Friday, November 01, 2024

๐“๐€๐—๐ˆ ๐ƒ๐€๐•๐„ ๐Ÿ๐ŸŽ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ’

 


During every October for the run-up to Haloween this Dave takes the trusty Checker Cab for a spin around wherever there's a call — and some extra cash — around here and there.

This year there's a national Presidential election in the US of A. This time we've been told it's make-or-break time for Democracy. We'll be in D.C. to pick up some pols; maybe get a bead on what's what?

Of course WWIII is breaking out; so there's that too.

Early voting for the word of the year is open now. "Genocide" ... maybe not a good candidate since the investigation probably won't be out by year end on what to call the killing. "Anti-Semitic" ... that one gets my vote. 

[Please stay tuned in this post to the end; some clarifying presentations on both candidates for word of the times from Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 2022.]


Don't lose heart people. The drive will be smooth and worth the while. Your driver is razor focused on getting to the destination with a song in his heart. Is there any other way to go? We'll meet any roadblocks with aplumb. Sweet! [Plums are.]

****

Who'll be my passengers? 
We shall see.

Here we go!
"Give it a chance!" You know what!

Big Round of Applause, folks!

"Fact is, look, I'm in a taxi. 
So I'm riding in a Taxi."


 Cholent to die for! And, tough too.

Deep state exposed!
[And resemblance to Bibi, Joe and Vlodko is purely coincidental.]

That's what a "terrorist" looks like!
According to who?
[Fact check: "whom"]

HUMAN!
[Astonished that needs to be said.]


Armageddon on the horizon?

Who you gonna call?

 “Dramabusters”

“We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a home. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light.” 
— Hildegard De Bingen

Any resemblance to any actual person 
or persons ... is purely coincidental.

Simpler times

Girls! Just wanna have fu-un!
[Any report of a taxi cab on the Cyclone at Coney Island is fake news. Or, is it?]

Oh! Behave!

A friend to have on the Path

'Tis the season.

CAPTION CONTEST

1. Unconditional love.
2. You're like a son to me.
3. "I wish I knew how to quit you!"
4. "It's nobody's business but ours."
5. "For as long as we can ride it, there ain't no reins on this one."
6. Are you sure it's kosher?

Let's make it the popular option ...

LBGTQ+ as an Olympic sport ...
[In the loosey goosey spirit of the French 
I took liberties with their tower.]

"Same as it ever was."

One hot pussy!

Stormy weather!

Would you look at that!!

A parable for our times: 
Dogs playing nice at the same table.

Keeping it clean. Inside and outside.

MEE-OUCH!!!


"Please drive carefully. 
I don't want to jiggle my cup."
[Make that ... "Cups!"]

Peace. Is that something really you gonna get fighting for it?

How about looking within and dealing with the Amelekite triggering yours and my heart. That's the real battle after all. Not all that desecration of God's Creation with bombs and bullets. That's the devil's work. Yet, how to deal with pesky creature? Same way. Chase his out your heart. How? Don't give him fuel with hatred and fear. Geez! Claimed theists acting like un-theists. Geez! If it was a movie I wouldn't buy it.



You know who you are ...

Don't bite the messenger! ...

Did you know the Moon has 
no light of it's own,
it reflects the light of the Sun?

I travelled to Lebanon as a tourist in 1971. First thing I saw from the airplane window when we landed was crater marks near the runway from recent Israeli air strikes.

We hired a driver for the day. Saw a Palestinian refugee camp; shanty town behind a fence made of crude wood poles and barbed wire. Crowded. Messy. Sort of like how you would keep a junk yard dog.

Our driver volunteered that they [Palestinians] are bums. That if he was on an employment line and offered his place forward in the line they wouldn’t accept. No good and lazy. It struck me that I had heard that sort of thing before. Back home in the US of A.

Ring any bells?

This is just a long memory with, ahem, I’m sure no resonance to Beirut these days. After all, we’ve been told history on what’s going on around there began on October 7, 2023.




 
A-FUN-GHOUL!


Take it easy, Lady! I'm a safe driver!
"It's not you ... I read the news today!"


Master class in relatability ...

Question: In office how will you clean up the mess down south?

“ First thing. Let’s be clear ... You know how you try to wipe your best, but there’s always more? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!





Bey! ... Tay! ... Kay! 
 
"Get a rhume!"
"A 'rhume'?"


"Take me to 'Greater Israel'."
That's a lot of ground to cover!"
"Boychik, you ain't seen nottin' yet!
That's just for starters."

History did not start on October 7, 2023.

WOOF!

"Fear and Loathing"
Just look at politics today 
to understand what he meant.

This year the horror is real!

FYI This is what some in very high places 
are calling anti-Semitic. 
Think for yourself.





































Tuesday, October 29, 2024

๐“๐ก๐ž ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐š๐ค๐ž๐ง ๐๐ฎ๐š๐ฅ๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐œ ๐ฆ๐ข๐ง๐ ~ ๐๐š๐ฆ๐ค๐ก๐š๐ข ๐๐จ๐ซ๐›๐ฎ ๐‘๐ข๐ง๐ฉ๐จ๐œ๐ก๐ž

[Something to reflect upon during this politically charged national US election getting us all wrapped up in making a choice. It's not so much that there's a choice, but the mezmerization, disputation, and polarization that seems to be an inadvertent and unnoticed part of the process.]

The Mistaken Dualistic Mind 
 Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche

All the philosophical theories that exist have been created by the mistaken dualistic minds of human beings. In the realm of philosophy, that which today is considered true, may tomorrow be proved to be false. No one can guarantee a philosophy's validity. Because of this, any intellectual way of seeing whatever is always partial and relative. The fact is that there is no truth to seek or to confirm logically; rather what one needs to do is to discover just how much the mind continually limits itself in a condition of dualism.

Dualism is the real root of our suffering and of all our conflicts. All our concepts and beliefs, no matter how profound they may seem, are like nets which trap us in dualism. When we discover our limits we have to try to overcome them, untying ourselves from whatever type of religious, political or social conviction may condition us. We have to abandon such concepts as 'enlightenment', 'the nature of the mind', and so on, until we are no longer satisfied by a merely intellectual knowledge, and until we no longer neglect to integrate our knowledge with our actual existence.

from the book by Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche "Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State"


Friday, October 25, 2024

๐…๐ซ๐จ๐ฆ ๐“๐‡๐„ ๐‚๐Ž๐‹๐‹๐„๐‚๐“๐ˆ๐•๐„ ๐–๐Ž๐‘๐Š๐’ ๐Ž๐… ๐‚.๐†. ๐‰๐”๐๐†, ๐•๐จ๐ฅ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ž ๐Ÿ๐ŸŽ ...




"This formulation will not please either the mass man or the collective believer. For the former the policy of the State is the supreme principle of thought and action. Indeed, this was the purpose for which he was enlightened, and accordingly the mass man grants the individual a right to exist only in so far as he is a function of the State. 

"The believer, on the other hand, while admitting that the State has a moral and factual claim on him, confesses to the belief that not only man but the State that rules him is subject to the overlordship of “God,” and that, in case of doubt, the supreme decision will be made by God and not by the State. Since I do not presume to any metaphysical judgments, I must leave it an open question whether the “world,” i.e., the phenomenal world of man, and hence nature in general, is the “opposite” of God or not. I can only point to the fact that the psychological opposition between these two realms of experience is not only vouched for in the New Testament but is still exemplified very plainly today in the negative attitude of the dictator States to religion and of the Church to atheism and materialism.

"Just as man, as a social being, cannot in the long run exist without a tie to the community, so the individual will never find the real justification for his existence and his own spiritual and moral autonomy anywhere except in an extramundane principle capable of relativizing the overpowering influence of external factors. The individual who is not anchored in God can offer no resistance on his own resources to the physical and moral blandishments of the world. For this he needs the evidence of inner, transcendent experience which alone can protect him from the otherwise inevitable submersion in the mass. Merely intellectual or even moral insight into the stultification and moral irresponsibility of the mass man is a negative recognition only and amounts to not much more than a wavering on the road to the atomization of the individual. It lacks the driving force of religious conviction, since it is merely rational. 

"The dictator State has one great advantage over bourgeois reason: along with the individual it swallows up his religious forces. The State takes the place of God; that is why, seen from this angle, the socialist dictatorships are religions and State slavery is a form of worship. But the religious function cannot be dislocated and falsified in this way without giving rise to secret doubts, which are immediately repressed so as to avoid conflict with the prevailing trend towards mass-mindedness. The result, as always in such cases, is overcompensation in the form of fanaticism, which in its turn is used as a weapon for stamping out the least flicker of opposition. Free opinion is stifled and moral decision ruthlessly suppressed, on the plea that the end justifies the means, even the vilest. The policy of the State is exalted to a creed, the leader or party boss becomes a demigod beyond good and evil, and his votaries are honoured as heroes, martyrs, apostles, missionaries. There is only one truth and beside it no other. It is sacrosanct and above criticism. Anyone who thinks differently is a heretic, who, as we know from history, is threatened with all manner of unpleasant things. Only the party boss, who holds the political power in his hands, can interpret the State doctrine authentically, and he does so just as suits him.

"When, through mass rule, the individual becomes social unit No. so-and-so and the State is elevated to the supreme principle, it is only to be expected that the religious function too will be sucked into the maelstrom. Religion, as the careful observation and taking account of certain invisible and uncontrollable factors, is an instinctive attitude peculiar to man, and its manifestations can be followed all through human history. Its evident purpose is to maintain the psychic balance, for the natural man has an equally natural “knowledge” of the fact that his conscious functions may at any time be thwarted by uncontrollable happenings coming from inside as well as from outside. For this reason he has always taken care that any difficult decision likely to have consequences for himself and others shall be rendered safe by suitable measures of a religious nature. Offerings are made to the invisible powers, formidable blessings are pronounced, and all kinds of solemn rites are performed. Everywhere and at all times there have been rites d’entrรฉe et de sortie whose efficacy is impugned as magic and superstition by rationalists incapable of psychological insight. But magic has above all a psychological effect whose importance should not be underestimated. The performance of a “magical” action gives the person concerned a feeling of security which is absolutely essential for carrying out a decision, because a decision is inevitably somewhat one-sided and is therefore rightly felt to be a risk. Even a dictator thinks it necessary not only to accompany his acts of State with threats but to stage them with all manner of solemnities. Brass bands, flags, banners, parades, and monster demonstrations are no different in principle from ecclesiastical processions, cannonades, and fireworks to scare off demons. Only, the suggestive parade of State power engenders a collective feeling of security which, unlike religious demonstrations, gives the individual no protection against his inner demonism. Hence he will cling all the more to the power of the State, i.e., to the mass, thus delivering himself up to it psychically as well as morally and putting the finishing touch to his social depotentiation. The State, like the Church, demands enthusiasm, selfsacrifice, and love, and if religion requires or presupposes the “fear of God,” then the dictator State takes good care to provide the necessary terror.

"When the rationalist directs the main force of his attack against the miraculous effect of the rite as asserted by tradition, he has in reality completely missed the mark. The essential point, the psychological effect, is overlooked, although both parties make use of it for directly opposite purposes. A similar situation prevails with regard to their respective conceptions of the goal. The goals of religion — deliverance from evil, reconciliation with God, rewards in the hereafter, and so on — turn into worldly promises about freedom from care for one’s daily bread, the just distribution of material goods, universal prosperity in the future, and shorter working hours. That the fulfilment of these promises is as far off as Paradise only furnishes yet another analogy and underlines the fact that the masses have been converted from an extramundane goal to a purely worldly belief, which is extolled with exactly the same religious fervour and exclusiveness that the creeds display in the other direction."






Thursday, October 24, 2024

๐‹๐ž๐ฏ๐ž๐ฅ ... ๐‹๐ž๐ฏ๐ž๐ฅ๐ฌ ...



Looking at the news of the day — Oh, Boy! — it should be obvious that we're not all on the same page. Same as it ever was. And, as the world turns, same as it ever will be. Perhaps. 

Whatever ... let's be realistic, plan for a miracle.

Not on the same page, and we're not on the same level either.

This can beg the question what is the correct level? I'm betting the first thing what comes to mind when sorting out "levels" is the notion that there is a hierarchy of values, on a scale of good and bad. Seems like relative value is baked into the term. I'm not going there. Too many arguments over good and bad from folks operating at differing levels. Many, maybe most, not even aware that their position(s) are founded on conditioning, and it drives their lives and preferences. Sub rosa, under the radar of awareness. But, not you or me; those others. You know what I'm talking about. 

Mostly I think we're thrown to look at the comparison on level as if it's on a vertically organized scale. High, and low. Scientifically, maybe so. Temperature. Pressure. Sea level. Elevators. Stairs. Mountain climbing. You get the drift. Or, in sports. Me, in B-ball; then there's Michael Jordan. Like that too. You know what I'm talking about.

There's another kind of level that we seem to miss; and, like I said, that gets us into quarrels of all kinds. Those are the unconscious levels of our psychic conditioning through which the average individual sees their world. And, you guessed it, my view is better than yours. More correct. Or, just plain right; and, you're wrong! Heck, this writing itself is my view. And, you also guessed it, maybe just for the fact that I'm writing it proves I value my view enough to put it into the Interverse. You know what I'm talking about.

Just look at the political divide to see the competition on levels writ large. Large enough for some dumb asshole or other to take up arms. What should we do when our opponent is an existential threat? Imagine Kamala loses and has to certify a fascist as President? Mind blowing scenario. Let's not let that happen! Geez! But, Joe asked us all to cool it. Joe, Joe who?

Beware. The ones pointing to the existential threat may be the existential threat themselves. Or, are you so divested of your accumulated unconscious conditioning(s) that you see things crystal clear now? If you are, I expect you'll list yourself as such in the comments section below. Otherwise, maybe spend some quality time sitting with yourself regularly in silence. Clean the dust and clear the cobwebs is what that does.

But then there's the level on the horizontal scale too. Like on the radio dial. Tuned into different stations. We can have our preferences, but we don't go to war over those. Or, on the playing field. Some games use a football shaped like a football [Hey! I'm an American, and we know what a football looks like! Two tit-like shapes with a ball in the center. (For you's who don't know WTF is a football)] and other games use a round ball and call that football. Huh? Geez! I will never get over that one. Maybe that's why Soccer fans can be so, shall we say, demonstrative. C'mon man, indeed! I remember a time when the coed across the lunch table from me at the student cafeteria was playing with my balls under the table with her foot. But that's a story for another time. And, by balls, yes; I'm gonaically speaking there. You know what I'm talking about.

Level. Looked at without a sense of hierarchy or valuation opens the conversation to a more creative range of options as opposed to the typical praise and blame, right and wrong dichotomy. I'm writing on this at this time on account of it seems the, ahem, dichotomy is in the zone of the next thing will be torches and pitchforks. Of course, after DJT got nicked Uncle Joe has admonished all the folk to tone down the rhetoric. Good on 46. And, if you follow the news the next day we were back at it. Full on, as usual. But, got to give Joe et al cred for saying that. Also, bless his heart, expressing deep heartfelt concern for mass killing while supplying the resources that make it happen. Hey! If you want to know what propaganda looks like in its full-on glory, that last bit should do it for you. Joe has spoken his concern, now we can all get back to picking our noses. Or, how when shit goes down, an investigation ensues. While the shit continues to go down as we await the outcome of the investigation conducted by the very ones bringing the shit to be going down. Notice that, Pilgrim?

Have you heard the news? Trump is a Fascist. Since that came from so-called reliable, informed sources it must be true. And, as you know said sources have no skin in the game and only cleave their hearts and souls to the Constitution and the American Dream. Oh, there's a book for sale if you want to part with some cash to learn the details. Never mind that the one who lobbed the assertion was on the scene for years, but only now comes out with the bad news. Two weeks before the election. Just a coincidence we can be sure. Not. And, a book. I know, many don't like Mr. President Trump. So much so that anything that shows up denigrated him just sticks like sticky overcooked Spaghetti to our mental wall. Never mind the purposeful misunderstanding interpretations. The cherry picked words out of context. The lack of context. The recontextualizations. Reinterpreted amiguities. Outright lies. But, of course, the facts are all there laid out neatly to maintain our position. Such a mountain of facts that who has the time or stomach to sort them out. Just rest on a bed of my own confirmation bias. And, BTW, if you take it that there's some criticism of the Dems in this, don't necessarily take it that ipso facto I'm for The Donald. I'm for sanity. And, it don't look like there's much on the political scene. But, there's JOY! Hurrah! Something we can all get behind for sure.

Time to deliver some real news: 

Dreamer! Wake the fuck up! 

As we speak, unspeakable horrors are going on with our full backing with lengthy and Biblically bona vide justifications for the murderousness — I myself see it as genocide, but the jury is not in on that determination, so let's wait a year or so until the investigation is completed — and while I wait I'm wondering what dressing I should prepare for tonight's dinner salad. Why? Our leaders assure us that we're doing the right thing. Just go on with things as usual.

Unless of course we're talking politics and you know that the one you're voting for is right. If only because the other mofo is wrong. But that's also another mud fight for another time. But, isn't it interesting that good people can have such diametrically opposite positions on the candidates. Wonder why that's so. Especially when you back up a bit from the fray you see that the actual differences between the candidates on essential matters are not all that different. That's the game of politics, isn't it? Making out who's right and who's wrong. Giving the hoi polloi its choice. Only nowadays, the game is on a deadly pitch over which on is gonna take us all to hell in a hand basket. Never mind that that game itself is the real devil. Politics. Deadly stuff as of late. 

You know what I'm talking about. 

PS If you do — You know what I'm talking about — then please someone tell me what Kamala is talking about?

What to do? 





Friday, October 11, 2024

๐“๐ก๐ž ๐’๐ข๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐ข๐œ๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐Œ๐ž๐๐ข๐ญ๐š๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง ... ๐‰. ๐Š๐ซ๐ข๐ฌ๐ก๐ง๐š๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ญ๐ข



"Meditation is one of the most extraordinary things, and if you do not know what it is you are like a blind person in a world of bright color, shadows, and moving light.

"It is not an intellectual affair; when the heart enters into the mind, the mind has quite a different quality: it is then really limitless, not only in its capacity to think, to act efficiently; but also in its sense of living in a vast space where you are part of everything.

"Meditation is the movement of love...

"This meditation cannot be learned from another. You must begin without knowing anything about it, and move from innocence to innocence.

"The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life; the strife, the pain, and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order, and from there move endlessly ... 

"You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is."

J. Krishnamurti
Excerpt from Meditations, 1969


๐“๐€๐—๐ˆ ๐ƒ๐€๐•๐„ ๐Ÿ๐ŸŽ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ’

  During every October for the run-up to Haloween this Dave takes the trusty Checker Cab for a spin around wherever there's a call — and...