The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.......vol.66
Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
I want each and everyone of you to check out this video of the band the Arcade Fire from the month of April 2006, before they became tied for the best band in the world with Radiohead. David Bowie as special guest, was pleased enough to join them on stage. Please watch and like the caption says, if you are not moved, then check yourself for a pulse, you may already be dead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-wEBmLht5g
It was nice to see the crowd by the end of the show, rocking along, as were you, hopefully.
Now for some news.
The proverbial sky is falling on the heads of investment bankers. The bubble has burst on house flippers and struggling home owners. I hate to say I told you so, but when has a one story rambler in Columbia Heights ever been worth $210,000. Please. One bedroom condos in downtown for $160,000. What??? If the lower and the middle class do what they should do with their soon to be received rebate check from good ol' Uncle Sam, which is to save it instead of spend it, then our economy just like our image of foreign policy will go right down the toilet along with our sense of complacent entitlement.
But don't worry, because our lame duck President wants us to be safe. He is very concerned for our safety. Just tell that to the victims of Katrina. He didn't realize that gas could hit $4 a gallon. He hadn't heard that. Too busy playing mad libs. George is begging Congress for a law to remain permanent that would give the federal government permission to eavesdrop on supposed enemy combatants without warrants. It does make sense. I mean you have nothing to hide unless your up to something evil. Right. But then again, Big Brother takes one more step into our living rooms. Next February, we will all need digital TV's. Why??? So they can manipulate our thoughts with some cold war tested mind control? Mk-Ultra baby. But don't worry. Governments can always be trusted to do the right thing.
Germans thought so too.
Currently I am reading "The World is Flat" by Thomas Freidman. Great book. I'm a little late on the ball on this one. But, he speaks the truth. And the truth is that the technology of the 21st century will spread Democracy and free thought to all countries, for one will not be able to stop the inherent human need to consume what is the next exciting new thing and they will be blanketed by free trade, because that sure as hell beats the slave trade, and Capitalism will give it them, whether they like it or not. You have been warned Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia. But it will also trigger what may be the last of all wars. Because totalitarian regimes in the Middle East and due north will not allow their control to slip so easily through their fingers and they will then need a scapegoat to point their meaty war machines at. Everybody needs an opponent. Life is duality.
The steamroller that is growing momentum heading down the hill toward November and may be usurping the "inevitable" candidate is a feeling we call "Obama." I just hope that who may be the first ever Black President doesn't find his way into a bullet from a crazed lone gunmen. It wouldn't surprise me if he did. Or if he turns out to be the Anti-Christ. 20,000 people everywhere he goes, to listen to him speak. What has he really done? Then again, what have I done? Hopefully he is not just another in a long list of false prophets.
Finally, I urge you ladies and gentlemen to give a listen to an artist called Bon Iver. French for good winter. His album "For Emma, Forever Ago" is stark, simple and brilliant. It is the feeling of a winter cabin with a glowing fire place. If you like Van Morrison, Ray Lamontagne, Nick Drake or Damien Rice and even Bob Dylan, give Bon Iver a listen.
That is all for now. Much love peace and happiness.
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Saturday, March 1, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
We are a sub-prime society
The Global Outrage of an Educated Man....vol.65
"I look at people, and I see nothing worth liking." Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) There will be Blood. My pick for Best Picture, Best Actor, Cinematography and Director for 2007.
Good morning. In honor of Dr. King and all that he did for the cause of civil and human rights I give thanks. I would love to remain overtly optimistic and positive, but because of the times we live in and despite his achievements and successes, I cannot because I've come to realize that despite the pleas for differentiation of Republican and Democrat nominees for president, which is the longest job interview of all, is that the power that controls them, is a power that we, the voter have no control over, unless, you're an old white male board member of a fortune 500 Company. Because in the end, we'll most likely be in Iran, fighting the modern day crusades of Christianity vs. Islam.
2008 is looking a lot like 1992 all over again. A Bush will be leaving office, we will be leaving a mess in Iraq and the economy is tanking and quite possibly a Clinton will be living in the Oval Office. A little bit of history repeating.
Meanwhile our good friend Israel is test firing long range nuclear missiles to the dismay of Iran. Only a week after after George W. had left the region, talking of peace and co-existence between Israel and the Arab nations. But I guess being on the receiving end of a holocaust gives a nation a free pass.
Has anybody been paying attention??? It's the economy stupid!! Recession??? We could be heading into a depression. The Bond insurers that have backed the banks that have backed the subprime loans now may be going in default and may be unable to pay the insurance to the banks that have made those loans. What that simply means, that if you're bank can get paid, you're not going to get paid. The federal government needs to step in and buy MBIA and AMBAC, or else, we will slide back into the 1800's. But I'm crazy.
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Sunday, January 13, 2008
Advice from a Good Friend
The Global Outrage of an Educated Man........Vol.64
Good morning ladies and gentlemen on this grey Sunday morning, the 13th of January 2008. It's been a long time coming since my words have reached this outlet of the 21st century.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am writing this from the advice of a good friend. I am writing this because sometimes it takes others to tell you what you need to do, because you can't see the forest from the trees.
This is all original material that I've been compiling since the last time. So hopefully it will have been well worth the wait.
If some of you are confused, at least it is minus the hate.
I am writing this morning to push the blankets of the bed and the dirty sheets aside with the kindling of a fire stoked within my belly, amid the outside temperature of the barely hovering above freezing.
I am writing to inform the uninformed of the bitter sweet pain of being unable to grab the wrist and to draw her to you, as she sits indian style right in front of you, reading a book much too young for her age, as you imagine a young Audrey Hepburn reading "Harry Potter", giggling as she's whispering to her father.
She has the bare shoulders of a woman who has needed to be restrained in the past. The tilt of her neck gives an attitude of indifference and underlying anger. She is a beautiful woman that has had ugly things happen to her and she's been fed up for far too long. She is the fanaticism generated by the accumulation of wealth within the stock market that may be nearing a collapse. Sucking like an ocean's wave everybody in, and then crash. Lying stranded ashore. Alone on a barren beach. She is the opening of the window on the morning bus ride into work that helps cool my feverish mind of the having the obligation of attending the mid week Wednesday, but being reminded that it's all down hill from there.
I have an invisible shield around me that silently forces the oncoming passengers to never sit in the same seat next to me for I am protected from their negativity.
Meanwhile a woman, no more older older than 26 drives a $40k BMW SUV through a neighborhood where her vehicle or symbol of worth is more than people's yearly salary, or at least mine. Where are the children of Darfur on her mind?
It is the joy of the first time. Sitting atop of a neighbor's white suburban garage under the moonlight of a weekend and the parents are out of town.
It is every morning's bus ride with her that is another first date.
It is the street musician serenading the passers by with "Walk the Line" being played upon a flute. It is daring the audience to find the song within their absence of attention.
It is the bus ride through Northeast Minneapolis as we would talk about castles and Loch Ness. It is traveling through England and touring the Guinness brewery. It is if we are getting to know each other better, than someday we'll go together.
As if possibly we've already been and with each other would like to go again.
It is a woman that smells of grape bubble gum with an engagement ring, as she talks of hope for the future and things that will come. It is a tortuous soul, a woman in the coat the color of my car, showing enough leg and nylon to the dangerous men who are no longer boys, and I am reading of coincidences and Beethoven, the influence of novelties and fortuities grace.
She looks my way. It is the idea that her name should be Sunny Rosewater. Cursed to meet a woman I cannot get inside of without having to deal with an itch that can never be cured by a scratch.
It is being blessed by a morning of rainbows, the first of 2008 from across an ocean with a smile and a warm cup or coffee.
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Sunday, September 23, 2007
Cosmic Consciousness
The Global Outrage of an Educated Man......vol.63
It's been a long time coming and for that I have no apologies. I have been dealing with the sadness and the pain of love given, love received and love lost. I have been to the top of the mountain top and seen the rubble of what was once a proud kingdom of the proof of the almighty's omnipotence. All of that could be said for the once proud and powerful Notre Dame football storied past. I have been lost and found. I have been down and out. I have said goodbye to a loved one and found the strength and the beauty in the acceptance of patience and the resilience of the splendor of new starts and new relationships. The simplicity of possibilties of the morning busride and the evening concert with someone who was once your teacher. The summer has come to an end and the falling of leaves and the sounds of football and apples rolling on the lawns and leaves being shuffled through by children on their way to school and giggling and laughing and deciding which Halloween costumes to wear can be heard from block to block and household to household. I am walking a line down which I have no idea where it will end. I am like you and that we have no answers and only questions. We only start and end and finish and begin. I feel like a politician without a microphone. A politician without the money to get his face on the nightly news. Because if you can't raise a half a billion dollars, you can't get your point across. You cannot be a man of the people, by the people and for the people. You're just another puppet for the multinationals and their ever increasing thirst for natural resources and the wars that fund them. Case in point people, our puppet will be speaking at the UN on Tuesday and will be ratcheting up the case for the ever increasing alarmist bell ringing endorsement of military force against Iran. We have to realize that we are living in a world gone mad. We are in "Network" without Peter Finch. I will play that part of screaming "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!" We live in a world where evangelicals want to bring about the prophecies of the book of Revelations. They want a whore of Babylon and we just may get Hillary instead. They want to bring about Armageddon in the name of Freedom for all. Bombs in the guise of free choices. I have no qualms with any of this. I just want people to realize what is happening and why. We have no control over any of this. Or so were told. We are told that this is the way it is and that this is the way it has to be. But what about hope? What about standing up to ignorance and tyranny? Because if we don't take a stand and say enough is enough, we're all going to get the chip. They already are doing it to your pets. Your children are next. And you may say I'm crazy and that may be true, but I'd rather be crazy than stupid and paranoia isn't paranoia when it's true.
Things are changing. People are changing. Times are changing. The quickening is happening and we can't get anywhere, anything or anyone fast enough. December 22nd, 2012 is just around the corner. Be prepared. The moon is waning.
Make your little one a shining star! Shine on!
Sunday, July 1, 2007
And in the green corner......
The Global Outrage of an Educated Man........vol.62
Like a lightweight fighter, this is going to be all jabs.
"Talk as much philosophy as you like, worship as many Gods as you please, observe ceremonies and sing devotional hymns, but liberation will never come, even after a hundred aeons, without realizing the Oneness." Sankara
"A heart without affection is like a purse without money." Benjamin Mandelstamm, Russian Jewish writer & Hebraist
Here are some original thoughts:
The revolution will not be televised, because Rupert Murdoch already owns the channel. It has to start in the small towns and on the internet and spread indiscriminately like cancer. The truth must live on despite the stem cell destruction of minds by ignorance and indifference.
The morning she left, the atmosphere took the shape of my emotions. There was a downpour into the downtown of my soul covered in pavement. I was without an umbrella for the first time in nine months, for I was without her.
Watching a Blunt on Austin City alone on a Saturday night in early June, thinking about the last night before Halloween and how we found our seats in the dark only to be told that we've chosen the wrong ones, we had been corrected, and the year has gone away, like you, the setting sun.
But lately, I have been asking myself, how do I cut loose something that I may have never held?
Now for something completely different.......
Hamas is grabbing control of Palestine. An extreme radical Islamic state is rising up against Israel with what is shaping up to be a very hot summer.
The U.S. says that Iran is arming the Taliban. Is Cheney behind that one? By the way, we once armed the Taliban, so they could fight the Soviets, should we then attack ourselves?
Where the hell has North Korea been?
Changing the subject again........
Watching the wandering eyes of men as beautiful women pass them by on Nicollet avenue is the simple truth of summer and like watching little boys not getting what they want during Christmas.
The beauty of the flow of prose from the pen of Charles Frazier in his 2nd novel "Thirteen Moons" is like being able to watch the rising and setting of the sun being performed in a single sentence.
And again.......
The immigration scare tactic seems a lot like the Nazi's Xenophobia exterminating any other than the Aryan race. None of the 9/11 hi-jackers were from México, they were legal citizens from Saudi Arabia.
"A person should be more concerned with spiritual than with material matters, but another person's material welfare is his own spiritual concern." Rabbi Israel Salanter
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Sunday, June 17, 2007
Take this sinking boat and turn it home, we've still got time.....
The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.......vol.61
Ladies and gentlemen, there will be absolutely no outrage from me this edition. That I can guarantee without a doubt. This volume will be full of sap and heartstring pulling romanticism. So if you are already threatened, turn away.
I have heard whisperings about the film that I will be praising for the past couple of weeks and had read a small snippet in the paper and that peaked my interest, and so, last weekend I went on line to watch the trailer and with just that, I knew that this was going to be something very special. So, yesterday, before even seeing the film or hearing a full song from the film, I went to my favorite bookstore, Barnes and Noble at Har Mar off of Snelling Avenue and doing my part as a fighter against the terrorists and not letting them win, made a consumer choice and purchased the soundtrack to a film I hadn't even seen yet, let alone listened too. And so, there I was sitting in my drifting spoiler 2005 Blue "M&M" Dodge Neon being tempted by being stuck in traffic and having the cd sitting there on the passenger seat next to me urging me to take a listen, but yet I resisted. I wanted to make the first listen special. So, yesterday, on a late Saturday afternoon while making my way through the congestion that is the Lyndale/Hennepin avenue exit off of 94east, and trying to make it to the Lagoon theater for the 4:55 showing of this film that I urge all of you to see and listen too and of which will hopefully gain more momentum as the summer procedes and more word of mouth spreads like lymes disease in a Minnesota campground, I was comforted by the fact that life does go on, be it alone or with someone. Boys and girls, I saw a movie that captured my heart and soul with music and cinematography so simple and so captivating and beautiful that I can only say it was breathtaking.
The film is Once.
The film's music, the simplicity to the style and the truth and mirror to my own romantic escapades and experiences seemed to be shared with all of the world to see. It is a simple story of boy meets girl and boy loses girl and that is fine, for there is always another girl and always another boy. But the pain is sometimes too hard to bear, but the pain does and will go away. For there are no easy, nicely wrapped up and folded endings in real life, for life is subjective depending on the point of view and it is always open ended and never ending. The film has no special effects, there is no violence and there is no sex. So, why would anyone want to watch it? Because it makes you want to, upon leaving the theater, wishing you had purchased the soundtrack and that you want to put the cd in and turn it up loud and the top down and drive as fast as you can to the one you love with tears in your eyes and a smile on your face. Ladies and gentlemen, love knows no bounds.
I know some of you will be outraged that you read this at all, but I hope not.
May the all encompassing whatever it is bless you and your loved ones for all eternity.
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Saturday, June 9, 2007
It's getting hot out there.....
The Global Outrage of an Educated Man......vol.60
The Battle for 2008 Presidential Election is heating up folks, can you believe it? We still have some 16 months to go. You have to have alot of cash in order to get your point across don't you. Doesn't sound like "all men are created equal" does it? Then again, the name of the game in our Democracy is money. Without it, you are just another soundbite on the way to the big house. Poor Paris. Poor poor Paris.
"When you see handsome people or fine trees, pronounce the benediction: Praised be He who who created beautiful things." Tosefta: Berakot
"It is not wealth and power that enslave men but the clinging to wealth and power." Majjhima
Nikaya
Now onto the Republicans, where McCain looks like an angry old man who yells at you to get off his lawn when you were a kid. And he wants to push the button on the big one? No chance in hell old man. Their main contention is Immigration and the push for a national ID card. I'll do them one better. Why not just chip the whole population? Because that's what they're asking for and just not saying it. They have to tip toe to the Fascist Totalitarianism people, or else the mindless American public might just wake up to the truth. Shhhhh, their sleeping. But, wake up!!! Remember Sept 11th, Sept 11th, Sept 11th, Sept 11th. Yeah, thanks for reminding us about that one. I almost forgot. Nice work Giuliani. I must say, Mitt Romney is going to be hard to beat and would make a handsome looking Mormon President. But wait, who's that waiting in the wings, Fred Thompson. The Ronald Reagan of our times as the media is calling him. He even sounds Presidential. Look out world. But my choice would be Ron Paul of Texas. Imagine, a Republican talking about the need to remove the option of Pre-emptive war from the table and mentioning that's not what Christianity is about. Way to go! It's not like you stand a chance in hell, but I like ya.
"Theology: that madness gone systematic which tries to crowd God's fullness into a formula and a system." Rabbi Joel Blau, "My Uncertain God" Menorah Journal, 1924.
"No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive." Mohandas Gandhi
May the all encompassing whatever it is continue to bless you in your life for all eternity.
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