Stone Carver continued

  With the task near completion his hands moved with a methodically grace. Only small pieces remained still and only with tools sharpen and honed to deadly edge could work continue. Through true in form the tastes of reality lingered hidden behind the smallest layers of rock.

Once a rough hewn block in itself perfection alone untouched. With biting steel and the passing of blue skies to steepened dark of nights. Did a figure emerge not freed from the shackles of natures grace. No longer the imposing sign of majesty with edges true and skin harden and rough from the quarry. Now it stands smoothed as a rivers stone, curves that do mock reality. Not from a distance could life be confused for its grace of stillness and action.

The chisels and tools lay quietly in soft pockets of wood on a myriad of work benches, ladders and stools. Crisp light of morning sun creeps across the work room pointed to a wedge like a dreadnaught pushing back the water from its bow. The dreadnaught moves steadily unflinching in its goal to pass the suns grace of light upon the figure of stillness standing in the molested remains of its shell.

As the blazing chariot of Apollo pulls endlessly at the sinuous tethers of the Helios, its light seem muted anywhere it fell outside of the craftsmen workroom. The figure in its stillness wore the cloak of light around its body, causing the stone to breath with movement of the timeless day's passing. Shadows artfully planned, curves divinely dashed upon stone. With only the tide of light as its retreat, the dreadnaught moved back across the floor to reside in that place outside workroom's windows. The life faded from the face of the figure, the cloak of Helios pulled back into the distance by the draw of astral steeds plowing the furrows of the ethereal pulling the sun into another day.

The figure stands in stillness with a scent of perfection around it staring into the window from which the bow of the dreadnaught came pushing back the shadows leading the charge for Helios to lay its cloak upon the statue once more.

The Convenience of Thought..

Ever since humanity had collectively been able to think beyond the realms in which they stood. Their minds pushed the envelope of the societal and physical walls of the world around us. At some points in the past the envelope broke and peeled past the point of repair allowing the societies that would surpass the ones that dare think beyond their station a little advantage for the next attempt to cross the vast abyss of ignorance in the journey for knowledge.

In our society today when spend twelve plus years in some type of schooling in an attempt to the learn what was already open and understood to be. This serves not only as a basic function of pushing the average intellect up, it puts the individual on a higher platform of functionality then what was previously possible.

Where there was ignorance, there was darkness. The basic functions of the natural world around us seem basic and well understood and they are.

It is here that we stand to loose again. Where we have struggle to show light and bring forth great understandings, we also shudder in fear and drown in supposition about what it could be and what else could be meant.

Once the envelop has been pushed, once knowledge escapes from the boundaries of what is known, it is impossible to return to the lesser state of ignorance. Only with the death and destruction of civilizations has the veil of blissful ignorance has recovered our eyes.

I fear that we know attempt to do pull back what has been uncovered. We cover our ears when knowledge is presented to us, finding the colors of a moving picture far more worthy of our attention. We silence our thoughts with the thoughtless prattle of pretty faces. We sigh on command and laugh when prompted. When the bell stops ringing do we sit silently with the absence of thought to accompany us in the plastic injected world we fought and bled for?

Does the scholar know that when the walls of the fortress begin to shake under the fire of the enemy, that the scholar is the goal of the enemies hands and not the soldier or king.

When what was not know becomes a part of our knowledge and is pushed from its darkness and given a place in the library of human achievement, rarely is it what we want to know or want to believe what is. More often then not, when new discoveries push back that darkened veil it comes at the cost of what we desire the nature and how the universe should be as a matter of convenience. In some cases the eyes are purposefully stitched back shut when such advancements are made, for it does not fit into what is desired to be real and meaningful. In other cases knowledge is purposefully destroyed for a matter of purity, mainly human purity.

With thick fingers and lazy arms we are quick to hold up signs claim perfections that stand weak in the wind. With loud voices we shout praises into the air for those that lay in earth for us to stare into flags floating with the wind, with what mind and soul do we stand and become great? We show more interest with the shapes of two animals and how their leaders sing their own praise from the windows of every growing ivory towers. The horizon of knowledge and greatness keeps moving further from us and we sit claiming greatness on laurels that rot.

The convenience of thought...

The explanation of the reasons

Privileged to be

Freedom is not just a tacky view and some heart warming posters with inspirational words in big bold print at the bottom. Nor is it the ability to stand and be counted when the time comes. Nor is it the way we pray in our churches, nor is it the “inalienable rights” that come prescribed in old and aging papers. Freedom comes with a price tag, it comes at the price of something, it comes at the pain and pang of socially labeling who is and isn't “Free” or a “Patriot”. This price is the cost that the Privileged chose to enact on others.

Privileged is no one and yet almost every one at the same time. This weird quasi sociopolitical person seeks the command of total understanding of what “is” freedom and to whom it should be dealt out. This Privileged seeks total correlation of the masses to their cause, and call the ones who do not join to be ostracized as outcasts or un-American (As if one could be undone, that by the inception of words invoked by the mouth of the louder could make one un-lived, or un-American? Their voice, somehow different, somehow more than that of another, somehow more free?).

By any name they chose to take, the Privileged aim at the words that we call “Free” or actions that we would call “Free”; they would call these same things as “Sedition” or “Traitorous.” They command this conversation by the collective apathy that erodes the minds and souls that have either elected them to power by their ear, ballot or by wallet to their high seats full with the lights glare of the moment. From these high pedestals do they shout and condemn those that dare to raise voice or action against what they, the Privileged, choose to call “Truth and Freedom.”

In collective disbelief do we stand with mouths open and we wonder what has happened. And we do not move, we do not speak, nor do we stand and be counted. Either by fear, or by the fact that Revolution is only a trend that fits with fall fashion.

Privileged or not, we as a society call freedom by trendy names, and apply it liberally to only those that give us favor and in the same breath of action do we also deny it to those that don't give us favor and call it Justice.

This dichotomy is normal, it is only normal for it fits with what we want of our freedom. For remember that freedom is only a convenient idea when it doesn't conflict with the ideas of the Privileged. I call them Privileged for we all fit this category at some time in our society. I have met people that adored President Bush and want a return to his policies, they say the President was elected by the people and they should respect him, and in the same breath they say “Obama isn't my President. I didn't vote for him.” This idea of protest is interesting, for it gives to the argument that the concept of rule is only defined by one person. This philosophy continues with the trend that only my idea is correct to the exception of all others. There is no room for “other” with what I like to call the “Ultra Philosophy” to politics.

These “Ultra” people tend to ignore fact when presented to them, they only choose to listen to and follow information that fits with what they want to believe. This exclusionary thought is further reduced to, “elections are stolen from us,” when faced with the fact that their ideas are forgotten by the general public, the “Ultra” doesn't loose elections, the elections are stamped out by the “Man” or the “Media” or whatever they choose to say is the enemy. The thought that their ideas are useless, outdated or just wrong, will not come to their political mind, for their ideas are correct at the exclusion of all others.

The ideal of freedom is the primary casualty of the “Ultra” or the “Privileged” idea systems. For the idea of Freedom is collectively defined by a group(s) of people interacting with each other on the world social stage.

Freedom is defined, or should I say, applied as matter of social acceptance. For the ideas of the Ultra it means that those who do not stand with them, those that do not fight with them are viewed as enemies. This weakness of spiritual and humanitarian soul, gives the harden heart of the Ultra the happy smile when they mark their neighbors for the executioner's hands. They will do this with not only a smile but with pride and nationalism filling their thoughts.

Do not count me as an Ultra, or for that matter one of the Privileged. They speak and act in cloaking terms, using the convenience of dichotomy to hide their weaknesses. Their method is this: They will say they speak truth. When one honestly looks at their own words and actions, they speak in total perception of what is, not to a corrected or actualized reality. This perception is not to be confused with idealism or idealistic sentiment, no this perceptional based truth they speak of is solely founded on the confiscation of reality as a whole. The ideas expressed this way give them a ground at which they can attack and not be attack on. They will ask or state rounded questions to the effect that any answer can and will be corrected to the wrong or incorrect. This ground at which they preach is protected from any attack of logic or reality, for they could “spin” or use the excuse of “spin” to deflect any accusations that attempt to poke holes in their professed “truth.” On this platform they place their high seats and yell at the masses trying to invoke fear of what they say is not the correct path.

Next they themselves will call upon their idea of divinity or lack thereof, to guide their work and claim that this work is the inspired placement of them to shed the light of knowledge upon the world. This idea of logic as being a part of providence gives them a credibility that does not really exist but will likely not be challenged. It won't be challenged for they have placed the idea of God before them and use the idea of divinity to protect them.

The story; this tactic is to use an outrageously sad, hideous or explicit story about how some law is either being used or ignored to the detriment of a fellow citizen. These stories usually involve the death of a child, or the loss of income for a parent allowing the death or destruction of said children and denying them a future. These stories that they pick are well chosen, for they are true, but as to question how often that these events happen, or to question whether the intent of actual people was truly understood as to why and how the story is true and the fallout of such stories is usually left out. They either will not answer the questions, (see argument above), or they will spin your question (again see above) as to a question of validity not as a question of reality.

The Magic Phrase; this is one of my favorites that they employ. This is the toy phrase that they will use to either change the subject or use to place their plate back under their feet, (again see above). The use of the phrase is reserved, it gives the person chanting it or saying it a way to place the burden of proof onto the shoulders of another, usually the person they are having debate with or trying to convince. Such magic phrases that are really good fall into the conservative camp. “Un-American”, “Talents on loan from God” I like this one for it uses the above three tactics in one short statement, “Watermelon” coming from the idea that some people are green on the outside, and red on the inside, “Founding Fathers,” this one is also good for it invokes the above three arguments again in one simple statement. The use of these magic phrases allows the invoker to charge and challenge their opponent, with out really having to defend themselves. The use of the “Un-American” phrase gives the invoker the charge to their opponent to defend every part of their being as to being an American and how their ideas are in the best interests of American, the individual who invokes this magic phrase just has to sit back and watch their opponent implode on their own words. This is a great tactic for debate but it comes to no real solution to the ideas being debated. It is a political tactic used to embarrass opponents into erring.

The well placed stutter; this is a technique used by only the best patrons of spin. This gives the impression of thought. This technique is used to allow the other person in the debate no chance to retort against the accusation being placed before them. The stutter is used as a way to continue the thought being presented and change the tone and or text of the conversation at hand, (again see above), When used with other tactics, the well placed stutter will help one direct a debate away from any real points and back to the real issues, the issues involving the idea of truth as only one of the people having the discourse sees it.

The Pandora’s Box; This is the idea that if a step is taken in one directions or an idea is allowed to persist it will be the end of the civilized world.

Philosophers Stone; This idea is the belief that once their ideas are in place and enacted that all problems will cease and to continue to argue or debate them is not only futile but criminal for you would be blocking access to the answer for the problems, so by default you would be part of the problem.

Most of the arguments that a person from the Ultra or Privileged lines of political thought will use contain some form or function of these techniques. It is on their platforms that they direct the general conversation about freedom and how it should be applied. They shout and scream to us, they will sell and barter for our own minds to be dissolved into their mired pot of caprices and solutions.

Prohibition, Temperance, Bootlegging, Moonshine Dodging Taxes...A National Past Time

Prohibition, Temperance, Bootlegging, Moonshine

Dodging Taxes...A National Past Time

The arguments presented by the temperance movement seem perfectly reasonable at first glance. Most of them make vague social statements on how “King Alcohol” is destroying some aspect of their civilization. Though the parallels between now and then are extreme when it comes to the idea of drug use in the social strata. It is very tempting to be a sympathizer to the idea of Temperance, it is also just as easy to say that the idea of alcohol being banned is laughable. We easily forget that society, that our society, isn't just a snap shot of today that we conveniently supplicant into the stories of the past. We forget that our society has change and is changing. The winds of social pressures along with technological advances not to mention the changes in the political vanguard. Our rules change, our social structure changes and warps to new and different ideas and concepts.

The direct call for the prohibition of alcohol looks and sounds great. The end of drunkenness, the socially strange position that saloons take on would disappear. The spirits that so cloud and distort the mind of men and women alike would dry up and become a permanent part of the “Angels Share”. (The Angels Share, is the part of the alcohol that is soaked up by barrels when a distiller is aging brandy or rum, it runs about three percent of the volume.) The violence that comes from the hands of drunken man against his wife and family would end, the distracted actions of an alcoholic would fade from the fringes of society, the beggars hand would be cleaned with the tarnish of work. Boy, doesn't that sound great...?

Their arguments against “King Alcohol” and their depictions of the barkeep as a dastardly man trying to swindle the innocence of man from him at the end of a glass worked, and worked very well.

Everything was going great, the Temperance idea caught hold and Congress pressed by the power of social winds changed the Constitution. Wow. Could you imagine Congress being so persuaded by a single group of people...

Sadly, Temperance like its name was just a social fad, it would fade into the shadows just like the people who drank and produced alcohol. I believe that that Prohibitionist where correct in some of their social views and the points they bring up are valid. They wanted their streets and cities back from the dirt and filth that ran down the gutters. But they missed, they missed the main point of trouble shooting a problem. They found a symptom and focused on it, they missed the cause. The cause of their issues had somethings to do with the idea of alcohol, but they missed the point. It wasn't the consumption nor the production of it that was causing what they saw as society to fail. It was their society reaction to their new economy and migrations of people for it. (See the population distributions for that part of the century). It was the changing market place. If I was to place blame if I currently held the idea of Temperance it would be simply stated as a collective failure of the society to correctly adjust to market conditions and/or the individual seeking indulgence in the prospects of a socially economically locked society.

Tax Dodging...A National Past Time...

One aspect that the Temperance movement missed was the fact that back yard distillers/brewers where here at the beginning. These brewers where not just here to make a good time of it all, water at that time, and for centuries surrounding this time was lets just say, NOT SAFE TO DRINK. Safe water systems, and centralized control and standards for water are a new idea, like late 1910s and the first law concerning pollution and water wasn't passed till 1977. Brewers allowed for safe consumption of liquids. Even though it could be fun to indulge on.

The brewers of the early Americas did their trade to make extra money on the side by selling a service to his fellows. The Crown and the local government saw this trade as a legitimate source of revenue and thus sought to tax it. Faster then the tax man could move all the brewers equipment disappeared into the woods and was hidden from sight. Still the spirits and beer flowed, and flowed without duties paid. Along with the Revolutionary War, Rum was put of production due to the British embargo and blockade of molasses, so the Americans went after a new drink. Whiskey.

Alcohol is a part of this country's make up, we have been distilling in the back woods against the wishes of the taxman and government laws since the first Anglo European began to call this country home. This social aspect of alcohol was apparently lost to the minds of the Temperance movement. Like a hundred years earlier, the distillers just moved to the back woods and the spirits stilled flowed.

How this could be a Lesson....OMG!!!

The knee jerk reaction to a horrible social disease is to quickly call for its banishment and removal from society. That misses the point. Though it sounds great and one could almost sound like they could be from heaven preaching such things. But that doesn't answer the problem, it won't. The problem lies not with social fabric but more with an individual behavior in a market. Here, if something is horribly addictive and distorts the users mind, banning it would not stop the addiction nor the desire for it. How could it? The user would find another source. It is a pure capitalistic behavior and response to a market condition. So I say we answer the problems with social ills in much the same way they manifest, through markets and how we as individual react with the markets.

So Easy

Forgotten Tears

Do we so quickly forget what is so important? Do we so quickly succumb to the false warming arms of apathy? Do we so easily pass off the burden of life? Do we, in our conclaves of religion pray for reclamation of freedom and do nothing to stem the pressing boundaries of hatred? Do we? Do we live the lives of hypocrites?

The concerns of our fellows lies in other places apparently. The lies that we so convincingly tell ourselves so that we can have a better nights sleep knowing that a babe cries for the arms of its mother. Knowing that once was past was glorious and proud, knowing that what once was couldn't ever come back again. Do we kneel with our eyes so piously bent before the Almighty, and yet we pray for rain? Yet we pray for sportsmanship? Yet we pray for bountiful food? We pray for a better seat at which to feed our gluttony while we watch Fox News and bath ourselves in the lies that we speak “We are great”.

Do we forget tears that once so easily fell from the eyes of every mother, father, brother daughter for wars and defiance of injustice that pervaded our very society. Do we forget so easily that the toll of life, the toll of life that commands the attention of our very souls to be committed to the cause of justice? Do we forget, with our self induced haze of immediate mediocrity that life demands the actions of every mother, father, brother, daughter to command the greater vestiges of their soul, body and mind to obtain the very essence of freedom? Do we praise our men as they press forth the Pax Americana? Do we sing with joy as we count the deaths of the barbarians?

Do we. Do we for the sake of pride strip naked another? Do we for the sake of self perceived strength shoot?

The flames of war, the disease of human condition, where life and innocence become the first of long list of casualties. To the weak we pray for their strength, to the sick we pray for their well being, for the poor we pray for their means, to our enemies we pray for their demise. Next in a long line of humanity to be consumed by the hands of man, the ability to love thine enemy.

Do we call from our high places the death of others for our sake? Do we sit in our chairs and wish for the angels of Heaven to place the swords of glory against the throat of some unknowable fiend?

Do we forget that humanity is a work that constantly needs the hands of every mother, father, brother, daughter to be vigilant to bring forth its collective greatness.

Do we cheer when plowshares are reforged? Do we cheer when metal rains? Do we cheer when deep green of the artificial night illuminates the dead? Do we sing in praise to our marvelous actions when flags are flown high? Do we forget that good and evil are but separated by mere perception? Do we so easily stand in linens so great and fine knowing little, knowing that our collective ignorance of a dead mans freedom is so easily forgotten as a blank spot on that screen with the news anchor stating its end as a matter or war and it is to be expected?

Easily we sit at the tables of our homes, easily we stand quietly enjoying the silence of apathetic ignorance of the facts that surround us. Easily we call for destruction, easily knowing that our hands could be cleaned with the simple action of soap and water, while we watch the son of man to be hauled off for a matter of political convenience. Easily we stand cloaking our stupidity to the world in veil of self humiliating piety. Easily we call this march, easily we call this movement, easily we call the deaths of so many, easily we call the actions necessary, easily we call forth the remnants of fallen heroes to sanctify our devilish thoughts and actions and easily do we forget our sins.

Confessions of a Liar: Stone Carver

Confessions of a Liar: Stone Carver

Stone Carver

The sweet feel of the chisel tightly held in the hand, guiding its meanest parts artfully against the back drop of the granite, to be violently smashed with a hammer sending pieces of the stone flying in all directions. In time to a metered pace known only to the carver, the hammer falls again. With a explosion of sound the chips of granite set free from the contact of chisel, wistfully travel to their undetermined locations. Gracefully, almost providential, the hammer is raised again, to level not to high, as to force the chisel to bite to hard, but around the center of the head, with a slight tension of the body the hammer falls. Over and over, the rhythm undeniable, the carver works. Shadows of the outside, glide across the floor, still the hammer a constant, the chisel vicious, the carver divine.

 

The Radio Speaks (the Fair of Imbalanced thought)

Merchants of Ignorance

In long hours of the day, does one have time to ponder the significance of their being? In times of artificial solace to we pretend to do so. The markings of weakness, and of damnable aspirations cover our faces and blend into our skin, the tale tell signs of interference of a natural calling. The blending of thought and action, our hands slip into our back pockets and draw out the very meaning of our souls, and pay for the trinkets and pictures of beauty sold to us in fast lanes of stores. Express lane for the moments and memories that should mean something. Surrendering to ease of construction then to the ease of existence, the light of understanding, the blinding of the night, the desperation of an entire peoples call out to the starless sky. No longer the curious, the night sky lies blank and truly absent. The questions of life and the meaning of breathing no longer an aspect to intelligence or to true conversation. The gaping maw of ignorance claims more and more of us.

The collective cry of the people is to hide what is great and destroy that which is to confusing to understand. Try not, and do not, for thy lot in life is to only do, not to question why. The merchants of ignorance call to us, our hands quietly slip into our back pockets and we do obey. They sell us the ideas to believe in, from their high seats and high places these merchants profess to us that they and they alone know how to save us, and it is up to us to help them. The calling has come. They continue, that they should not be challenged, that in their words and works do they know what is to come, and what is to come without their leadership or calling, is the destruction of our way of life. Either to march in battle to live the life of a warrior, “ours is not to say or do ours is just to do and die” The battle cry of so many weakened souls. Do they stand and fight for the beliefs of those that have transplanted emotions and so called truths into their minds, or do they fight for their fellows that stand behind and shake in fear at the sight of such an enemy that claims all the will to fight.

To listen the merchants of ignorance is to surrender your thought and lives to them. To stand on their principles of action-less thought. “...just do and die.” Is what they ask of you, to call to the stands of control and ask to take back what was once theirs. The liable of life and blood rests upon them that stand for freedom of the few over the freedom of all. For the merchants speak to freedom as ally and friend. For thy beg for its protection when they stand trail for so many falsehoods, as they stand to remove it from their enemies as it suits them. These merchants know no line to cross that they cannot change for their betterment, and call it for our better good.

To take action against the merchants of ignorance is to stand against the will of so many, so many people converted to the strength of being weak. For if it not be known, for it shall never be known. Is their battle cry hidden behind so many other words. Freedom for us, and none for you. Once known what they speak is the fear of so many people that have been tared and feathered in the past.

The ideals of the ignorant call for the disestablishment of all and potential gain of knowledge. The boundaries of human knowledge have already been met and further explanation will disrupt the natural order of world. Do not look to the sky for the answers that could claim our world in a ball of friary death. But look to the wise men that come to lead us, with their guidance do we stand absolute against the friary darts of the adversary. The battle cry of the dumb, and weak.. The stance of one could force its way into the eyes and ears of all.

I call for the merchants of ignorance to stand in open and proclaim their falsehoods so they can be seen as the false prophets. Their words meld into ones of patriotism and racism, ones with acceptance and hate. Words and workings that will undo the very human fabric that connect us. They stand to gain from the fight that we will ensue on their behalf, and when the fates do eventually turn against them. They will be gone, with the hard work and zeal that produced them being nothing but shadows of their former glory echoing silently in the air.

As they stand now, almost untouchable. With their quiet army mobilizing for them, their perceived monopoly on free thought is guiding them. That is their greatest weakness, their inability to love thy neighbor, in this weakness they claim the guiding hand of divinity, to that end they break all rules of moral and good standing. Their perceived weaknesses of the collective us, painted up in broad stripes of dreadful colors. They stand counting our heads, marking us with the mark of enemy or friend. Classifying us as victor or defeated before the battles have even started. The weakest of us to go first, into field of battle to be swallowed up by the demons of fanaticism. There from our perches do we get to see and enjoy the mess that we caused, our collective weakness on display for our enjoyment. The battle for our freedom is at hand. It does not lie with those whose disembodied voice crawl through the annals of our air to claim themselves holy and right in this war. Victory lies with the individual speaking not being sold to the highest bidder of thoughts and ideas. But maybe the hope the individual becoming the great machine that could save the free, and not become yet another slave to the merchants of ignorance might just be a dream. For the individual could just be weak and without any strength of thought is no more then a injured fawn ripe for the taking. Be wary of the merchants, be wary of the ideals that speak to all meaningful ideas and have no real actionable method of reality.