Logging is a way of moving logs from a forest to sawmills and pulp mills downstream of stream of a river. It was the largest transport method for early logging in Europe and North America.

 

The workers lived in cold untouched timber cottages in the woods near the river. There they slept, cooking food over open fire, without the chimney, only an opening on the roof where the smoke went out.

 

It was a hard and risky work. Often the logs gathered together in the river, and the arbitrator carefully walked out of the logs to try to get rid of them. Many perished during this moment.

 

At this river where I caught these cottages at a float, they flooded the logs countercurrently. A very hard work, but if they managed to get them in the river, this part led to a final station, much better paid for each stock.

 

Photo my own, texture: Moonglowlilly.

Chastened

(Sierra Range, CA)

I have been hiking all day, and I really just want to get back to camp before the sun sets completely, but it seems nature is having a temper tantrum—she wasn’t able to expend her rage on me earlier, and now I am driving into a wall of storm. It is the wind first, racing through a maze of mountain walls, sucked forward by the pressure gradient of those alpine peaks and the desert valley behind me. The rolling tumbleweeds and dust spirals of September’s dryness careen across the valley before I start to a climb with traffic up I-395, only to be hit by sheets of rain which stop after a few seconds to let me see a second wave coming on. So I pull over and plant myself here to weather the last of her wrath. If it’s provoked, it matters not...I haven’t changed, I have only been asked to endure more. As she moves towards me, the sinking evening light breaks through within the melee, like an arbitrator between anger and reason, between darkness and clarity. Chastened, she sheds her fury out across the flood plain, with all the heavens applauding in the sunset. A wise man once told me, never go to bed angry. If only I could take you into the warmth out there now.

🚫💲🚫 1 New Freebie minimum Everyday 🚫💲🚫

 

◤ S P O N S O R S ◢

 

⋆❆『Amias 』❆⋆

 

amias - EDDIE sweater pack

Male long fluffy sweater

Rigged for Jake / Legacy M / Gianni & Davis

22 colors available

 

Available at Amias Mainstore :

🚖Taxis : maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cartier/81/98/2501

● MP : marketplace.secondlife.com/en-US/stores/23396

❆ Infos : www.flickr.com/groups/3534526@N22/

 

⋆❆『 B-Made 』❆⋆

 

B-Made - Basketball Hopp [PBR]

Full mesh and PBR used basketball hoop

6 colors include.

2LI - C/M/NT

Basketball include too

 

Available @ B-Made Mainstore :

🚖Taxis : maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Collabs/175/88/3001

● MP : marketplace.secondlife.com/fr-FR/stores/164388

● Info : www.primfeed.com/b-made/

 

⋆❆『 Mutresse 』❆⋆

 

Mutresse - Otter Pond Gacha 👌💲👌50L$ each - Gacha Machine👌💲👌

Funny & Sweet Animated Sea otters collection.

You can clic to pause the anim, perfect for taking pictures.

20 available (17 commons + 3 rares).

See complete collection here : flic.kr/p/269z6iH

 

Mutresse - Cheeky Racoons Gacha 👌💲👌 50L$ each - Gacha Machine

Funny & Racoon collection

20 available (17 commons + 3 rares (wearables)).

Animated ( animation can be paused, super nice to take pics ^^)

See collection here : flic.kr/p/xVGBbv

 

Available at Mutresse Mainstore :

🚖 Mainstore : maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Koala%20dAlliez/221/228/25

● Info : www.flickr.com/photos/mutresse/

 

◤ Complete Item List ◢

 

Pant : 🚫💲🚫 Group Gift 🚫💲🚫

..KIKI KAIKAI..0L$ Roll-up wide pants

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cheys%20Cove/227/204/3501

 

Whistle : Whistle Mesh

marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Whistle-Mesh-1LI/12136765

 

Racoons : Check sponsors ↑

Otter : Check sponsors ↑

Basketball : Check sponsors ↑

Bascketball Hoop : Check sponsors ↑

Long sweater : Check sponsors ↑

 

Head : LeLutka - Kris head

Head Skin : f u o e y . Oliver Skin Medium / E 🚫💲🚫 GG 🚫💲🚫

Eyes : Basic Letutka Hud eyes

 

Free Face Freckles : C A T S Y - Gift Freckles (LeLutka Evo X) 🚫💲🚫 Dollarbie On marketplace 🚫💲🚫

marketplace.secondlife.com/p/C-A-T-S-Y-Free-Freckles-LeLu...

Face Moles & additionnal Freckles : (VOLGA) . Freckles and Moles

 

Body : [LEGACY] Meshbody (m) Special Edition (1.7.1)

Shape : by me

Body Skin : KOKOS-SKIN MARCUS

 

Backdrop : Amitie Backyard Patio Movie Night

 

Knaresborough, River Nidd, North Yorkshire

 

Spoiler alert… geeky history blurb up next!

 

The viaduct connects Knaresborough with Harrogate on the Harrogate line, in North Yorkshire, England. The line was built in 1848 with the Leeds and Thirsk Railway creating a branch from their line at Starbeck railway station to go through Knaresborough and connect with the line that was being built westwards from York as part of the East and West Yorkshire Junction Railway. Just as the viaduct had been almost completed, it collapsed into the River Nidd on 11 March 1848. The resultant noise of the falling masonry was said to have lasted for five minutes. Whilst there was no official inquiry, it is believed that the collapse of the viaduct was down to a combination of bad workmanship, poor materials and excess water in the swollen river below as a result of heavy rain over a period of two months. Despite the collapse, the centre span was still in-situ and had to be demolished before work could start again on a replacement viaduct. [I’m expected Terry and Mike to debate the frugalities and craftsmanship of Yorkshire folk at this point]

 

The fall of the viaduct necessitated a temporary Knaresborough railway station situated to the east of the present day station whilst a new viaduct was completed and the permanent station was built. The collapse of the viaduct allowed a considerable amount of stone and lime to enter the river. Due to the presence of lime in the water, thousands of fish were found dead over a large stretch of the river downstream. The contractors, Wilson and Benson, took the two railway companies to court as Thomas Grainger had been engaged to act as an arbitrator in the resultant argument about who should pay for the failed viaduct. Grainger decided that the railway companies should pay over £5,600, but that the two contractors must pay £2,389 and relinquish any further claims on property, materials or the right to build the new viaduct. The main complaint that Benson and Wilson had against Grainger was that he had been employed by both companies to engineer the railway line and stations, so they alleged a bias on his part.

 

A new viaduct was started in 1848 and used the same source of stone as the previous viaduct; a quarry at Abbey Crags, part of the Nidd Gorge through Knaresborough some 1 mile (1.5 km) to the south of the viaduct. The stone was quarried from the same Upper Plompton Grit that was used in the castle and other buildings in the town.

 

A replacement viaduct was opened on 1 October 1851 costing £9,803, and was constructed with castellated walls and piers to blend in with the ruined walls of Knaresborough Castle. It consists of four arches and three piers, the middle of which stands in the water. Railway mapping lists the viaduct as being 4 chains (260 ft; 80 m), but other sources list its length to be 330 feet (100 m). The viaduct is 78 feet (24 m) high, and each span is 56.9 feet (17.3 m) across in width.

 

The viaduct can be seen from the castle (looking upstream along the River Nidd) and is a regular viewpoint of the structure that has attracted accolades, though opinion is divided on the subject. In his 1967 survey of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Nikolaus Pevsner stated that the viaduct was "one of the most notable railway crimes in England. To castellate the bridge does not make it a picturesque object". Conversely, noted Yorkshire-born writer, J B Priestley, was in admiration of how the river reflected the viaduct and said that it "added a double beauty to the scene". In a 2015 poll conducted by the Dalesman magazine, the viaduct came at number 23 out of the 50 best views in Yorkshire. The viaduct is now a grade II* listed structure.

 

Personally, I love it, but the scene will look better in Autumn when the trees are changing colour… a note in the diary!

Convent di San Francescu Caccia

During our vacation we found this ruin. Because of the graves inside the church is was a real strange place...

Unfortunately the place was closed with a fence because the roof could collaps..

 

A little study of the place learned:

 

Its construction began in 1510, according to the plans of the monk Ghjuvacchinu di Sepula. In 1533, it is looted by the Genoese and is restored in 1569.

 

The convent belonged to the order of Franciscans Observants, and a dozen of these monks lived in these places. Bishop Marliani, in 1646, however, assesses their number to eight frati. They were called zoccolanti (carrying shoes) by the population because of their shoes. In addition to having the best land around Castifau and Moltifau, they live on handouts and various donations. The importance of religion in the piève is growing, the construction of a second church began in 1750.

The San Francesco convent had several roles in the history of the island In 1755 there took place the Cunsulta di Caccia who visa to establish in the territory Paceri, arbitrators who were intended to defuse conflicts between families. This type of court has deeply marked the region's inhabitants, who have always had the reputation to settle their disputes amicably

In 1772, after the annexation of France, the monarchy is in place in the convent a Giunta Naziunale, a sort of paternal court which renews the imposition of Paceri.

At the French Revolution, the convent was ransacked and looted (several element of furniture is also now divided between the churches of Moltifau and Castifau) and its monks were driven out. They returned at the ephemeral realm Anglo-Corsica (1794-1796) but remained little time and the convent was finally abandoned.

It became communal cemetery in 1824.

 

Lets say, a place with a history...

  

 

وصلت الصور التي شاركت بها في جائزة حمدان بن محمد الدولية للتصوير الضوئي 2011 إلى المراتب العليا بحسب الدرجات التي حصلت عليها من قبل المُحكمين، وقد تم عرضها اثناء الحفل الختامي للدورة الأولى لجائزة حمدان بن محمد بن راشد آل مكتوم الدولية للتصوير الضوئي الذي كان منقول مباشرة على قناة سما دبي الذي اقيم في برج بارك بمنطقة برج خليفة في دبي .. وسيتم نشرها ايضا في كتاب المسابقة السنوي ..

 

وذهبت المراكز الثلاثة الاولى ..

Zulkifli Zhu Qincay (Indonesia) - 1st place "

Pierpaolo Mittica (Italy) - 2nd place"

Oscar Cejas (Argentina) - 3rd place"

 

رابط الفديو

www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=270070893076073

 

اشرك الاخت Enas Photography

لتصوير هذا الفديو عند ضهور صورتي ..

طبعا ما لحكت تصور الصورة من بداية ضهورها لانها ضهرت اول صورة .. وبالرغم من هذا حصلت على بعض الثواني .. واشكرها :)

  

My picture that participated in the award Hamdan bin Mohammed International Photography 2011 to the top ranks, according to the grades obtained by the arbitrators, and have been presented during the closing ceremony of the first session of the Award Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography , which was shown directly on the Sama Dubai TV, >And my picture will be published also in the book of the competition

 

DOWNLOAD HERE

 

Mostafa Hamad

مصطفى حمد

Camera:Canon IXUS 110 IS

  

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A thorough pilot gives his mech a once over to make sure those lazy mechanics did not mess up his ride. Gotta make sure those bolts are tight before the battle, because once a leg comes off, well, its pretty much over.

 

Fits a fig.

 

Cleaner pic as promised, but I still am not 100% happy with the shot.

#legomoc #lego #bioniclemoc #bioniclemoc

This is what it would look like if my Arbitrator M1

www.flickr.com/photos/53458657@N04/14832969848/

and my Desecrator II

www.flickr.com/photos/53458657@N04/14476294122/

somehow merged.

 

Some ideas don't feel final but times up on this weekend.

 

A different angle here - I like the way it looks a bit better but you can't really see whats what with the legs.

EXPLORE#346- 3 de febrero de 2009

 

Puente de Bizkaia,Portugalete,Spain

 

Cuando se proyectó el Puente de Portugalete, o de las Arenas, un contratista francés, Dubois, se enfrentó al autor del diseño, el citado arquitecto e ingeniero Martín Alberto de Palacio. Para Dubois, la barquilla del trasbordador, la que trasladaba peatones y bultos, quedaría siempre en peligrosa inestabilidad. Ante lo cual, la ya constituída Compañía Puente de Vizcaya, que es el nombre exacto de este servosistema cuyos dos machones se afincan sólidamente en ambas márgenes del Nervión, sufrió retrasos y no pocas pérdidas. (Concedamos que vino a sustituir a otro, más antiguo e inestable, utilizado por los frailes de San Francisco, que sí que colgaba, como cuelgan esas pasarelas del Tibet y Los Andes).[cita requerida]

 

De Palacio se empeñaba, y además con razón, en que sus planos eran perfectos; Dubois se enrocaba: erróneos. Y fueron, pues, francos-oro los muchos que se ofertaron a M. Gustave Eiffel, el prestigioso ingeniero de Dijon que en 1858 ensayara con éxito la cimentación por aire comprimido, para que ejerciese de árbitro 'ex cathedra' acerca de la viabilidad del proyecto. Lo cual confirma cómo se requería la reciedumbre basal de las pilastras del artilugio. Se aguardaba el diagnóstico conteniendo el aliento. Hasta que Eiffel dio el visto bueno a los cálculos de De Palacio y le quitó la terca razón al contratista Dubois. Se ignora qué fue de tan impertinente sujeto. ¿La cantidad de francos-oro a percibir por Eiffel por su veredicto acerca de la planificación original de De Palacio 20.000.Una cifra, al cambio bursátil de su época, inconmensurable.[cita requerida]

 

El puente tiene 61 metros de altura y 160 metros de longitud. Se trata de un puente colgante con una barquilla transbordadora para el transporte de vehículos y pasajeros. Fue el primer puente de este tipo construido en el mundo y por ello sirvió de modelo de numerosos puentes construidos en Europa, África y América, En la actualidad es el único de estos puentes que siguen en funcionamiento. El Puente de Vizcaya es considerado actualmente el puente transbordador en servicio más antiguo del mundo.

 

A mediados de 1937, durante la Guerra civil española, los ingenieros del republicano Ejército del Norte recibieron la orden de destruir todos los pasos sobre la ría de Bilbao, con el fin de detener el avance de las tropas franquistas. Por esto, el 17 de junio de ese año, se derribó el travesaño que se precipitó sobre las aguas. Cinco días después, la guerra terminaba. El puente fue reconstruido y finalmente puesto en servicio nuevamente, el 19 de junio de 1941.[1]

 

Además de la barquilla, existe una pasarela peatonal accesible para turistas en la parte superior.

Un barco pasando debajo del Puente de Vizcaya.

 

Lekeitio,Bizkaia,Spain

Cantabria,Spain

 

Si quieres ver mi exposicion ,este es el enlace..If you want to see my show, this is the link ..

  

www.flickr.com/groups/chachoquefoto/discuss/7215761930453...

  

www.flickr.com/photos/toalafoto/show/

 

El puente es gestionado por la sociedad El Transbordador de Bizkaia, S.L.. El transbordador del puente realiza viajes durante las 24 horas del día y los 365 días del año, con una frecuencia de transbordo de 8 minutos y una duración del viaje de 1,5 minutos. Realizar el trayecto en el transbordador del puente ahorra un trayecto por carretera de casi 20 km, por lo que sigue siendo un medio de transporte ampliamente utilizado para unir Guecho con Portugalete.

 

El 13 de julio de 2006 fue declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad de la Unesco, siendo elegido entre un total de 37 candidaturas. La Unesco considera al Puente de Vizcaya como una de las más destacadas obras de arquitectura del hierro de la Revolución Industrial y destacó su uso innovador de los cables de acero ligero trenzado.

   

When he designed the bridge of Portugalete, or Arena, a French contractor, Dubois, andalusia author faced in the design, the architect and engineer, said Martín Alberto de Palacio. For Dubois, the nacelle of the ferry, walking and carrying the package, it would always dangerous instability. Therefore it's already formed Vizcaya Bridge Company, which is the exact name of this Servosystems whose two butch is based solidly on both sides of Nervión suffered many delays and losses. (Granted that came to replace other, more old and unstable, used by the friars of San Francisco, that it was hanging, such as hanging bridges in Tibet and the Andes). [Citation needed]

 

De Palacio was committed, and rightly, that its planes were perfect; Dubois entrenched is: wrong. They were then gold-francs many that are offered to M. Gustave Eiffel, engineer of the prestigious Dijon in 1858 successfully tested the foundation for compressed air, to act as arbitrator 'ex cathedra' about the viability of the project. Which confirms how the required reciedumbre baseline pilasters of the widget. It looked containing diagnostic breath. Eiffel until he gave the nod to the calculations of De Palacio and removed the stubborn reason andalusia contractor Dubois. It is not known what happened to so impertinente subject. The amount of gold francs to be received by Eiffel for his verdict on the original planning figure 20.000.Una de Palacio, the stock exchange of his time, immeasurable. [Citation needed]

 

The bridge is 61 meters high and 160 meters in length. It is a suspension bridge with a gondola ferry to transport vehicles and passengers. It was the first bridge of its kind built in the world and therefore a model of many bridges built in Europe, Africa and America at present is the only one of these bridges still in operation. El Puente de Vizcaya bridge is currently considered the oldest ferry service in the world.

 

In mid 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, Army engineers Republican North were ordered to destroy all the steps on the estuary of Bilbao, with the aim of halting the advance of Franco's troops. Therefore, the June 17 of that year, was pulled down the cross that fell on the water. Five days later, the war ended. The bridge was rebuilt and finally put into service again on June 19, 1941 [1].

 

In addition to the nacelle, a pedestrian walkway accessible to tourists at the top.

A boat passing under the Bridge of Vizcaya.

 

The bridge is managed by the company The ferry Bizkaia, SL. The ferry travels the bridge 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with a frequency of 8 minutes and transfer of a long journey of 1.5 minutes. Perform the journey on the ferry bridge save a trip by road about 20 km, so it remains a widely used means of transport to connect with Guecho Portugalete.

 

On July 13, 2006 was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco, to be chosen from a total of 37 nominations. Unesco considers andalusia Vizcaya Bridge as one of the most outstanding works of architecture of the iron of the Industrial Revolution, and stressed its innovative use of lightweight twisted steel cables. When he designed the bridge of Portugalete, or Arena, a French contractor, Dubois, andalusia author faced in the design, the architect and engineer, said Martín Alberto de Palacio. For Dubois, the nacelle of the ferry, walking and carrying the package, it would always dangerous instability. Therefore it's already formed Vizcaya Bridge Company, which is the exact name of this Servosystems whose two butch is based solidly on both sides of Nervión suffered many delays and losses. (Granted that came to replace other, more old and unstable, used by the friars of San Francisco, that it was hanging, such as hanging bridges in Tibet and the Andes). [Citation needed]

 

De Palacio was committed, and rightly, that its planes were perfect; Dubois entrenched is: wrong. They were then gold-francs many that are offered to M. Gustave Eiffel, engineer of the prestigious Dijon in 1858 successfully tested the foundation for compressed air, to act as arbitrator 'ex cathedra' about the viability of the project. Which confirms how the required reciedumbre baseline pilasters of the widget. It looked containing diagnostic breath. Eiffel until he gave the nod to the calculations of De Palacio and removed the stubborn reason andalusia contractor Dubois. It is not known what happened to so impertinente subject. The amount of gold francs to be received by Eiffel for his verdict on the original planning figure 20.000.Una de Palacio, the stock exchange of his time, immeasurable. [Citation needed]

 

The bridge is 61 meters high and 160 meters in length. It is a suspension bridge with a gondola ferry to transport vehicles and passengers. It was the first bridge of its kind built in the world and therefore a model of many bridges built in Europe, Africa and America at present is the only one of these bridges still in operation. El Puente de Vizcaya bridge is currently considered the oldest ferry service in the world.

 

In mid 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, Army engineers Republican North were ordered to destroy all the steps on the estuary of Bilbao, with the aim of halting the advance of Franco's troops. Therefore, the June 17 of that year, was pulled down the cross that fell on the water. Five days later, the war ended. The bridge was rebuilt and finally put into service again on June 19, 1941 [1].

 

In addition to the nacelle, a pedestrian walkway accessible to tourists at the top.

A boat passing under the Bridge of Vizcaya.

 

The bridge is managed by the company The ferry Bizkaia, SL. The ferry travels the bridge 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with a frequency of 8 minutes and transfer of a long journey of 1.5 minutes. Perform the journey on the ferry bridge save a trip by road about 20 km, so it remains a widely used means of transport to connect with Guecho Portugalete.

 

On July 13, 2006 was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco, to be chosen from a total of 37 nominations. Unesco considers andalusia Vizcaya Bridge as one of the most outstanding works of architecture of the iron of the Industrial Revolution, and stressed its innovative use of lightweight twisted steel cables.

 

Lekeitio,Bizkaia,Spain

Cantabria,Spain

 

Si quieres ver mi exposicion ,este es el enlace..If you want to see my show, this is the link ..

  

www.flickr.com/groups/chachoquefoto/discuss/7215761930453...

  

www.flickr.com/photos/toalafoto/show/

  

The Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas is the largest bullring in Spain; It is the world's third largest and de Las Ventasone of the most prestigious. It is located in the east of Madrid, in the Salamanca district, and has a capacity of 25,000 spectators. It was designed by architect José Espeliú, neo-Mudejar style and inaugurated June 17, 1931.

Las Ventas has an almost perfectly circular structure. The central arena is one of the largest in the world, with about 60 m in diameter. All around the arena develop the tiers of seats, divided into 10 compartments tendidos said, the most prestigious of which are covered. The tenth tendido is reserved for the president of the bullfight, which plays an arbitrator; in the same area is the balcony reserved for the king, right in front of the clock

-------------------------------------------------------

La Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas è la più importante plaza de toros della Spagna; è la terza più grande del mondo e una delle più prestigiose. Si trova nella zona est di Madrid, nel quartiere di Salamanca, e ha una capienza di 25.000 spettatori. Fu progettata dall'architetto José Espeliu, in stile neo-mudéjar e inaugurata il 17 giugno 1931.

Las Ventas ha una struttura quasi perfettamente circolare. L'arena centrale è una delle più grandi del mondo, con circa 60 m di diametro. Tutt'intorno all'arena si sviluppano le gradinate dei posti a sedere, suddivise in 10 scomparti detti tendidos, i più prestigiosi dei quali sono coperti. Il decimo tendido è riservato al presidente della corrida, che svolge funzione di arbitro; nella stessa zona si trova il balcone riservato al re, esattamente di fronte all'orologio

This is what it would look like if my Arbitrator M1

www.flickr.com/photos/53458657@N04/14832969848/

and my Desecrator II

www.flickr.com/photos/53458657@N04/14476294122/

somehow merged.

Some ideas don't feel final but times up on this weekend.

 

Additional shot with perhaps a less weird angle here.

www.flickr.com/photos/53458657@N04/16734845316/in/photost...

Sleep, the grand arbitrator

   

Recycle 20080423 v124

Sicily. Piazza Armerina.

Villa Romana del Casale

Late spring break.

 

The mosaic shows a wrestling fight between Pan and Eros. Pan to the left is bearded with a goat's horns and legs, Eros to the right is a winged boy. Between them is a palm leaf, the symbol of victory. The arbitrator of the match is standing in the front to the left of Pan. He is bearded and dressed in a purple toga over a white embroidered tunic. His right arm is raised to signal the start of the match.

villaromana.mused.org/en/items/9323/vestibolo-di-eros-e-p...

A result of my very first shoot underwater with a small point and shoot camera. Went shooting in the murkiest water possible (MY LUCK!) so most of the shots didn't turn out as planned. But hey, it's a learning curve, & I'm just glad I crossed one thing off my bucket list. More to come!

 

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Luke 12:13–21 (ESV)

 

The Parable of the Rich Fool

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” 16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

 

...Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighbourhood. It sits conspicuously on the intersection of a congested commercial corner; a good and sensible place for a restaurant to be. Walk-in traffic must be numerous as it is the only restaurant in a walkable neighborhood. But despite this, the building does manage to successfully stand out and then surprise. Marlow’s tarantula on a slice of angel-food cake comes to mind; the business catches the eye because of the extravagant colours found on its exterior; a tangerine-yellow awning emerging from a contrasting purple affair complete with faux-billows that informs the potential customer what delights from the perfumed East (and I don’t mean Hoboken) may be found within. This frontage is not only informative, but it also provides the passerby with a stunning representation of mid-century American culinary-signage kitsch. Who could not patronize such a place?

 

Despite these aesthetic advantages, I many times over the years drove by the establishment and kept on going. This is embarrassing to confess: in all that long stretch of time, never once did I stop in to order “take away”. The lettering preserved from a different time inscribed on the extravagant amber of the plastic awning made for a magnificent incongruity. Yet these ornamentations were not enough to get me to pull over and give the place a try. Why is this? A suburban shyness, perhaps, but more accurately (the truth reluctantly comes out) it was culinary bigotry that kept me away. A mis-guided affection for trendier places closer to home urged me to drive on by. Wasn't this place, so my misguided thinking went, an artifact from a past epoch; when I love Lucy was in prime time and Ed Sullivan was the cultural arbitrator of our nation’s musical taste? Aren’t we better than that now? Haven’t we moved on to the authentic; to what is real and true? Are we not modern people? Such were the questions, born out of prejudice and ignorance, that kept me away from the Pacific Orient Express.

 

Let Ed, Lucy, and fried rice into history melt (so ran my ill-composed interior soliloquy) my forage and gathering will never stray far from Oakland Avenue in Shorewood. This is my space.

 

What an idiot.

 

At first blush then, and even the second one, everything about this restaurant, like that crime scene in a story by Chesterton, seemed wrong. The Pacific Ocean couldn’t be further away, at least in spirit and ambiance, from this dry and fatigued intersection. The stately pleasure domes and Alph the sacred river of Xanadu were as distant from it as a voluptuous opiate dream is from an insurance adjuster in Oshkosh.

 

Two days ago, as I was driving down 51st, the recent recommendation of a friend came to mind. He is a “regular” at the counter of this restaurant; his artistic judgments never fail to be both perceptive and wise. His verdict was that the “Singapore Noodles” at the Express are tasty beyond the ability of mere words to describe. It was time to see if he was right. Recalling his effusive praise, and realizing my proximity to those very noodles, I made the stop that I should have made in 1975. Casting aside the arrogant trepidation that is so much weaved into a warped personality, I went in there to find an unexpected scene. There were no chairs. In front of the counter was an object routinely not seen in the lobby of a restaurant: a traffic cone with a top grotesquely disfigured perhaps by the flame of a welding iron. Looking up from this remarkable object I realized that I would need to place my order in tones molto fortissimo. This is because the order-taker and customer are separated by an impressively thick pane of glass. My conjecture is that the partition is “bullet proof.” This theory may well have been a dramatic fantasy bred from the workings of an over-sensitive, if not fevered, suburban imagination. Next time I go to the Pacific Orient, I will ask about the glass.

 

And, in case you are doubtful, I will go back. Posthaste.

 

I soon learned that the litany of the restaurant’s cosmetic wrongs turned into irrelevancies and dust when the fried rice and “Singapore Noodles” were brought home and put on the table. Everything about these dishes was right. The noodles were of a perfect gentle doneness. Most fell away from each other into myriad strands infused with a faint and sweet adumbration of anise flavour; sometimes the pasta would gather itself together into miniature caramelised globes; delightful ornaments surrounded by their slender and single neighbours in a curried sea. Abundant with fresh vegetables as well, the dish was memorable for the disparities it offered and the divisions of flavours it contained. It was G. F. Handel’s Harmonious Blacksmith Variations turned vigorously in a wok and then dumped, with a spirit of splendid chaos, into a ceramic bowl.

 

As for the rice, it was superb. But it was more than that. For many years I have been searching for a reputable version of the fried rice I grew up with in the mid 60’s at the long-gone New China Cafe on Colfax Avenue and Clarkson Street in Denver. The splendid and local YICK INN, previously mentioned enthusiastically on this page offers such an example: jonathanbrodie.substack.com/p/yicks-inn. Now found here on Burleigh Street, praise be to Saint Cecilia (patron saint not only of music, but also, I believe, of happy tummies) was another source of the rare recipe. It took only the first forkful of this dish to know that I had returned to the green glades of my childhood; to "The New China" and a convivial visit with its amiable proprietor, Mr. Herbert Wong For me, it is only in the clearings of those long and vague grasses that that restaurant can be found; along with the velveteen and tasseled menus that seemed, to my ten-year-old eyes, to be ancient documents lining the bottom of Marco Polo’s luggage. The physical manifestation of that structure was torn down in the 70’s and replaced by a liquor store. Mr. Wong is gone as well; lovingly carried off by a parliament of those same soft, red funerary menus to where Marco Polo is. Yet somehow, there the shrine is again; astonishingly reconstructed not on a fancy avenue, not on Colfax and Clarkson in Denver, but to a place close to where I am now.

 

51st and Burleigh in Sherman Park.

  

A thorough pilot gives his mech a once over to make sure those lazy mechanics did not mess up his ride. Gotta make sure those bolts are tight before the battle, because once a leg comes off, well, its pretty much over.

 

Fits a fig.

 

Managed to grab this shot before my camera died. Not exactly happy with the angle but I "cartoonified" it all up in GIMP and will post this for now. Best viewed in a larger size. Hopefully a better, cleaner shot tomorrow at some point.

Watchet was first recorded during the dark ages, when St Decuman arrived from South Wales and acted as a physician, arbitrator and pastor to the local community. He arrived on a raft with a cow as a companion!

 

In the Iron ages, Daws Fort was built above Watchet to protect the port and area. Watchet's then natural harbour, made it an early trading centre and in the 10th century coins were minted here for Ethelred II and five more Saxon Kings.

 

Watchet is unique in that it still retains the Court Leet system of medieval administration, albeit only in name. Posts include Portreeve and the coveted position of Ale Taster. The Star Inn, has won Somerset CAMRA awards for real ale. It's unclear if the Ale Taster had a hand in this!

 

Watchet gets its name from WACET, the blue dye found in the cliffs. Watchet was an active port with a host of commodities being traded up and down the coast, to Ireland and Wales, while the Mineral Line brought iron ore down for shipment to Wales.

The Floral magazine;.

London,L. Reeve & Co..

biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50403684

8x10" handmade collage.

The position of chief is one of great honor and responsibility. The village chief is the arbitrator of disputes amongst citizens of the village. He is chosen from a prominent family and is usually one of the "village elders". It is the responsibility of the chief to bring an improvement to the village. Examples of such improvement projects include a digging a well, building a school or bringing electricity to the village.

 

This chief is dressed in traditional cotton, indigo dyed dress.

 

Tirelli, Mali

The mosaic depicts a wrestling match between the gods Pan and Eros. Pan, to the left, is depicted with goat-like legs and a beard; Eros, to the right, is shown as a winged boy. Between them is a palm leaf, the symbol of victory. The match's arbitrator is standing to Pan's left. He is bearded and dressed in a purple toga over a white embroidered tunic. His right arm is raised to signal the start of the match.

A Letter

 

True patriotism!

John Newton

 

Dear friend,

 

Allow me to say, that it excites both my wonder and concern, that a Christian minister such as yourself, should think it worth his while to attempt political reforms. When I look around upon the present state of the nation, such an attempt appears to me, to be no less vain and foolish, than it would be to paint the cabin—while the ship is sinking! Or to decorate the parlor—while the house is on fire!

 

When our Lord Jesus was upon earth, He refused to get involved in disputes or politics, "Friend, who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?" Luke 12:14. "My kingdom is not of this world! If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight!" John 18:36. God's children belong to a kingdom which is not of this world; they are strangers and pilgrims upon earth, and a part of their Scriptural character is, that they are the "quiet in the land." Psalm 35:19.

Satan has many contrivances to amuse people, and to divert their thoughts from their real danger!

 

My dear sir, my prayer to God for you is—that He may induce you to employ the talents He has given you, in pointing out sin as the great cause and source of every existing evil; and to engage those who love and fear Him, (instead of wasting time in political speculations, for which very few of them are competent,) to sigh and cry for our abounding abominations, and to stand in the breach, by prayer, that God's wrath may yet be averted, and our national mercies prolonged! This, I think, is true patriotism—the best way in which people in private life may serve their country.

 

I consider the ungodly as saws and hammers in the hand of the Lord. So far as they are His instruments, they will succeed—but not an inch further! Their wrath shall praise Him, and be subservient to His designs!

 

If our lot is so cast that we can exercise our ministry free from stripes, fines, imprisonments, and death—it is more than the gospel has promised to us! If Christians were quiet when under the cruel governments of Nero and other wicked persecutors, when they were hunted down like wild beasts—then we ought to be not only quiet but very thankful now! It was then accounted an honor to suffer for Christ and the 'offence of the cross'!

 

Those are to be greatly pitied, who boast of their 'liberty'—and yet they do not consider that they are in the most deplorable bondage as the slaves of sin and Satan, under the curse of God's law and His eternal wrath! Oh! for a voice to reach their hearts, that they may know their true and dreadful state—and seek deliverance from their horrific thraldom! May you and I labor to direct them to the one thing, which is absolutely needful, and abundantly sufficient.

 

If I had the wisdom or influence to soothe the angry passions of mankind—I would gladly employ them! But I am a stranger and a pilgrim here in this world. My charter, my rights and my treasures, are all in heaven—and there my heart ought to be. In a very short time, I may be removed (and perhaps suddenly) into the unseen and eternal world—where all that now causes so much bustle upon earth—will be of no more importance to me—than the events which took place among the antediluvians!

In the hour, when death shall open the door into eternity—many things which now assume an 'air of importance', will be found as light and unsubstantial as a child's dream!

 

How crucial then, is it for me—to be found watching, with my lamp burning, diligently engaged in my proper calling! For the Lord has not called me to set governments right—but to preach the gospel, to proclaim the glory of His name, and to endeavor to win souls! "Let the dead bury their own dead—but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God!" Luke 9:60. Happy is that servant, whom his Master finds so doing, when He returns!

 

As you have forced me to respond—both duty and love have obliged me to be faithful and free in giving you my thoughts.

 

I recommend you to the care and blessing of the great Shepherd and Savior; and remain for His sake, your affectionate friend and brother,

 

John Newton

On a gagne une equipe, ils on gagne un arbitre!!!

La Gota de Leche fue el nombre dado a las instituciones creadas para remediar los problemas de desnutrición y alta mortalidad infantil en aquellas familias que no podían permitirse el lujo de tener nodriza, y cuyas madres no podían dar de mamar. Surgieron a finales del siglo XIX. La idea original de «las gotas de leche» procedía de Francia, donde el médico León Dufour había creado la primera Gota de Leche en 1894.

Rafael Ulecia y Cardona funda en Madrid, en 1904, La Gota de Leche, el primer consultorio de niños de pecho. En este mismo año, en Barcelona, se inaugura el Servicio Lácteo Infantil. Estas instituciones además de prestar asistencia pediátrica, facilitaban la alimentación láctea.

La primera Gota de Leche que se inauguró en Barcelona fue la de Vidal y Solares, médico pediatra fundador del Hospital de Niños Pobres de Barcelona, como una sección del mencionado hospital. La Gota de Leche de Barcelona, se inauguró bajo la dirección de los médicos Cardenal, Girona y Soler.

La Gota de Leche de San Sebastián, situada en la calle Loiola, empezó su andadura el 30 de septiembre de 1903, presidiendo la inauguración la reina madre María Cristina.

La Gota de Leche de Logroño se encuentra en la calle Once de Junio nº 2 y se inauguró el 10 de abril de 1905 siendo Alcalde D. Isidro Iñiguez Carreras. Desde sus orígenes hasta nuestros días ha ido adaptándose a las necesidades municipales como se refleja en el libro sobre el tema publicado en 2008 por el Instituto de Estudios Riojanos. En la actualidad es un moderno centro de recursos juveniles basado en las artes audiovisuales y la información, también es la Escuela de Música Municipal.

El Consultorio de Niños de Pecho de Sevilla tuvo su apertura el día 8 de enero de 1906. Los facultativos encargados de las consultas eran los los propios fundadores: Ciriaco Esteban, José Román Chico y Jerónimo Oliveras Piscol, sensibilizados por los graves problemas que afectan a los niños, especialmente los hijos de familias más desfavorecidas.

En Melilla, siendo Presidente de la Junta de Arbitrios, el Señor General D. José Villalba Riquelme, sensibilizado y preocupado por la miseria en que la mayoría de los habitantes de Melilla se encontraban, convocó a las personalidades más destacadas de la ciudad, para una reunión. De esta reunión salió a la luz la idea de formar una ASOCIACIÓN GENERAL DE CARIDAD. Y así quedó fundada el día 21 de enero del año 1915 con el nombre popular de La Gota de Leche de Melilla.

En Gijón/Xixón la conocida Gota Lleche se localiza en dos edificios a pocos metros de distancia, siendo uno de ellos un hogar maternal construido ad hoc, y otro el antiguo Palacio Valdés frente a la plaza del Humedal, a escasa distancia de la Calle Corrida.

En Bilbao estaba ubicado en el barrio de Torre Urizar.

Las técnicas de esterilización, mediante calor, tienen su antecedente en la esterilización de leche para biberones que se hacía en las llamadas Gotas de Leche, benéficos establecimientos en donde se preparaban biberones, de uso diario, para lactantes de las clases sin recursos.

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Gota_de_Leche

www.maralmaternal.com/gota-leche-poco-historia/

 

The Milk Drop was the name given to institutions created to remedy the problems of malnutrition and high child mortality in those families who could not afford to have a nurse, and whose mothers could not breastfeed. They emerged in the late 19th century. The original idea of "milk drops" came from France, where the doctor Leon Dufour had created the first Milk Drop in 1894.1

Rafael Ulecia y Cardona founded in Madrid in 1904, La Gota de Leche, the first office for children with breasts. In the same year, in Barcelona, the Children's Milk Service was inaugurated. These institutions, in addition to providing paediatric care, facilitated milk feeding.2

The first Milk Drop that was inaugurated in Barcelona was that of Vidal y Solares, a doctor of pediatrics founder of the Hospital de Niños Pobres in Barcelona, as a section of the aforementioned hospital.3 La Gota de Leche de Barcelona, was inaugurated under the direction of the doctors Cardenal , Girona and Soler.4

The Milk Drop of San Sebastian, located on Loiola Street, began on September 30, 1903, presiding over the inauguration of Queen Mother Maria Cristina.

The Logroño Milk Drop is located at Calle Once de Junio no 2 and was inaugurated on April 10, 1905 as Mayor D. Isidro Iñiguez Carreras. From its origins to the present day it has been adapting to the municipal needs as reflected in the book on the subject published in 2008 by the Institute of Riojan Studies. Today it is a modern youth resource center based on the audiovisual arts and information, it is also the Municipal School of Music.

The Children's Office of Seville had its opening on January 8, 1906. The practitioners in charge of the consultations were the founders themselves: Ciriaco Esteban, José Román Chico and Jerónimo Oliveras Piscol, sensitized to the serious problems affecting children, especially the children of more disadvantaged families.5

In Melilla, as Chairman of the Board of Arbitrators, General D. José Villalba Riquelme, sensitized and concerned about the misery in which most of the inhabitants of Melilla were, summoned the most prominent personalities of the city, for a Meeting. From this meeting came the idea of forming a GENERAL ASSOCIATION OF CARITY. And so it was founded on January 21, 1915 under the popular name of La Gota de Leche de Melilla.

In Gijón/Xixón the well-known Lleche Drop is located in two buildings a few meters away, one of them being a maternal home built ad hoc, and another the old Valdés Palace in front of the Wetland Square, a short distance from Calle Corrida.

In Bilbao it was located in the neighborhood of Torre Urizar.

Heat sterilization techniques have their antedentin escaping in the sterilization of bottle milk that was done in the so-called Milk Drops, beneficial establishments where bottles were prepared, for daily use, for infants of classes without Resources.

 

From the wikimedia commons. The Crwth — the ancient Celtic lyre. Photo lightened a little.

 

The image of the bard or druid with a lyre is confirmed on the basis of an archaeological excavation in 1988 in central Brittany (Paule), where one of a statuette of 48 cm, dating back to 2nd century BC, was excavated with the presentation of a Gallic bard with a seven-stringed lyre.

 

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forteresse_de_Paule

 

Statuette with a lyre

 

Height: 42 cm? Dating to the third century – the second century BC

 

From the excavation site of Paule-Saint-Symphorien, Brittany and found in a ditch, this is a statue, wearing a torc, bears the attributes of the bard, the lyre and the wreath. Despite the damage to the legs, the figure appears to be in a seated position.

www.flickr.com/photos/cvalette/7725782368/in/faves-celtico/

Coin image of lyre from Britain. The lyre is found on coins of the central Armorican tribes from modern-day Brittany. However there is a local variant struck by the Atrebatic tribe modelled on continental coins and dating to the mid-1st century BC.

 

* ‘Lug played the three magic harp-strains so often referred to in the Irish texts – sleep-strain, wail-strain and laughter strain, which in turn caused slumber, mourning and joy.’ MacCulloch, J. A. 1898, The Mythology of All Races. Volume III: 29.

 

en.citizendium.org/wiki/Ancient_Celtic_music

 

Bard or Druid from Gaul. Not much is known about the ancient Celtic lyre, only that it was used by pre-Celtic peoples and Celtic bards since the 8th century BC and that it was later well-known in Rome, where it was called lyra. Its resonator was made from wood, while only few components were made from bones. The instrument's strings were made from animal intestine. The Gauls and other Celtic peoples regarded the crwth as a symbol of their independent musical culture, although they had probably received it from the Ancient Greeks. The Goths invoked their tribal gods with prayers and chants, which they accompanied by lyre play. By the time of the 'Barbarian Invasions' in the 5th century AD the lyre had become the most important stringed instrument of the Germanic tribes and was a six-stringed wooden lyre with hollow ledger arms and wooden vortices in the ledger rod. The original Celtic lyre however came with different numbers of strings, as the Lyre of Paule, which is depicted on a statue from Côtes d'Armor in Brittany, apparently had seven strings.

en.citizendium.org/wiki/Ancient_Celtic_music

www.flickr.com/photos/sandraherrmann/3535683764/

 

The Celtic Welsh may still have an instrument called the 'crwth' as well.A type of lyre can be seen on a couple of ancient celtic coins from the late iron age.

Da Vinci was very adept on the lyre.

  

Druids

 

In simple terms the Druids were the priests of the Celtic tribes in Britain. But to state that fact does not convey the breadth of their influence in Celtic society. The Druids were a sort of super-class of priests, political advisors, teachers, healers, and arbitrators among the Celtic tribes.

 

They had their own universities, where traditional knowledge was passed on by rote (i.e. memorized). Druids had the right to speak ahead of the king in council, and may in some situations have held more authority than the king. They acted as ambassadors in time of war, they composed verse and upheld the law. They were a sort of glue holding together Celtic culture.

 

We know that the Druids used both animal and human sacrifice, and that many of their observances centred on oak groves and water. The Isle of Anglesey, in present-day Wales, was a centre of Druidic practice.

 

The Druids as we know them today exist largely in the words of the Romans. The trouble with the reports of the Romans is that they were a mix of reportage and political propaganda. It was politically expedient for the Celtic peoples to be coloured as barbarians and the Romans as a great civilizing force.

 

Certainly the Romans seem to been genuinely horrified by the instances of human sacrifice among the Druids. In 61 AD the Romans exterminated the Druids of Anglesey, effectively destroying druidism as a religious force until a form of druidism was revived in the 19th century.

 

This was the 4th stop last Saturday and is a shot looking back at the tiny coatal town of Watchet, Somerset in England, from the harbour wall.

 

The town was first recorded during the dark ages, when St Decuman arrived from South Wales and acted as a physician, arbitrator and pastor to the local community. He arrived on a raft with a cow as a companion!

 

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the early port at Watchet being plundered by Danes led by Ohtor and Rhoald in 987 and 997.

 

Watchet gets its name from WACET, the blue dye found in the cliffs.

 

Exposure 0.003 sec (1/400)

Aperture f/4.0

Focal Length 60 mm

ISO Speed 125

 

Click Me

heron as arbitrator for an adulterer alligator

The Arbitrator (umpire) keeps an eye on the Striker (batter).

By 1858 rules.....

The letter "A" mysteriously appears in the clouds. Lots of interesting words begin with this letter. Which one d'ya suppose the clouds had in mind?

 

POEM STORAGE LOCKER

 

HOMELAND INSECURITY

 

Remember the Weapons of Mass

Destruction? The ones they never

Found? There are those who’ll tell

You they still exist somewhere, but

It’s a secret. With all the technology

And good old American know-how

They still can’t tell us what became

Of those WMDs, their excuse for

Spilling all that blood. When they

Shrieked 'the sky is falling, let us

Save you', the whole country bent

Over and said 'as you wish'. Now,

As then,they don’t even need an

Excuse, never mind a court order –

To spy on you because they think

You’re interesting. Better not be

Too interesting. Better be a bland,

Dull, boring little drone, otherwise

If it’s a slow day they’ll aim all that

Technology at you just to find out,

In the name of public safety, who

An interesting person gets to sleep

With, and whether you’re concealing

A WMD between your sheets.

  

SHEEPDOG

 

When I come up with something

That seems halfway intelligent,

I try and put it into some form

I can share with you, because

Most of my day I’m just as

Speechless as everyone else.

I look at things and just go,

What the f—k. I feel like a

Sheepdog trying to keep my

Charges from falling prey to

The freedom that comes so

Naturally to them, and which

Wolves depend on. And who

Do they get mad at? The wolf?

No, me. Need I explain further

Why I’m mostly speechless?

 

BOOKS

 

What a sentimental dinosaur I

Must sound like, seriously sad

That the era of books seems to

Be ending. Global warming will

Mean fewer trees for paper, and

A cheap alternative to printing –

Texts right to your computer -

Already exists, so it’s really a

No-brainer. What paper that

Remains will be needed for

Toilet tissue, until computers

Can wipe our asses too.

 

SANTA

 

Consumerism and spirituality dance a

Mutually suspicious tango together

In December. Alas, my letter to Santa

Would reveal I’m just as materialistic

As anyone else. But if you were Santa,

I’d ask that you slide the benefit of a

Doubt down my chimney. And were

I to find even the smallest present of

Your trust under my tree, that would

Move me far more than any glittering

Bling from the mall. I’d put forgiveness

On my wish list, along with healing,

Acceptance and grace. If we could

Share the gift of understanding, then

I think we’d be getting closer to what

Christmas is all about.

 

JIMCARE

 

I know I should have asked you

First, but you're my doctor - that's

All there is to it. You've got the

Cure if you ever want to use it.

 

SKIN

 

My skin may be thick but it’s full

Of nerve endings. Honestly, my

Thoughts can’t all come from my

Well-ordered, logical brain, which

Actually prefers the comfortable,

Logical, practical, and reasonable.

Nope, my edgy thoughts must

Come from my skin when it rubs

Against poison plants or gets

Surly over weather variations or

Bristles at certain personalities.

My normal conversation wouldn’t

Resemble some of my more out

There observations, unless you

Were to listen to my skin.

 

CONFUSED WITH FOOD

 

Don’t you just wish sometimes

People were like food, existing

Just to please, just for your

Benefit, just for you well-being?

Don’t you love how food says,

Do anything you want with me.

Eat me hot, freeze me for later,

Spice me to your taste, bathe

Me in seasoning till I make

Your mouth water. Yum, yum,

Honey I’m home for dinner.

I believe I’ve illuminated the

Obesity epidemic spreading

Across America insidiously as

Communism in the ‘50s, but

Were I your food, I’d sincerely

Want to be a balanced meal,

Lots of what you like but also

Lots of what’s good for you.

 

WITCHY

 

If magic wands weren’t standard

Issue just for wicked witches, I’d

Wave one and say presto, abra

Cadabra, it’s all sorted out and

Everyone’s happy. All loose ends

Reconnected, all pressing questions

Answered or rendered irrelevant,

All with Heaven’s smiling approval

Because it’s done right. That’s what

I’d do if I had a magic wand. While

We’re at it, a broomstick in lieu of

Plane tickets would be great too.

 

MAGIC

 

You can’t rely on magic, but that

Doesn’t mean it’s not there. It’s

Fickle, it hides, it’s unreliable, it

Would make a lousy employee.

Even Wizards get wounded when

Their spells backfire. Magic won’t

Make you a superhero. Magic is

Best approached with a certain

Humility, maybe a willingness to

Nurture without a constant eye

Towards a desired harvest. Keep

A pleasant garden for magic. It

Holds dear safe places it can rest

Without demands put upon it.

Magic wants to help, but knows

Too much help can be more like

Harm. Still, who knows, when it

Wakes it could always sprinkle

Your day with unexpected grace.

 

KITCHEN

 

This house feels like a home

Because of the ones who

Were here with me over the

Years, many long passed on,

But the kitchen feels like

They’re still here. This is

Where they took care of

Life’s most basic business –

Food, drink, doing dishes,

And I still live by what I

Learned from them. Do we

Really have any choice about

Ideas of right or wrong

Drummed into our heads?

Is it anyone’s fault the ones

Doing the drumming had no

Way of knowing the world

Beyond their kitchen?

 

SEE

 

How do you really see someone?

Can you put on sunglasses to cut

Their glare without perceiving

Them as darker than they really

Are? Does what you see through

Rose colored glasses really have

A rose fragrance to go with it?

Can you put someone under a

Microscope in the name of science,

Analyze their germs in the hope of

Curing their sickness without

Catching it yourself? Different

Ways of seeing give you different

Images, but the word image is

Always close to the word imagine.

The truest way to see someone

Is the way they see themselves,

But how would I know what that

Is when I can only look from afar?

 

LITERALLY

 

When they say don’t love the world,

They really ought to qualify that as,

Don’t love the world of man. As for

Our planet, it needs all the love we

Can spare. The world of man is an

Abstraction, indicating our species

Considers itself separate from its

Own origins. Just because man

Invented language, our definitions

And dogmas don’t make us more

Than a luckier class of monkeys.

Like monkeys that discovered how

Bones made excellent weapons

And proceeded to hit each other

Over the head just because they

Could, our so-called discoveries

Have just as often been our own

Undoing as our salvation. Relative

To our species’ long tenure at this

Address, we only recently

“Discovered” that we live on a

Rock floating through space. Left

To our devices, we ruin our planet

As casually as an infant soils its

Diapers. Don’t love the world?

Hey, the world gave you a tongue

To say those words with. And this

Is what you give back?

 

LAUNDRY

 

Carelessly piled in rude proximity

To each other’s soils and smells,

Pelted with goo or white flake,

(Usually by a white flake), then

Drowned in darkness as the

Heartless machine’s waters turn

Hostile. It’s receding leaves us a

Crumpled, damp distortion of our

Once beautiful selves. And as a

Final indignity, we’re spun about

Violently for what seems like an

Eternity till we collapse in a

Bewildered heap. Is this what you

Have to go through to get clean?

Beware, housewives of America –

What goes around comes around.

Precious, I’m on to you by now –

You throw me in that torturous,

Spinning thing, but I know you’ll

Just make me dirty all over again.

 

ACKNOWLEDGE

 

How do you acknowledge all

That you know, all that you’ve

Felt, and all that you’ve thought

Without making it seem all of

That's more important than

Everything you’ve yet to know,

Yet to feel and yet to think?

Only by choice. Sometimes

Even the wise pretend that

Yesterday never happened,

While only the most foolish

Pretend tomorrow never will.

 

SCALE

 

Hope in change for the better,

Fear of change for the worse –

The scale starts out balanced

Equally, then we start moving

Around, acting, reacting, beliefs

And feelings and feelings start

Shifting from one side of the

Scale to the other. I wish I could

Weigh in just on the good side,

But I’m only part of the balance

And sometimes my choices

Put me on a different side than

I’d intended. I need someone

To jump on the good side with

Me. We could tip the scale, I

Know we could.

 

PISCES

 

There’s a built in flaw with words –

It’s nice to catch thoughts, but

Thoughts are life fish, they don’t

Have life unless they flow. Don’t

Take anything I share with you as

The last word. Thoughts need to

Be fluid, not frozen, not stuffed

Like trophies, not canned, labeled

And sold at competitive prices to

Stimulate the economy, not made

Into sandwiches nor marketed as

Fast food hamburger alternatives.

Think living fish, moving. Truth is,

Like the moods of the sea, one

Thought flows into another, then

Into another, ad infinitum, which

Is why what’s hurting us today

We often end up laughing about

Tomorrow, and vice versa.

 

BAD STUFF

 

Nobody wants to hear about the

Bad stuff, but it’s what makes the

Good stuff good by comparison.

How to stay off those subjects

When they’re part of what forms

The story, part of why things are

The way they are today? The bad

Stuff is like a horrible creature that

Emerges from the sewer at night.

The bad stuff will hurt you, and

You know very well it’s there but

Not how to talk about it. Yet it

Holds the key to unlock the

Reservoir of pain, let it empty

So something more joyful can

Fill it instead. The bad stuff is as

Ugly as sin. Have you got the

Guts to look it in the eye?

 

COOL AS ME

 

People cool as me never admit to

Needing someone. People cool as

Me are expected to act like if they

Want company there’s a menu of

Willing individuals only too happy

To comply, but mostly they just

Want privacy. People cool as me

Act like they’re married to their

Mission in life, regardless of how

Long ago we got a messy divorce

From it that we’ll forever be

Paying off. People cool as me are

Alone on Valentine’s Day, wishing

They had someone they could be

Themselves with, someone to

Hold in confidence, someone to

Enjoy the world with, someone

By their side to while away those

Lonely hours even the coolest

People can’t avoid.

 

VOICE

 

I found a voice, and dammit,

I’m gonna use it. Do I really

Have anything to say? Does

Anyone? Actually, I do have

Something to say, but it’s

Not something you’d say

Outright. It’s there between

The lines. And it’s not just

Having a voice that makes

Speaking worthwhile, it’s

Knowing there’s someone

Listening. You have more

Power than you realize –

You’re really the poem,

I’m just the voice.

 

SUPERHERO

 

Superhero, now we need you. Go

Make Russia mind its own business.

Throw their tanks back across the

Ukraine. Make them stop being

Such vodka brains. Superhero,

Scare off their armies, tell them go

Direct traffic in Communist Square,

Not invade other countries. Cause

Russians are weirdos with nothing

To lose and a chip on their shoulder

From way too much vodka and too

Much cold weather and no rock and

Roll and they’re mean to Pussy Riot

And Communism never worked

Anyway - no wonder they’re mad,

But when mad equals stupid, we

Need Superheroes for villains like

Godzilla and Russia under Putin.

 

WISH I KNEW WHAT TO BELIEVE

 

Wish I knew what to believe.

Is it just up to me? Would you

Leave such a crucial definition

To the village idiot? If nothing

Else, at least you’ll get an

Unusual perspective, but alas,

Not necessarily one that will

Change things much. Is it the

Acceptance of things as they

Are or the persistence in trying

To make things different that

Defines an idiot? Or is it both?

Someone said no, no, that’s all

Wrong, it’s all about where

You’re coming from. Well, I’ll

Have you know, I aspire to

Come from someplace clean,

Honest, honorable, true, but

All I know for sure is, I come

From my mom. Or so I’m told.

Wish I knew what to believe.

 

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES

 

Conspiracy theorists are already

Tweeting it was aliens took that

Plane from the sky. There’s a

New Bermuda Triangle up in the

Skies above Asia. Planes fly in but

Don’t come back out, or maybe

They all will in 500 years, when

The Triangle expunges the lot in

A single eruption, like a giant fart

In the time-space continuum.

Unsolved mysteries suggest too

Many possibilities, that’s why we

Don’t like them. If it wasn’t aliens

It could have been hungry clouds.

Or there’s a giant bird up there

Collecting planes the same way

Some of us collect butterflies. Or

The plane flew into a time warp

To 1000 years in the future, the

Planet of the Apes, where a fuzzy

Faced Sarah McLaughlin is on TV

This very minute singing “In The

Arms Of An Angel” on behalf of

The passengers and flight crew.

 

BEARS IN WINTER

 

Winter sends her message in

Such a cold way. We need to

Learn secrets of survival when

All turns to ice for awhile. Only

For awhile – in time even this

Freeze will melt so the water

Can flow again. For now, time

Out, red light, cease fire, halt

Till further notice, hunker down,

Carry on as usual – if you want

To freeze to death. Unlike the

Bears who have the right idea

And sleep through it, I’m awake,

Feeling every cold moment.

 

DEMANDING BASTARD

 

I guess I could get better pictures

If I used a fancier camera, but as

I’ll explain to anyone who’ll listen,

In my experience life goes by too

Fast to focus a fancy camera on it.

Fancy cameras are for when you

Have the luxury of subjects who’ll

Hold still for you. I need my quick

And dirty little point-and-shoot for

The kind of subjects I catch. I want

People living, not posing. What a

Demanding bastard I can be. Am I

Enough of a cunt yet that you’d

Consider me some kind of artist?

 

SHE HAD A TERRIBLE VISION

 

She had a terrible vision in the

Post office parking lot. She saw

Samoa fifty years from now,

When most Samoans will look

Like me, in denim instead of a

Lava lava, and worse still, part

White. All I did was get out of

My car and I gave this old lady

A terrible vision in the post

Office parking lot. I know I did.

It was written all over her face,

I felt her terror and sorrow,

And now I’m just as scared.

 

FREUDIAN SLIPPERS

 

Psychological mechanism, whether

You’re aware of it or not, it’s what

You do on impulse, without thinking,

Almost as if it did itself. Like when

You shut me out, not just once, but

Time and time again. Makes me

Wonder what you’re thinking, why

You believe that’s what I deserve.

When you spoke to me, is that the

Impression I gave? In my company,

Is that how I made you feel, like

Someone you need to shut out, not

Someone you need to open up to?

What you need to know is, I don’t

Have a clue. I take my cues from you,

But sometimes I wonder whether

You even know why you so naturally,

Spontaneously, automatically shut

Me out like you’re a vampire and

I’m sunlight.

 

ALL YOUR FAULT

 

Investigate, detective, analyze

The crime scene. Compile a

Profile of the perpetrator, try

Guessing their motive. Using

Wit and intuition, crack their

Puzzle, expose them in the

News, soothe public concerns

The criminals are taking over.

No, criminals are predictable

And secretly long to be caught.

They just crave the stimulation

Of knowing they’ve engaged a

Mind as brilliant as yours to

Figure them out. In fact, were

It not for you, detective, the

Criminals wouldn’t find crime

Even worth it.

 

PRODUCTS PROMISE

 

Does roll-on or spray keep you cool,

Calm and collected better when

Someone you care about gets you

Really upset? Can this glue can hold a

Relationship together? Which plastic

Container will best protect my heart

From being jostled and bruised?

Which of these scissors is quickest

For cutting through the bullshit? If

She drinks this cola, will she really

Open her happiness for me? Every

Single item in this store says made

In China. So what would Chinese

Buy if they were trying to connect

With someone special? Whatever

Looks most American? That would

Not quite explain overpopulation,

In China, unless their condoms are

About as reliable as their radios.

 

ROCK & ROLL

 

Old folks can’t rock & roll so well

Anymore on the dance floor, but

In their hearts the music never

Stops. When I say you rock me,

I mean you move me. I don’t

Know why, you just do, for or

Against my will, either way, and

I’d rather celebrate it than hate it.

We needn't drag each other through

Hell. Rock & roll has a dark side,

As does most things first intended

For a more Heavenly purpose. It’s

Just the way we feel each other’s

Rhythms, and when you and I find

Our groove, it’s like the angels

Are rocking out.

 

CIRCLE

 

In the days when Samoa was further

From the center of western society

Than most could even contemplate,

White men who saw it would jump

Ship and hide in her mountains. They

Thought they’d found Paradise, and

By comparison America or Europe

Was a hell they had no wish to ever

See again. Nowadays we don’t worry

Much about sailors jumping off ship,

More about locals trying to jump on.

Western society has always had some

Trying to escape from it, so now we’ve

Come full circle and some from here

Are trying to escape island society.

I guess your perception of Paradise

Depends a great deal on what you

Can compare it to. I wonder whether

Those longing to escape island society

For its first world counterpart could

Ever see Samoa the way it looked to

Those first eyes that knew enough to

Make that comparison so long ago.

 

FROM BABIES

 

Babies know joy instinctively, even

In the midst of the worst troubles

Going on around them. When adults

Aren’t causing pain under a misguided

Notion it will keep pain from being

Inflicted on them, they’re desperately

Trying to dull whatever pain still

Penetrates their armor, even though

Not feeling is just the same misery

In different makeup. With all the open

Pain warfare around us, it’s not as if

We’re unaware that others hurt too,

It’s more like we don’t care. Pain is

The currency of exchange between

Our bodies, minds and spirits. Spirit

Pain is the deepest hurt a person can

Feel, and many don’t realize how deep

Into darkness their spirit has sunk until

Something or someone unlocks the

Chains and their spirit can fly again.

Some say we take our sensitivity too

Seriously, but when we stop giving in

To the agitation of disquieting ideas,

These same sensitivities can make us

Sensitive to joy. This might take some

Re-learning, some remembering but

Luckily you can learn a lot from babies.

 

RECIPE

 

I speak to you in my mind and maybe

Occasionally say the right thing. We

Are more than just our ideas, way

More, but ideas shine a light on

What’s going on inside our walking

Balloons of flesh, blood and bones.

I put things together for you, like

A recipe, hoping my creation is to

Your taste. There’s a taste in my

Dreams, engages all the senses,

And I wake knowing there’s only

One real point in coming back from

Slumber at all. Whatever powers

I have of thought, speech or action,

I wish only that they be right for

Bringing you the recipe that comes

To me from somewhere inside.

 

NO WAY TO TREAT A GUEST

 

Goes by like a shadow outside the door.

Shiver. Ghosts don’t show up during the

Day – must mean this one couldn’t wait.

Is something urgently needed before it’s

Too late? Ok, I’m waiting, but I haven’t

Got all day. What is it you want me to

Realize? Is there something you hope

That I’ll recognize? I’m wide open to

Suggestions, but can you do more than

Just skirt the shadows of my awareness?

Uh oh, I think I’ve just insulted the ghost –

Spoke before thinking - you’re supposed

To be mysterious and it’s very special,

Very sacred, even very blessed in a way

That an entity from the other side would

Feels strongly enough about something

Here on this one to intervene. So here I

Sit, calm, clear, open. Seconds tick,

Nothing happens. Apprehension grows

I’ve insulted the ghost. I like to believe

I don’t intuit spirits when there really

Are none, but now there really isn’t.

No mysterious tingle, no strange noises,

No unusual signs. Not even a hint of what

It meant or what it wanted. It could be a

Misunderstanding, true, but there’s no

Mistaking the emptiness of feeling sure

Something came to me but wouldn’t stay.

 

MOON IN ARIES

 

My sun sign is Cancer, but my moon

Sign is Aries, which coincidentally the

Sun just went into. Man, my planets

Get kind of mixed up sometimes. I

Googled “moon in Aries” and was

Kind of horrified to find that what

It described wasn’t the person that

I am, but rather the person I try not

To be – impatient, inconsiderate,

Innocently self-centered, as in, why

Of course I’m the center of the

Universe. I’m Jim and your’re not!

No, no, I’ve consciously cultivated

Being kind when I can and even when

My first impulse is to kill dead. I take

Things very personally. Treat me like

Someone you want nothing to do with

And I will have a very, very hard time

Ever opening up to you. Treat me like

Your friendship is genuine, comes as

Naturally as breathing, and I’ll never

See you any other way. If I scare you,

Congratulations, your wits serve you

Well, but even celestial egomaniacs

Are capable of evolving. Honest.

 

MOTHER HEN

 

It’s really funny you feel threatened.

Hey Einstein, if I was capable of doing

Something crazy I already would have.

But my craziness takes the form of

Expression, and if anything I’m more

Of a threat to myself than anyone

Else, just like Van Gough caught a

Form of craziness that caused him to

Cut off his own ear and offer it to a

Prostitute, not as payment but as

Some kind of token. True story. Pure

Madness, but look at the paintings

That came out of him. As for me, I

Can say with about 95% confidence

My ear is safe. At heart I’m more of

A mother hen, taking care of other

People hella more than anyone takes

Care of me, but that’s my token, I

Just try and look after things. You’re

Not threatened, you just bring out

The part of me that wants to express.

 

PEACH

 

Aries is the time when impatience

Comes naturally – when it feels like

Whatever is supposed to happen

Should have happened already.

There may be a time and place for

Such a sentiment – it keeps things

From getting stagnant, shakes up

Our routines, reminds us that life

Needs to move, needs to feel new.

Once man feels the power of his

Actions to effect things, he thinks

Action is the answer to everything,

And inaction is worthy of contempt.

But what happens when you want a

Ripe peach right now, and the tree

Says sorry, it’s not ready yet? In a

Fit of impatience and contempt,

Should you take an axe and show

The tree who’s boss?

 

COLD ON A SUNNY DAY

 

Anxiety causes tension that affects

The body, weakens the immune

System. Anxiety can be like birds

Making noise, birds that feed on

Feelings, constantly announcing

Their presence, attracting even

More birds, making more noise.

Birds only know one song, but they

Give the performance their all. I’ve

Heard the same song interpreted

Many times, and you have to give

Them credit for staying faithful to

The original. It never changes, it’s

Constant as the color of the sky.

No one complains about the color

Of the sky, they just learn to see

It as beautiful. My immune system

Isn’t applauding the constancy,

But birds aren’t about to change

Their tune just because of me.

 

WHY IS THE DEVIL?

 

Why is the devil so attracted to this

Family? He must like our banter, the

Pomposity of our place in society

Echoed in our accents of faraway lands.

Why does Lucifer join us at our table

Every time the whole family’s in the

Same room? He must delight in seeing

Supposedly civilized community icons

Turn into savages after a few drinks,

Cutting and bashing each other with

Words instead of clubs, the nervy ones

Jockeying to establish dominance like

Apes forming a mating hierarchy. Why

Is God’s fallen angel always co-counsel

To our lawyers whenever our family

Mess inevitably winds up in court? The

Devil specializes in turning imported

Laws against the importers, reminding

Us that the higher the privilege, the

More prolonged the payment.

 

QUIET MONARCHY

 

America’s mainstream spirit lives

Under house arrest in the gated

Community where the quiet

Monarchy bide their time. Now

That they’ve captured the voice

Of the silent majority, have you

Noticed it’s endless variations on

The same commercial? The ads

Promoting our country as global

Cash register, moral arbitrator,

Cultural enforcer? America’s

Mainstream spirit sleeps in its

Comfortable prison, its dreams

Often tormented by the older

Ghost of American humanity and

Idealism. America’s mainstream

Spirit doesn’t mean to demonize

The excluded, but in celebrating

The included, well, that contrast

Just has to stand out somehow.

Like a golden vision of perpetual

Prosperity, at least for some, the

Rockets’ red glare shines forever

In the lights of Las Vegas, where

For every spent Elvis waiting to

Die one morning on the toilet, for

Every spent engine of industry like

Detroit waiting for the scrap heap,

There is one more diamond in the

Crown of America’s quiet monarchy.

 

QUIET ANARCHY

 

We all make our own choices, and

Mine have grown mellower with age

But once in awhile there’s still this

Quiet anarchy I feel, where I want

To just burn down everything and

Everyone who’s ever caused me to

Hurt, caused me to believe you’ve

Been dealing me cards all along

From a dirty deck, cause me to

Realize I’ll never succeed in any

Way unless I play a bullshit game

That feeds someone else’s control

And profit. See the old anarchist

Walking his dog with plastic gloves

And a paper bag. I have to clean up

My mess or else face a fine, while

You go scott free every time you

Take your glorious dump on me

And everyone else.

 

PUNISHMENT

 

Such a painful situation

You wish you could punish

Somebody for it. Wish you

Could cast the first stone,

Wish you could bear damning

Witness, wish you could join

The witch hunt, but you won’t.

Punishment might provide a

Pleasurable revenge, but don’t

Forget, in love it’s better to

Give than to receive. Can you

Say the same of punishment?

 

CONSISTENCY

 

I’m always wrong, but at least

The reason keeps changing.

One day I’m wrong cause of

This, next day I’m wrong cause

Of that, in a week I’ll be wrong

Cause of something else. I’m

The barometer or baseline by

Which you gauge what’s wrong.

If I’m always going to be wrong,

What can I do? Be wrong in

Creative ways, be wrong in

Original ways, be wrong in

Inspired ways, be wrong in

Ways that are at least true

To myself, be wrong in ways

An impartial observer might

Conclude are only wrong

Depending on one’s point of

View, which I’m sure you’ll

Immediately shift accordingly.

 

OIL AND VINEGAR

 

It isn’t someone whose faith

Blinds them that we need, it’s

Someone whose faith opens

Their eyes. And perfection

Isn’t what we should seek in

Another, but rather someone

Whose imperfections mix with

Our own like oil and vinegar

Rather than gasoline and fire.

Oil and vinegar are not terribly

Romantic, I know, but see how

Together they elevate the

Salad from bland to sublime.

 

GOING COWBOY

 

I don’t feel so at home on the

Range, where the deer and the

Antelope make territorial noises,

While my own thoughts about

Unclear boundaries compromise

The night’s quiet. Like a Hamlet

On horseback, the uncertainty of

A stalemate situation eats away

At my peace of mind. Any kind

Of move would be going cowboy,

Riding in with pistols blazing.

Might save the day, might just

Leave a big mess. Feels like a

Rescue is called for, though no

One is yelling help. It’s fine to

Go cowboy, follow no rules but

Your own, if you want to break

Free, but if you want to return,

You ride alone, trying to recall

The trail home on a dark night.

 

SPEECH DEFECT

 

Just a way to get a word in, talking

Without voices, without eye contact,

Just words symbolizing meaning,

Representing feelings, self-centered

By necessity because propaganda is

Always a distorted exchange, forever

Open to interpretation. Hardly the

Optimum way to communicate, but

The alternative is total silence, history

Interpreted in opposite ways, with no

Basis for agreement or understanding,

No common meaning because you

Can’t treat meaningfully someone

You don’t acknowledge even exists

Anymore. How strange to feel like a

Ghost in someone else’s world when

You’re not even dead yet.

 

COUNTRIES

 

American Samoa was born in 1900.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Was born in 1922. American Samoa,

Which is not quite America and not

Quite Samoa, is still trying to figure

Out what it is. The USSR, which was

A Union only by force, rape by any

Other name, Soviet and Socialist only

For as long as it was convenient, until

Its Republics grew strong enough to

Assert they wanted to be countries

Themselves, is also still trying to figure

Out what it is. I was born in the late

1950s, and I’m still trying to figure out

Who I am. You were born in the late

1980s, so if you haven’t figured out

Anything yet, that’s understandable

Given historical precedent.

 

COSTUMES

 

Costumes and uniforms, I’ll dress

The way I need to. One day one,

Another the next, any kind of

Outfit to please you. What we

Wear will make some kind of

Statement. It’s better, I guess,

Than walking ‘round naked. Put

On, put on, take off too. Same

Old me but the costume is new.

 

MR. FIXIT

 

Poor Mr. Fixit has forgotten about

All the things he can fix perfectly

To obsess on one thing he can’t

Quite figure out how to repair. Yes,

He says, I’m well aware there are

Things only God can fix, but if He’s

Not working through me then it

Must be due to some fault on my

Part. To find the solution within, I’ll

Purify myself. Friends say, Mr. Fixit,

If you were any more pure you’d be

Invisible. Friends say it’s turned

Into a battle of wills, of pride, of

Honor, of ego between Mr. Fixit

And the one thing he can’t fix. He

Knows they’ll never understand

How desperately motivation needs

A victory or else accomplishment

May as well be an accident. Besides,

He wonders, how can they say I’m

Overdoing it if I can’t get it done?

 

SWEETIE

 

Sweetie, I think your poetry

Is beautiful, just like you are.

You move me, always have.

Sweetie, I think you’re scared

Of me, and I can’t say I blame

You, but come on - compared

To Jesus, we all kind of suck.

 

THE DREADFUL PINK EYE

 

If you don’t want to catch the dreadful Pink Eye

Don’t look at someone like you wish they would die

Because if they suss that that’s what you think

They’ll punch both your eyes until they turn pink

Don’t antagonize with the things that you say

Or you’ll wear sunglasses all night and all day

Don’t provoke somebody to charge like a rhino

Or friends will all ask if you’re turning albino

 

MIDDLE AGED PRAYER

 

Age brings the same old problems,

Just with a more thoughtful response.

Still the same old choices soon as you

Wake. Always wishing things could be

Better for everyone, things could be

Fairer, things could be kinder, but the

World’s the way it is like a cookie

Crumbles the way it does, sort of by

Design but mostly at random. Lord,

Deliver us from randomness, except

When it brings something wonderful.

 

QUESTIONABLE CONDUCT

 

Opinions on what exactly constitutes

Questionable conduct will usually

Vary depending on who you ask and

Whatever/however their relation is

To the one whose conduct is called

Into question. If we all understood

Each other perfectly, no conduct

Would be questionable because

Whatever question there is would

Already be answered. Therefore,

To question another’s conduct is

Really to say you don’t understand.

As to the question of whether or

Not understanding is any business

Of yours… That actually explains a

Lot of suffering and violence. It

Could just as easily be, how dare

You not care, as how dare you

Interfere. It can be harder to act

Than to understand, but I still say

You’re worse off when it’s harder

To understand than to act.

Why? Lifting the veil: wakey wake key ~

It’s time to awaken from the larval dream. It’s time to emerge from the chrysalis and metamorphose. It’s time to step out of the plastic straitjacket and remove the blindfold tightly tied around body and mind by insecure family, indoctrinating schooling and insincere relationships. It’s time to decide who you really are, what you’re truly here for - and why.

 

It’s time to ask, “what’s ‘work’, what’s a ‘job’, what’s freedom, and what in hell is everyone doing – and why?” It’s time to stop making non-existent illusory money and garnering disinterested social approval by giving your time and energy to speed the destruction of Planet Earth’s biosphere – time to live a real life in a real living world instead of running a rat race through a pseudo civilisation of loathsome architect-designed concrete toilets in a pointless maze of toxic termite towers.

 

Yes, yes, you’ve heard it all before and you already know what’s going on. You don’t need to be told. You know what you need to do. You already know how you really could be living, thanks very much. You’ll get around to it in your own sweet time, when you’ve paid off your debts, when your family’s grown up, when you get some free time to pause and change tack, when you retire, when you win the lottery. When you’re good and ready.

 

Sure, buddy. Sure sis. You’ll get around to doing the right thing when you’re dead – in your next incarnation on a planet you’ve helped to thoroughly degrade and ruin – when you’re reborn in Bangladesh or Mongolia or sub-Saharan Africa, instead of in a better, blessed place where you can actually be free and make a difference, like here and now.

 

It’s time to find ways to share what remains of our beautiful planet with honour and without guilt. It’s time to decide whether to live a life of truth and beauty or die for a lie you know to be false. You’ve already chosen; your actions and ‘lifestyle’ are your choice, and the time has come to reassess your decisions and remake your destiny.

 

It’s time to realise why you’ve given yourself such an incredibly rare and privileged life that you actually have the space, mentality and leisure time to sit back and read this little diatribe. Now is the time and you are the person on the spot. You’re the one we need to save the world - now, at this critical juncture betwixt future and past. Living for life or dying for death? Choose. Now.

 

The system is set up to make you think you’re either on the high road to material success or sliding down a slippery slope to a loser’s failure; yet it’s designed to ensure you fail in the end. ‘Society’ is set up to ensure anything you build or create is taken from you, bit by bit, clod by clod, and stolen from any you choose to bequeath it to. Putrescent obsolescence is built into everything you’re sold and all that you’re told.

 

In modern all-consuming societies you’re taxed more highly than any ancient feudal serf, and even when you buy something outright you’ve just begun paying for it with the only thing you can ever really own - your time. The time of your life is taxed and stolen by those you vote for on behalf of remote controllers who think they ‘own’ the world. There are plenty of alternatives to their manipulated systems, but they’re all carefully concealed from you.

 

Most humans base their entire lives – plans, hopes, fears, dreams and strategies - on outdated assumptions programmed into them by brainwashed timeservers. They smother their kids in regimental uniforms and don’t care enough to notice how playtime becomes muted, how minds are restrained and freedom retrained into uniform mindlessness. They follow in the footsteps of torpid dolts and wonder why a regimented life is boringly doleful. Trained to subservience by millennia of feuding feudalists, humankind can only approach absolute truths (and long term survival) by roundabout routes that invariably lead people further astray.

 

Schooling isn’t education. It’s a system where open minds are successfully closed and everything not forbidden is compulsory. ‘Modern’ schooling ensures that cheats always prosper and that bullies and liars always prevail in the ‘real’ outside world of business and finance. Today’s educational establishments are dopey money factories designed to extort obedient volunteer slaves. No intelligent independent minds are found in them; none can survive there.

 

Schools, colleges and universities are quagmires of brainwashing, cultural imperialism and mindless training for destructive jobs that will soon cease to exist – training yards designed to serve the momentary needs of industries owned and run by short sighted paranoid sociopaths. They’re the birthplace of hierarchy and corruption. You know it’s true. Any real learning achieved is incidental. Scores and scoring a cushy job where you can lord it over others are everything. Learning and knowledge are secondary, sacrificial goals.

 

The system is thoroughly rigged by and for the worst elements to make sure that only most egregious people rise to the top of the dung heap and prosper. Only the worst control freaks and insecure jerks with killer ‘instincts’ claw their way to the summit. You know it’s true. There’s no ‘survival of the fittest’ (or even of the most adaptable) involved. Societies aren’t interested in change and evolution, but in security, status and stasis. And sooner or later stasis always means extinction, not survival.

 

But you can be different. So can your children. Deny the unloving death of blind conformity and confirm a free loving life with every action. Be what you always wanted to be, ’ere it harm none. If you’re well intentioned and wise the multiverse will provide. Choose. Now.

  

People are bigger than their straightjackets. You have the power to remove any blindfold and widen your vision whenever you choose. You have the ability to concentrate, meditate, cogitate and liberate. Only you can do it. Only you can free yourself, heal yourself, grow and learn. No-one can do it for you and anyone who says they can is a liar you need to avoid. And you have to do these things or die blind, lonely and incomplete before your time.

 

You’re a psychic immortal who gets precisely what you created. Only when people develop the inner divining and dowsing facilities latently inherent in all conscious beings are they able to discern truth from lies –able to actually tell the truth. You can only be free when you drop all that cultural conditioning and learn to open your inner sight. You can only decide what’s what, what to do and why when you have genuine personal insight.

 

Welcome to the new Aeon, a time when dangerous old myths can finally be laid to rest and healthier new legends allowed to arise from the ashes of yesterday’s ignorance.

 

One easy way to learn the truth is to ask two simple questions; ‘Why?’, and ‘Who Profits?’ Keep these liberating queries in mind as you progress onward…

 

Here’s a handy list of dangerous myths we need to lay to rest (and drive stakes through the hearts of. Repeatedly).

  

‘What did you do to save the world, daddy/mummy?’

 

Lie #1: The planet will soak up any mess humans make.

 

It won’t - not in any timeframe recognisable by you. We’ll all be dead before the planet is repaired and reforested unless WE go out and clean up our messes, stop the destruction of living treasures, replant entire continents of forests and weed and nourish them for generations, starting yesterday. Most brain-deprived, depraved ‘leaders’ seem to think the planet merely needs to be repaved. Don’t fall for their bandaid ‘solutions’. Opt out of death-dealing ‘civilisation’ and help start fresh societies in the green living world beyond the walls.

 

1b: Trees are a renewable resource. Forests will grow back if we cut them down.

 

They won’t. They haven’t. When the soil has washed away, the seed stock is gone and rainfall has disappeared (because forests make most of our rain, and store most of our fresh water) you’ve killed all the most interesting, nourishing and beneficial plants and animals and inherit a desert of sand, clay and rocks. It takes centuries for trees to be large enough, with large enough hollows, to support viable animal populations – including humans. Forests without animals are scrubby denuded death zones bereft of nutrients.

 

Idiots are still cutting down trees for money when there are better, cleaner, cheaper and totally renewable solutions for everything provided by natural forests - for everything except clean water, food and air! Somewhere near you, now, today, a forest is being felled. Help anyone who’s trying to stop them. Now.

 

Without global forests you’ll have no water fit to drink, no air fit to breathe and no crops to eat. The truth isn’t ‘out there’ – it’s obvious to any who actually look with unblinkered eyes.

 

Lie #2: Burning toxic fuels with lethal exhausts isn’t dangerous to the ecosystem or to people, and we need to keep doing it to fuel a prosperous civilisation.

 

It is. We don’t. If you don’t know about better technologies that are already available your head is in the sand with the in dust ‘realists’, looking for another oilfield or coal seam to vampirise. Some advanced nations are already totally fuelled by clean renewable energy. Literally hundreds of patents for new energy technologies are literally suppressed and stolen by ‘intelligence’ and ‘the military’ on behalf of ruthless killer corporations every year. Clean, free energy systems have been available for over a century and repeatedly eliminated, along with their investors (see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/free%20energy ). One name should suffice to explain much; Nikola Tesla.

 

The truth isn’t ‘out there’ – it’s being actively suppressed all around you. Why? The answer is a nested series of onion skins; the Russian dolls of money, control and power wrapped round an inner core of ultimate terrified insecurity.

 

2b: Human-made global warming is a lie spread by some unnameable group to control our lives and make us poorer.

 

It isn’t. The fossil fuel power mongers have lied to you so successfully that many or most people have been convinced ecologists have some vested interest in misleading them – instead of the profiteering planet killers who make gazillions from mining and selling you toxic and unnecessary products. CO2 IS a ‘greenhouse gas’, whose levels have dictated global temperatures for billions of years.

 

Whether we inject enough heat into the biosphere to forestall an impending cyclic ice age or simply create a global desert, every industry that injects carbon dioxide into the biosphere is doing so as a byproduct of pumping far more deadly chemicals into your body all the time, in the interests of meaningless profit. Anyone who tells you otherwise is simply lying or ignorant.

 

Any time someone tells you that carbon dioxide isn’t a greenhouse gas or that manmade global warming is a lie, challenge them for some data – any real facts – and you won’t get any that aren’t constructs of half-truths, misdirecting distractions and outright lies. Humans ARE heating the planet with toxic emissions regardless of what industry shills and conspiratorial ignoramuses tell you (see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/co2 ).

 

Time for an inconvenient and little-appreciated fact: when climate scientists tell you there will be, say, a five degree Celsius rise in global temperature they’re talking about global averages – including sea temperatures, which will hardly rise at all. A ‘five degree average rise’ means a TEN DEGREE rise - or more - on the land (outside the tropics) – where you and everything that makes it possible for you to survive actually lives. Forget drowning cities and sinking islands – all that will be left is desert and dust if we allow our ‘leaders’ to keep taking bribes from blindly competitive in dust ‘realists’.

 

There is no truth on the side of profiteering corporations, surprisingly enough – and the only ‘invested interest’ environmentalists have is the wish to survive and thrive. Have you heard of the Precautionary Principle? If you haven’t, google it. The truth isn’t ‘out there’, it’s simple: stop using toxic products fuelled by toxic fuels that make profits for toxic monopolies run by toxic people.

  

Authorised Docterds

Lie #3: We’re repeatedly informed that ‘education is liberation’. It isn’t. Learning is liberation; education swiftly becomes rote indoctrination. The most dangerous, authoritarian ignoramuses are those who stayed in school the longest. No-one with a doctorate is entirely sane. No-one who demands money in exchange for healing the sick, protecting another’s rights and freedom, repairing the ecosystem or providing education can be trusted; they know nothing of truth and are part of the problem, not the solution. Anyone who profits from another’s misery, toil or terror is actually, functionally, a heartless sociopath.

 

In ‘advanced’ notions today, more people die from medical errors than from any other cause. Only a few years ago docterds ensured that just about everyone in ‘developed’ notions had organs removed from their bodies ‘just in case’ something went wrong. Every child was expected to have their tonsils and adenoids (lymph glands), appendix and wisdom teeth ‘removed’, just in case their docterd couldn’t afford a flashier car or another mistress. And many an operation led to another, to correct the mistakes made in the first. It was all bullshit and almost everyone fell for it, because, like priests and lawyers, docterds claim a false monopoly on access to life and death and rule only by terror. See hermetic.blog.com/2012/09/16/freeing-god’s-slaves-the-e...

 

Today fluoridation, toxic vaccines, poisonous drugs and a host of other techniques bestow slow death and perpetual dissolution on the incredibly patient (trusting, ignorant and terrified) patient.

See nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/fluoridation and nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/vaccines

 

Your health and mind are in your hands. Sawbones/surgeons can occasionally be handy in real emergencies but best avoided at all other times. Once in a while you may damage yourself so much you need some repairs, but the only actual healing is done by you, your self, your body. The placebo effect – whereby if you believe something will heal you it will, regardless of whether it has any active ingredients or not – is estimated by reputable sources as being around forty percent – that’s 40%! This means that almost half of all cures are widely accepted as being basically magical –consciousness-driven - in nature. The other sixty percent are as well.

  

Time for some Truths

Cui Bono? Who Profits? Who is it good for?

 

Truth #1: Who profits? No-one who doesn’t have another planet or two readily available profits from old style industrial societies. Yet there will always be some deluded power monger willing to kill millions – to wreck an entire planet and civilisation - so that they can have a flashier car or another mansion complex surrounded by bodyguards and electric fences.

 

There are always those who’ve been so successfully brainwashed they’ll actually believe that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Messiah, a Redeemer, a big bearded genocidal racist asshole in the sky, his fallen foes or his mythical toady son are real – and these naïfs make fine prey for patriarchal paedophilic proselytising pederast priests. Who but the most ignorant innocents fall for such superstitious claptrap? Who but an insecure control freak with delusions of grandeur would want to interpose themselves as a middleman between you and your divine psychic heritage?

 

Anyone who tells you the Divine is only available through some frock wearing po-faced priest, or from some Bronze Age tome cobbled together by merciless barbaric dictators, or through some graven image or guru or savant, is lying. All who ‘worship’ some odd bod god or other fetish are simply trained to doff the forelock, kneel, bow, scrape and be subservient to a dead or deadly psychopathic control freak. Watch out, little girls! Bums to the wall, boys!

 

Christinanity, Islime and Moronism – to name a few - are nothing more than some of the more recent pernicious death cults focused on lies of pies in the skies at the expense of happy, healthy lives in the only real place - here and now. All other ‘great religions’ are as bad or worse. Religion is a region with a li(e) in it. But they make gigantic tax-free profits! Cui bono?

 

The truth is always simple. The only beliefs that are true are those that spread life, light, health and diversity – the hallmarks of true survival and wisdom. Everything else is deceptive bullshit.

 

If you really want to learn how to access the godhead that is the birthright and crown of all beings, all you have to do is listen to the endless programs running through the rat wheel of your mind – and transcend them. Everyone can do it if they try, but the younger and fresher you start deprogramming yourself and tuning into ‘higher’ or ‘deeper’ consciousness the better. See nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/meditation and nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/magic if you want to learn how.

 

Enlightenment will always be available to any true seeker with an open mind and compassionate heart. Guides are always available if you simply search, but accept no substitute for self-gained awareness – and anyone who demands money in exchange for spreading the light of universal awareness is not a person you want anything to do with.

  

The Lore of the Land

 

Truth #2: There is no government. There is no law. There are no companies or corporations. Money does not exist. They are fables, illusions, widely accepted truisms – but they aren’t things. They don’t actually exist, except as agreements between people. They have no inherent power. They are clever pernicious illusions.

 

If you take a closer look you’ll discover that none of your country’s laws has a basis in any fact. In fact, you’ll find that your nation is also merely a notion, a fable agreed to by a sectional segment of some of the people; not all, or even necessarily most, but merely those who profit the most from the fable.

 

No ‘higher power’ or external ‘divine plan’ or government controls your life. No dog, no master. Thou art god(dess). All human-made laws are simply constructs and contracts, and none are writ in stone. The only real inherent law is the lore or karma and dharma – the ‘golden rule’: Do unto others as you’d be done by. It’s the only law and lore that works, and needs no intercessor or interpreter, no priest, monk, scholar or savant to preserve or transmit through the ages. It’s free for all, forever.

 

The real Law is no mystery and has no officers. It needs no prophets, liars/lawyers, judges or arbitrators. As above, so below. You are part of a giant hologram, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and every part contains the whole. In a holographic universe where everyone shares the same consciousness, anything you do to or for anyone else is something you do to or for your self.

 

Don’t kid yourself that ‘good deeds for others will reap rewards’. Of course they will. But anything you do for your children, family or strangers you’re actually doing for yourself. Caring about your family more than anyone else is perfectly understandable on a mechanical, biological and genetic level – but it’s also the basis for the worst traits of humankind. Racism, genocide, slavery and most forms of discrimination are outgrowths of such ‘love’, which is actually selfish at its root. Everyone is your family.

 

In fact, everyone is you, and you are everyone, for thou art god(dess), recreating the manifest world from instant to moment at a level beyond and behind linguistic thought.

  

Abundance and Scarcity: It’s Falseconomy, Stupid!

  

Truth #3: Money doesn’t exist. It’s a global pyramid scam whereby only the first ones in get to the top of the pyramid – everyone else loses. We have the ability to provide everyone on the planet with enough food, water and shelter – but we don’t appear to have enough of an entirely imaginary commodity to do it with. Something is very wrong.

 

The ‘science’ of economics is bullshit, as any true scientist can tell you. Arbitrary rules are continually altered and no ‘economist’ can make accurate predictions based on ‘economics’. It’s just another scam to make you think ‘authorities’ know what they’re doing and can be trusted to look after your best interests. Lol.

 

Money is simply invented. It’s created at the flick of a keyboard. It’s all made up; simply invented by (in)vested interests with ‘interest’. When the illusion is so arranged as to make it appear the ‘economy’ is circling the drain you go down the tubes – but the banksters, monarchs and in dust realists who own actual, tangible things don’t, as we all ought to recognise. This happens regularly and repeatedly. I won’t go on – see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/banksters and never take out a loan. Don’t use banks. There are plenty of alternatives.

 

Become as self-sufficient and live as sustainably as possible.

 

People are told they must pay money to inhabit a patch of the planet, and because they’ve been trained to accept a vast raft of lies by feudal societies run by hideous robber barons surrounded by gunmen they simply accept it.

 

People are told they must go to school and work every day to provide enough food, water, shelter and entertainment for themselves and their families. It’s a lie. That only has to happen because we’ve allowed industrious robber barons and banksters to steal everything and arrange it that way when we have a wide choice of much better possibilities. Now, at the dawn of the Third Millennium, the new industrious revolution has begun and advancing automation, nanotech and new processed like 3d printing mean that the jig is up. Full ‘employment’ is no longer possible or desirable. Now we have to provide shelter, food, water, transport and other necessities to everyone, even the rich, for free – because now, at last, we can!

 

If you work at any job that isn’t actively healing the planet you’re almost certainly actively destroying it. If you go into debt you’re destroying it. If you flush a toilet into a river or ocean, if you use fossil fuelled transport to and from work or to power your home (and nuclear fuels are fossil fuels, too) you’re destroying it. If you aren’t growing at least some of your own food and medicine you’re destroying it. If you leave your kids in some regimented school (or even a childcare centre) to be mindlessly raised to do and be the same as you were brainwashed into, you’re destroying it – and them.

 

If you’re trapped on a treadmill with no easy way out but to simply jump off and take your chances – JUMP OFF.

 

You’ll be so glad you did!

  

Competitiveness = Death Dealers

  

Truth #4: The ‘killer instinct’ is no instinct – it’s a result of training. Bullies and psychopaths are made, not born – and they can be unmade if you catch, restrain and retrain them early enough. Without bullying children don’t learn hate, fear and fight. Without bullies children don’t learn to be subservient. Bullies must be separated from other kids until they can be trusted among them. The same is true for adults.

 

The only reason to have a gun is to murder. They’re made for no other reason. They’re the coward’s long distance death dealing weapon of choice. Only people terrified of their neighbours own guns – and that, of course, terrifies their neighbours. Violence begets violence and weapons beget weapons. They’re feedback loops. Weapon ownership is always an arms race, the stupid doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction writ small for small minded loony hoons, terrified cowards and immature halfwits who like to menace others. Anyone who wants a gun – like anyone who wants a presidency – is precisely the person you don’t want to trust with one.

 

Allowing gun ownership in human society is just a form of collective lunacy. No popguns will save you from a modern army – or government swat team. They’ll just get you killed more quickly and assuredly. That’s the real lesson of modern history, for anyone who cares to look; don’t fall for the lies of weapon profiteers. In modern conflicts the survivors are those who successfully avoid the fighting. Save your money and save a life; you can’t have peace with a gun in your hand and it’s almost certain that no-one will aim one at you if you don’t. War or peace; you can’t serve two masters. Choose. Now.

 

All free societies have a fine time without weaponised populations perpetually living under a Sword of Damocles. The US, for instance, is not a free society but a corporatocracy that’s had its freedoms surgically removed since neoconmen ensured King George II stole the (p)residency. Freedom is free. How could it be otherwise? If you have to do something to defend or promote ‘freedom’, it isn’t freedom and you aren’t free. The contrary view is oxymoronic absurdity.

 

Flags are just coloured rags used to blindfold sacrificial lambs and enshroud their mangled bodies. Wars are always fought to enrich a few cowardly, spiteful old dorks and their trophy girlfriends hiding in some castle or penthouse. There is no honour involved in killing – it’s simply the worst form of working for The Man.

 

The only people who profit from wars and weapons are weapon makers, ammunition merchants, oil barons and the politicians they coerce and bribe. No-one who kills for a wage is anything but a (poorly) paid killer. This includes virtually all soldiers – not just mercenaries – and everyone who makes a profit from raising, hunting or killing animals for food.

 

You may have fallen for the bullshit that humans need to eat corpses to be healthy. The opposite is true. No-one (regardless of blood type or haplogroup) needs meat to survive. It’s a choice, a habit, an appetite – an addiction, nothing more.

 

Cattle and ‘meat animals’ are condemned to lives of pain and torture. They’re castrated, poisoned, fed garbage, corralled into cages, beaten, shocked and terrified into submission (rather like modern domesticated primates). If you saw what happens to animals before they end up in your mouth you wouldn’t touch the poisons collected at the top of the food chain and pump them through your bloodstream. Most young kids vomit the first time they’re fed eggs or meat. Ever wonder why?

 

Before you accept the lie that ‘vegetarians kill too – everything kills to survive’, consider that eating the fruits, vegetables and seeds of plants doesn’t kill any plant. The plant lives on, and reproduces. Just on more lie told by profiteers; one more unexamined false assumption.

 

If you choose to create endless unnecessary suffering by slaughtering innocent, terrified animals you deserve all that’s coming to you. Remember that ‘karma’ thing? Choose. Now.

See nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/vegetarianism

  

The Road to Hell is Paved with False Assumptions

 

When we’re kids we all ask, “Why?” Some kids mean, “Why does it work like that?” Others are asking, “Why on Earth would people do something so stupid?”

 

Bereft of imagination, in dust ‘realists’ force everyone to inhabit their bland, artless, heartless concrete toilets - blocky headstones designed by award winning wannabes and built by money-mastered so called craftsmen. Chintzy malls and ugly mausoleums masquerading as a civilisation. We can do much, much better.

 

Everything we’ve built has foundations of clay. All our sciences, beliefs and political systems are based on antiquated false assumptions; on lies, to be absolutely clear. Truth is always in here, within, waiting to be recognised by a freshly awakening mind. It isn’t going anywhere – unlike the outmoded scams perpetuated by a dying breed of conmen and the pernicious women hiding behind their thrones.

 

You’d think they’d know by now - you can service two mistresses but you can’t serve two masters! Life or Mammoney: Choose! Now!

  

It’s beyond the scope of this little entreaty to cover all these bases in detail – but they’re all explored in more (and more) depth at this website: become one of the New Illuminati by perusing truths and subscribing via one of the many ways available @ nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/

 

- Welcome to the New Millennium and have a great New Aeon

R. Ayana

 

For more by R, Ayana see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/r.%20ayana

- See ‘Older Posts’ at the end of each section

 

From nexusilluminati.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/why-lifting-veil-...

A servitor is the catch-all term applied to a wide class of mindless, cybernetic drones created from a fusion of Human flesh and robotic technology that are used to carry out simple, manual tasks across the Imperium of Man.

 

While many of these programmable cybernetic slaves are genetically-engineered, vat-grown sub-Human clones or replicae created by the Adeptus Mechanicus from Human genomes who have their bionic implants installed after "birth," others were once truly Human.

 

These servitors were usually criminals who fell afoul of Imperial Law, particularly a person who has offended or damaged the Adeptus Mechanicus in some fashion.

 

These unfortunate criminals will be sentenced to Servitude Imperpituis by the Arbitrators or Judges of the Adeptus Arbites and will be handed over to the Mechanicus' Tech-priests to be mind-wiped, reprogrammed, and cybernetically-enhanced to serve some specific, rudimentary function.

 

Once lobotomised and "improved," by process of painful operations, even criminals and Heretics are granted one last chance to serve the Imperium.

 

Servitors are generally mindless, semi-organic robots, possessing only the most basic of instincts, though some are fully capable of speech if such functions and knowledge are programmed into them. Their brains are programmed to perform only the task they were designed for, whether that be maintenance, construction, or even warfare.

 

The altered and fragmented brain of a servitor functions poorly unless constantly supervised. Most will eventually go into a state of mindlock, babbling incoherent nonsense as the servitor tries to assert some form of control over its functions.

 

Servitors are created by the Adeptus Mechanicus on their Forge Worlds, and supplied to departments of the Adeptus Terra such as the Administratum and to the Inquisition, as well as to military organisations like the Astra Militarum and various Space Marine Chapters.

 

Servitors make up the vast bulk of the population of Mars and other Forge Worlds of the Mechanicus, where they fulfill the role of tireless workers, soldiers and labourers.

 

There are many types of servitor, each designed for a certain task. Typical servitor types include "technomats" which operate and service various machines, "holomats" which act as holographic recording devices, "lexomats" which serve as semi-organic computers with tremendous calculating powers for record-keeping and data storage, and "drones" which are cybernetic robots -- stupid and essentially mindless slaves ideal for menial work and little else.

 

There are also guardian or technical servitors, or the more powerful Kataphron Battle Servitor which is a mainstay of the Mechanicus' military forces.

 

Another common form of servitor is that of a gun carrier. Fitted with heavy weapons whose chattering volleys can drive back the foe, such servitors allow an Enginseer to make repairs uninterrupted.

Over the course of the past two months I've been increasingly getting into FriendFeed, a new service started by a few ex-Google employees. FriendFeed is a service that aggregates all of the basic places that your friends are publishing to on the internet on one site. When you look at someone's FriendFeed account it will include their Flickrstream, their blog, their Twitter account, and any of about 30 other services.

 

But even if you don't care about all of the other services where your friends are publishing and *only* want to use FriendFeed to browse Flickr photos, it's still a *much better place* to do this than Flickr itself.

 

When you add someone on FriendFeed, every time they publish photos to their Flickr account you see them all. On Flickr when you look at your contacts/friends most recent photos you only get to see the last 1 photo or the last 5 photo depending on your settings.

 

What this means is that you are missing many of the best photos from your Contacts and Friends on Flickr. When I upload, for instance, I typically upload 10 photos at a time. What you see are only my last 5 photos on Flickr. You miss the rest. They get buried.

 

Not on FriendFeed though. When you subscribe to my FriendFeed account you get to see the last 7 photos from any upload session of mine (or any of your other contacts) but then FriendFeed has a little plus sign that you can use to expand any photographer's photos beyond the most recent 7 and see them all.

 

The problem with Flickr's current view of your contact/friend photos is that unless you stay on top of it *all the time* you inevitably miss photos that you would have liked to have seen. FriendFeed solves this problem for you by ensuring that you get to see *all* the photos that your friends upload, not just some of them.

 

Even better though, at FriendFeed when you subscribe to your friend's Flickrstream you not only get to see all of *their* photos. You get to see all of the photos that they fave as well. This is simply an amazing feed of photographs.

 

The problem with discovering photos on Flickr is that Flickr's "Explore" is weak sauce. I get bored of the photos there. How many times do I want to see sunsets and birds and whatever else the overall Flickr population seems to promote.

 

Instead with FriendFeed my friends become the arbitrators of good taste. Have you ever noticed how awesome the photos that snailbooty faves are? These are not photos you are going to find in Explore generally speaking. With FriendFeed, you essentially turn your friends into curators who present you with their gems that they find from Flickr every single day.

 

But what if the person that you want to follow is not on FriendFeed? What then? Easy. FriendFeed allows you to make "imaginary friends." Simply create an "imaginary friend" and point it to your favorite Flickr photographer/faver and you will begin to see all of their photos and faves just like they were on the service.

 

Even if you don't care to watch your friends photos and faves you still may want to sign up for FriendFeed anyways. Why? Because *other people* are using it and it is one of the fastest growing sites on the internet. It is simple to set up your own FriendFeed account and this will ensure an even broader audience for your photos beyond what Flickr can offer. FriendFeed is where I'm finding the majority of the photos that I look at on Flickr anymore.

 

Come check it out. My FriendFeed account flitered for Flickr is here if you want to add me. If you are on the service and a Flickr user please add your FriendFeed account as a comment to this post -- or the post on FriendFeed. I'd like to make sure that I'm following you there as well and that way others that view this post can add you as a contact too.

 

Finally, if you want to browse FF for existing Flickr users that you might want to add and follow, you can click through this link here to filter the service and only show you Flickr user's photos.

 

Of course, none of this could be possible without the generosity of Flickr's open API system which makes all of this possible.

 

Conversation about this post on FriendFeed here: friendfeed.com/e/c65c1c83-d55c-49f4-e146-1dde940d0914/Fri...

The Project Gunship II prototype and “Plain Jane” production models carried the same armament. However, the Plain Jane versions carried upgraded AN/APN-59 navigation radar and an APQ-133 fire control radar. In this image, you can see the positioning of the weapon systems on the left side of the aircraft. The MXU-470 GAU-2/A minigun modules (an M134 GAU-2/A minigun mounted on an ammunition drum) were derived from the configurations used in the AC-47 Project Gunship I aircraft. The M61 Vulcan 6-barrel Gatling cannons were fed ammunition from drums placed next to the weapons. Interestingly, the rear M134 GAU-2/As are mounted above the Vulcans. This arrangement made for tricky ammunition drum placement!

 

In total, there were eight AC-130A aircraft converted from C-130A airframes. Here is a list of these aircraft with their serial numbers, names, and fate:

 

AC-130A Project Gunship II Prototype

54-1626 “Vulcan Express” and “Super Spooky”

 

AC-130A Plain Jane

53-3129 “First Lady”

54-1625(6) “Warlord” Shot down Laos (22 April 1970)

54-1627 “Gomer Grinder”

54-1628 “The Exterminator”

54-1629 “The Arbitrator” Crashed (24 May 1969)

54-1630 “Mores de Callis” and "Azrael, Angel of Death"

56-0490 “Thor” Shot down Laos (21 December 1972)

CMF 24

1 - Football Referee - Lego Female referee with soccer ball, yellow and red card

2 - Robot Warrior - Lego Space warriors in green, white and pink

3 - Brown Astronaut and Spacebaby - Lego Classic astronaut in brown with gauge and baby astronaut in blue

4 - Carrot Mascot - Lego Man in a carrot costume with a "Farmers Market" sign and orange hair

5 - Falconer - Lego Black Falcon Archer with red hair, cape, bow and black falcon

6 - T-Rex Costume Fan - Lego Man in brown T-Rex costume

7 - Orc - Lego Orc with cloak, sword and shield with updated fantasy era Orc logo

8 - Conservationist - Lego Zookeeper with Koala

9 - Potter - Lego Female potter with potter's wheel, mug and bowl

10 - Rococo Aristocrat - Lego French lady with a wide skirt , a powdered face, a wig and a small white dog

11 - Rockin’ Horse Rider - Lego Girl on wooden rocking horse

12 - Newspaper Kid - Lego Newsboy with bag, newspaper and slingshot

   

158868 crosses the River Nidd at Knaresborough, working 2C10 - 12.06 Leeds to York.

 

The viaduct connects Knaresborough with Harrogate on the Harrogate line, in North Yorkshire, England. The line was built in 1848 with the Leeds and Thirsk Railway creating a branch from their line at Starbeck railway station to go through Knaresborough and connect with the line that was being built westwards from York as part of the East and West Yorkshire Junction Railway. Just as the viaduct had been almost completed, it collapsed into the River Nidd on 11 March 1848. The resultant noise of the falling masonry was said to have lasted for five minutes. Whilst there was no official inquiry, it is believed that the collapse of the viaduct was down to a combination of bad workmanship, poor materials and excess water in the swollen river below as a result of heavy rain over a period of two months. Despite the collapse, the centre span was still in situ and had to be demolished before work could start again on a replacement viaduct.

 

The fall of the viaduct necessitated a temporary Knaresborough railway station situated to the east of the present day station whilst a new viaduct was completed and the permanent station was built. The collapse of the viaduct allowed a considerable amount of stone and lime to enter the river. Due to the presence of lime in the water, thousands of fish were found dead over a large stretch of the river downstream. The contractors, Wilson and Benson, took the two railway companies to court as Thomas Grainger had been engaged to act as an arbitrator in the resultant argument about who should pay for the failed viaduct. Grainger decided that the railway companies should pay over £5,600, but that the two contractors must pay £2,389 and relinquish any further claims on property, materials or the right to build the new viaduct. The main complaint that Benson and Wilson had against Grainger was that he had been employed by both companies to engineer the railway line and stations, so they alleged a bias on his part.

 

A new viaduct was started in 1848 and used the same source of stone as the previous viaduct; a quarry at Abbey Crags, part of the Nidd Gorge through Knaresborough some 1 mile (1.5 km) to the south of the viaduct. The stone was quarried from the same Upper Plompton Grit that was used in the castle and other buildings in the town.

 

A replacement viaduct was opened on 1 October 1851 costing £9,803, and was constructed with castellated walls and piers to blend in with the ruined walls of Knaresborough Castle. It consists of four arches and three piers, the middle of which stands in the water. Railway mapping lists the viaduct as being 4 chains (260 ft; 80 m), but other sources list its length to be 330 feet (100 m).The viaduct is 78 feet (24 m) high, and each span is 56.9 feet (17.3 m) across in width.The height of the parapets is only 35 inches (88 cm) which has led to Network Rail installing temporary fencing to protect workers when maintenance is underway on the structure