The Toy Store and the Tree

My dad has always wanted to open a toy store. He still talks about it, how one day he’ll open a toy store like the one he used to go to once a week to get my sister and me second-hand toys; old-school stuff we probably threw away, not knowing the value of nostalgia: bouncy things, and metal things, and springy things with peeling (poisonous?) colors. If I’m ever rich I’ll buy him a toy store where he could sit all day and experience his own childhood again, before he was made to know what religion he should follow (Orthodox Judaism), what political affiliation (Likud), who were his enemies (Palestinians), and what he should pursue in life (everything). Life was a tin soldier with arms and legs stuck to his body, and a key in his back that, when turned, made marching music.

When I was a kid my mom made me promise to buy her a tree she could sit under and enjoy her life. It had white flowers that smelled good. I’m not being over-sentimental here, remembering a conversation I had with my mom more than twenty years ago because of my shame of unfulfilled human potential. No. She actually reminds me of that conversation every once in a while. “You still haven’t gotten me that tree,” she says.

Maybe the store and the tree had become symbols of the peace my parents had always wanted but could never achieve because they were taught, like everyone else, to chase insignificant things like power and respect. But behind these things there’s a life they had wanted but will never get to live: a quiet, simple life, playing with tin soldiers and sitting under a fragrant tree with white flowers, the unattainable gifts of a grateful son.

Oh My God!

A bit late, the Christmas parade

On Sand and God

When I was eight, after playing soccer for an hour, I lost the key to the apartment and thought my parents would be mad. I sat on the sandy soccer field after a long hour of searching and I cried. Then I came up with a great idea. If God knew everything, that meant he knew where everything was. So I made a deal with God.

If I eat this pile of sand, Dear God, you will reveal the location of my keys.

It was simple and fair, although I don’t know why God would want me to eat sand other than to show his superiority, which is fair enough. So I ate sand and still didn’t find the keys. My parents weren’t that angry though. Still, I discovered two things that day:

1. Eating sand is gross but it won’t kill you.
2. There is no God.

The Fast Show

Merry Christmas

Who Was Jesus?

So I've heard about this Washington Post "On Faith" thing and decided to go over and have a look around. I appreciate the people commenting there, including the greatest religious experts of our time, and all that. And who am I? Just a simple man with a blog and borrowed opinions. Still, maybe as I'm still recovering from the honor bestowed upon me by Time Magazine, let me just say: Are you seriously asking me if Jesus was the son of God? Is that how you plan to pull readers away from blogs and back into the warm bosom of MSM?

Still, I'm there so I might as well answer their question:

Do you believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God? If so, what exactly does that mean? If not, who was he?

Is this question for real? I mean, I see some point in asking what we think about the philosophy of the New Testament or what we should learn from this or from any other book of mythology. I can imagine a question about the link between practiced Christianity and the actual words ascribed to Jesus, but are you seriously asking if I think he was the son of God?

Even strict Christians consider Jesus the son of God only in a symbolic way (like we are all God's children, etc.), so the only thing left is to stretch this metaphor slightly further and then what do we have?

Some people didn't get Stoic philosophy; it was too complicated. So they needed an example. That's all there is to it.

Now, if you want to tell me Merry Christmas, I don't care; I take that as a compliment. If you want to pray to God to bless me when I sneeze, I'm still grateful. But don't expect me to take that book literally. To argue about the history of Jesus would be to miss the point of the philosophy he supposedly preached.

Read The Golden Sayings of Epictetus. He said the same things Jesus did. But for some reason, as Epictetus was never witnessed walking on water, Jesus received all the glory...

Young @ Heart Sing "Fix You"

Another video I stole from Scott-O-Rama.
This video of Young @ Heart made me instantly cry. It will even make Republicans cry. Life is so Goddamn short.

The Methodist

I don’t think I’m vain just because I Googled my name today. Everyone does that, no?

Thing is, because I have a relatively rare name (at least for this part of the world), most of the time I get the same guy, a software developer with his start-up and routine press releases. But today I found another guy with my name. He was born Dec. 16, 1918 at Chugwater, WY. He was a Methodist.

It’s a strange feeling.

I hope he had a good life. I hope he had everything he had ever wanted. I hope he had a lot of sex and good food. I hope he had people who loved him by his side rather than people who thought they were doing the right thing by sitting by his sick bed for an hour on weekends. I hope he had a favorite book. A favorite movie. A favorite song playing as he died. I hope he smiled a lot and cried a lot and had an effect on the people he’d met.

I don't believe in Heaven, but I hope he's there.

11 September 1973 ~ Arundhati Roy speaks about the U.S. CIA backed Chile Coup

For the full length feature of this film, visit Archive of Light

My Weekend Round Up - Wesley Snipes Included

A quick recap after getting a new job, a visit to New Orleans, and a Christmas parade. Finally time to look at the news:

• Hastert has been negligent, but apparently not criminally negligent. You can't be responsible for stuff when you turn your head the other way, can you?

• Bush does an impersonation of the three monkeys by putting his hands on his eyes, his ears, and his mouth when the Iraq Study Group Report comes up.

• Conservative bloggers leave their mouths open. They don't like the report; it seems to contradict the idea that God put Bush in the White House. It contradicts the idea that the US is invincible.

• Speaking of USA Number One: The U.S. has the most prisoners in the world.

"The United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population. We rank first in the world in locking up our fellow citizens," said Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, which supports alternatives in the war on drugs.

• Wesley Snipes?

• Fiji, anyone?

• As part of his final farewell world tour, Rumsfeld says a victory depends on staying power. Immediately after his speech, he gets the hell out.

Wish me luck on my new job. In return, I will wish you luck. One hand washes another. Reciprocity is what this world is all about.

The Dublin Castle

While the singer went inside to talk to the promoter and give out our demo tape, I stayed in the pub and had a pint and a cigarette. Suddenly an American girl looks at me and asks if she could sit next to me. It was early afternoon and there were a lot of other free tables, so obviously she made a conscious decision to sit with me and talk to me and have a drink with me because I was cute or whatever.

However, when she tells the story, she didn’t even see me, but had already made up her mind to sit at the first empty table. She came to check out a band she read about on Time Out, and she was early and uncomfortable so she ordered beer even though she hated beer, and she sat at the first empty table, determined even when she found out the table wasn’t empty because she had already made up her mind and was self-conscious and had to sit down before she exploded, and the young man sitting there looked harmless enough.

She had just finished college and was taking time off before starting law school. Now, a few days earlier I put an ad for a roommate in a local store and at the bottom I wrote, “Law school students need not apply.” I’m not proud of it; it’s just that you get to meet so many of them and they’re all the same, going to law school because it’s a good, solid, respectful job, and most of them don't think for a second who they really are and what kind of world they want to live in.

But she was different. She wanted to go to law school because she sincerely felt that even though the world was in many ways a bad place ruled by bad people for bad reasons, anyone can make a difference, large or small in other people’s lives, and for her law school provided the opportunity to make the world a better place.

I was in love.

Later that evening my date showed up. Anyway, the three of us went for a walk by the canal in Camden Town, and we told jokes and stories, and then my date took a taxi back to the hotel and I married the American girl and moved here.

Super Furry Animals - Demons

"Coz I know that you know that we know they don't know what's going on."

Global Power -- A PostGlobal Response

Here's my answer to the PostGlobal Blog question:



From where you write, who's gaining power, who's losing it, and who is coming in fast from the outside?

China has been the big winner in international politics, silently making its way as a global power in an emerging new cold war. The signs are all here, with second and third-world countries allying themselves with China in direct opposition to the US.

Meanwhile, while President Bush is losing the American popular vote, the US is losing the popular vote abroad. It used to be that in the American continent only Cuba dared to form alliances against the US, but now it's the popular thing to do. North Korea and Iran, strengthened since Bush's Axis-of-Evil speech, flaunt their defiance at the US and at the ever-weakening UN.

And who can blame them?

But there is hope for a peaceful existence for the citizens of the US, Venezuela, China, Iran, Israel, Palestine, and Iraq. That hope lies in bold leadership in all of these countries, and an active effort to reform the UN. Right now, though, all we have is opportunistic power-grabbers on all sides and a UN stuck with creating empty resolutions used cynically to bring forth an agenda of destruction instead of the promotion of peace.

The US veto power must be checked, as well as that of countries actively involved in supporting militant organizations. Otherwise, the cycle of violence will continue forever, and the real losers in the global arena will continue to be--as they've always been--the people.