Freedom Now

I heard some knocking around at the front door. It was faint. Denise, that strawberry, faded grey blonde next door thumped the door quietly like that when she was over too much and knew it made me gurgle from fucking constantly in the heat and after a few beers in a row. I brushed her off a few times and she would ask me “Don’t you think I’m beautiful anymore? What’s the matter? Are we through already?”

“We aren’t through because we haven’t started anything.”

“Don’t say that! Shit. You can be such a prick sometimes” And she would come over to me and stomp on the bridge of my foot. She broke it one time. “Why are you such a god damn prick to me all of the sudden? Right out of the blue! It’s the booze. That’s what it is. It’s the damn booze!”

“Don’t do that…” I would look her in the eye, firmly, surely, and after about 15 rounds of this shit, I said it smiling and holding out my index finger. I didn’t have to yell to put the fear in her. And I really didn’t want to put the fear in her, but it was one of those things that had to happen to cure the infection passing through between us from time to time. “Do not! Do…not…ever fuck with my drinking.”

“I’m the end of the line for you, you prick! Do you hear me? No one else will ever love you again!”

“Love?” I grinned whenever she used the word. I would say it with my back to her, turning slowly, wryly, and smile. It took one summer for her to learn to heel.

I heard the thump again and pushed to get to the door. “Why the hell do you have to come over in this god damn heat?” I yelled. I had to yank on the fucking door three times to pull it out of the warped door frame, only to find that no one was there. Pulling on the door was a mistake. My pulse rushed and my head throbbed where it hit the steering wheel. “Fuck. There’s nobody here.” The excess weight was getting to me. My ankles reddened and blew up like bags tightly filled with water. I thought she might be toying with me or trying to find a new way to play the game, some way to get in again behind enemy lines. I stand at the front door and stare at her. She is out there, bent over with her ass in my direction. She turns to me without standing upright, wipes her brow with the wrist, and just gives me the look: “What?” Her hands are covered in dark soil; she is holding a trowel in one hand and a bunch of green, stringy looking, shitty plants in the other.

It’s a stand-off. I don’t want to speak, but I say it anyway “Don’t get cute. It’s too goddamn hot for that.”

“What do you mean?”

I knew I should have just kept my mouth shut. But what the hell? The game has started. “You know w hat I mean. ‘Can Barry come out to play?’”

“What are you whining about?”

I smiled, pointing my finger.

She stood up right and pulled the tight tank top down over the folds of obesity that rolled out from under it. “Stick that finger in your ass. I’ve got work to do” We stared at each other for another minute and she went back to it, sweet as you please. I shut the door to get out of the sun. My head was throbbing, so I opened a cold one and tried to do some writing. I don’t know where she got the courage for that one, and I didn’t have the desire to engage. The neighbors might get the idea that we were a thing, or something.

My head hurt so bad I had to sit at my desk and close my eyes for a second. I heard a mouse trap snap in the kitchen and I wanted to yell at the cat, but all I could do was mumble. “What’s the matter tough guy? You on strike or something? That trap’s making you look bad.” I wandered to
the couch and held the cold can on my head and started to dose off. There was another thump at the door. This time I looked out the picture window, and I vaguely sensed they were standing out of view on purpose. Like the salesmen and the Adventists often do. “If he knocks again, I’ll answer the door naked.” I slept better than I had in awhile that day.

It’s been a long summer. Airfares, burials, wines that foam, flowing forth like Niagra surging steadily, a thousand tons of fluid a minute with a surety that you cannot survive. I am just returning back from a hiatus at the villa to get working on a documentary. Whoever posted the comment on the fiction, thanks for responding to it. For now? I’ll have a cold one in your honor, Roger.

Age 77 went to be with The Lord, Sunday, June 18, 2006. Dorothy was born March 28, 1929, in Saginaw, Michigan the daughter of Frank and Mary Steffe. Mrs. Kelshaw has been a member of the Lansing area since 1957. She was a registered nurse at St. Lawrence from 1957 to 1991 when she retired. Dorothy never stopped nursing. Even after work she cared for all that needed help; that was her life. She enjoyed sewing, knitting and camping. Dorothy was a member at Church of the Resurrection for 49 years, her faith was very important to her. She was preceded in death by her loving husband, Douglas W. Kelshaw. Dorothy is survived by her 4 children, Pamela (John) Rosevear, Lisa Terry, Douglas Kelshaw and Carolyn (Robert) Thomas; sister, Evelyn Abbey; sister-in-law, Ruth Steffe. Also surviving are 5 grandchildren. The Funeral Mass will be celebrated, Wednesday, June 21, 2006, 11:00 AM at Church of the Resurrection with Rev. Fr. Koenigsknecht as celebrant. Entombment will follow in St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery. The family will receive relatives and friends, Tuesday, Jun 20, 2006, from 6-8 PM at the Palmer, Bush & Jensen Family Funeral Home, Lansing Chapel where a rosary will prayed at 6:30 PM. Memorial contributions can be made to the American Cancer Society or Hospice House of Mid-Michigan in memory of Dorothy.

By Stephen Colbert, AlterNet. Posted June 5, 2006.
‘Outsourcing is so easy that I had this speech today written by a young man named Panjeeb from Bangalore.’ Tools

Get your own TV show.
The following is the full transcript of Stephen Colbert’s June 3, 2006, Commencement Address at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois.

Stephen Colbert [Pours water into a glass at the podium, splashes face and back of neck] …

Thank you. Thank you very much. First of all, I’m facing a little bit of a conundrum here. My name is Stephen Colbert, but I actually play someone on television named Stephen Colbert, who looks like me, and who talks like me, but who says things with a straight face he doesn’t mean. And I’m not sure which one of us you invited to speak here today. So, with your indulgence, I’m just going to talk, and I’m going to let you figure it out.

I wanted to say something about the Umberto Eco quote that was used earlier from “The Name of the Rose.” That book fascinated me because in it these people are killed for trying to get out of this library a book about comedy, Aristotle’s commentary on comedy. And what’s interesting to me is one of the arguments they have in the book is that comedy is bad because nowhere in the New Testament does it say that Jesus laughed. It says Jesus wept, but never did he laugh.

But, I don’t think you actually have to say it for us to imagine Jesus laughing. In the famous episode where there’s a storm on the lake, and the fishermen are out there. And they see Jesus on the shore, and Jesus walks across the stormy waters to the boat. And St. Peter thinks, “I can do this. I can do this. He keeps telling us to have faith and we can do anything. I can do this.” So he steps out of the boat and he walks for — I don’t know, it doesn’t say — a few feet, without sinking into the waves. But then he looks down, and he sees how stormy the seas are. He loses his faith and he begins to sink. And Jesus hot-foots it over and pulls him from the waves and says, “Oh you of little faith.” I can’t imagine Jesus wasn’t suppressing a laugh. How hilarious must it have been to watch Peter — like Wile E. Coyote — take three steps on the water and then sink into the waves.

Well it’s an honor to be giving your commencement address here today at Knox College. I want to thank Mr. Podesta for asking me two, two and a half years ago, was it? Something like that? We were in Aspen. You know being people who go to Aspen. He asked me if I would give a speech at Knox College, and I think it was the altitude, but I said yes. I’m very glad that I did.

On a beautiful day like this I’m reminded of my own graduation 20 years ago, at Northwestern University. I didn’t start there, I finished there. On the graduation day, a beautiful day like this. We’re all in our gowns. I go up on the podium to get my leather folder with my diploma in it. And as I get it from the dean, she leans in close to me and she smiles, and she says [train whistle] that’s my ride, actually. I have got to get on that train, I’m sorry. [Heads off stage.] Evidently that happens a lot here. So, I’m getting my folder, and the dean leans into me, shakes my hand and says, “I’m sorry.” I have no idea what she means. So I go back to my seat and I open it up. And, instead of having a diploma inside, there’s a scrap — a torn scrap of paper — that has scrawled on it, “See me.” I kid you not.

Evidently I had an incomplete in an independent study that I had failed to complete. And I did not have enough credits. And, let me tell you, when your whole family shows up and you get to have your picture taken with them — and instead of holding up your diploma, you hold the torn corner of a yellow legal pad — that is a humbling experience. But eventually, I finished. I got my credits and next year at Christmas time, they have mid-year graduation. And I went there to get my diploma then. They said that I had an overdue library fine and they wouldn’t give it to me again. And they eventually mailed it to me I think. I’m pretty sure I graduated from college.

But I guess the question is, why have a two-time commencement loser like me speak to you today? Well, one of the reasons they already mentioned I recovered from that slow start. And I was recently named by Time magazine one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World! Yeah! Give it up for me! Basic cable THE WORLD! I guess I have more fans in sub-Saharan Africa than I thought. I’m right here on the cover between Katie Couric and Bono. That’s my little picture — a sexy little sandwich between those two.

But if you do the math, there are 100 Most Influential People in the World. There are 6.5 billion people in the world. That means that today I am here representing 65 million people. That’s as big as some countries. What country has about 65 million people? Iran? Iran has 65 million people. So, for all intents and purposes, I’m here representing Iran today. Don’t shoot.

But the best reason for me to come to speak at Knox College is that I attended Knox College. This is part of my personal history that you will rarely see reported. Partly because the press doesn’t do the proper research. But mostly because it is not true! I just made it up, so this moment would be more poignant for all of us. How great would it be if I could actually come back here — if I was coming back to my alma mater to be honored like this. I could share with you all my happy memories that I spent here in Galesburg, Illinois. Hanging out at the Seymour Hall, right? Seymour Hall? You know, all of us alumni, we remember being at Seymour Hall, playing those drinking games. We played a drinking game called Lincoln-Douglas. Great game. What you do is, you act out the Lincoln-Douglas debate and any time one of the guys mentions the Dred Scott decision, you have to chug a beer. Well, technically three-fifths of a beer. [groans from audience]

You DO have a good education! I wasn’t sure if anybody was going to get that joke.

I soon learned that a frat house — oops — divided against itself cannot stand.

How can I forget cheering on the team — the Knox College Knockers? The Prairie Fire. Seriously, the Prairie Fire. Your team is named after something that can get you federal disaster relief. I assume the “Flash Floods” was taken.

Oh, yes, the memories are so fresh. It was as if it was just yesterday I made them up. And the history, you don’t have to tell me the history of Knox College. No, your website is very thorough. The college itself has long been known for its diversity. I am myself a supporter of diversity. I myself have an interracial marriage. I am Irish and my wife is Scottish. But we work it out. And it is fitting, most fitting, that I should speak at Knox College today because it was founded by abolitionists. And I gotta say — I’m going to go out on the limb here — I believe slavery was wrong. No, I don’t care who that upsets. I just hope the mainstream media give me the credit for the courage it took to say that today. I know the blogosphere is just going to explode tomorrow. But enough about me. If there can be enough about me.

Today is about you — you who have worked so hard to pack your heads with learning until your skulls are all plump like — sausage of knowledge. It’s an apt metaphor, don’t question it. But now your time at college is at an end. Now you are leaving here. And this leads me to a question that just isn’t asked enough at commencements. Why are you leaving here?

This seems like a very nice place. They have a lovely website. Besides, have you seen the world outside lately? They are playing for KEEPS out there, folks. My God, I couldn’t wait to get here today just so I could take a breather from the real world. I don’t know if they told you what’s happened while you’ve matriculated here for the past four years. The world is waiting for you people with a club. Unprecedented changes happening in the last four years. Like globalization. We now live in a hyperconnected, global economic, outsourced society. Now there are positives and minuses here. And a positive is that globalization helps us understand and learn from otherwise foreign cultures. For example, I now know how to ask for a Happy Meal in five different languages. In Paris, I’d like a “Repas Heureux.” In Madrid a “Comida Feliz.” In Calcutta, a “Kushkana, hold the beef.” In Tokyo, a “Happy Seto” And in Berlin, I can order what is perhaps the least happy-sounding Happy Meal, a “Glugzig Malzeiht.”

Also globalization, email, cell phones interconnect our nations like never before. It is possible for even the most insulated American to have friends from all over the world. For instance, I recently received an email asking me to help a deposed Nigerian prince who is looking for a business partner to recuperate his fortune. Thanks to the flexibility of global banking, a Swiss bank account is ready and waiting for my share of his money. I know, because I just emailed him my Social Security number.

Unfortunately for you job seekers, corporations searching for a better bottom line have moved many of their operations overseas, whether it’s a customer service operator, a power factory foreman, or an American flag manufacturer. They’re just as likely to be found in Shanghai as Omaha. In fact, outsourcing is so easy that I had this speech today written by a young man named Panjeeb from Bangalore.

If you don’t like the jokes, I assure you they were much funnier in Urdu

And when you enter the work force, you will find competition from those crossing our all-too-poorest borders. Now I know you’re all going to say, “Stephen, Stephen, immigrants built America.” Yes, but here’s the thing — it’s built now. I think it was finished in the mid-70s sometime. At this point it’s a touch-up and repair job. But thankfully Congress is acting and soon English will be the official language of America. Because if we surrender the national anthem to Spanish, the next thing you know, they’ll be translating the Bible. God wrote it in English for a reason! So it could be taught in our public schools.

So we must build walls. A wall obviously across the entire southern border. That’s the answer. That may not be enough — maybe a moat in front of it, or a fire-pit. Maybe a flaming moat, filled with fire-proof crocodiles. And we should probably wall off the northern border as well. Keep those Canadians with their socialized medicine and their skunky beer out. And because immigrants can swim, we’ll probably want to wall off the coasts as well. And while we’re at it, we need to put up a dome, in case they have catapults. And we’ll punch some holes in it so we can breathe. Breathe free. It’s time for illegal immigrants to go — right after they finish building those walls. Yes, yes, I agree with me.

There are so many challenges facing this next generation, and as they said earlier, you are up for these challenges. And I agree, except that I don’t think you are. I don’t know if you’re tough enough to handle this. You are the most coddled generation in history. I belong to the last generation that did not have to be in a car seat. You had to be in car seats. I did not have to wear a helmet when I rode my bike. You do. You have to wear helmets when you go swimming, right? In case you bump your head against the side of the pool. Oh, by the way, I should have said, my speech today may contain some peanut products.

My mother had 11 children: Jimmy, Eddie, Mary, Billy, Morgan, Tommy, Jay, Lou, Paul, Peter, Stephen. You may applaud my mother’s womb. Thank you, I’ll let her know. She could never protect us the way you all have been protected. She couldn’t fit 11 car seats. She would just open the back of her Town & Country — stack us like cord wood: four this way, four that way. And she put crushed glass in the empty spaces to keep it steady. Then she would roll up all the windows in the winter time and light up a cigarette. When I die I will not need to be embalmed, because as a child my mother hickory-smoked me.

I mean even these ceremonies are too safe. I mean this mortarboard look, it’s padded. It’s padded everywhere. When I graduated from college, we had the edges sharpened. When we threw ours up in the air, we knew some of us weren’t coming home.

But you have one thing that may save you, and that is your youth. This is your great strength. It is also why I hate and fear you. Hear me out. It has been said that children are our future. But does that not also mean that we are their past? You are here to replace us. I don’t understand why we’re here helping and honoring them. You do not see union workers holding benefits for robots.

But you seem nice enough, so I’ll try to give you some advice. First of all, when you go to apply for your first job, don’t wear these robes. Medieval garb does not instill confidence in future employers — unless you’re applying to be a scrivener. And if someone does offer you a job, say yes. You can always quit later. Then at least you’ll be one of the unemployed as opposed to one of the never-employed. Nothing looks worse on a resume than nothing.

So, say “yes.” In fact, say “yes” as often as you can. When I was starting out in Chicago, doing improvisational theatre with Second City and other places, there was really only one rule I was taught about improv. That was, “yes-and.” In this case, “yes-and” is a verb. To “yes-and.” I yes-and, you yes-and, he, she or it yes-ands. And yes-anding means that when you go onstage to improvise a scene with no script, you have no idea what’s going to happen, maybe with someone you’ve never met before. To build a scene, you have to accept. To build anything onstage, you have to accept what the other improviser initiates on stage. They say you’re doctors — you’re doctors. And then, you add to that: We’re doctors and we’re trapped in an ice cave. That’s the “-and.” And then hopefully they “yes-and” you back. You have to keep your eyes open when you do this. You have to be aware of what the other performer is offering you, so that you can agree and add to it. And through these agreements, you can improvise a scene or a one-act play. And because, by following each other’s lead, neither of you are really in control. It’s more of a mutual discovery than a solo adventure. What happens in a scene is often as much a surprise to you as it is to the audience.

Well, you are about to start the greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what’s going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say “yes.” And if you’re lucky, you’ll find people who will say “yes” back.

Now will saying “yes” get you in trouble at times? Will saying “yes” lead you to doing some foolish things? Yes it will. But don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes.”

And that’s The Word.

I have two last pieces of advice. First, being pre-approved for a credit card does not mean you have to apply for it. And lastly, the best career advice I can give you is to get your own TV show. It pays well, the hours are good, and you are famous. And eventually some very nice people will give you a doctorate in fine arts for doing jack squat.

Congratulations to the class of 2006. Thank you for the honor of addressing you.

–
CoreComm Webmail.
http://home.core.com

MICHIGAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ENDORSES DICK DEVOS!

According to the news release from the Chamber, “The Michigan Chamber supports Dick DeVos for governor because he knows from personal experience what it takes to create jobs in Michigan. The state of Michigan has economic challenges that can best be solved by a decisive business leader.

The Granholm campaign claims to have an economic plan, but the fact is, Jennifer Granholm has repeatedly failed to support Michigan’s job providers. Over the past four years, Gov. Granholm has vetoed many pro-business bills covering key issues such as taxes, health care, and regulatory relief.”

Dick DeVos will provide the leadership that Michigan so desperately needs to turn this state around.

ACTION ITEM: Call your local chambers of commerce and other business groups to encourage them to do the same. Together, we can elect Dick DeVos and turn Michigan around!

WASHINGTON (CNN) — In acknowledging the message was true, President Bush took aim at the messenger Saturday, saying that a newspaper jeopardized national security by revealing that he authorized wiretaps on U.S. citizens after September 11.

After The New York Times reported, and CNN confirmed, a claim that Bush gave the National Security Agency license to eavesdrop on Americans communicating with people overseas, the president said that his actions were permissible, but that leaking the revelation to the media was illegal.

During an unusual live, on-camera version of his weekly radio address, Bush said such authorization is “fully consistent” with his “constitutional responsibilities and authorities.”

Bush added: “Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk.”

He acknowledged during the address that he allowed the NSA “to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations.”

The highly classified program was crucial to national security and designed “to detect and prevent terrorist attacks,” he added.

The NSA eavesdrops on billions of communications worldwide. Although the NSA is barred from domestic spying, it can get warrants issued with the permission of a special court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court.

The court is set up specifically to issue warrants allowing wiretapping on domestic soil.

‘Sad day’

After hearing Bush’s response, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, said there was no law allowing the president’s actions and that “it’s a sad day.”

“He’s trying to claim somehow that the authorization for the Afghanistan attack after 9/11 permitted this, and that’s just absurd,” Feingold said. “There’s not a single senator or member of Congress who thought we were authorizing wiretaps.”

He added that the law clearly lays out how to obtain permission for wiretaps.

“If he needs a wiretap, the authority is already there — the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act,” Feingold said. “They can ask for a warrant to do that, and even if there’s an emergency situation, they can go for 72 hours as long as they give notice at the end of 72 hours.”

Bush defended signing the order by saying that two of the September 11 hijackers who flew the plane into the Pentagon — Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi — “communicated while they were in the United States to other members of al Qaeda who were overseas, but we didn’t know they were here until it was too late.”

He said the authorizations have made it “more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time, and the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.”

Re-authorized 30 times

Sources with knowledge of the program told CNN on Friday that Bush signed the secret order in 2002. The sources refused to be identified because the program is classified.

Bush, however, said he authorized the program on several occasions since the September 11 attacks and that he plans on doing it again.

“I have re-authorized this program more than 30 times,” he said. “I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups.”

The New York Times had not responded to Bush’s allegations that the paper endangered national security as of Saturday afternoon.

But in a Friday statement, Executive Editor Bill Keller said the newspaper postponed publication of the article for a year at the White House’s request, while editors pondered the national security issues surrounding the release of the information.

But after considering the legal and civil liberties aspects, and determining that the story could be written without jeopardizing intelligence operations, the paper ran the story, Keller said, emphasizing that information about many NSA eavesdropping operations is public record.

CNN has not confirmed the exact wording of the president’s order.

The political ramifications of the newspaper’s report were felt even before Bush acknowledged the report’s veracity.

Senators contemplating a vote Friday on whether to renew some controversial portions of the Patriot Act used The New York Times’ report as evidence that the government could not be trusted with the broad powers laid out in the act.

In particular, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, said such behavior by the executive branch “can’t be condoned,” and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said the report swayed his decision on the Patriot Act proposal.

“Today’s revelation that the government listened in on thousands of phone conversations without getting a warrant is shocking and has greatly influenced my vote,” Schumer said. “Today’s revelation makes it very clear that we have to be very careful — very careful.”

Specter, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, added Friday that his committee would immediately begin investigating the matter.

We, as far as Science is concerned, are comprised of atoms. Modern physics speaks of particles smaller yet. Try  a meager boiler plate method of philosophy. “Each person possesses the memory of all hir adventures in combination. By the way, that person, fortified with that memory, would not be the same person; yet it is, because it has gained nothing from anywhere except this memory. Therefore, by the lapse of time, and by virtue of memory, a person(although originally an Infinite Perfection) could become something more than itself; and thus a real development is possible. One can then see a reason for any element deciding to go through this series of incarnations…because so, and only so, can he go; and he suffers the lapse of memory of His own Reality of Perfection which he has during these incarnations, because he knows he will come through unchanged….Therefore, you have an infinite number of gods, individual and equal, though diverse, each one supreme and utterly indestructible.”

I think the most important part of this turn of phrase is at the end where Crowley indicates “…you have an infinite number of gods, individual and equal, though diverse, each one utterly supreme and indestructible.”

But this isn’t just an “atom.” This is Crowley’s atom. More to come,stay tuned.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law 

“State of nature” is a term in political philosophy used in social contract theories to describe the hypothetical condition of humanity before the state’s foundation and its monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force. In a broader sense of the word, a state of nature is the condition before the rule of positive law comes into being. Most discussions of political philosophy start there as a pretext for justifying or de-bunking a given theory.

Now, Crowley doesn’t sit down and spoon feed in any of his works I have read, so I have to practice a little philosophical license and point to one place where he explains a conception of the human condition in the form of an atomic odyssey, a level of pre-social consciousness, transcendant, and in a sense, divorced from the acoutrements of mundane civilization. It comes from the excerpted fragment of “The Book of the Great Auk” in The Law is for All:

“Imagine that each atom of each element possesses the memory of all his adventures in combination. By the way, that atom, fortified with that memory, would not be the same atom; yet it is, because it has gained nothing from anywhere except this memory. Therefore, by the lapse of time, and by virtue of memory, a thing (although originally an Infinite Perfection) could become something more than itself; and thus a real development is possible. One can then see a reason for any element deciding to go through this series of incarnations…because so, and only so, can he go; and he suffers the lapse of memory of His own Reality of Perfection which he has during these incarnations, because he knows he will come through unchanged….Therefore, you have an infinite number of gods, individual and equal, though diverse, each one supreme and utterly indestructible.”

We are mentally deviated from a Higher State, like the atom, a state of beauty. This isn’t specifically refering to an aesthetic of beauty, but more so, a deeper radiance of the Life Force in the course of day-to-day existence. (I think of the movie Full Metal Jacket and the cinematography of that flick. It is a wonderful rendering of how beauty can even be found in the bleakest of circumstances, annihilation.)

Unlike Hobbes’ philosophy of Bellum omnium contra omnes, Liber vel Legis tells us in I,3: “Every man and every woman is a star. “  We have a right to do anything we must to preserve our liberty. Some behave “badly,” while others live their lives. The laws of society seem to be designed with the first group in mind; the Hobbesian group. Don’t worry folks, Rousseau is an old favorite of mine, so trust that I haven’t forgotten him. He posits all behavior (”bad or good”)  as a product of civilization. The question in my mind here, is “What is societal law for?”

Once, folks were scoffed for speaking of space travel. Disneyland in California had a “futurist” kiosk showing people communicatiing across long distance with sound and sight both. I remember an episode of Star Trek with Capt Kirk talking as a typewriter punched out everything he said. These things are facts in reality today. And now, Thelema opens the door to which all appearances, is closed and locked, the door to One’s Reality of Perfection.

Unite, siblings in Thelema, and love its Providence. To the deaf and the blind, this is heresy.

Stay Tuned……..

Love is the Law

Love under Will

“To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so…[it] is to be…registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public interest…to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed: then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is morality.”

P.J. Proudhon, The General Idea of Revolution in the Nineteenth Century (trans. J.B. Robinson), London, Zwan Publications, 1988, and New York, Free Press, 1988