There is a thing keeping everyone’s lungs and lips locked; It is called fear and it’s seeing a great renaissance. –The Dresden Dolls, Sing

Fear, it’s one of most living beings’ great motivators.  It arouses the senses telling us to pay attention, something may be coming, and we may need to act.

There is nothing wrong with fear, base fear in and of itself.  However most living things address whatever is causing them fear.  When the rabbit escapes the fox, it ceases to be afraid.  When it dies, its compatriots do not live in fear of ever leaving the warren.  Fear and its usefulness have come to its culmination and passed.

Human beings however are different.  We like fear, or we seem to.  We gather around campfires and tell stories of Unseelie things like Balor and the Sluagh, we watch movies to elicit fear responses and a great good deal of us get our fear fix from the nightly news, streaming into our homes, our consciousness, our being without even our notice most of the time.

Unlike the rabbit that allows fear to pass, we bathe in it.  We sit about talking about dreadful things, working each other up.  Interestingly enough, more talk occurs about ‘being’ afraid than ‘doing’ anything with those fears.

When we fear things I think that we wish for them … every fear hides a wish.-David Mamet, Edmond

It often seems that we make fear our pastime.  Do we secretly wish for the things we fear to come about?  Would the actuality of our fears be as terrible as we imagine?  Or would they in fact alleviate our suffering?  Is it possible that even with the most terrifying of our fears realized that we would have the relief of never again having that fear?

Some people say yes.  There are countless behavioral interventions for those perpetually in fear that expose them to those very same fears.  Beyond that, in interviews with survivors of war, torture and abuse the people who come out the other side very often live fearless lives; they have made it to the other side of what was terrifying them.

Other people however say no.  There is evidence that people witnessing their fears, as in say a car accident or death of a loved one will fold up into themselves even further, taking that occasion as proof that every doubt they have whether reasonable or unreasonable is going to happen.

Of course the latter is correct.  Everything we fear will happen, sometime to someone.  But, should we let it destabilize us?  The rational amongst us say “no of course not.”

And yet, we destabilize ourselves every day.  Purposefully, by constantly watching, talking about and thinking about everything that is wrong in the world.  By putting such a great amount of energy into the fears of the day, we are to a great extent missing the things that would normally balance out such fears.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.-Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and Beautiful

Is fear in fact a passion?  Sometimes it seems so.  There are a good many people who make it their business to seek out and find things that are fear inducing in order to share them with the world.  You see this on news-like shows.  In comedy, on the internet with your friend postings.  The effect is the same:  “Here is something you should be afraid of.”  Almost never with a suggested solution.  This lack of solution runs counter to the very biological function of fear.  Fear is supposed to kick in to jumpstart our bodies into responding.  But, when we are exposed to fears that are seemingly insurmountable, with no discussion further than, “Yes that is fucking crazy and I am afraid.”  All of the fear is backed up with no action in sight to help us realign ourselves.  This creates in us an exacerbated state of stress.  How on earth can we combat all these things?

What is typically seen are people following up discussions like these with comments like, “Time to throw in the towel.” And, “Time to run away.”  This also instills fear into people.  How on earth are they going to manage that?

This brings us to the next bit.

Fear is the enemy of logic.

Frank Sinatra said it in The Way You Wear Your Hat but he’s not the only one.  When we are reacting in a fear based moment, we are making decisions based on preservation, but not logic.  We are not taking time to think things through and make a real and concerted difference.

The big question is why are we not spending more time dispelling fear?  Why are we not instead empowering each other?

It’s easy to blame all of our fear mongering on recent events like 9/11 and the resultant color coded terror scales we suffered through, which thankfully have been retired for now; as well as the constant ticker tape news updates which seems unlikely to go away.  However, it would be unfair to lay all of this at this particular door.

Since the advent of WWI people in the States and Europe have been afraid.  Initially this fear found outlet in an emerging art source: DADA, which on the surface non-sensical was indeed trying to make sense of the extreme shock and fear dealt out by a new type of war.

Humans being humans however; did not stick with the “let’s do something with our feelings,” route, and instead decided almost across the board to beef up on ammunition and war machines, further illustrating when people are afraid it’s easy to make them more afraid and control them.

We still are seeing the effects of this today.  Our fear caused the most recent war in Iraq. Saddam  Hussein obviously had no nuclear weapons.  There was absolutely no evidence of it, and yet our fear of him wielding it was enough for us to universally put a stamp of approval on an invasion.  We almost did the same in North Korea.  Who knows, we may still do so, we have spy submarines off the coast listening in fear to them right now.

If we were thinking with our logical minds we would wait and work with others.  A prime example is the situation in the West Bank.  Logic dictates that no matter how we feel about the “Holy Land”, people were there before the state of Israel was created and no plan was made for any of them.  Thus, logically we are all to blame for the ugly state of affairs and poor treatment of Palestinians.

But we don’t see it that way, because we are afraid.  Afraid of pissing of Israel whose pockets are helpful to us; afraid of the unrest recombining will cause; afraid of Asiatic dark people; and most of all afraid of admitting the world made a huge kerffufleing mistake.

Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.-Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote

The character Don Quixote may have been mad, but he was imbued with the madness of a saint.  He quite succinctly pointed out that our fears very often have us seeing problems that are not there.  This is true of things great and small.  We have very often discussed at Subversify our irrational fear of Russia during the Cold War.  We currently have an irrational fear of Mexico and Mexicans whether they are citizens or not.  We fear drugs; we fear not having drugs at the very same time.  We fear a police state and we fear not being protected.

But, one thing Don Quixote also illustrated is that throwing off that fear, while it may have you tipping at windmills you think are dragons, gives you a liberation that allows you to live happily, fully and without regret and longing.  Isn’t that what we all really want?

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.-Frank Herbert, Dune

Necropolis… A shivering trip into a world without light, a world without hope, a world so destroyed, the rules of society are reversed.  Morality is viewed as the pursuit of pleasure.  Philosophy is an art freely engaged in, as long as it contributes to inertia.  While reveling in their decadence, they do so with the determination to never again repeat the structure and motivations of the past that they are sure contributed to their downfall as a civilization.  That is, until Malice comes along.

Book 1 of The Malice Cycle carries the reader into a surreal future where faith, light and hope are relinquished to forget everything except the collapse of the Old World, using it as a model of what to avoid if they did not wish to see the destruction of their own limited society, where community is declared false and nothing more than a conservative gesture to defend that which would hold us hostage.  Malice, the youngest of the Morbid daughters, a family held in high esteem, begins to question if there was something more than just the dark existence of their lives, replete in fineries, self-indulgence, sexual promiscuousness, but lacking in curiosity and inventiveness.  She is accompanied by the “Shadow”, who compels her to question the rituals that would hasten her father’s death, and to explore the edges of the void, a hostile land of poisonous insects and hallucinogenic plants, in search of a sister who has disappeared and is rarely talked about.

Malice’s journey into self-awareness is a lyrical account that strips back both the layers of personality that define her motivations for stepping away from the society that has molded her and the fabric of society itself, holding up its flaws and poking holes in its weaknesses until the society itself begins to unravel.  The author, Bruno Masse, already has a few remarkable accomplishments.  At twenty-nine, he is an author, researcher, musician, activist and publisher. He has written several novels and poetry collections, as well as five plays, four of which were enacted during the annual International Anarchist Theatre Festival of Montreal. He was the  co-founder and active part of such collectives as The End of the World Comittee, La Foret Noire, Liberterre, the Anarchist Writers Bloc and Anarchistes Anonymes, and remains an active contributing author at Subversify.

I asked Bruno about his day job in environmentalism and if it had been an influence for choosing the stark, barren background for his Malice Cycle series.  Apart from his job as coordinator for the Reseau Quebec Ecologist Group (RQGE), he has also worked also worked on urban agriculture projects and collective gardening, and was a university researcher.  He answered, “that was mostly “brain-mercenary” contract work and I don’t really boast it. I don’t mind if you use stuff from my work or make reference to it, to be honest it generally never overlaps and most people I work with have no idea of my novels or artwork on the side, and I don’t really mind. I wish it was all in sink but it’s sometimes quite contradictory, but that’s self-evident. Just to be clear, the official positions of the RQGE are not the ones I distribute on my own time, even though we’re in the same fields and agree on the basic key principles (a solidarity society, a better natural environment, etc.).

Now, my inspiration for Dystopia is a culmination of my experiences as an anarchist (and precisely, part of the anti-civ or anarcho-primitivist movement), various hypothesis about the fall of Civilisation, mainstream anthropology and a collection of theories on utopias and social change. That, and of course my interest for gothic/dark aesthetics (as manifestations of negative/critical thinking and nihilist philosophy, but something I’m also drawn to quite irrationally). My main idea is that of a utopia in practice that is one exactly because it strives consciously not to be one, which explains why they called it Dystopia. If people who claim to be perfect are the usually the worst, if you actually try to be imperfect, you have a better to chance to be more humble and not give in to totalizing thoughts and practices (which lead to totalitarianism). In a way, it’s a system that most mainstream environmentalists would hope for: a city that is 100% sustainable, supported by permaculture gardens that require little work, and most time is spent on leisure. But by mimicking a model born from the Neolithic revolution, I aim to illustrate that the “roots” with necessarily reproduce the Civilisation process (i.e. Morbid’s takeover). The reasons for that are a population so vast that immediate relationships are not constantly possible, and such emphasis on culture (Dystopians prize literature, music, debate, art, etc.) will necessarily distantiate people from one another, introducing mediations that will enable class divisions.

I delve into gothic/horror/noir themes because they carry a mood of loss and contemplation I think is inherent of the human condition and wish to undertake fully. To me, it’s more honest and liberating than the “dictature of happiness” we seem to live in, where frowning is pretty much forbidden, medicalized and shunned, and so is critical thinking.

The people of Dystopia see themselves as rebels who escaped Civilisation as it collapsed and have tried, as best as they could, to make sure the mistakes of the past would never be replicated. I wanted to do a sort of tribute to the nobility and the courage of such devotion, the kind I have seen in anarchists but also a lot of people with radical ideas and practices. In such a sunless and depressing world, they’re paying the prices for mistakes they aren’t responsible for, and that’s a clear reference to the fact that life conditions in this day and age are receding and that’s something entirely new to mankind, since the industrial revolution. But I also wanted to go beyond all that that and illustrate how difficult it can be not to reproduce the sick schemes of domination and authority.

Also, since I’m bilingual, in a province that seems to strangle itself with split cultural identities, I thought it would be interesting to imagine a people who clearly used to speak a different language and lost it completely, and make the reader feel a bit estranged from all the French dialogue, and show them how it feels at first to encounter cultural references you can’t understand, but moreso, to show how much it doesn’t matter in the end, because we’re just humans after all, who love and laugh and hurt and die like any.

The main character of Malice, besides all her human qualities which I hope are as poignant and vivid as they are to me, is basically a play on the concept of Chaos. She possesses something nobody has, some love her for it, most despise her, and a lot want to use her. She’s like a sort of exotic life form sent into an indigenous habitat, or a sort of technological leap that dwarfs everything else in the field. She’s a paradigm shift, and I want to illustrate how devious power can be, and her tragedy in a way is to echo what happens to anyone who’s opressed when they’ve had enough and finally fing a way to escape. Like the French revolution. The oppressed feel such anger and rage that it has no choice but to come out in a traumatic way, it’s an ugly, violent thing, and it’s a normal natural response to aggression. In that way, she is liberated and beautiful, because we see that the people who hurt her had the very best of intentions, but acted in really horrible ways regardless, and have to answer for that. I wanted to show that sometimes freedom is a “by any means necessary” kind of thing, but that it’s not the answer to everything, and that’s a notion Malice will learn at her own expense.

Also, there will be a sequel and a third book. It’s meant as a whole, the structure itself was done even before I started book 1. I’m currently writing book 2.

As to how much of my background I’ve used for the book, for the setting and the world itself I can say that I’ve had to delve extensively in my knowledge as a forest technician, and as a geographer, if only for the physical, environmental aspects of the Island. But I also drew from years of study into sociology, anthropology, psychology and philosophy – of which I draw mostly from nihilist thinkers like Cioran, Nietszche, Schopenhauer, but also from the Frankfurt School, primarily Adorno. For the critique of civilisation I take a lot from John Zerzan, who’s influenced me a lot (the opening quote is his) and whom I actually know. He has made reviews of all my English novels.

To conclude I’d say I draw a lot from the style of Frank Herbert in his Dune series, because to me any political discourse cut from its setting is absurd, while any storytelling devoid of incisive critical thinking is a waste of time. By trying to weave a compelling narrative and include ethical questions and layers of philosophical complexity, I try to make a read that will entrance and challenge the reader and perhaps help him or her grow in a meaningful way, even if that means feeling angry or depressed at first, because we live in fake world that’s making life agonizing and quickly threatens to take most of the planet in its fall. The logical response is revolt, and that’s what I write about. Like Karl Klaus said: it’s not so much what we create that matters, but what we destroy.”

“Do you plan, at some point”, I asked, “ to use a model of a society in your series that strikes a happy balance between the extreme of totalitarianism and dystopia, or to some viewers, what might be considered decadence?  Or do you think human nature doesn’t make that possible; that it has a tendency to veer from one extreme to another; never arriving at a middle ground for long?”

Bruno answered, “I don’t plan on using an ‘affirmative’ model that I would deem ideal. The island of Dystopia is a failed utopia, many aspects of it (little work, no technology, few social mediations, balance with nature) are true ideals to me, its flaws become apparent as the novel progresses (namely, the roots of civilization). Questions are really what I want to draw. Ultimately, I want people to think for themselves, and that is precisely how I see society getting any better – if at all. But I don’t believe the problem lies in human nature, empathy and solidarity are natural for the vast majority of us (minus those 1-2% psychopaths, who’d hunt you for sport). Culture is the problem, and not just one or the other, but culture itself, which is negation of nature, and is getting increasingly complex. The result is broken ecosystems, pandemic’s, weakened bodies, famine, mass psychological distress, to name a few, and of course, having to be in school twenty years to find a place in the system.”

The book certainly draws questions and the failed Utopia becomes a painful examination of cultural failure as the traditions that rooted themselves into this anti-civilization become the very thing that imprisons these survivors of catastrophe. “I also wonder a little about the environment you place around Dystopia,” I told Bruno.  “The natural environment outside the catacombs and cities seems to be a hostile one with limited resources, yet you symbolize a brighter world with a yellow flower.  Is my perception a result of the darkness around the story itself?  Is Dystopia an inclusive society with no connections with an outside world that might in fact, be radically different, or is it part of an overall disintegration of the cities, with a random rural society that has reverted back to basics?”

“Good question!”  Answered Bruno.  “The Collapse did leave endless spans of land desolate and lifeless, which the denizens of Dystopia call the Wastes. But I’ll leave you guessing. Those points will be addressed in the next two books.”

Bruno Masse’s “Necropolis, Book 1 of the Malice Cycle” is scheduled to be released this year to the general public.  Tangled in a twilight zone that slumbers between science fiction and fantasy, with bold, poetic strokes, it paints a haunting background and an unforgettable character in Malice.  Be among the first to collect the beginning of what is bound to be considered classical anarchistic fiction from a very memorable writer.

How the philosophy ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ makes for ludicrous bedfellows & twisted agenda:

The paranoid Jewish Zionists embrace rabid anti-Semitic Christian Zionists who fully intend the Jewish Zionists will become extinct once they’ve finished the dirty work of retaking the West Bank for the Christian Zionists necrotic vision of a road to Armageddon, meanwhile the Jewish Zionists label non-Jewish anti-Zionist as anti-Semitic when in fact most of the non-Jewish anti-Zionists are the bitter foes of the rabid anti-Semitic Christian Zionists momentarily embraced by the Jewish Zionists.

Now, in the mix of all of this, the anti-Zionist Jewish personalities are in an impossible state of being forced to play a game of ‘shut the fuck up’ or get blasted by all Zionists, Jewish and Christian, while the non-Jewish anti-Zionist is attacked by the paranoid Ashkenazi, who became paranoid and Zionist, on account of the pogroms of anti-Semitic Christian Zionists. These people bite the hand of people who’re actually doing them a favor by taking on the rabidly anti-Semitic Christian Zionists, personalities who intend as soon as the partnership of convenience is over, all those clinging to Judaism will be tossed into a lake of what will almost certainly amount to man-made nuclear fire.

Meanwhile, the Sephardic Jews who’d lived for nearly one and a half thousand years in peace and tranquility in the world of Islam (excepting that period when they’d fought on the side of the Muslims during the Crusades) have become an extinct species in the Arab countries, not in the least because of both Jewish and Christian Zionism via policy and settlement in the West Bank and the incredibly nasty treatment of the Arabs there. Israeli Zionists have enabled this social injustice and American Zionists, including countless conservative Christians, have bankrolled these policies abusing the Palestinians. All this came about because of Jewish Zionist paranoia of living in countries with a majority Christian Zionists and history of pogroms, yet are (for reasons of the social psychology phenomena of inter-generational violence) behaving towards the Arabs like the Christian Zionists had treated them, in turn setting up the present cycle of anti-Palestinian pogroms, based on behaviors Jews learned from Christians, now on a scale of nukes & nations.

It only gets more ridiculous:

The Sephardic Jews who’d relocated to Israel as a result of fallout in the Arab world from Zionist policies are absolutely 2nd class citizens- pointing to the anti-Semitic tendencies of the conservative Ashkenazi Jews, a race based oxymoron of Jewish anti-Semitism. This is obviously as clear as it is ludicrous and self destructive, when a Jewish person in Israel cannot be equal, because this Jew has the appearance, language and customs of an Arab.

I think a moral to this story could be: Any Zionism that is literal Zionism (unlike the benign Zionism of Bob Marley) is a loser. Perhaps this could be the idea behind the UN Resolution equating Zionism with Racism?

Inter-generational hate and violence is a known and understood phenomena of social psychology. Many people have not risen above this malevolent infection of the psyche that is imbued in a very literal sense of the Torah or Pentateuch: ‘the child inherits the sin of the father’. (Or the sins of a xenophobic & nationalist stepfather)

In the larger picture of nations, relating to this inter-generational violence, should it not be the responsibility of several national leaders to stand up and state to the Israelis, whether the leaders of Russia, Germany or Spain, examples given, ‘do not treat the Palestinian as our Christian has treated the Jew’.

If only because it is the responsibility of leadership to demonstrate responsible attitudes in relation to the acts of nations; And crucial, is that nation which had transgressed most egregiously in historic times should demonstrate this courage to again confront the worst of these infantile and irrational behaviors, if only to remind the USA, not only Israel, do not dare to go down this road, do not dare to become the NAZIs.

The Second World War had only been over about two years and back home in Ireland things were still very scarce. Ireland had remained ‘neutral’ and most of her farm produce continued to be exported primarily to England.

My father had been discharged from the Royal Air Force as a result of a supposed injury. He was supposed to be totally disabled but to my knowledge he never missed a day’s work over the following twenty years. He must have got some finance from the British Government as in 1947 he opened a shop in Main Street. He had all new machinery and equipment and it seemed as if things were really looking up. I remember feeling very proud of the fact and his trade as a shoemaker and repairer began to take off.

Holidaymakers would come in droves from the UK with most of the British cities having their own special week. For instance, you would have the Glasgow week, or the Leeds week, or the Cardiff week and so on. The town’s population would swell by about double from eight thousand. Every available room and bed was brought into service and a week’s full board could be had for about £4. It was not unusual for especially the boys of the house, to sleep in sheds or in fact anywhere during these holiday periods. I knew some boys who actually slept in a local farmer’s hay barn.

You have got to understand that this was the time before a lot of British working class people had even heard of Spain, let alone thought of having a holiday there. 99 point 999 percent of similar people would never have dreamt of flying in an aircraft, excepting those who had been in the RAF during the war.

Anyway, visitors suddenly realised that Dad’s handmade shoes were, in Ireland, almost as cheap as ready-mades in the UK. Consequently, from about May onward, he would begin to receive written orders for new shoes to be ready in June, July or August when the customers arrived on holiday. Come to think of it, he charged locals’ £5 a pair and visitors £6. The foreigners were quite happy to pay.

In order to fill the orders, at certain times, Dad would be working from the crack of dawn, about 5am until way past dark into the night. He would make, I suppose, two pairs of shoes a day besides keeping up with his normal repair trade. These were good times as it kept him out of the pub and away from the pitch and toss-school on Sundays. It did, however, mean that all his meals had to be taken to the shop.

One evening, it was my turn to take him his tea. This was a task which each of the children looked forward to, as invariably, the meal consisted of a large fry-up and a pot of tea. Anything he did not eat was YOURS.

This was the major version of the Sunday morning ritual, when in strict rotation one of us would take Dad’s breakfast up to him in bed. It was the only time that he did stay in bed a bit late. His breakfast comprised of a very large fry-up, which would be known today as a major cholesterol boost. Once again, anything he left belonged to the one taking up the breakfast. I know I did, and I strongly suspect that the others did as well, pray with the most devout fervour, that he had been drinking the night before and could not eat anything.

On a really bad morning, you would get nothing more than a couple of rasher rinds. However, on a truly magnificent morning, you might be lucky enough to get a couple of eggs on fried bread, sausages and all the black and white pudding. That was like winning the pools……………..

Right, back to the story: Mum got everything ready and I was too impatient to wait for her to put the two enamel plates in a carrier bag. I said I would carry them in my hands. She made me check to see if they were too hot, but I withstood the pain. My objective was to get it to my Dad as quickly as possible, him to eat what he wanted and me to eat the rest. So, naturally, I was rushing………..

As I began to cross the street, in my haste, I slipped and dropped the whole lot over the road. I stood there transfixed – what in the name of God was I going to do. Luck played a part, as, unlike today, traffic was at a minimum and you could if you wished, play marbles in the centre of the street with the very odd car driving around you. You were in more danger of being bitten by a passing horse.

I decided that I had to do something quickly. If I went home, my mother would kill me and if I told my Dad he would even do worse if it were possible. I suppose it is really, come to think of it, especially if he kept beating you silly before he actually killed you. At least Mum would have been quick.

Another point to remember is that horses were used during and just after the way in lieu of cars. There were also a couple of farms just off Main Street meaning I suppose that the cattle and horses did not mind where they did their business. Anyway, I sat on the kerbstone, picked up all the bits and pieces, wiped the enamel plates with my sleeve and began a reconstruction.

The sausages I cleaned by licking them clean in my mouth quickly followed by a large spit out of the rubbish stuck to it. Next came the black and white pudding, which I similarly cleansed. There was a problem with the fried bread as some grit was stuck to it. However, with the aid of a matchstick from the gutter, that too was removed. The two eggs were licked clean and replaced onto the fried bread. “There, he would never notice”, I said to myself “but I must remember that whatever he leaves, I must not eat as I might get poisoned”. It never occurred to me that he might be so affected.

Right, so onward I went. To the shop and I gave Dad his meal. I was obliged to wait at the counter until he was finished. He soon got stuck in and was really enjoying himself. I thought to myself that I had made a remarkable recovery from my misfortune.

UNTIL————-

After a couple of minutes, I noticed that a bunch of my father’s drinking cronies began to arrive and lean on the counter. “Are you enjoying your grub Paddy?” one asked. “Too true” said my Dad “the best of the best – are you jealous?” “No” they chorused, “I bet it has a great flavour,” added one. “Too true” said Dad. “It should do” the other said to Dad, “Mick hopped it all over Main Street. It must be covered with cow and horseshit”.

Once again in my short life, I was struck dumb and numb and could not move. However, I called up all my reserves of willpower and strength and legged it out of the shop. A quick look behind and I saw that Dad was after me with his hammer. I ran and ran until he could not keep going and I waited a long time before going home and telling Mum. I went to bed that night dreading his arrival. However, he never did say anything and years later I learned that he was quite proud of me for the way I had resolved a very delicate, tricky, and indeed, sticky situation.

———————————————-

The strange thing about this story is that it does not end there: At my Mum’s Wake many years later, my younger brother Peter claimed that it was he who had had the mishap. I did not argue with him at the time but during a family story telling marathon some years later, I challenged him on the subject. He again claimed to have been the culprit. I asked him to tell his version and as soon as he started, I knew it was totally different to mine. He too, a few years after my mishap had gone through a similar experience.

On this occasion, we had moved to the new home about a mile and a half from the shop. Peter was taking the meal in a shopping bag on his bicycle. He says it was pelting rain and he had his head down. Suddenly he crashed into the back of a slow moving car.
He states that he was badly cut on the legs and face and sat in the road crying his head off. The driver of the car began to panic and asked, “Do you want me to call an ambulance son?” “No” cried Peter “just help me to get me daddy’s tea back; he is going to kill me”. They picked up the rashers of bacon, sausages, eggs, fried bread and of course the black and white pudding.

He continued to the shop and did not say anything. The only problem was that Dad saw the blood on his face and demanded to know what had happened. Peter says he began to cry again and blurted out to Dad what had happened. Apparently Dad did not give him a reason to cry any more – much to my surprise.

Ah those memories…………

As I come in for yet another day on the docks the hopelessness of my fellows surrounds me like a shroud – every day we come here, load and unload the cargo of big business for shit wages and no benefits to speak of so that we might eek out an existence while some fat cat executive sits on a gold-plated sofa and complains about how ungrateful we are for being here: “Don’t you know just how hard it is to get a job today?” he asks, “you should consider yourselves lucky to have such an opportunity.”

Yeah, lucky – ever since our union sold us out we’ve been struggling to keep roofs over our collective heads.  “The company is struggling,” the union reps say.  “Profits are down and all of us have to make sacrifices – look, the CEO just sold one of his three corporate jets!  Everyone is cutting back!”  Well, the executive can make a decent living without his goddamn jet: those 10-15% reductions in salary and the loss of medical insurance place most of us on the edge of a razor!

“Jorge!” calls out a familiar voice – I turn about to see that Dmitri Stavros, a man I’ve known since I first started working here nearly five years ago, has come to bring me the day’s news and rumors.  “Did you not hear?” he says in his thick Mediterranean accent, “The word going around is that there’s going to be a strike: after all the concessions we’ve made the union finally wants to stand its ground, or so people believe…”

Yes, the executives would want us to believe that – every time the word “strike” comes up in a union meeting strange things happen.  It’s not uncommon for union officials that seriously contemplate such things to be suddenly added to the missing persons list or die under “unusual circumstances”:  One that comes to mind right away involves an organizer that just happened to get crushed under a freight container the day before the strike was scheduled – a cable on the crane just happened to “break loose” as he was spotting the position on the dock for the crane operator (who originally started work here as a scab during the last strike – which is more than a little suspicious considering that he’s also the brother of the shift manager, but I digress…).

Bottom line, such occurrences have prevented any kind of protest action against corporate from ever getting off the ground – yet we’re still expected to believe that our union effectively represents us and has our interests at heart.  What a joke!

“I wonder who’s going to be the next unfortunate soul to meet his fate before this one too is called off?” he sarcastically wonders allowed – “Ah well, better get cracking: our quotas have been raised again, as usual, and the bosses are just looking for an excuse to be rid of us veteran workers – our positions are better filled by the young and dumb types that work for half the pay.”  We both have a laugh at our pathetic plights and get to work for slave drivers that are slowly tearing out pieces of our souls…

***

The day is done and I return to my home – a dilapidated house on the edge of the slums.  Thanks to the crash in real estate my cousin and I got this place cheap while the nation was celebrating the inauguration of it’s first black president.  For a while I bought into the hype and believed that things were looking up – too bad I did not recognize that the new president, as with the house (with it’s rusted plumbing, asbestos ceilings and termite-ridden frame), were not all they were cracked up to be.  In both instances I was sold a bill of goods.

As I come through the front door of this building which I had sunk countless hours into repairing to the point of habitability, I find my cousin Jeffe – a man I would have long ago thrown out if I didn’t need the money he brings in from his drug trade.  While I have nothing against personal use, I find the thought of deriving profit from the sale of poison offensive and would not tolerate it if I myself were not struggling to get by: I suppose that makes me something of a hypocrite, but at least I can admit to myself that I’m too poor to afford morals.

“So, how goes the work on the docks?” he inquires of me as he slouches over an old sofa I had reupholstered at least twice.  “They cracking that whip over you even harder than usual?” he says sarcastically, knowing full well what goes on there.  I respond by telling him that at least I’m earning an honest, legal living to which he quips “honest and legal trades might build character, but they don’t make much bread – which is why you need me.”  As much as my pride is hurt I can’t deny the truth of his words: nonetheless I can feel the guilt of my own complacency towards his deeds eating away at my soul and I badly need to purge myself of it – thus I grab a sandwich out the fridge for a quick supper, reach for my coat and prepare to leave for church (as I have done at least three times a week since I was a boy).

As I head for the door, Jeffe quips to me that God has forsaken us – that there’s no one looking out for us but ourselves.  I try to make a snappy comeback of my own, but I’m tired: the youth of abundant faith I once was is now long gone – all that remains is a weary man hoping for salvation from himself and a world of pure evil that surrounds him.

I leave the house and begin walking through the neighborhood on my way to church – taking in the sight of deterioration that surrounds me.  When I first came here there were a number of local businesses that were flourishing: taquerias, hair salons and other specialty shops lined the streets – sure, they took a hit to their business during the housing crash but we believed that genuine change was right around the corner and that the worst was behind us.  Over the years those shops closed up and were replaced with liquor stores, crack houses and brothels (and now even the liquor stores are struggling – what does it say about a society when one can’t even afford the booze to drown his troubles in?); my heart sinks when I look at the rot around me, but there’s no escaping it.

After about six blocks I reach the old church – even here the rot is visible as one looks at the statue of Christ on the front lawn worn away by erosion from acid rain and peeling varnish on the doors leading to the sanctuary.  However, inside I find a place of solitude: a refuge from the evils of the world that surround me – it’s here that I’ve spent many hours in prayer and confessed my sins, even my sins of necessity, to the priest so that I might be unburdened of all that which weighs down my soul.

However, it’s become harder to get that solace I seek here – year by year by year my faith in the wisdom of God has been wearing away just like the statue out front.  During times of prayer I find myself thinking such terrible thoughts such as “if the wicked go unpunished, then perhaps they are meant to succeed – if that’s so, is God wicked for preordaining their success?”  I try to purge these blasphemous notions from my mind, yet they continue to pop up even as I partake of the Eucharist: as the body and blood of the Lord pass through my mouth, all I could think of was the bosses down at the docks eating me and the fruits of my labor – wondering if, at heart, all men are cannibals.  These unholy imaginings are driving me to insanity!

Failing to find comfort at church, I head home – passing the same stench and decay once more – and drink myself to sleep.  The last thought that goes through my mind before finally passing out is “God, if you’re there, please end the suffering and misery we endure.”  And all fades to black…

***

I come to work the next morning with a slight hangover and resume a dull, miserable existence – slaving for the pittance that the company deems fit to give me once again.  As I report for the shift I hear a number of my co-workers speaking among themselves: they say that the strike is off (surprise…) after a few key union officials changed their votes on the matter – allegedly after death threats were made against them.  Regardless of what the real reason for calling it off was, it’s apparent that the union no longer offers so much as the appearance of resistance to corporate and its ever-increasing demands on labor.

I try to forget about the weak and helpless union and focus on my work – I need to make an honest living as a matter of pride!  I refuse to debase myself as my cousin has done: I refuse to take part in criminal activities to support myself – and if that means I must toil away under working conditions that are increasingly overbearing, then that’s what I must do!

After my shift I check the performance postings at the office – I’m barely making the minimum quota to stay employed, but then again so are all the veteran workers: people who once posted well above quota regularly and received incentive bonuses for doing so are now struggling just to keep pace – it’s as though we are rats on a wheel running ever faster only to go nowhere.  And the young bloods among us; most will be gone by the end of the month – there’s no point in old timers like me worrying about them when we are barely keeping our heads above water.

I leave the office feeling even more dismayed than I was before – with performance expectations constantly rising, wages shrinking, benefits disappearing and the union impotent I can’t tell you how much longer I will even have a job.  Another three months?  Six months, maybe?  How long until I’m broken and entirely reliant on Jeffe?  To lose my position here will only validate everything he’s done, and such a thought is almost as terrifying to me as being thrown out on the streets – such a vindication of his drug-dealing lifestyle can only break my spirit and crush what little dignity I have left!

As my shift comes to a close I feel my heart sink into my chest as my mind whirls over what I will do when the walls close in on me, then Dmitri approaches me and says that he has something he wants to discuss over a drink – I ask him for details, to which he replies “not here, the walls have ears.”  Dmitri isn’t usually the secretive type so I know whatever he has to say is important: I agree to meet him and discuss the matter – after fetching my things from the locker room I head out to the bar we agreed upon, take a table in the back and await Dmitri for a full five minutes before he arrives; after we order ourselves a couple of scotches Dmitri informs me of some startling events.

“As you already know,” he begins “the union has officially declared the strike is off.  However, there are a few of us that are planning to declare one on our own – if the union won’t act we will.”  After pausing to sip some scotch he continues on, telling me about a handful of ex-union reps that are organizing a large portion of the workers in secret: the plan is that in about two weeks anywhere between one quarter and one third of the labor force will simply not report in for their shift and gather at a park in the center of the city – from there, the plan is to march towards city hall and air their grievances before the nation.

After processing this for a minute, I have some concerns about the march.  “While the plan is bold, and certainly boldness is needed right now,” I reply to his outlined plans, “I fear that this will end badly – you do remember what happened to the Citizens Against Police Brutality march last year, yes?  The police shot over 100 people that day!”  I take a sip of my own scotch, put my head in my hands and listen in utter amazement to the words coming out of my own mouth: “if we’re going to do this, we need something to keep the police at bay – we need weapons.”  I’m looking down at the table, realizing that I’m starting to sound like my cousin now and I half-expect Dmitri to distance himself from me for such remarks.

As I look up from the table I see seriousness written all over Dmitri’s face – “allow me to tell you a story” he says with a demeanor like an undertaker.  “Some years ago in my native Greece I was a trucker: we had been saddled with all manner of expenses we couldn’t pay out of pocket and our union resorted to strike – around this time the economy was just starting to show the signs of decay.  Our company refused to meet our demands, the strike continued and eventually the president threatened to call out the army to break the strike; we had no choice but to accept the terms dictated to us.”

From there, he tells me the details of how a civil war broke out and how he and a few members of his family escaped to the U.S. believing that things were better here – only to find out that we were on the same downward spiral.  “Back then,” he continues, “I thought that trouble could be outrun if I just stayed ahead of it: but now, I have nowhere left to run – I can’t go back to Europe, Canada is closing its borders and Mexico is experiencing non-stop drug-related violence.  I can’t run anymore, so fighting is our only option.”  He takes another sip of his scotch, looks me in the eye and presents me with the question I was hoping he wouldn’t ask; “can you get those guns?”

This is not an easy thing for me to do – over the last few years firearms restrictions have tightened to the point where one needs to acquire a license to even buy a gun (such licenses start at $300 for basic shotguns and go up from there).  Also, sales of various weapons have been prohibited altogether: any rife that holds more than five rounds is considered an “assault rife,” any shotgun that holds more than two rounds is considered a “combat shotgun,” any handgun that holds more than seven rounds is considered a “high capacity” weapon – and all are prohibited to civilians by law.  In short, there’s no way I can get the weapons needed to fend off the cops through any legal channel.

I take a deep breath, think over my response carefully and reply in one single word – “yes.”  Jeffe has all the illegal contacts for tactical weapons and equipment and keeps a few caches at various locations to defend his drug-running business: if anyone can get me those weapons, he can.  I feel a knot form in my stomach at the thought of relying on him and his wicked ways yet again, but I know I don’t have much choice; without some means to keep law enforcement at bay, we are defenseless and will in all likelihood be killed when the establishment runs out of patience for us.

Shortly after this conversation we part ways – Dmitri tells me that he intends to meet with a few other key workers to plan out the details of the strike, but all I want to do is rid my soul of the guilt I just had placed upon it.  I return to the church, I light candles and say prayers but I gain no relief from it: all I can think about are the words of my cousin about how God has forsaken us – that there’s no one looking out for us but ourselves.  Failing to find any comfort in my faith, I head back home to humble myself before the resident drug dealer and ask for his help…

***
I’m now standing in an apartment with a camcorder overlooking the city streets – my eyes scan over the throngs of people that have assembled with the striking dock worker one moment then turn inwards to see men armed with heavy military-grade hardware: and in this moment I quietly whisper to myself “how did I end up here?”  Of course, I know damn well what happened but I’m still in a state of shock and disbelief that it has come to this: I could only get so many weapons from Jeffe’s contacts (no easy feat considering that these Back Flag people have so many associates to supply: biker gangs, Libertarian militias and even some crazy new drug kingpin with a street name I can’t pronounce) – mostly M2 Berretta handguns and tactical shotguns with half a dozen M16A2 rifles.

After going through the arduous task of getting enough firepower to equip about two dozen of the 500 or so striking workers, the organizers voted to throw me out (only Dmitri dissented) – they believe me to be some kind of provocateur because I don’t believe that we should be defenseless against an assault by the police (assaults they claim don’t happen without provocation – HA!).

So here I am – once again relying on the contacts Jeffe has to provide security for the protest.   I’m no longer officially a part of it: These men they sent for what they call an “active defense” in the event of police brutality are by far some of the most frightening individuals I’ve known – the large black man (who apparently is the leader) has a look in his eye that can kill just by glancing, the young fellow they keep referring to as “Tater” (must be an inside joke) appears overly eager to shoot at the police every time they come into view; as though he has a vendetta or something against them.  Then there’s the man with the grenades – the way he holds that launcher it looks like he was born with it attached to his arm and the way he calmly glances down at the streets like a hawk searching for prey keeping his hand just below the trigger of his weapon – it creeps me out!

To be honest, if Jeffe didn’t vouch for these people I would run at the first opportunity – but now the die is cast and there’s nothing I can do but wait and record these events for future reference.  I just hope that these guerrillas don’t take me for a liability when all this is over as I would hate to have them for enemies.

God help me…

Most of us know February 2, as Groundhog’s day.  The day that Punxsutawney Phil, that little rodent is trotted out to see if his shadow scares him back into his den.  Or, more accurately the day we see if he is still hibernation sleepy.  If he goes back in we have 6 more weeks of winter if not, we have longer. 

This ritual like so many other things has its origin in ancient practices of wood and farm craft.  Before there was Doppler, even before we fully understood weather we still had to plant so we looked to the animals and plants for cues.  Things coming out of their dens was one of those cues. 

However February 2(or February 1^st depending on your chosen practice), is also a Saint’s day.  One of my favorite in fact, because it very thinly covers one of the most important female archetype deities.  That of the maiden.  In this incarnation, called Brighid, re-named by the Catholic Church Bride.  

Brighid or Brigit or Bride or Bridhe, though goddess in her own right, is often referred to as an aspect of Danu. Danu is intermingled with Anu who was said to ‘nurse the gods’. Yet She is further reaching than that.  Even practitioners of Vodou have adopted Her as the only Caucasian Loa in the form of Maman Brigitte.

Brighid was the Dagda’s daughter. Dagda, called ‘the Good God’ he was portrayed as a pot-bellied, club-waving rampant male – not unlike the Cerne Abbas Giant. He was a renowned lover of the triple battle-Goddess called the Morrighan. His son, Aengus Og, was born to the Goddess Boand (after whom the river Boyne was named). In Scottish folk-lore Angus and Brighid as Bride represent the Summer Lord and Lady.

Brighid was one of three daughters born to the Dagda.  All three bore the same name. To one was attributed the powers of healing, to another, smith craft and to the third, craftsmanship. The triplicate became one in She-Whom-We-Call Brighid. In many ways she is the feminine counter-part of Lugh the Ildana – the Master of All Crafts – for under smith craft comes not only the forging of useful and decorative metal work but also that of weaponry. Craftsmanship is also manifest in the inspiration of poets and bards as well as anything creative from childbirth onwards. Fire was attributed to her so she ruled not only the fires of inspiration and the fires of the forge but also the fires of the hearth and so life itself. Even her name is commonly said to originate from fire: breo-aigit means Fiery Arrow, though it may derive from the Sanskrit brahti, meaning ‘High One’.

She had three sons by Tuireann, son of Ogma. They were named Brian, Iuchar and Uar. The four of them murdered Cian, Lugh’s father. Lugh, in his turn brought about their deaths. After the arrival of the Sons of Mils for whom Amergin was bard, Brighid became known as ‘Mary of the Gaels’. And thus, the Mother of Ireland became the darling of the last set of conquerors.

Brigantia

Britain has a similar goddess named Briganita. In the Brigantia aspect she is akin to the Roman Minerva or even to Britain’s ‘Britannia’. In Bath Minerva merged with Brighid to become Sul/Sulis. Sul presides over the curative hot springs of Bath and Brighid, as goddess of healing, has a number of healing wells named for her. Sul is the very heat that causes the springs to be hot. It is easy to imagine her firing-up the forge far below the earth of Bath, to create the necessary energy to heat the curative springs.

Brighid in her renamed state as Bride has had her name given to rivers all over the United Kingdom.  In London’s Fleet Street under the present-day church of St. Bride, lies the site of a pagan temple dedicated to Brighid. As the arts are under her sway, it didn’t take long for her to become the patron saint of journalism. Also in London, there is the women’s prison Bridewell which was once a convent – dedicated to St. Bride.

Her head, carved in stone, was anciently held in high esteem and, with the coming of the Christians, was concealed in a dolmen for safety. Later it was recovered and instated in the church of St, Bride of Knockbridge. In 1847 the local vicar took it to another church and it has not been seen since.  it is assumed that it was cast into a peat bog. The supposed physical head of the saint was taken to the Holy Land and is now thought to be enshrined in Lumiar, Portugal. A ceremony still practiced, drives cattle past her head presumably either to make them fertile or to purify them.  This is exactly the purpose of the Beltane fires, which were also preceded over by some aspect of Brighid.  

St Ffraid

Capel Ffraid, Treaddur Bay

St Ffraid, St. Bride in another guise, came to Wales from Ireland. She crossed the sea, not in a boat but on a sod of earth. After landing at Holy Island’s Treaddur Bay the sod became the mound where to this day stand the remains of her church: Capel San Ffraid. Excavations at the large, man-made mound, disclosed a mass burial. Each body had been interned with its head pointing westward, towards Ireland, or to the mystical land beyond the Ninth Wave, Tir na  nOg; the Land of Youth or The Blessed Isles where the dead feast awaiting rebirth. As the bodies were all male it was assumed they were battle-slain warriors. It is, however, conceivable that they were monks or devotees of Ffraid. Though the site is not marked on ordnance survey maps it is found on the left as you cross the Four Mile Bridge from Anglesey to Holy Isle.

Like many saints, St Ffraid is said to have plucked her own eyes out in order to make her unattractive to suitor.  Once this objective was achieved, she promptly popped them back into their sockets. She managed to perform all the usual sort of miracles and healings as well as turning the Mayor of London into a horse. Oak leaves and acorns were her emblems – which she shares with Bride.

Bride

There was it seems an actual human personage of Bride. Born in 453, her father was the druid, Dubtach, whilst her mother was a Christian Pictish slave. She went to live with her father when considered old enough to serve him for she was considered his property. Later she took the veil to avoid marriage. When St, Brennain visited her, she had been out tending sheep. Coming in she absent-mindedly hung her cloak upon a sunbeam to dry. St. Brennain, unable to mimic her, was somewhat huffy about the whole thing.

Once, having nowhere to feed and water her cow, she begged of a rich man some land.  The man asked her how much room she desired. She replied, “As much as my cloak will cover.” Her cloak began to spread and, if not for the interference of an old woman, would have covered; and thereby freed, all of Ireland. That part of the land was held rent-free until recent times when barracks were built on it. The cloak supposedly went to Bruges Cathedral in 1087, taken there by King Harold’s sister. Bride’s shoe is in Dublin at the National Museum of Ireland.  Her bag, rosary, bell and sewing equipment she left behind in Glastonbury where presumably, they still reside.

In Glastonbury

St Bride came to Glastonbury in the last twenty years of her life for solitude. The place she chose to live was a low-lying isle called Beckery or Little Ireland where there was a holy spring called St. Bride’s Well. It is now covered over and lies near the area of sheepskin trades. Later a chapel was re-built in her honor, replacing one dedicated to Mary Magdalene. This, like Capel San Ffraid, also stood on a high point, in a field called Chamberlain hill. Excavated in 1887 a burial was discovered beneath the church’s foundations. It was of six people, who again all had their heads westward. It is likely that the legend of St Ffraid was carried to, and purloined by, the monks of Glastonbury. The fields around the church are still said to be called ‘brides’.

As midwife to Mary

Legend has it, Bride, mysteriously transported to Bethlehem to become midwife to Mary, was also, in Hebridean legend, the foster-mother and wet-nurse to the baby Jesus; hence her presiding over childbirth. According to legend, she placed three drops of spring water upon the brow of the infant, Jesus. This echoes the birth of the Son of Light who has three drops of wisdom placed on his brow. These three drops are the source of the three rays of light or wisdom present in the Druidic symbol, Awen.

St. Bride’s Day comes before but is closely tied to Imbolc or Candlemass. The Roman festival in honor of Februa, after whom the month was named, was held at the same time and was one of purification. The candles of Candlemass are lit with the same intention, to purify; mind and spirit.  Legends state St. Bride helped Mary present the infant Jesus to a crowded temple. In order to draw their attention, St Bride appeared wearing a head-dress of lighted candles. As a thank-you Mary decreed that St. Bride’s Day would fall immediately before Candlemass. It also shows how important Brighid was and how, as in many post-catholic cultures she was preserved by the people.   Indeed in the case of Bride as midwife to Mary, the story says Bride dreamt her way to Bethlehem and on awaking, found her mantle had been transformed into blue with brilliant stars upon it.  These are traditionally Mary’s colors thus giving them both ‘Queen of Heaven’ status. Brighid was held so tight in the people’s hearts that the incoming Christians adopted Brighid as another form of Mary or vice versa; much in the same way the Virgin of Guadalupe is accepted into the Mesoamerican traditions. 

The Fires of Bride

St. Bride had a perpetual flame burnt in her honor at Kildare, Ireland. Kildare translates to ‘cell (or church) of oak’. The flame supposedly burnt without ash.  The flame was put-out in about 1220 and when re-lit, was assumed to have been fed by oak, the ash miraculously vanishing. The flame was finally extinguished following King Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536-40. Depending on which version you read the flame was either burnt in Brigit’s honor or was continued or initiated by St. Bride herself. Either way, on nineteen consecutive days it was tended by a woman and on the twentieth, by Bride herself. Now the spot is marked by one of Ireland’s famous round towers, which stands in the grounds of the present-day’s St. Brigit’s Cathedral. Though the fires of Bride were only tended by nuns, the original double monastery housed men and women which was a great rarity.

Serpent Queen

On St Michael’s Mount there is a carving of St Bride/Brighid milking a cow; a common image of her and one that reflects her goddess alter-ego. St Michael, controller of the land’s dragon/serpent power is equated with St George who was both dragon-slayer and solar hero whilst Bride/Brighid, in Scotland, was dubbed ‘the serpent queen’. At Inverness she was associated with a barrow at Glenelg which was said to have connections with serpent-worship. In fact, St. Bride’s Day, February 1st, was also a day of snake-worship. At Glenelg she was supposed to rise from the said barrow.

Brighid, representing spring would, like Persephone, emerge from the underworld, bringing summer to the land. Snake and dragon power is not just the ley system it is also the power of the land. Brighid would set it aflame, bringing the warmth of the sun, breaking the winter’s potent hold. A Gaelic verse says:

‘Brighid put her finger in the river on the feast day of Brighid and away went the hatching-mother of the cold.  She washed her palms in the river on the day of the feast of St. Padriac and away went the birth-mother of the cold.”

St Padriac, who died when the mortal Bride was eight years old, bears the reputation of cleansing Ireland of serpents.  Some believe this to be an (unsuccessful) attempt to purge Ireland of Pagan deity worship including that of Brighid. With her image on St Michael’s church does this mean she is stopping the serpent-power from being killed and thus defying St. Padriac?  If so, she as Goddess and Michael as Archangel continue to protect the power of the land, sleeping, coiled about the Tor itself.  As the serpent sleeps wound-about the World’s Tree as it also lies coiled at the base of the human spine in the tradition of Kundalini, Brighid stands still protecting the creative in all of us as well as giving hope of rebirth of all sorts.

http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2012/01/e-cannibus-unum-has-medical-marijuana.html

I’ve just about tried everything there is to make my sore knees and right ankle feel better — physical therapy, acupuncture, SynVisc (nasty stuff), chiropractic, Advil, hydrotherapy, Tiger Balm, xi gong, steam baths, reiki, Filipino psychic surgery, hypnotherapy, Zam-Zam water, deep-tissue massage, yoga,..  You name it and I’ve tried it.  But nothing has worked — until now.

Now I’ve discovered “DocGreen’s Therapeutic Healing Cream,” which is made from shea butter, palm oil, vegetable wax and cannabis.  That’s right, you read that right.  I am currently rubbing marijuana onto my knees.

And, yes, it’s legal.  And, yes, it works.

“But where did you get this stuff?” you might ask.  “While standing on a corner in West Oakland?  After skipping across the border to Tijuana?  By following hippies around up on Telegraph?  In the evidence room at the DEA?  Where?”

I got it at my friendly local marijuana dispensary http://www.harborsidehealthcenter.com/.  And what a trip that was too, with all kinds of types — from arthritic old ladies and dying cancer patients to young men and women who looked like they’ve never been sick a day in their life — standing in a really long line and waiting their turn in front of a huge display counter featuring everything from manufactured doobies and sativa buds to infused chocolates and ointments like the kind that I got.

But, hey, DocGreen’s soothing therapeutic ointment worked.

Plus it also made me sort of happy — a big surprise there.  Not that I was stoned or zonked or nothing, and there was definitely no slow-motion-type incapacitation or uncontrollable munchies like I’ve heard that you get from eating dope brownies or smoking a spliff.  And there was none of that sudden Bob Marley “one-love” positive-vib stuff either.  I still have all the same worries and troubles that I used to have before — that corporatists are still destroying our country and my tooth still hurts and I’m still overdrawn at the bank — but now I’m just a little bit less on edge about all that and a little bit more able to cope.

PS:  I figured that since just a little bit of DocGreen’s healing therapeutic moisturizer helped my soreness and also my frame of mind, then perhaps I should try a bit more.  So I rubbed some of the ointment onto my sore neck as well.  Wrong thing to do.  An immediate headache resulted, and then I started worrying again all over — but this time more fiercely.  Oh rats.  I just knew it was too good to be true.  Looks like I’d better go back to trying holy water and saunas.

But then I listened to Layna Berman on KPFA and she said that many people end up getting addicted to various substances by trying to “take the edge off” their lives.  Hey, I wanna take the edge off!  But according to Berman, no, that’s not a good idea,   Apparently having worries is a good thing — because they force you to act, to try out different things that might end all those worries.  Perhaps like joining OWS in order to end the corporatists’ sleazy reign of terror in Washington?  Oh, okay.

Berman also stated that by using outside means of cheering oneself up, then our body loses its own ability to cheer itself up.

PPS:  Then I listened to a video on “Full Disclosure” that talked about how California is being taken over by Mexican drug lords — even including taking over the legal medical marijuana trade.  Yikes!

According to a recent “Full Disclosure” report, “Mexican Drug Cartels are controlling industrial farming of Marijuana while enslaving both the illegal alien laborers and the U. S. Farmers.  Once entrapped by the Cartels, they are unable escape with their lives.”  http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Blogs/107.php

Double yikes!  Now I’m in danger of becoming a member of the Sinaloa drug cartel!  Just because I’ve got bad knees.

PPPS:  If marijuana is illegal, shouldn’t they make all those other artificial feel-good substances illegal too?  Like cigarettes and booze?  Wouldn’t it be nice if you had to have a doctor’s prescription before you could set foot into a liquor store?

PPPPS:  Someone else just recommended that I just simply stick to eating mushrooms.  According to a recent TED video on the subject, mushrooms are the last best hope for this planet and we can even use them instead of fossil fuel:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY  Yeah, but can mushrooms make my ankle and knees (and brain) feel any better?

PPPPS:  Then I went up to that dispensary on Telegraph Avenue at http://berkeleypatientscare.com/ and got a chocolate infusion to eat.  Forget that!  One small bite almost the size of a baby’s fingernail and I was absolutely frozen in place for the next TWELVE WHOLE HOURS.  I couldn’t even get to my computer to call for help on FaceBook!

****

This article is Part One of an ongoing series regarding the advantages and disadvantages of using medical marijuana. And if anyone wants to try DocGreen’s Therapeutic Healing Cream, please let me know and I’ll give you the 411.

******

From Yoko, regarding an update on the food and radiation problem still haunting Japan:
Kayoko and I have been invited to give a presentation at Pecha Kucha next Tuesday 1/24 in San Francisco.  We will be speaking on our experiences during our trip to Japan last October, in regards to food and radiation.  Please find all the info here:
http://www.umamimart.com/2012/01/umamimart-pecha-kucha-124-sf/

****

From Full Disclosure: The Dark Side of legalizing pot:  Is California headed for corruption much worse than in Chicago in the days of Al Capone and prohibition?  Watch this video assessment by Mexican Mafia and Gang Specialist Sgt. Richard Valdemar, who retired after more than three decades with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.   He describes how the Mexican Drug Cartels are controlling industrial farming of Marijuana while enslaving both the illegal alien laborers and the U. S. Farmers.  Once entrapped by the Cartels, they are unable escape with their lives.  Valdemar cites a recent example of the desperation of “medical marijuana” dealers in the U. S. who cannot turn to the police to save themselves from the Mexican Drug Cartels now taking over operations in California.  http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Blogs/107.php

by Jennifer Lawson-Zepeda

Obama’s State of the Union Speech 

fallout @2012 Karla Fetrow

By Karla Fetrow

When most people think of the Cold War, they think of a time when communism was a palpable threat and Russia loomed, big and powerful, ready to step in and rule the world if America failed to protect Western freedom.  For most of America however, in the roaring nineteen seventies, Russia was little more than just another country half way across the world, dark and looming, mysterious and highly competitive.

Not so for Alaska.  The Cold War meant that you were up against an invisible fence, fortified by very visible artillery.  We always knew when tensions escalated between the East and the West, because tanks suddenly began rolling down pathways cut close to the roads, and jets swarmed, shattering the sky with their mechanical roars.  High in the mountains, you could see the large white discs of the Dew Line alert system and the occasional dome of a covered missile site, and you could never forget we were watching and being watched.

It was strange living in the shadow of a nuclear missile site.  You would think it would be comfortable, looking up at that astonishing projectile, knowing it was there to defend you, but it wasn’t.  The missiles were a reminder of how terribly fragile we are.  The one closest to my home was a part of the anti-missile defense; that is it was a missile to bring down the missiles that were firing at us.  It was so huge, ten people holding hands around the base would not be able to completely encircle it.  The newspapers made a pun that the next missile to be erected would be an anti-anti missile; that is, it would go after the missiles that were going after the missiles we had initially fired.  While it caused a few laughs, mainly it caused people to shudder.

The threat of a nuclear war was so real to us that hotels carried instructions for finding fallout shelters next to the Gideon Bibles on the dresser, the schools held routine drills and every home routinely replenished their cache of emergency water supplies and canned goods.  We had a bomb shelter; a rather makeshift one.  It was a concrete, half finished basement, with one small row of upper windows facing the mountains.  There we kept the ping pong table, the washer and dryer, several folding army cots, a broad band radio, medical supply kit, bottled water, canned goods, hand tools and a small generator.

Going into this basement was like entering a stage area.  Descending the steps you chose which dramatic role you would play, locked down in this half ethereal world of washing machines, ping pong games and basic survival.  Possible scenarios rose over and over again of the close huddling, the deathly quiet, the long hours of wait before you could resurface.  Sometimes it seemed more real, this prepared refuge against the holocaust than the ordinary life circling cheerfully upstairs.

While we were reminded every single day that we were teetering on the edge of war, we still had our own diversions from such morbid warnings.  The pipeline was being constructed and there was so much money in the air, it seemed you could just reach out and snap it up.  Everyone had jobs; good jobs; and the air was electric with flourishing businesses.

I was just out of my teens and sharing my first apartment with my sister, Mary, and our two significant others.  We were on an astronomy kick that year.  We shivered as we discussed black holes that somehow seemed more fearful than nuclear bombs.  We tried to chart constellations with star maps, usually failing.  We constructed a solar system from styrofoam balls and neon colored paints, pinning it to the living room ceiling.  Some of the planets were a bit out of proportion, but we were proud of it and fond of retelling everyone about the kid that informed us we had made a mistake – Venus wasn’t a planet, it was a star.

It was one of those very late nights when we stayed up to watch our local television station’s very own late night talk show.  It would have been boring except the cameramen were stoners with a sense of humor.  The host never even had guests, but conducted his show by sitting at a desk and answering telephone calls, while the cameras took aimless shots at his hands and feet, moved the stage props behind him, replacing them with plastic marijuana plants, and sometimes even let a streaker run across the stage.  It was amazing what you could get away with on the air at two in the morning, even more amazing the things it would occur to people to do if they’re out roaming around.

It occurred to someone to drop the bomb.  At least, that was our impression.  We felt the vibration first, a low muttering that chopped the air into little slow moving pieces.  Our solar system fell, one by one, the neon balls seeming to float.  Time moved so slow, we could track the progress of each ball visually, but so fast, no words could be uttered.  And then it hit us, a roar more thunderous than the crash of an angry ocean, followed by a bright, red-orange flash.  The concussion from the impact knocked the curtains from the windows and sent the chairs and table rattling across the kitchen floor.  Only one person said, “it’s begun…” but it was what we were all thinking.

I reached for the telephone, intent on calling my parents, four miles away, but she had gotten to the phone first.  It rang before I had a chance to start dialing.  “Is everything okay over there?”  My mother asked anxiously.

“Yes, we’re a bit shook up, but no one was hurt.”

“I just don’t know how it could have happened.  The base has been alerted, but they haven’t reported any unusual air traffic.”

I reassured her I’d call her back when I had learned more and walked to our now wide open door where neighbors were congregating.  Nobody knew anything.  The police had been called but the police lived in Anchorage and it would be twenty minutes at least before they arrived.  A few army helicopters hovered and swooped, flashing their spotlights over the clustered residential area and beyond to the wilderness swallowed in darkness.

“We should go to Tip’s bar,” suggested somebody, and everybody agreed.  If there were any expert opinions at all, they would be found at Tip’s.

There was some scattered debris between the apartments and the bar.  Nothing remarkable, just some cracked door posts, a collapsed car port, some broken outdoor furniture tilted like injured animals, but Tip’s Bar was in shambles.  The windows were smashed.  Half the bar stools lay out on the ground.  The customers seemed more confused about what had happened than we were.

“Them commie bastards.  I knew they’d come to this.  They’re blowing the fish out of the water so we can’t have any.  That’s what it is,” said one.

A few had already gone to their trucks and picked out their favorite rifles.  They had formed a posse and they were going out hunting for the culprit.  One had found religion.  “It was a miracle.  I was just sitting here, minding my own business, when the bar stools flew out of the bar, then half of them flew back in again.  It’s a sign.”

Throughout the rest of the night and all the next day, the entire community stayed on the telephone line trying to learn who dropped the bomb and why and debated as to how it had missed its assumed target, the military base just a few miles away.  It wasn’t until a couple of days later, we learned it had not been a bomb at all, but that someone had blown up a military bunker.  Within a week we had learned it wasn’t communists or an enemy agent at all, but four teenage boys who had taken on a bigger project than they had expected.

They had thought the bunker was just a shell and dynamited it, but it had been full of stored artillery.  The explosion had caused a three hundred foot crater in what had once been a rolling hill.  The boys had suffered flash burns and when they sought medical attention, it was reported. It was also reported that one of the boys had been too close and had died.

The bomb scare brought to the little community it’s first police force, but not before the citizens had organized their own patrol and was doing their own volunteer watch for trouble makers.  It also very neatly leveled out a large chunk of real estate that was carved into wealthy homes to be sold on the exclusive Powder Ridge.  Powder Ridge residents, of course, have no idea how their real estate got its name, but the locals who remember would rather leave that capricious piece of land to deal with its ghosts.

The day the East and the West decided to end their race to build nuclear arms and stack them along the borders was a day of enormous relief for Alaskan residents.  The day the missile silo was dismantled was like removing a giant shadow that had lingered too long, its dreary tread too pronounced, from in front of the sun.  We had been frightened by a bomb that wasn’t a bomb.  We had gone out to chase an enemy that wasn’t there.  An entire generation has grown up with no idea of what it means to be in the middle of a Cold War.  It’s dreary.  It’s dark.  It’s filled with distrust.  Every day, when you wake up, you feel lucky that everything is normal, that coffee is brewing in the kitchen, that trees are waving outside your door and that the bomb hasn’t dropped.

By: Mike

So, bearing in mind that you only read the little tale after agreeing to keep it quiet, I will start…………………..

The year before last, I decided to take my good lady to Ireland and to visit some of the places where I used to holiday as a boy and youth. Being now in our late 70’s and having been married for over 40 years we decided that we were in no hurry to get anywhere and had plenty of time to take in the sights and sounds of the fair isle.

So there we were stepping off the plane at Dublin Airport, going through the usual rigmarole in getting out of the terminal and collecting our hired car. We headed south to my home town on the east coast………..

The first major shock was that there were so many cars compared to the last time I had been over and the new motorways heading in all directions caused me some problems. Road signs in Ireland can, to say the very least, be quite confusing. However, we reached my sister’s home and settled in.

The next morning, with the promise of a beautiful bright June day greeting us, we headed west to Galway. Once again the quality of the motorways surprised and confused me but we reached Athlone in good time. Having had a wonderful lunch there we continued and within a couple more hours we reached Galway. We chose Salthill on the outskirts as our base and had no problem in finding a first rate Bed and Breakfast. We intended to stay a few nights and then continue on to Achill Island further north.

It was that first night there that the story really begins. We visited a couple of the old pubs that I used to visit when I was younger and fond of my beer. There was Irish singing and music in the first but a little too noisy for us so we moved on. We came to a backstreet pub where everything was soft, quite and very comfortable. Although there was some singing, it was not very loud. Some of the older men were also reciting old poems and telling some beautiful old Irish stories. Some I remembered from my schooldays and they brought back some wonderful memories…………

All in all, it was a beautiful evening and it was quite late when we returned to where we were staying. After a very comfortable and restful night, it was decided that her ladyship (my good wife) would spend the day shopping in Galway whilst I would take the car and my fishing gear to Lough Corrib which was a short distance out of the city of Galway. I hired a boat and was looking forward to a fair day’s fishing.

As I may have said, it was a beautiful sunny day with not a cloud in the sky. The lake was like a milk-pond with barely a ripple on the water. There was little or no sound other than the occasional splash of a trout or salmon jumping in the distance. The birds were in great song. I was at peace with the world and happy with my surroundings.

As I rowed up the lake I was suddenly met by a strange mist on the water which rapidly surrounded me. I quickly lost all sense of direction and rowed slowly trying to get out of the mist hoping beyond hope that I would quickly get my bearings. I had no such luck and as the minutes passed by I was getting more lost…………

I had been rowing for almost an hour when suddenly I came out of the mist and entered an area of the lake that was totally strange and eerie to me. Everything seemed different and the colours were more vibrant than when I started. There was no sign of any buildings on the shoreline and in fact, no sign of life whatsoever……………………….

I turned the boat towards the nearest shore and rowed towards it. When I was about three hundred yards from what looked like a pebble beach and where I intended to land, I began to hear human voices. When I say human voices, I should add that they appeared to be children’s voices echoing across the water…….

As I pulled the boat up onto the pebble beach a group of children made their way towards me. They were dressed as if they were having a fancy-dress party and all looked about ten years old. As they spoke rapidly I recognised that they were speaking Gaelic but far too rapidly for me to understand only the occasional word or two. I spoke in English and asked for directions back to the boat-house. They began to laugh…………..

A taller youth came from higher up the beach and asked me more or less in Gaelic what was my problem. I could not think of the Irish word for ‘lost’ so told him so in English. He laughed and spoke back to me in broken English. He said “Lost is it, you are? Sure now, didn’t I think that you were one of the lucky ones to find us”. “What do you mean?” I asked puzzled. “Sure now, haven’t you reached the end of the rainbow and found yourself in Tir na nOg” he replied in quite a matter of fact tone of voice.

Now it might have been fifty years since I left school where I learned Gaelic, but I knew damn well what Tir na nOg meant. The Land of the Young or more romantically in Irish myth as The Land of Eternal Youth. I laughed at the thought and must admit that I came out with a word that should never be used in front of children. He stepped back and looked at me as if puzzled………….

“And would you be doubting my word?” he asked. “Certainly not” I lied, “I was merely laughing at the children’s clothes”. “Oh that” he answered “sure we have no need for finery here. By the way, my name is Fioneen”. “Hello Fioneen” I replied “and mine is Michael”. “Welcome to Tir na nOg” he said at the same time as giving a low bow. “Would you be hungry?” he asked. “If it pleases you” I answered and followed him up the embankment.

When we reached level ground I could see several thatched cottages and gardens containing all types of flowers in blossom. Once again, I noticed that there was not a single adult to be seen. We entered one of the cottages and there was a table laden with all types of food. It looked inviting and he offered me a seat.

I ate some of the food which was delicious and drank some fresh milk. As I did so, Fioneen and several of the others watched with interest. When finished, I thanked him for the food and drink then said “I don’t mean to be rude Fioneen, but could you direct me back to the boathouse, my wife will be worried if I am too late”.

There were gasps from several of the children and Fioneen seemed quite shocked. “Sure won’t you be staying?” he asked in surprise. “No, no” I answered “I have got to get back”. “And would you not like to be young and healthy again like the rest of us and spend your time in such a peaceful place”. “Not without her ladyship” I answered. “You would not like to stay in such a wondrous place where you will never age again, never have aches and pains and never be sick. In a place where the sun always shines and it never rains or snows nor frosts. You mean you would give all that up for her ladyship?” he asked.

“It is very tempting Fioneen, but no, I certainly would not” I answered in honesty. “She must be a fine woman for you to forego such an offer Michael me boy” Fioneen had a smile on his face as he spoke. “Tis true Fioneen” I replied “not for all the time in the world would I swop her”.

“So be it then Michael. You know, you will never get another chance to come and join us” Fioneen had a sad look upon his face. “Thank you Fioneen” I replied “for your kind offer but sure I will take life as it comes – come what may”.

With that he walked me back to the shore and the boat. As he pushed the boat away and I took up the oars, there was a clap of thunder and a bright flash of lightning. As I quickly looked back to the shore to see if anyone was injured I was shocked to see that there was no one there. There was nothing to suggest that I had been ashore and certainly no sign of any living thing, human or otherwise……………………….

I rowed in the direction that Fioneen had told me and once again I was shrouded in mist. However, this time as I came out of it I could see the houses not far away and the boathouse from where I had hired the boat. I made my way there quickly.

I sat in the car for a good hour thinking about what had happened and although I was happy that the event had taken place, I was a little unsure as to whether or not I had just fallen asleep out on the lake and imagined the wondrous place and people that I had seen.

Tir na nOg – what a magical thought. A place where it never rains, the sun always shines. A place where there is no illness, pain or death……………Magic…….

Now and again, I think of what happened and still, if offered the same choice again – to live in the Land of Eternal Youth or continue as I am – I would definitely make the same choice – after all I don’t know what I would do without Her Ladyship, God Bless Her…………………