An Homage to Whitman

To the world I sound out my barbarian yawp
I am a Man!
I will not be a mouse
scurrying silently in the cracks and crevices of life
venturing out in the deep of night to steal a crumb, a speck, a mote
I will stride boldly forth in the light of day
Wrap my fist around the neck of life
And drink deep a draught
I declare to the world
I am a Man!
A Free Man
I will live as such
Not still my voice
Or hide my eyes
Not deny my power
Nor dim my shine
My voice will ring out
My boistrous laughter I will release
Let the timid shiver and cast furtive glances
My glare will sweep the field
And out will boom my barbarian yawp
I am a Man!

Surprise, surprise, do not avert your eyes.  There is nothing to see here but can you turn away?  Fascination claims you.

OK, that was nonsensical, but it came off the fingertips.  Today is the last day of February.  Tomorrow is March.  A boundary line will be crossed.

Here at Grace House we are trying to put together a new way of life for ourselves.  We are trying to break free from the corporate economy and create our own.  We are trying to link into the Local economy, trying to be part of this movement the truth of which, and the right of which, I have only recently come to grasp.  It is our salvation.  We began our compost heap yesterday.  Today we will plant our first seeds.  Tomorrow we will begin making our own paper.  We will produce for our needs, and produce surplus for exchange.  We are living communally.  We are attempting to govern ourselves and resolve conflicts through communication and consensus decision-making.  It is about being the change you want.  It is about taking care of ourselves and each other.

I'm not sure how well it will go, as none of us is an experienced grower.  But we will give it a go.  I just know I don't want to be dependent on supermarkets and transnational corporations for my food.  And I don't want to live as an atomized individual anymore.  I want to be interdependent upon the people around me.

My wife has the most perfect lips in the world
My mouth knows no pleasure greater than joining with those lips
They are my gateway to ethereal realms
No surface is more exquisite to the touch than the skin of her back
Trailing my fingers down the flow of her back is like dragging one's tongue through a trickle of pure, fresh honey
No fruit tastes as sweet as the base of her neck
No fiber is finer than her firegold strands of hair wrapped around my fingers
She is my Nirvana
My Paradise
She is the terminus of all my searching
In her my spirit rests

Long Time, No Write

My mind has wandered away from this blog of late.  I have written some personal blog entries, and even one or two on What Is To Be Done?  But I have gotten very busy with my business, and my creativity has suffered.  I have gotten away from the creative state of mind, so to speak.  Sometimes I miss it with a poignance that only a guy approaching middle age can have.

Still, thoughts have percolated, and at times while walking I have felt the flow.  I remain committed to developing the next political philosophy of liberty.  I am convinced that people need to walk away from the corporate society, because the corporate society has no use for people.  Those of us not fortunate enough to be born into the elite, or driven enough (i.e., soulless and unbalanced people) to obsess our way into it, are increasingly unnecessary to the corporate world.  This "globalization" is accelerating the depersonalization of the world.  America has for some twenty five years been a society of disposable people, and that trend is accelerating as technology enables more and more areas of labor to be replaced by machines.  So if the corporate world has no use for us, what use have we for it?

Another thought that I keep coming back to is that a people who cannot produce their own basic needs are by definition a dependent people.  When you depend on another for your basic needs, you are at his mercy.  How many of us could feed ourselves should the money economy collapse?  The less a community produces its own basic needs, the more vulnerable and unstable is that community, subject to the whims of external forces.

My hostility to corporations grows daily.  They are exploitation machines.  I want to get them and their products out of my life.  I want to get rid of the TV.  The TV is the corporate machine's primary method of controlling our minds.  The more we sit in front of it, the more their messages are bombarded into our brains.  The internet has become nearly as bad.  Even books are getting there, although the impending death of Barnes & Noble might have some impact on that.  Of course, Amazon.Com is the barbarian invader pillaging B&N, and that's pretty damn corporate and homogenizing in itself.

Of course, I am using my corporate-made computer, listening to corporate music, using the corporate internet, while wearing my corporate-made clothing, and getting ready to drive my corporate-made car to court.

Jefferson owned slaves.

The mind of Jefferson Junior has conceived another creative project.  That sentence was just a convoluted way of not beginning this entry with "I".  This project would further the legalization agenda.  I have two creative priorities - legalization of marijuana and promoting the revolution.  The nonviolent revolution.  The revolution through election.  OK, anyway, paranoia served, I can now get to the point.

My new creative endeavor is a nonfiction book tentatively titled "The 1973 Nixon Commission: An Opportunity Lost."  For those who don't know, in 1972 President Nixon empaneled a blue ribbon commission to study marihuana (sic) and make policy recommendations.  This panel was made up of heavyweight experts of unimpeachable credentials.  The panel did what such panels tend to do: it took its mission seriously and delved into the issue.  The panel then did what such panels should not do if they want their recommendations to be followed: it surprised Nixon by recommending legalization.  The panel was not supposed to do that.  It was supposed to lend intellectual legitimacy to Nixon's intended crackdown on drugs.  As soon as its report was issued, Nixon set about discrediting it.

I would like to tell this story in detail.  I want to put it in the historical context of independent policy studies of marijuana, which have tended nearly unanimously to recommend legalization.  Studies of scientific literature have tended to discredit the hyped risks and harms and find the drug to be relatively benign and even of some promising potential uses.  American policy toward the drug is somewhat mystifying intellectually when viewed from the perspective of such studies.

Anyway, that is my idea.  I think I will pursue it.  Just another thing on my plate.  My plate overfloweth. That is ok, I am happiest in those circumstances.  I like having too much to do.  I just need to manage my time.  I need to give enough hours to the law practice to keep that going, then devote my other hours to my various demands.

I have such a thirst for knowledge.  I want to learn so many things.  I would love to spend hours every day reading and researching.  Then other hours writing.  Alas, stretches of hours for doing those things are rare.

There are not enough photographs on this blog right now.

"Columbus Vindicated"