Vanilla Entry Archive – Summer, Fall, Winter ’08
Friday, November 28, 2008
What’s wrong with "an eye for an eye?"
"An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" is a pretty common phrase; a phrase which is generally rebuked by the follow up; "An eye for an eye, and the whole world is blind." I remember, as a kid, hearing the first one and having it make sense immediately…when I was later rebuked with the second, I accepted it as true without really understanding it, out of respect for the source.
Now that I understand how they’re -both- interpreted, I must say I’m a bit disappointed. Contrary to my initial belief, that "eye for an eye" was just a flat level of justice, carried out by an uninvolved third party, it’s actually interpreted to mean, simply, "revenge." If someone strikes you, get angry and strike back.
It appears that the philosophical problem with the concept of revenge is really just with the destructive danger of general "emotion," with wisdom concerning the nature of the escalation of violence and potential for innocent people getting caught up in the damages. But say you take emotion out of the equation, and apply it to everyone in a general sense. I’d hazard to say that if one applied the concept of "an eye for an eye" on a perpetual, emotionless, and regular basis, that it may actually help avoid eye gouging all together. Examples:
Give to the givers.
Take from the takers.
Respect the respectful.
Annoy the obnoxious.
Admire the humble.
Look down on the condescending.
Be nice to the kind.
Ridicule the insulting.
Believe the genuine.
Don’t trust the shady.
I can understand turning the other cheek if someone reacts to you with emotion, but dragging that piece of wisdom into the realm of acts committed by one’s simple nature may be folly I think. Maybe I’m wrong, or skewed…or maybe it could be argued that no one has the ability to discern emotional acts from natural acts, but it just makes sense.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Get a rope…
On my way home from the AT&T store a moment ago after having a nice chat with a greased down slick talking "Chuck" style gen-y fella named…wait let me see here, he gave me his card (snap-fire 80’s-guy style, pinched between pointer and middle finger)…and, well, apparently I threw it out the second I walked out the door. Shucks.
Anyway, I roll back into downtown Petoskey and notice a disturbing amount of Subi’s parked up and down the streets…made all the more disquieting by several ominous pairs of long-haireds all walking in the same direction– coincidentally, the same direction I was going. I pass the Petoskey street intersection with one more block to go before the highway, and as the congested downtown buildings breeze past, and the vista of of the M-31 intersection pans into sight, I am greeted with a Lovecraftian horror, the likes of which I’ve thus far been fortunate enough to evade.
Droves upon hordes upon LEGIONS of hippies surround the confused-traffic clusterfucked intersection of Mitchell and M-31, flanking the situation from every conceivable angle– across the road, in the road, on either side of Mitchel Street, and so forth…I quickly rolled my window up to escape the terrible Nazgul-like sound of twenty cars awkwardly and erratically honking, creeping through the mob at near-negative speeds. I must say it was extremely difficult to avert my eyes while maintaining control of my vehicle, as each moment of gazing at dancing Obaminator signs, smug grins, and gloved waving hands was like peering into the opened Arc of the Covenant at the end of the Indiana Jones flick.
Somehow I persevered without melting or exploding, and made it home. Unfortunately my porch is both within earshot, and eyeshot of the intersection, so at present I’m barricaded behind two walls of insulation, at the back of my apartment, just to avoid the demonic urge to KILL ALL HIPPIES that seems to stem from each wave I see, and honk I hear. Maybe I could get over it if the mob’s formula wasn’t already predictably in Martha Stu
art’s cookbook (1 part college know it all hippies, 1 part clueless teenagers, 2 parts old hippies). Maybe it’s the fact that Petoskey is the most liberal city in northern Michigan, and protesting for Obama here is like hanging out inside the Walmart foyer with signs that say "Shop at Walmart!" Maybe I just hate seeing people deceive themselves into the illusion that they’re "trying to make a difference," when they’re just out there for themselves to either have some good pack-mentality time, or maintain the illusion that they’re an active member of the greater society- to further justify endless hippie rants at many a dinner party to come. Or maybe I’m just a grumpy old man who’s irritated by the noise..
Sunday, October 19, 2008
My Very Own Personal Depression
I dream I’m standing in an upstairs bedroom, holding a large heavy ball. I drop the ball, and it falls to the floor…through the floor…through the ground floor…through the basement cement, where it suddenly begins to gain mass and suck everything downward..
I awake to the sound of distant violins, and sit up…tossing my newspaper blanket off, and tuning the old radio to the news to check for any word on the recent economic collapse, but there’s only petty talk of Hoover and Roosevelt. Putting on my dirty torn wool coat, I walk over to the corner and lift the loose board. Underneath, my cache of essentials; jar of pennies, small bag of rice, smaller bag of kidney beans. I grab a handful of the pennies and replace the board, throwing on my bowler hat and torn raggedy mittens. My stomach rumbles. I head out the door and walk, hunched over with my collar up, to the corner store. Though I don’t quite have enough, I’m able to barter myself a piece of meat, and on the way back home I pause to warm myself on a burning barrel. I debate whether to cook it with the rice or the kidney beans, and wonder if I should use the last of my salt on the meal, or save it for a special occasion.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Who are you?
I am alpha and omega.
First and last.
Beginning and end.
Seen and unseen.
Forwards and backwards.
Above and below.
Apples and oranges.
Love and loathing.
Wrath and compassion.
Revenge and forgiveness.
Ignorance and enlightenment.
Round and angular.
Religious and secular.
Exaltation and despair.
Everything and nothing.
Man and woman.
Life and death.
Hot and cold.
(but never lukewarm)
Some of you may have caught the little tidbit in the news about a recent organized evangelical stand against that little clause in the law that revokes tax-exempt status from any church whose preacher or pastor uses the pulpit for political persuasion (and perhaps my purposeful plethora of pertinent p-words is poorly postured penmanship). Some forty or so churches have come together, protest style, to break that particular law, hoping that their numbers will protect them from retribution. Supporters of the law as it stands believe that without this particular clause the separation of church and state would be at risk, something I feel is very important, and something I also feel is already falling apart.
Injecting moral obligation into practical process, like economic management, poisons the credibility of voting, ie the will of the people. A person may prefer the way this person here handles economic issues, but is morally obligated to vote otherwise if he or she happens to be of faith, and feels the need to defend life at all costs, above any other priority. Our last president was elected into office on his relateability, and his moral character, thanks to Karl Rove and the rise of the evangelicals. While he stifled abortion efforts slightly, he also flushed the nation down the toilet while he did it.
Critics, intellectuals, and comedians like Bill Maher and George Carlin blame religion, and the religious, on this election-short-sightedness…more often than not in a smug, condescending fashion, as if secularism had a monopoly on intelligence. Oddly enough, (and while there is a lot in between), most of the dumbest people I know are atheists, while the most brilliant people I know happen to be Catholics. Smart liberals blame conservative masses for being retarded, instead of blaming the smart conservatives, like Karl Rove, who unlawfully used moral obligation to achieve their own political goals, as it is contradictory to the separation of church and state; the entire reason this country was founded in the first place.
One can not blame religion for problems in law and politics, as it has no place there (as learned by the inquisition, the current state of Iran, and so forth), one can only blame the efforts of anyone who tries to merge the two. Evangelicals, like Islamic extremists, believe that it is their duty to convert everyone, and would prefer a theocracy above all else.
In closing, I’d just like to say….fuck Sarah Silverman. Sarcasm is only funny when there’s a REAL PERSON behind it who isn’t afraid to peek out from time to time, otherwise you just come off as insecure and soulless.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Flash-game-advertisement God
Now, I hate to brag, but after playing a few of those flash game advertisement banners (escape the sharks! knock out George Bush! shoot the tie fighters! shave the hillbilly!) I must say I think I’ve found my calling. So good am I, in fact, that I can beat the games in MERE SECONDS, and am swiftly thereafter taken away to my prize in a seperate window (often MANY seperate windows). It almost seems as though I have some kind of divine zen ability to just blindly shoot from the hip and hit something… like I was BORN for it. Sometimes it seems like my computerized opponants, awed by my reputation and greatness, don’t even fight back…and instead resign themselves to their fate of being mercilessly felled by my fists of fury (aka mouse cursor). Look for me at the 2009 flash game ad championships, I plan on signing up for it on monday morning…
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The Oldest Cemetery in the World
So I just got back from the oldest cemetery in the world, and by got back from, I actually mean woke up from. Only moments ago I stretched and showered off one of the most delightful and well balanced dreams I’ve ever had. It came with no strong desire to go back to the dream upon awaking, nor was there any great appreciation for suddenly being awake, through the fear or dread that are often associated with nightmares. Instead I awoke feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and recharged.
The cemetery was actually a tall island…not a very large island, but large enough to accommodate a fe
w groves and pathways and tall thick trees. It’s height and general roundness was impressive (imagine the giant turtle shell in The Never Ending Story), and there were many trees jutting straight out of it like porcupine quills. I recall wandering from the path to have a look at one of the rusty supports that held the trees that were like that in place, and suddenly got a queasy feeling in my stomach as I realized I was somehow straddling one of those trees, looking about 40 feet down to squirming bright blue water, and had no recollection of how I crawled out there, but was suddenly presented with the dilemma of turning around on the branch and crawling back, a semi-frighting experience if you’ve ever done it and are afraid of heights. The dream balanced the strange tallness of the island by having it all together dwarfed by a monstrous sheer rock face, like the side of a quarry, or a tropical ocean cliff, which I took to be the mainland next to the small island. There were zig zagging paths, and dangerous looking two tracks running up it, and I asked a woman in a brown rain coat what was up there, or how it was going up there, and she responded that it’s not as bad as it looks. In fact, she used to come down to the island and get drunk with her friends when she was a teenager, and remarked with a laugh that she had made the trek back up numerous times while intoxicated, so it couldn’t be all that bad. The weather was immaculate. Sunny, breezy, and cool at high noon. There was bountiful shade in the cemetery island, though there were no actual grave stones. It was more like a park for tourists, which was evident in the small and inconsequentially discreet graffiti that was littered here and there. Lumps everywhere suggested rape and abuse of the soil and rocks in eons passed, so it was quite convincing for an old cemetery in that regard.
By the time I was done enjoying the fresh air and the scenic majesty of the island it was beginning to get dark. For reasons unbeknown to me I decided not to take the jagged zig zagging route back up the cliff face, and instead wandered north along the beach, looking for a better way up. Eventually the sheer rock relaxed, and faded into a more gradually inclining hill, and after stumbling into a path there I decided to take it. About a quarter of a mile up the hill and through the woods I came to an old rusted truck parked in the middle of the trail. It looked like a heavy equipment truck, maybe from the 70s. It was a collage of twisting white paint and rust, and behind it in the shadows lurked a number of sunken structures and twisted equipment which gave me the impression that it was some kind of abandoned industrial property. I pried open one of the doors on the truck, and the scent of aged newspapers and damp rotten leather rolled out to greet my nose. The seats were ripped, but the stick looked ok, so I tried to start it. Nothing. Then I woke up.