devilry and dharma - Diary of a Troubled Mind

Hey there!!!!!!

Hi to anyone that missed me, as if!

I've been around, keeping an eye on things without getting involved. Why? Time, I've had none spare.
Fatherhood has taken up most of my free moments but now my son is nearing a year and a half my evenings are my own again. I'm going to restructure this blog to represent my deepest, darkest and more amusing thoughts and experiences and create another to account for my more mundane life today. So some stuff will disappear and plenty more will be added.

So while I'm getting on with sorting this all out, think about something for me....................if so many americans believe in intelligent design, why are they so dumb? I don't mean to generalise, but you know what I mean.
nx

p.s fucking spell check won't work so bollocks to that!

Before you read this please note that if your a neo conservative bush lover (and I don't mean the green kind) then you probably won't like it. I 'borrowed' this from La Femme Melika so Cheers to her.

President Bush meets with the Queen of England during a state visit.

He asks her, "Your Majesty, How do you run such an efficient government? Are there any tips you can give me?"

"Well," says the Queen, "the most important thing is to surround yourself with intelligent people"

Bush frowns, "But how do i know the people around me are really intelligent?"

The Queen takes a sip of tea, "Oh, that's easy. You just ask them to answer an intelligent riddle."

The Queen pushes a button on her intercom. "Please send Tony Blair in here, would you?"

Tony Blair walks into the room. "Yes, my Queen?"

The Queen smiles. "Answer me this, Please, Tony. Your mother and father have a child, it is not your brother and it is not your sister, who is it?"

Without pausing for a moment, Tony Blair answers, "That would be me."

"Yes! Very good," says the Queen.

Bush goes back to the white house to ask Dick Cheney, his vice president the same question.

"Dick, answer this for me. Your mother and father have a child, its not your brother nor your sister, who is it?"

"I'm not sure," says Dick Cheney "Let me get back to you on that one."

Cheney goes to his advisors and asks every one, but none can give him an answer. Finally he ends up in the mens room and recognizes Colin Powell's shoes in the next stall.

Cheney shouts, "Colin! Can you answer this for me? Your mother and father have a child and it's not your brother or your sister, who is it?"

Colin Powell yells back, "That's easy, Its me!"

Cheney smiles and says "Thanks!"

Then, Cheney goes back to speak with Bush. "Say, I did some research and I have the answer to that riddle, it's Colin Powell!"

Bush gets up, stomps over to Dick Cheney, and angrily yells into his face, "No You Idiot! Its Tony Blair!"

After the whole 'white lightning' experience I felt a change in my thinking, something's somehow now felt kind of unimportant, a lot of those teenage hang ups about being part of the 'in crowd', 'getting a career' and 'getting laid' just didn't seem to matter. I became an overnight hippie in my mind, I started to really appreciate all things green (esp marijuana ) and all things living. I was more concerned with others being happy and found pleasure in emotion. Still today I kind of well up a little when I see someone overcome with emotion. It has an uncontrollable effect on me, maybe acid brings you closer to your feminine side?

Whatever, it certainly has an effect on you for the rest of your life, I've not met a narrow minded tripper, and yet most narrow minded people have never tried anything. They listen to the 'spin' and take it as truth and fact. 'Drugs are bad'.................No they are not! People are bad!

Take Marijuana for instance, it was freely available and yet hardly abused, the hemp trade was one of the largest in the world. Once the buds had been harvested and mostly used for medicinal purposes, the rest of the plant was used to make everything from rope and clothes to diesel oil and food to soap and cosmetics without the use of any man made chemicals which fuck with nature. That's where it all went wrong, in 1937 Dupont patented a process to make plastics / nylon and paper from wood pulp, both in direct competition to Hemp. Both of these processes used man made chemicals to which Dupont owned the legal rights.

Using immoral and underhand methods Dupont set about getting rid of the competition. Dupont's financial backer and main beneficiary of the success of Dupont was Andrew Mellon. Mellon served as President Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury. Mellon appointed Harry Anslinger (a relative) to be the head of the Bureau of Narcotics (1931).
The U.S government then set about villanising marijuana. In 1936 "Scientific American" published an article stating marijuana makes smokers vicious, fight and kill. "Popular Science Monthly" stated "a horrible crime: look first at the marijuana smokers"
One contrary report in the "Literary Digest" linked criminal violence to alcohol, this was largely ignored.
Hearst's newspapers, which dominated the American market, provided further "documentation" that minorities such as "mexicans, niggars, and chinamen" were responsible for most of the crimes in American society. This association between marijuana use and "deviant" minorities, coupled with the depression which led to a distrust of "foreign influences" helped steamroll the act to outlaw the use and cultivation of marijuana through congress. The bill was introduced to the Ways and Means Committee, bypassing other appropriate committees (Ways and Means is the only committee which can send its bills directly to House floor without debate within other committees).
Testimony from the AMA representative urging not to pass the bill was covered up: When asked if the AMA had been consulted, Committeeman Vinson answered "Yes, they are in complete agreement."
The act passed on Oct. 1, 1937, Taxed growers, distributors, sellers, and buyers, making it impossible to legitimately engage in production or use of marijuana. The Bureau of Narcotics then wrote a uniform law (been pushed since 1934 and specifically naming Cannabis Sativa) for adoption by the 48 states, making production, sale and consumption illegal and Andrew Mellon and associates very very wealthy.

So you see, Marijuana was the innocent victim of industrial development and right wing politicians intent on their own selfish interests. Does this all sound familiar? It should! The rise of the neo conservatives in the U.S has seen the same immoral and underhand tactics used against absolutely anything and everything they can profit from and the whole time declaring that it is for the good of America, Bollocks! Its all Lies and Spin! With no care for innocent lives or 'collateral damage' as they put it, the good of the environment or the health of their own countrymen, the U.S government uses 'backdoor politics' to force americans to live as it wishes, and uses its military might to push its will on the rest of the world (contrary to most americans thinking, the majority of the rest of the world is the FREE world), plundering the natural resources and en-slaving the people, think about it its TRUE!

The worst thing about all of this is that it has all happened before, what happened to the Roman and British empires? The only reason that they lasted so long is that there was no freedom of information leading to ignorance, word of mouth doesn't spread as freely or quickly as it does through the internet where people can spread the truth, un-edited within seconds.

It can not last, it will not last. There is an awakening spreading throughout the world, not influenced by 'religion' or 'greed' but by justice and compassion for fellow men and all things living. There will be an uprising, there will be a revolution, whether it takes part behind closed doors using the power to boycott, within the corridors of congress, parliament or the like, or on the streets.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just an uneducated drug addict (which I'm not and have never been) that sees all organised religions as mass control (although that doesn't mean I don't believe in God), an anarchist and non conformist (I only ignore immoral or un-just laws) that doesn't know what he's talking about.

p.s if your american don't feel I blame you or hate you all, I don't, just the ones that can't see the evil leading them like lambs to the slaughter and dragging the innocent in the world with them. At the end of the day when it comes to deliverance and messiahs and all that you've just got to look at what we the British did to Gandhi, remember, drugs are not bad, people are.

Last night around midnight I rolled a sweet one, took it outside and stood in the chilly, moonless evening air. I started smoking outside when Lou became pregnant with Justus, we feel very strongly about exposing the children to harmful chemicals. We buy organic, have a de-chlorinator, softener and reverse osmosis drinking water unit, we don't use aerosols and we do use only pure soap products.
Our two dogs accompanied me as I puffed away, it really was quite dark and cold although not as freezing as it has been. I stood outside on the patio by the kitchen door at the rear of the house. Our house is over a hundred years old and situated on the edge of a quiet village seven miles out from the city. The front of the house faces a private road which was once an old railway line linking the city through the countryside to the coast. The rear of the house looks out over a valley of fields, woods and a river, tucked amongst the trees is a nursing home and not much else.
I heard a shrill noise emanating from the darkness. 'Hmmm, I wonder what that was?' I thought, I looked in the general direction, sounded like fox's, I think? My dogs were just sniffing around looking for somewhere to pee when it happened again, a little clearer this time but somehow more confusing as it didn't sound much like fox's this time. Curiosity pulled my mind from the warm comfortable place it had settled amongst the haze of the marajuana, I stepped forward a little trying to get a fix on where the noise was coming from. Then it happened again, and this time there seemed to be no doubt in my slightly stoned mind what I was hearing, the dogs ears pricked up, startled. A woman was screaming, really going for it as if her life depended upon it. Fuck, the screams appeared to come from directly behind the house in the direction of the nursing home and continued for almost twenty seconds or so.
My dogs, slightly worried by what they had heard, came to me as if for protection. 'Shit, whats going on?' 'should I call the police?' 'should I go down there and take a look?' I was stoned, 'it might just be my mind playing tricks on me'. The silence which now filled the cold air seemed even more eerie, I listened intently whilst I finished my spliff, the dogs relaxed and went back to sniffing around the garden and doubt started to shroud my initial fear. 'Maybe it was fox's? I couldn't be 100% certain that it wasn't, I wasn't even 100% certain that it had come from the nursing home. 'Shit, maybe it was the spliff fucking with my senses?' I decided to try and forget about it, 'If it was coming from the nursing home then it was probably just an ill lady having a difficult time or something, if it wasn't then it must have been a fox or some other wild animal being subjected to natures cruel will.' I went back inside, settled the dogs to bed, locked up and called it a day. Lou and Justus slept soundly as I crept into bed, undisturbed by the shrill noise that I'd heard. I watched them both for a while as I always do before settling under the duvet to sleep.
Needless to say that the worry still hung on in there for a while, I played the noise I'd heard over and over in my mind trying to persuade my conscience that it was nothing to worry about until sleep got the better of me and I drifted away.
So there you go, that was what happened in the closing minutes of my day yesterday, not really that exciting or chilling to read, just bugged me I guess and gave me something to write about.

Necrophilia among ducks ruffles research feathers

Donald MacLeod
Tuesday March 8, 2005

The strange case of the homosexual necrophiliac duck pushed out the boundaries of knowledge in a rather improbable way when it was recorded by Dutch researcher Kees Moeliker.
It may have ruffled a few feathers, but it earned him the coveted Ig Nobel prize for biology awarded for improbable research, and next week he will be recounting his findings to UK audiences on the Ig Nobel tour.

Ducks behave pretty badly, it seems. It is not so much that up to one in 10 of mallard couples are homosexual - no one would raise an eyebrow in the liberal Netherlands - but they regularly indulge in "attempted rape flights" when they pursue other ducks with a view to forcible mating. "Rape is a normal reproductive strategy in mallards," explains Mr Moeliker.

As he recounts in his seminal paper, The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard anas platyrhynchos, he was in his office in the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam, when he was alerted by a bang to the fact a bird had crashed into the glass facade of the building. "I went downstairs immediately to see if the window was damaged, and saw a drake mallard (anas platyrhynchos) lying motionless on its belly in the sand, two metres outside the facade. The unfortunate duck apparently had hit the building in full flight at a height of about three metres from the ground. Next to the obviously dead duck, another male mallard (in full adult plumage without any visible traces of moult) was present. He forcibly picked into the back, the base of the bill and mostly into the back of the head of the dead mallard for about two minutes, then mounted the corpse and started to copulate, with great force, almost continuously picking the side of the head.
"Rather startled, I watched this scene from close quarters behind the window until 19.10 hours during which time (75 minutes) I made some photographs and the mallard almost continuously copulated his dead congener. He dismounted only twice, stayed near the dead duck and picked the neck and the side of the head before mounting again. The first break (at 18.29 hours) lasted three minutes and the second break (at 18.45 hours) lasted less than a minute. At 19.12 hours, I disturbed this cruel scene. The necrophilic mallard only reluctantly left his 'mate': when I had approached him to about five metres, he did not fly away but simply walked off a few metres, weakly uttering a series of two-note 'raeb-raeb' calls (the 'conversation-call' of Lorentz 1953). I secured the dead duck and left the museum at 19.25 hours. The mallard was still present at the site, calling 'raeb-raeb' and apparently looking for his victim (who, by then, was in the freezer)."
Mr Moeliker suggests the pair were engaged in a rape flight attempt. "When one died the other one just went for it and didn't get any negative feedback - well, didn't get any feedback," he said.
His findings have provoked a lot of interest - especially in Britain for some reason - but no other recorded cases of duck necrophilia. However, Mr Moeliker was informed of an American case involving a squirrel and a dead partner, although in this case it is not known whether the necrophilia observed was homosexual or not as the victim had been run over by a truck shortly before the incident.

Its not hard to imagine how this poster was drained of all its colour, reference to 'white lightning part five'. 

I stood there for a while taking in everything before me, then I started to notice that when I paid attention to a particular detail (a pattern in the mass of web or a spider creating a path across a gap) that detail would change in some way, I could manipulate the pattern of the web and change the direction of a spiders route. I gathered my thoughts. It was becoming apparent that my 'powers' were gradually fading as I took control of my imagination. I thought about it for a while, tried to remember the events of the evening, it was patchy at best. I lay back still fully clothed and looked around, I was aware of spiders and their webs still spread across the room but ignored them to concentrate my mind on other things.
The walls were covered in an old floral pattened wallpaper. It didn't take much before the ripples started to flow across the wall, the paper then started to bubble and unrecognisable faces bulged from within. I had a poster on the wall opposite my bed, it was advertising a single by the Cure called 'Catch'. The poster was of a white background with a mixture of colours in a swirl and catch finger painted across it (see photo above). Without much effort the colours began to swirl around, spiraling around the poster and disappearing into the centre like paint being washed down the drain until there was just a white poster with the words ' the Cure' written across the top. I played with this for a while, over and over again, stopping it and rewinding now and again and then letting it drain of all colour once again.
A thought crossed my mind, if this was how surreal my waking mind could be, what would my dreams be like? Maybe I'd be able to experience a lucid dream and explore the deeper, darker reaches of my mind. Unfortunately I can't recall whether or not this happened.....or not. Later that day I awoke, I was starving hungry, I felt like shit. My mouth was as dry as an arabs sandel, I felt filthy and I stank of parafin. I was still in the clothes from the previous evening. I had to get cleaned up, thankfully the hotel was very popular, especially on a Sunday, there would be no one about so I'd be free to get my clothes in the wash and avoid akward questions. I don't think anything memorable happened that day or the next, other that is than the state of my mind! I was such a space cadet, deep in thought but thinking of nothing most of the time.
There is one thing which I don't think I mentioned earlier when speaking of what happened in the squat. Whilst out of it, half unconcious, I vividly remember seeing the word 'fun' written in colourful neon lights, coming at me like neon signs at the side of the road as you aproach them, increasing in size the nearer you are until they flash past you. This became the centre of my after trip, for days all I wanted to think about was the significance of this, was that it, is that what it is all about, life..............fun, you live you die, nothing else was certain so you might aswell just make sure you have fun!..........so I did. I was sixteen when this happened and for the next fifteen years I did nothing but this whenever possible, I toyed with commitment and responsibility now and again, but always failed miserably. So I had alot of fun, too much fun some might say and experienced many weird and sometimes wonderful things, some of which I will write about, someday.
nx

I've had a million idea's running through my mind lately, things I'd like to talk / write about, things I'd like to just 'put out there' to see if I get a response. But, now I've found a spare few moments I can't recall any of them. Blimey, is this what they call writers block? or is it just my brain refusing to co-operate in response to my sons waking needs?
I can't just fill this void by recounting one of the many life stories I have waiting to surface until I've finished the whole 'white lightning' thing. Guess I'd better get it out of the way and bring the account of my first trip to a close.

Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a living breathing thing which belonged to everybody, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall - its wet. Banksy. 

In hindsight I'd have to say, 'who was I kidding?' , 'I had no idea what was happening from one minute to the next so how was I ever going to control it?' I had no idea of time at all, everything that had happened seemed at the time to have taken place over at least a couple of days and not within the 6 that had elapsed since sitting in the pub. I think one thing that had helped to confuse my mind had been that on leaving the squat, somewhere along the route to the taxi rank, night had become day, as we had got nearer the centre of town the illumination of the street lights had intensified to the point that I thought it was early morning when as far as I can make out now it was around 1 am.
So anyway, I was in, I was home, shit I can't let anyone see me like this! I've got to get to my room, shit my room, I'm staying in the same part of the building as my brothers and parents! What if I met one of them on the landing?! I had to get to the safety of my room. I started to cross the entrance hall towards a discreet door marked 'private', my legs felt like jelly so I wobbled my way over to the door and tried the handle, it opened, thank god! I gingerly stepped through and closed it behind me. Here I faced a steep and narrow carpeted staircase, two flights of stairs to the landing and safety, no problem. I felt kind of good about myself now, I just had to creep up the stairs....... Like a mouse. I started to think about how this wasn't so bad after all, granted, everything that had happened thus far seemed pretty surreal and scary but right now I seemed to be in control, just a little wobbly and spaced out.
Blimey! How long have I been here? I clearly remember a sudden realization that I'd been standing there in a place far away...........................................................................Shit! Not again, where was I?
I steadied myself with a hand on the wall looked up the staircase to the top of the first flight, took a step forward, and another and another. I climbed the first two or three steps and with each my legs became heavier and heavier. I stopped and looked down at my feet which had sunk through the carpet into the step! Woah! Shit, I'm gonna be stuck here for someone to find..........Oh, hang on, its the trip, that's all, I can simply lift my leg and take the next step, all I need to do is concentrate on the step being solid, no problem.
I summoned all the might of my mind and amazingly my foot lifted free, like a massive blob of sticky gum the stair stretched with my foot, gripping fingers stretching and thinning as my foot lifted clear. Tentatively I set it down on the next step up, the stair felt and looked like a mattress would under foot but it held firm and took my weight. I tried to lift my trailing leg, it wouldn't budge, I hooked one arm under my leg and gripped my thigh, and lifted. Slowly my foot lifted free of the stair, I felt my other foot start to sink and looked round to see it just breaking the surface of the carpet and start to disappear into the gum like step. I pulled at the trailing leg harder and with a squelch it came free. Quickly now and without much thought I stepped up to the next, tugged the other leg free and up another. I was on a roll now, my feet were still sinking into the stairs, but only slightly and I was able to free my feet with a little force and the help of my arms. Now if someone had been watching me they would have been so bemused, I must have looked like someone climbing the stairs with massive weights on my ankles, come to think of it, what with the state I must have been in, white faced, dirty and zombie like, I must have resembled Jacob marley come to haunt whoever had the misfortune to find me.
I got to the top of the second flight of stairs with much of the same effort, once at the top I looked back at the normal looking dimly lit staircase. Wow, this is great I thought, my mind was sussing out that it was in control of all this, it had developed the power of making my thoughts reality, Wow. I made my way to my bedroom door reached out for and turned the handle, the door swung slowly open and I stood gobsmacked! From just above the level of the mattress on my bed a chaotic layer of cobwebs spread across my room, thick, entwined and crawling with spiders of all sizes. I hate spiders, they make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my skin itch. This was nothing to do with me! I hadn't been thinking about spiders! How the hell was this happening?
After a while of just standing there in amazement I decided that no matter what it may seem, this is not real! There are no webs! Those aren't spiders crawling around the room!! What had happened to me being in control? I was convinced that none of what lay before me was real but I could not change it. I tentatively stretched out a hand, the webs felt real as my hand broke through them, loose threads of silk trailing from my wrist as I made a path towards the bed. Spiders scattered across the web to escape my path, I stepped in and closed the door behind me.