This Week's Bavarian Fire Drill

Now here's our government at work: I got an e-mail alert at work today. Someone wanted me to protest the elimination of the Team Decision Making process at Child Protective Services, which would leave life-shattering decisions about removing children from their homes to, I dunno, the janitor or something. They want to cut off TDM funding because we can no longer afford that sort of wasteful state spending.

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Yesterday, in the mail, I got a letter from the Feds joyously announcing that my economic stimulus check would arrive any day now. I'm guessing, with an average 3 people per household in this country, that they designed, printed up and mailed out 100 million of these at God knows what cost. Not to mention sending out 100 million checks the following week, each of them made out for $600 or more. I wonder how many battered infants you could save with that kind of money?

Quote Of The Day

“Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos.” -- David Cronenberg

Speak for yourself, Dave.

Jello Biafra: Good Saint Material

What makes this man GOOD SAINT MATERIAL?

1. He sticks by his principles no matter what's going on.

2. He leads by example.

3. He doesn't seem to tie himself up in knots about what the competition is up to.

4. Hard as he tries, he can't seem to get fame to go to his head. That's good, saintly behavior, there.

5. There appears to have been at least one clear attempt to martyr him.

5. He's spent his entire adult life belching forth one inspiring hymn after another DEDICATED TO THE CAUSES WE HOLD DEAR. Like this one:

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"Enchanted Thoughtfist"

I am a product of the television age

Zoom in on what's important

Get the point right away

A modern lack of patience

Is it a virtue?

Hardly ever read books

Devour 'zines and reviews

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I say it again

We all believe what we want to believe

Don't just question authority

Question everything

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Felt I had to confess

In Ginsberg's apartment

My literary background's mostly songs and cartoons

He said 'Oh, that's just fine'

I sort of felt relieved

But when I hurl my word bombs

How much should be believed?

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I say it again

We all believe what we want to believe

Don't just question authority

Don't forget to question me!

Oh yeah, that's right

Take flight with insight

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The pressure of being taken seriously

Breathing down on me

To keep up with my extremes

And keep on planting seeds

Joyous sabotage

So far so good

Now where do we go from here?

It always feels weird

When people come up to me

And say I changed their lives

I say 'Now it's your turn to start a fire!

'Start your own fire

Break the world fire (? )

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I need hardly point out that the lyrics to Jello's tender ballad contain EVERYTHING YOU COULD WANT in a Discordian hymn. Guy even challenges the listener to question what he's saying. This is the real deal.

An Erisian Mantra

"The imaginary is what tends

to become real, and when it does

There's no paint black enough

to cover it up."

-- Maggie Nelson, in Jane: A Murder

Copyrighted 2005, Maggie Nelson

Published by Soft Skull Press

An Erisian Mandala

A Sub-Genius of my acquaintance sent me this. I have no idea where he scared it up -- he certainly has the nose for the offbeat image -- and I really apologize to the image's creator for not being able to give proper credit.

(Feel free to add it via the the Comments link!)

Self-important adolescent types, confronted with an image like this, are quick to point out that it is no proof of talent to be able to create a trompe l'oeil like this. OK, maybe, but A) who cares and B) you only said that because you resent not having come up with it yourself, you snot-nosed kid, proving that someone who's not talented can still manage to make you feel dumb.

ANYWAY:

This has all the important elements of a good, spiritually-focused mandala. It seems to change, or move, as you look at it, the way an Escher print does, or the way a corpse laid out in its coffin seems to breathe. It makes you wonder who the funk that is in the picture, and whether they are actually above or below the pavement, or if they only exist in the thin layer of water on the asphalt. Or maybe they are Shoe Genies that can ghost up out of the insoles at their whim, becoming visible under the right lighting conditions, or on a wet day like this one, or in a way that makes only their reflections visible, like Count Dracula in reverse. It makes you think, in a flickering-past way, how photography works and how someone can twiddle a photo to make this look so real...and so unreal at the same time.

So, pretty cool, Mystery Photographer.