stuff we were talking about with John Lear, the Moon and Antenna specifially.  Consider the sense of Astrology if the antenna thing was true.?

“ I wouldn’t characterize the banter as wasteful . There is always something to be learned even if the revelation is delayed.”

I second that, David.  Eventually those delayed revelations shall surely be revealed. 

“No wine before its time.” - Orson Welles (in one of his most whorish incarnations)

Aparición del Conejo,

Whatever shit you’re getting down there mate, Hooooo....yea-us!

The shit has been average of late, but then suddenly comes three different varieties of OK and even found a little surprise stash in the middle of it from way back.

Hi Lume…

I’m far too confused to answer.  I think rabbit is happy, and that’s enough for me.  Must be the luck of the Aries…

I’m very fond of this post, since we managed to become one of ITT’s most talked about (like Oprah!).  We’ve had some good conversations here.  But I’m gone.  I will, of course, appear again someday.  I’m sorry, rabbit.  It’ll all be clear someday…

We can only hope Rocco.

The thing Rabbit finds most charming about you, is that you are always polite enough to say farewell in this way.  It is neat and Rabbit’s appreciate neat things.  Not that they are good at making or keeping things neat.

Speaking as a creature which knows everything, you know almost everything already too so it’ll be clear some day soon.

Cheers Rocco.  Watch out for the Frog, who is also hopping about.

Wonder what kind of Karma was Tookie’s when he came into this dimension in time?

Rocco the presumptuous rabbit takes the liberty of wishing you and the “large inanimate objects” well in your relationship or hope you are getting over it if you’ve begun to spurn their advances.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe Tookie inherited a really shitty load of Karma.  It is obvious on its face that Tookie eventually came to face, and in the end began the work of overcoming, his (our) Karma.  That, I sincerely believe, is the important thing.  I don’t grieve for Tookie.  He went out shining.  It is our loss that the State cut short his work prematurely.

As to knowing everything about everything.  We were discussing that here during the Chimp’s speech last night.  It was observed that the pomp and ceremony of the whole event is peculiarly designed to leave the ordinary citizen in a state of red-faced impotent rage.  A collective sense of “Can you fucking believe these shit-for-brains idiots are in charge!”

Of course, none of us are comfortable with that feeling, so our egos seek to compensate.  Some in denial, some with jokes, some by drinking the kool-aid.

Everybody knows this.  Everybody knows everything they really need to know.  We just don’t find it easy to admit that anybody else knows anything at all.  Probably because we’ve been conditioned so long by people in positions of authority repeatedly lying to us, keeping us nervous and fearful and untrusting. 

It’s no wonder that so many want to give up the burden of their knowing to some Big Daddy in the Sky.

Yeh. 

Bid Daddy.............................god
Big Mother................................earth
Big Brother..................................will fuck them both

Bad Rabbit washed his mouth out with soap...........................^^................................

Bye Bye Tookie.............................. bad old chookie.