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Deep in the mystical sylvan forest, a small, weary gnome crawls out of a hole in the ground and walks up to the magical voice amplification device. A bunny sits in the bushes, her eyes a glow. Several other creatures rustle in the bushes.



Want to know the dirty little secret of flame wars?

You can't win.

Oh, you can lose, but you can't win.

No matter how many posts you make; no matter how devastating your
argument; no matter how unassailable your logic; no matter how many rules
of logic you violate; no matter how virtuous your position; no matter how
obscene your language...

You can't win.

The other guy can always make one more post saying, "Ha, ha. You're a
jerk."

You can't win, but the real secret is: neither can they.

You can lose. You do that by declaring you have lost. You flounce. You
quit. You concede. You make a last post.

They can't make you lose. You can only do that to yourself.

They never lose because they refuse to admit defeat.

So guess what? If you refuse to admit defeat, you can not lose either.

Period.

You can't win because you can't make them lose. They can always make
another post after all of yours. They can make lots of posts after your
last one, especially if they have a posse full of fanbois.

But you can't lose. Just make another post. Just say, "Ha, ha. You're a
jerk." That's all it takes.


The biggest mistake you can make, of course, is to go into a flame war
thinking you can win.

Don't try to use logic or moral suasion in a flame war. Does you no good.
Flame wars are fought at the lowest intellectual level human beings can
bring themselves to.

Flame wars are full of false accusations, spurious logic, school yard
bullying and piling on. They satisfy the needs of a primitive area of the
brain which just wants to bludgeon something and prove its superiority. It
doesn't care why. It just knows it feels better when it hits something.

In order to fight a flame war you have to disengage the higher function of
your brain and lower yourself to that primitive level where bashing
anything that isn't currently sucking up to you is all you care about.

It may feel good, but ultimately it is not about anything but bashing.

If you find yourself in a flame war, just opt out. Let the trolls exhaust
themselves. Ignore them. Post as you wish. Be yourself.

Sure, they may "follow you around" making annoying, obscene posts.
Ignore them. Tell yourself they are nothing but jackasses. (Remember,
they can't win.)

Eventually people forget what the flame war was all about (if they ever
knew.)

Eventually those who persist in flaming become viewed for the asses they
are.

Eventually the trolls becomes bored. Once they realize they can't win,
they move on.

And then, make one more post. Say anything. And you didn't lose.


Don't expect the mods to "intervene" in a flame war. Nothing they can
really do except try to persuade the parties to give it up. And we all know
how well that works.

Don't expect Mgt to intervene. All she can do is ban people. That's a
crude weapon she doesn't want to use. She wants everyone to feel free
to post on her forums.

Don't expect other posters to jump in with posts full of devastating logic
and moral superiority in your defense. Logic, morality, even popularity
are useless. Trolls don't care who's right. They only care about winning.

But they can only win, if you decide to lose.

So decide not to lose and go on with your life.

After all, it's only an internet bulletin board, somewhere out in virtual
space. It's not like any of this is real.

Or did you mistakenly come here thinking this was a "real" religion?




Oh, Yeah. I almost forgot. Ha, ha. You're a jerk.

[Prolog]

Prolog



Friday, August 5

Frederick Mueller staggered out into the humid, hot night. He almost pulled his anonymous escort
service blond to the ground, his grip on her hand was so strong, but they held each other upright.
The girl laughed in an alcoholic daze.

"Fuck them. They had the worse wienershitzel... venerschmitzel..."

The girl put her hand on his shoulder and ran her wrist up the side of his neck. "Yeah, fuck them.
But give us a kiss first, love." She puckered and stumbled towards him.

"They should fucking kiss my ass." He walked off, oblivious to the girl's intent, but still with a iron
grip on her hand.

"Tonight won't be a waste, love. Besides, there's the mini-bar back in your hotel. I'm sure it's got
scotch."

"Low life, fucking, churls. I bet the place is owned by Jews."

The street glistened from the remains of an early evening shower. Dark yellow light from soot
encrusted street lamps barely illuminated oil stained puddles and deltas of half washed waste. A
man wearing a greasy, tan jacket and dark, faded jeans approached the intoxicated couple.

"Say, listen, buddy, I gots..."

Frederick pushed the man back into a doorway where he tripped and fell against a rough stone wall.

"I ain't gots nothing for you, buddy."

"Say, love. That wasn't nice."

"What the fuck do I care?"

The couple swayed down Cherry Street. Sometimes the girl had to fall behind to keep from
colliding with parking meters and other objects of the urban landscape . But Frederick dragged her
on, his relentless grip compelling.

The street was a procession of concrete steps leading up to stark, metal doors or wooden ones with
iron bars like prison gates and the inevitable array of white call buttons, interlaced with slick,  mold
seeped steps funneling down like storm drains to black spaces hidden beneath the street.

Cold neon light illuminated the wrought iron tables and chairs of a late night deli. As they passed,
the door to the deli opened and a wash of refrigerated air congealed the moisture in Frederick's
clothes, icy fingers pricking the nape of his neck.

The man exiting the deli glanced over the pair. He wore a maroon beret, an open, starched white
shirt, and worn, black pants. Mild distain curled his lip.

"What you looking at, you fuck?"

The man turned away and walked off without saying a word. Frederick glowered after him.

"Come on, love, let's go to your room."

At first the sound seemed to be just part of the undercurrent of street noise, an automobile
accelerating, television spilling through an open window, the barking voices of a domestic quarrel,
footsteps. But here, in the quiet of the suddenly cool air, in the emptiness created by a momentary
distraction, in the eternity that lasts between one thought and the next, the sharp tic, tic, tic imprinted
itself on Frederick's mind.

It seemed to originate from the alley behind him, a dark recess in which only shreds of light dared
enter. Frederick strained hard to see in.

"Come on, love. You don't wanna go in there. The night's still young. Let's go back to your room
and party. What you say?"

Deep in the shadows Frederick thought he saw an even darker figure move ever so slightly, like a
cat stretching its spine, or a ghost taking a breath.

"Who's there?"

The girl yanked her hand out of Frederick's grasp as he stepped into the alley.

"What? Where you going?"

"I'm not going in there."

"Then just wait there 'til I come back."

Frederick moved tentatively into the gaping maw of the alley. Trash brushed against his shoes. A
faint smell of days old garbage, moist dirt, and just the hint of something sweet, chocolate perhaps.

The figure didn't seem move, but the tic, tic, tic was coming from where it seemed to stand.
Frederick stared at where the figure's hands would be and he thought he could just make out a
bony, emaciated hand working something over and over with its fingers.

Tic, tic, tic.

"Who are you?"

A hot, dry voice like a teasing, desert wind asked, "Why are you here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why have you come to this place?"

Frederick laughed. "I came because Manny Gilbert said that place had good German food. The
little shit. I'm gonna pound his face when I get back to Baltimore."

"That's not why you're here."

The figure didn't move as much as the darkness got deeper, like a shadow when the moon
disappears. Hot, moist air flowed down Frederick's face and dripped off his chin.

Tic, tic, tic.

"You're here because you have a debt to pay."

"Who the hell are you?"

A thin, long strip of polished steel sliced soundlessly through the saturated night air. Stray threads
of light glistened off it like starlight reflecting in a midnight lake. Frederick opened his mouth but
could say nothing. His lungs drew in only the blood gurgling through the slash along the front of
his neck.

Frederick turned back towards where the girl still stood. His eyes saw horror erupt upon her face
and his ears heard her piercing scream, but his brain registered none of it, wondering only why it
was so much trouble to breathe. He fell headlong and crashed to the ground. His blood followed
the same path earlier taken by the rain and pushed some of the alley's filth a little further towards
the street.

The darkness withdrew deeper into the shadows until finally only the sound was left.

Tic, tic, tic.

And then even that was lost in the sounds of that hot, moist, summer night.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

How many times have you seen this headline? The boards suck. They
have gone to hell. They are boring. Yada yada yada.

And so what's your point?

What did you expect from the boards anyway? That they would conform
to your world view? That they would somehow, magically be full of only
the stuff that you are interested in? That they are here to entertain you?

Get real.

This is public web space, with no barrier of entry and minimal policing,
that exists in honor of a text glorifying the humorous, absurd and
unexpected, whose participants boast of being practical jokers and non-
conformists, and whose guiding principle is...

Are you ready for it?

...CHAOS.

That's right. These here forums are about chaos, the randomization of
matter in the universe, the constant bumping and banging of particle
against particle in no prearranged sequence, the underlying anti-
hierarchy of everything where nothing is better or worse than anything
else, where everything is where it is just because it is where it is.

What? You thought there were rules?

Apparently you do, because whenever you run off and start another
forum somewhere else the first thing you do is impose rules. And that's
fine. You can have all the rules you want and impose them to your
heart's content...

...somewhere else.

And the really funny thing? You get all bent out of shape and angry and
self-righteous - yes I am talking to you Turd and you Roger and you Taco
and the rest of you - whenever the posts in these forums don't comply
with whatever set of rules you have in your heads about what the correct
order of the universe should be.

As if you could impose order upon chaos.

Let me repeat myself.

Get real.

Somehow you think you should be accorded respect. That everyone
should agree with your view of things. That we should join you in
whatever crusade you are on to impose your will on the rest of us. That
somehow chaos is a malleable material that you can mold into whatever
shape you desire. That people should kiss your ass.

As fluffy would say, "pphhffffffftttttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!"

Please show me the line in your contract which says we have to do
anything you say.



Welcome to the real world.

That's right. The real world. Not the artificial playground you are used to
on the internet, where everything is designed for you by some web
magician and you are constantly entertained by the amusing antics of a
stream of html. The real world. Where a bunch of independently
motivated sentient (or not) beings do whatever the hell they please
regardless of what you think they should do.

Like when you walk into a bank to withdraw a hundred dollars from your
account and there is a guy in there with a gun who points it at your head
and says get on the floor or die, bitch. Are you going to tell him that he
isn't giving you the proper respect?

Or when the government sends its agents to your place of business and
carries off all your accounting records and binds your wrists behind your
back and says come with me. Are you going to tell them that you don't
want to play in their sandbox anymore and go home?

Or when your girlfriend says that you don't respect her anymore and you
can take your fucking emo act and get the hell out of her life and then
proceeds to throw all your crap into the street. Are you going to say,
does this mean you and I aren't going to fuck anymore?

Or when your kid says that he's been banging this old guy down at the
club and he thinks he's contracted aids but its alright because
everybody's got aids these days and the people down at the clinic say
that a cure is just around the corner but he's going to need a lot more
money for the drugs and if you can't come up with it maybe he will just
have to start charging the old farts more for the blowjobs. Are you going
to demand that he shut the fuck up because you don't permit that kind of
talk in your house?

So, you come home from school or work, all tired from all the shit you
have to take from the other kids and you want to escape to your nice
fantasy world on the internet and suddenly you discover that it's been
invaded by the real world where people post stuff you don't want to hear
and do stuff you don't want them to do and you don't get your own way.

What do you do in the real world? Go to your room and pout? Harass
other people until they no longer want to have anything to do with you?
Get even? Make enemies of former friends? Post shit all over the
internet?

Yeah, you're mature.



And to all you people who think these boards are all fluff and joking
around and it doesn't matter what you say, because it's just the internet
anyway. Let me ask you one question.

Who is the most powerful person in the world?

Some of you are thinking George W or Putin or even bin Laden because
they have bombs and armies and such at their disposal. They can bust a
lot of stuff up and throw you into prisons. Yeah, they have a lot of power,
but that sign in Haldeman's office was dead wrong. Remember that sign?
"When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."
That was bullshit. Because when you have them by the balls, you may be
able to control the outer manifestation of their minds, but you will never
earn their hearts.

Some would say the Pope or the fundie preachers or the Islamic Imans.
But they are only trying to impose an arbitrary structure over human
activities, trying to control people by turning off their minds and
substituting ritual for reality. People follow them blindly, but not
voluntarily. Religious leaders don't change anything. They spend their
time desperately trying to keep things from changing. But as we know,
things always change.

Some of you would say Eris, but as we all know, Eris doesn't exist. That's
just an arbitrary label you stick on something you believe in.

So who is the most powerful person in the world?

First, let me tell you that a technological revolution is coming. We are
learning to modify DNA. Someday we will know how to modify human
DNA and remanufacture ourselves.

Computer technology keeps getting more sophisticated and more
powerful, on a seemingly exponential curve. Someday we will be build
computers with substantially more computing capacity than the human
brain.

Nanotechnology, the science of molecular scale engineering, is in its
infancy, but already proofs of concept of the basic building blocks of
nanomachines have been demonstrated in laboratory experiments.

And experiments in human/computer interface have been going on for
decades.

What does this mean? Eventually humans are going to merge with
machines, both literally through physical connections and biologically
through DNA modification.

Bet on it.

Oh, sure, the fundies will want to stop it, but they will fail. There is too
much momentum. It is too decentralized. It is interwoven into the fabric
of the scientific community.

Scientists are referring to the result as "trans-human" or even "post-
human". The most optimistic of them think it will arrive in the next 20 to
30 years. The pessimists think it will take a century.

But it is coming.

And it will change everything.

It will be a more complete change than even Turd in his wildest NRSA
fantasies can imagine.

Some of the scientists talk about a singularity. A point in time when
things change and it is impossible to see what is on the other side. Kind
of like the Big Bang or a black hole.

And guess who will be responsible for this.

Guess who will be in charge.

Kids.

The people who will be responsible for making this work are, today, kids.
They are the ones who will be doing the research ten years from now,
running the laboratories thirty years from now; they will be the ones to
change first; they will be the first to go trans-human.

And who do the kids listen to? Who has the most influence over their
minds today, right now, this minute?

Who is the most powerful person in the world?

Harry Potter.

Don't laugh. If you don't think that those books aren't going to be a
dominant influence on the minds of that generation, you obviously were a
zombie when you grew up.

And in part, I say Harry and not the author, because it is the character,
and what the character does, not the "lessons" that Rawlings (if she even
has lessons in mind) tried to instill in the kids, that influences the kids.

Who are your heroes? Who do you emulate?

Now Harry, of course, is going to try and instill the dominant paradigm on
the kids. What do you expect? Rawlings was a struggling single mother,
barely making it through life, and now she is richer than the Queen. Of
course she thinks this is a pretty good system. Look at what it did for her.

But for each Rawlings, there are thousands who the system grinds down
and defeats. You know that.

So what are you going to do about it?

Well, where are all these kids going to hang out? Clubs, school,
playgrounds, church socials, etc. Sure. But they are also going to hang
out...

...here. The internet.

This is where they come when they need more stimulation than they can
get in their own environment. Why did you come here?

The kids, the smart ones, the ones who are going to make a difference,
they are going to come to the internet, look at all the shiney, sparkley
things and...

...some of them are going to discover...

Are you ready for it?

...discordianism.

Yup. Some of them are going to end up here. Maybe for a minute. Maybe
they will read a couple of posts. Maybe they will make a couple of posts.
Maybe they will stay around and make a few friends and have a few
laughs.

Maybe.

But on that possibility we have an opportunity.

The opportunity to read one of Hugh's rants. The opportunity to read one
of Vertaine's epistles. The opportunity to read one of Roger's sermons.
The opportunity to read something you write. The opportunity to make
some friends and exchange some views and learn.

Which means we have the opportunity to influence the trans-humans.

Now, I am not saying we have to post tons of serious stuff. Who the hell
in their right minds wants to read just serious stuff? If they want to just
read just serious stuff, they sure as hell aren't coming here.

But we do have the opportunity to influence some. Give them a push in
the right direction. Tell them that what the world needs is not bigger and
better bombs, more jihads and politics as usual. What the world needs
is...

Fill in the blank.

But, you say, the internet is full of billions of documents, whole universes
of noise. What is the chance that anything I write is going to be
meaningful? Well, what is the chance that something you don't write will
be meaningful? Besides, you have been exposed to lots of noise in your
life, but some things stand out. Some things influence you. There is
always a chance.

And what is the chance that they will come to PrincipiaDiscordia.com?
Well, this is the main site. This is the one everybody links to. Even those
who have gone off and started their own sites end up back here. As trolls
if nothing else.

Let me also point out that you are more likely to be influenced by
something a friend says, than by something said by a contentious
asshole. If you want to influence the kids, you are going to have to
befriend them. Or at least, not drive them off. If you want your web site,
regardless of where it is, to be a breeding ground for discordian thinking,
you have to think of it as a community that welcomes n00bs, not as an
exclusive social club for "true discordians" or whatever you are calling
your clique.

If you are going to be an influence to the next stage of mankind's
evolution, do you stand a better chance by being a friend or by being an
asshole?

And there is no quicker way to label yourself as an asshole than to go
around calling other people assholes.

Which brings me full circle, I guess.

I didn't really set off to write all this. It's just some stuff I have had
banging around in my head. And I dumped it all out into the word
processor and now on you. So take it for what it is worth. Maybe it is self-
contradictory, but HEY! who ever said discordians were supposed to
make sense.

Besides, as fluffy says, gnomes are full of shit.

[REJOICE!]

REJOICE!

You are the persecuted ones.

You will never be accepted.

You will never be initiated with the
rites of power.

You will never be permitted into the
caste of the ruling classes.

You will be persecuted until the ends
of time.

REJOICE!

Unlike the Christian Church, which rose
from persecuted to persecutor, you will
never be empowered, never be
authorized, never be in charge.

You are persecuted. You will always be
persecuted.

You will be branded heretic.

You will be denounced from the pulpit
and the television screen.

You will be scrutinized by civilization
and found lacking in virtue.

You will be swept up with the devil's
debris.

REJOICE!

Unlike Al-Qaeda, which rose from
obscurity to celebrity, you will never
be considered, never be feared, never
suffer from delusions of grandeur.

You are in the minority. You will
always be in the minority.

You will be passed over, discarded,
downsized, disposed, and trashed.

You will be dismissed as an
irrelevancy.

No one will come to your aid.

You are alone.

REJOICE!

Unlike everyone else, who rises from
proletarian to consumerist machine, you
will never be programmed, never be
brainwashed, never be owned.

For you swim against the stream, you
are strong.

You are the lone voice in a
materialistic wilderness.

You are the crazed prophet.

You are the voice of irrationality in a
world of brutalizing sanity.

You are the pavement cracks.

You are the lost stuff of history.

You are not of what they are.

And for that you will be unmercifully
hounded like the rats of the black
plague.

REJOICE!

Take comfort.

For you are the persecuted ones.

This I Believe: An NPR Essay Project
Premieres April 4 on Morning Edition and All Things Considered

NPR.org, February 11, 2005 ¬? In 1951, radio pioneer Edward R. Murrow
embarked on a remarkable project. He asked Americans from all walks
of life -- including former U.S. presidents, captains of industry,
taxi drivers, actors and homemakers -- to write brief essays about
their most fundamental and closely held beliefs. The series, This I
Believe, was an extraordinary success. Eleanor Roosevelt, Presidents
Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover, Helen Keller, Jackie Robinson, and
Albert Einstein were just a few of the hundreds who participated.

Now, NPR, Atlantic Public Media and This I Believe, Inc. are
partnering to re-create the project with host Jay Allison. We invite
you to tell us about the principles by which you live and the people
and events that have shaped your beliefs in an essay to be considered
for broadcast on NPR. See our essay writing instructions for further
details.

http://www.npr.org/thisibelieve/

Okay. How many of you are serious about something and have the balls
to put it to paper?

[Three Hands for Scorpio]

SF and fantasy author Andre Norton, 93, died peacefully in her sleep of congestive heart failure March 17, 2005 after a month in home hospice care following a bout with pneumonia and a stroke. Norton, a SFWA Grand Master, wrote over 100 books, with an active career that spanned 70 years.... Her first book was published in 1934, and her final solo novel, standalone fantasy Three Hands for Scorpio, will be published in April 2005. Return to Quag Keep, written with Jean Rabe, will appear in January 2006.

[This is the first in a planned series of twenty-three.]



Before the beginning
the void was emptied
erased like forgotten sands
paved over with vacuity
satiated with emptiness

Pregnant with song
the silent voice skitters
across the missing surface
scratching her thumbnail
against endless nothing

Faltering they join
in disjointed reverie
masticated spirits
born of the edge between
possibility and uncertainty

Expelled into creation
the cold, cold vacuum
stirs broken memories
of things never past
and nothing yet to be

Time falls and it begins

[Letter to the Romans]

Letter to the Romans


...being a true and faithful translation of the correspondence sent by Sir gnimbley, Apple Pickler of Discord, O.C.G., G.D.E., to the Church of New Rome, the day that judgment was passed upon the younger Bush who sat precariously upon the seat of power...



Ah, where was I?

Oh, yeah.



gnimbley, a lowly gnome neither graced nor appointed by any power from above or below. nor by the will of his intellect alone,

To the church of the New Rome and the faithful acolytes that worship ever at her feet,

Greetings! Grace and Peace be upon you and upon those who sup at your table and upon those who wait upon your pleasure.



I give thanks to find you in good health and supporting a pleasing attitude towards life. I give thanks that those of you who are amidst despair and turmoil that your health supports your quest for relief. I give thanks that those of you who struggle with physical ailments have the aid of family and friends in retaining an optimistic worldview. And finally I give thanks that those of you who have neither health nor attitude, couldn't give a shit about what I am about to say.

As the bunny would say, gnomes are already full of shit.



I have wandered among you for some short time and will wander indiscriminately for even less, but I hope to be able to break bread with you some time during this journey, be it in person or in spirit. However, as you prepare for my visit, please keep in mind that gnomes are inordinately fond of chocolate chip cookies, deep red wines, and the gentle cuisines.



It is my concern that false prophets are proselytizing among you, speaking words which seem upright and honorable, but like the weasel which stands at your ear and says flattering things to advance his own, these prophets speak that which you wish to hear while they cast your brothers into fire and gather ill-gotten goods to their bosoms.

They speak of justice and the rightly benefits of freedom and democracy, but you live in Rome, the empire disguised as a Republic, which has never seen freedom, and knows only the justice of the lash.



You are the New Rome, the master of all you survey, the richest people in the richest country ever in the history of mankind. You have more than Pharoah who enslaved entire peoples. More than Nero whose possessions encircled the Mediterranean. More than Soloman and David and Nebuchadnezzar combined.

And the false prophets say that this is because the face of God smiles upon you. But which god?

The god they raise up in plastic and bronze and nail to the wall behind the altar? Or the god that miraculously delivers manna in plastic wrapped, refrigerated packages to a building just down the street so you never have to grow your own food?

The god that died so that you need never make sacrifice again? Or the god that accepts the sacrifice of thousands of women and children so that the plague that hates Rome can be obliterated from the earth?

The god that said do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Or the god that says the objective of life is to be he with the biggest house, the most expensive car, the state of the art entertainment system, and the most beauteous concubines?



Your messiah was stripped of his skin and bled dry on a tree of broken bones and you say never again. Never again will they break us and scourge us and grind us into meal. But your messiah looks down at you with eyes of remorse and asks why you refuse to climb up on his cross with him.

Your Jesus stood among people oppressed and destroyed, conquered by the only superpower extant in the world, promised prosperity and freedom if they would only accept Roman culture and the divinity of the Roman gods, a mere token of obsequiousness to those who held the monopoly on proclaimed righteousness.

And promised the scourge and death if they dared speak against what all men knew to be true, that Rome was paramount and had the power to prove it. For who could hold the power, if the gods said nay?

Your Jesus stood among a people broken and occupied, a people crying out for justice and relief, a people enflamed by murder, a people abused by zealots from a foreign land, a people burning for revenge, a people hungry for a messiah to deliver them from the wolves of the world.

But when his contemporaries cried war, he whispered peace. When they cried hate, he whispered love. When they called for justice, he whispered faith. And when they screamed remember the thousands who have been murdered, he counseled turn the other cheek.



The false prophets tell you that you are not Rome, but rather the people of the messiah. They lie. Your messiah preferred to consort with the prostitutes and the homeless, the lepers and the lame.

The false prophets tell you to pray the Prayer of Jebez and thank God for the glory and wealth he had lavished upon your land. They lie. Your messiah said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

The false prophets tell you that you must believe everything they say or you are the enemy of yourself, the consort of evil, the whore of Babylon. They lie. Your messiah said blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

The false prophets say that you must strike down all who raise their voice and hand against you; that you must strike back against those who have hurt you. They lie. Your messiah said love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.



The false prophets turn their back on their god and embrace the virtues of the system that murdered him.

It is no longer the kingdom of God that they seek. It is the kingdom of Rome. In Rome they have stored their treasure. In Rome they have found their god.

They praise the Roman Republic built in the New World. They praise the New Centurians sent across the ocean to occupy foreign lands. They praise the Senate that debates and decides the way best to ensure all Rome's Citizens receive all they demand, regardless of consequence.

In the words of the immortal Pogo, "We have met the Enemy, and He is Us."



Where would Jesus be today? In whose house would he lay down to sleep? Whose feet would he wash? Whose head would he bless?

Have you a clue?



In closing may this blessing be upon you. May you see yourself as others see and understand the glory that waits inside you. Go in peace, brothers and sisters. Go in peace.

Yours, in hope admidst chaos,

gnimbley the gnome

"...fat chicks are fun until your freinds find out..."
  - horab fibslager

"Bella puts a never getting laid again curse on all the men in this forum who write rude things about fat chicks."
  - SssBella, Oracle of Doom

"Trust me, I've taken enough pokes at the delightfully plump female to know when it is harmless"
  - I_Kicked_Kennedy

"And I'm sorry that Kenendy can't understand that, while he is free to say whatever he wants about Women and their weight, we are equally free to make fun of him for it."
  - LMNO

"Do you also like to crack jokes about blacks, gays, etc, without being able to see the people hearing you?"
  - The Good Reverend Roger

"ON A FUCKING MESSAGE BOARD!!!! THIS IS A MESSAGE BOARD! YOU CAN BE/SAY/DO/BELIEVE WHATEVER YOU WANT AND NOT BE SUBJECT TO PEOPLE... "
  - I_Kicked_Kennedy




Richard Pryor used to use the word "nigger" a lot in his act. He used it like it was used on the street. African Americans called each other "nigger" a lot where he came from. Apparently still do since black comedians still use "nigger" a lot in their acts. (The  Forbidden Word)

Richard defended his use of "nigger" by saying that it was in common use among black people. He heard it on the street all the time. It was as common as "shit" and "motherfucker" and "cocksucker" and "honkey," words he also used in his act.

He didn't like white people saying "nigger" because they meant to do harm with it. But when black people used it, so Richard argued, it was in parody of "the man," and, therefore, it was alright. It was acceptable. It was all in good fun.

One day Richard Pryor stopped using the word, "nigger."

He went to Kenya in 1979 and saw a country where black people were the dominant culture.  "There are no niggers here. The people still have their self-respect, their pride." (Richard Pryor, Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences, Pantheon Books, 1995)

He returned to the United States and disavowed the use of "nigger" in his act. (He was rewarded with death threats and ridicule.)

Why did Richard stopped using "nigger?" After all, it was commonly used by black people who did not mean any harm with it. They were just poking fun at what white people had called them for years.

Words mean something. Language is the method by which we communicate ideas, and "nigger," even when the intent is playful and harmless, is still the idea of degradation and slavery. A "nigger" is inferior to human beings. Even when the "niggers" use the word themselves, they are still communicating the idea that they are something less than real people.

Why do people do things like that? What possible benefit is there in calling someone inferior? Why would you want to do that to yourself? Because it is funny? Because it is harmless?

It is not harmless. Even in fun, it is cruel. Even when the targets of your jest laugh with you, they are still being damaged by the ideas you communicate, the meme if you will.

Ideas are the most dangerous, most destructive objects man has ever created. The creation of the gas chamber did not kill millions of Jews in WWII; Nazism and anti-semitism did. Airplanes did not bring down the World Trade Centers; the idea that America is the Great Satan did. Thousands are dying in Iraq not because of bombs and bullets, but because each side thinks it's right and is willing to kill to prove it.

So where do you get the idea that what you say is harmless? That you can say anything and not be criticized for it? That what comes out of your mouth doesn't have an effect?

Admittedly, political correctness often goes too far. Anything can go too far. Zealots are known for taking things to ridiculous extremes. Freedom is the idea that people should be allowed to explore the possibilities, the limits. But don't think it isn't possible to step over the line.

Let me tell you something that is absolutely true.

Each and every "delightfully plump female" at which you have taken a "harmless poke" resents the hell out of you.

She has been conditioned by society to acquiesce to your shit because she believes she is socially and physically inferior to you. She is not permitted to express her true feelings. You are a white male, ruler of the known world, and if she objects to your attitude, you, and the local peer group which controls your society (small or large as it may be), will ostracize her. You will label her one of those "complaining" females are too "self-conscious" to "go out and get some," not suitable for human companionship.

Uppity fat chicks who don't "put out" and "go along," don't get laid and, therefore, aren't allowed into the elite social circles. Only the ones who shut up about how they feel and suck up to the cool dudes get accepted.

Those delightfully plump females you fuck and poke fun at, cry themselves to sleep at night because of the constant cruelties they have to endure in order to remain acceptable in the eyes of the dominant, sex oriented, male culture.

You should be "man" enough to treat them as if they are equal to you. But you don't. You make fun of them instead.

One reason I know all this is because I am guilty of each and every charge I have laid against you. Not just fat chicks but a lot of other peoples as well. I was once your age and as far as I can tell, not a fucking thing has changed.

I hope to do better with the rest of my life.

(BTW, Richard Pryor's website is http://www.richardpryor.com/ just in case someone is curious as to who he is.)

Okay, here's the deal.

I have, in the past, bought and sold a lot of paperbacks. Especially on eBay. The market for old paperbacks is not what it used to be. So I have a lot of extra paperbacks. (I actually have a lot of books, period.)

I have decided that writing them up and putting them on eBay is no longer worth the effort. So what do I do with them, huh? I could donate them to the library for a book sale, or try to trade them in at a used book store, but I have decided, why not just give them away to the people on the forum?

So, for a limited time only, I am offering a box of paperback backs to anybody on the forum that wants one, as long as supplies last. All you have to do is send me a mailing address (use PM or email) and I will send you a box of books.

Each box holds about 10 paperbacks. I send them out book rate, so that's pretty cheap - I'll pick up the postage, but it also takes a week to forever to get anywhere in the US. (I would send overseas if the rate is not too much or you are willing to pay for the postage, but some places, like Australia, it is like $20+ to send a 4 pound box, so forget that!)

I have already made up 12 boxes. Each contains at least one vintage sf novel, one horror novel, one fantasy, one murder mystery, and one non-fiction science or pseudo-science book. The rest of the books are sf or fantasy or horror. I have already sealed the boxes so what you get is random. If I get more than 12 requests, I will make up more boxes, but they will contain more horror (since I have an excess of that) and some other stuff in addition to sf and fantasy. Most of the vintage sf is in the 12 boxes. All the Ace doubles are already boxed up. (If you want just horror, let me know because I can probably make up a couple of boxes of that.)

That's the deal. Send me a mailing address and I send you one box of books. Only one per person. No say on what you get, but hey! it's free. And you will help me clear out my eBay business.

Thank you for your attention. You may return to chaos now.

I have the DVD but I haven't viewed it yet.

From my email inbox

Dear Amigos y Amigas -

The Maybe Logic Academy has been in effect for about two weeks now and we are very pleased to say that everything seems to be going brilliantly! The 8 Dimensions of "Mind" course is off and running and a extraordinarily intelligent and courteous community has developed; and the Academy Forum is morphing into a swarming hub of interactivity and potent disinformation. RAW has been very active and insightful on a daily basis - very much to everyone's liking.

This week is the launch of the Ideogrammic method course.  For years Robert Anton Wilson has been in the process of finishing the 'Tales of the Tribe' - an eagerly anticipated title in the Robert Anton Wilson community. Since this course is essentially the blueprint of this book, this is your opportunity to help shape a RAW work of groundbreaking content and become part of the tribe.

Unlike the 8 Dimensions course, which is based primarily on published RAW material, the Ideogrammic Method will feature previously unpublished commentary of Ezra Pound's Cantos and James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake.
Brace yourself for the arrival of abundantly stimulating and original new content.

If you have been thinking about participating in the Maybe Logic Academy, now is the time pick up your thinking cap and get moving. This course currently has open spaces that will most likely fill throughout the week.

We hope to see you inside!

Yours truly,
Academy Admin.


'Maybe Logic' Film Festival Update :

August 10-15 ,Ä¢ Rhode Island International Film Festival Newport, RI
   
      Saturday August 14th @ 12:30 p.m.
   
      http://www.film-festival.org/about_riiff/film_DOCC2004.htm


Sept  30 - Oct 3 ,Ä¢Idaho International Film Festival ,Ä¢ Boise, ID


We are also pleased to announce that Maybe Logic received the
"Honorable Mention Award" at the Philadelphia International Film Festival!

Inerestingly, the email didn't have the URL for the academy. You can get there from here.

[WARNING: There is some brutal emotional stuff in here. At least I hope it is brutal and emotional. If you are upset by the horrors of war and the horror of 9/11, then maybe you should skip reading this.]

I am writing a play called "The Trail of George W. Bush"

It is a work in progress. I only have three scenes written and they are in first draft form. I have placed a pdf version on my earthlink server for people to download.

I am asking for suggestions, criticism, rants, etc. In particular, I want suggestions of people to testify and speak. You can leave your thoughts in this thread.

You probably can not tell from this early piece exactly where I am going. That's fine. Wouldn't be much of a mystery if you knew what was coming next. But I hope you find it amusing.

WARNING: There is some brutal emotional stuff in here. At least I hope it is brutal and emotional. If you are upset by the horrors of war and the horror of 9/11, then maybe you should skip reading this.

I intend to place the play out into cyberspace on my blog. Give it wings and let it fly. See if student groups at colleges might not pick it up and do performances. Whatever. I would love to serialize it here in PD.com. Formating is a problem and that is why I chose to put it in pdf form for now.

Anyway, I am giving you all first crack at tearing it apart. It is a first draft so I don't have the poetry done yet, but it is a good start. Have fun. (But don't read it just before you go to bed.)

The Trial of George W. Bush, An Erisian Mystery, by gnimbley the gnome

[Fear and Loathing in Washington D.C. - Part One]

I was going to put this up on my blog, but it is having some kind of coding problem, so I am putting it here, okay? It's in three parts, so I'll make three posts. It's kind of long.

Fear and Loathing in Washington D.C. - Part One

In which gnimbley the gnome dissects, digests, and deconstructs "Fahrenheit 9/11" and discovers that, while it is a lousy documentary, it is pretty good political propaganda.

"The Soviets had Sergei Eisenstein; the Nazis had Leni Riefenstahl. We have Michael Moore."

Before

I wasn't going to see this film. I had heard enough about the film and Michael Moore (I had never seen one of his films before) to have already judged it as a left wing, biased attack on George W. Bush.  Okay, so what? The left wing has a tendency to get caught up in objectives and trample all over things like truth, logic, and the sanity of their arguments. I didn't need to see one more socialist diatribe. After all, wasn't the reality bad enough?

Then I read some passionate words some non-critics had posted on a computer forum I frequent and I thought, maybe I should check this thing out. At least so I could argue intelligently about it.

I approached the film with trepidation. Michael Moore is known for using logical fallacies and making spurious inferences. I expected a film flawed beyond redemption with rhetorical excess and invalid arguments supported by unverifiable, ambiguous "facts."

His defenders often make the statement: "at least he makes you think." But this is merely a political argument, not a defense of his tactics. If the right wing made such arguments, the left would not say, "well, at least it made me think;" they would pounce on its flaws to argue his entire premise is wrong.

This is, of course, what the right is currently doing. They call the film a pack of lies.

Someone told me the film is meant to be polarizing, but my response is, what good is that? Those is favor of Moore's premise vehemently agree with him; those opposed vehemently do not. That's polarization. So what? They would be doing the same if the film didn't exist at all. They just wouldn't be doing it about the film.

It seems to me that the objective of a political argument, is not to persuade the left or the right, but to sway those who are undecided. They are the people who might benefit by seeing this film, those who wonder if the US is doing the right thing in Iraq. They are the people who could be persuaded to vote Bush in or out of office.

And if the political debate centers over a flawed film that is - at least in part - demonstrably false, then wouldn't the discrediting of the film do more harm than good to the cause Moore is expounding? Couldn't this film be a political boomerang?

It was that in mind that I walked into a suburban cinemaplex located on Ronald Reagan Boulevard in central Indiana - Bush country if there is any - at 1:30 PM on Wednesday, June 30, 2004, to see "Fahrenheit 9/11."

I stood in line with a lot of older patrons, well, older than my 53 years, who were going to see Spiderman or King Arthur or something. I figured that I 'd be the only one in the theatre. Wouldn't you if you were going to see an anti-Republican film on Ronald Reagan Boulevard?

The ticket boy told me that my film was in the second theatre on the left. I walked down the corridor to the second theatre on the left. The sign above the door was blank. No film name at all.

The sign above the theatre across the corridor - the second theatre on the right - said "Fahrenheit 9/11." Hmm. Was the sign wrong or was the ticket boy wrong or was he just making a political statement?

I decided to trust the sign and entered the theatre on the right. After all, "Fahrenheit 9/11" was only in one theatre in the cinemaplex. Spiderman was on seven screens and King Arthur on three.

The theatre was one of those small cinemaplex shells that only hold 100 people or so. I was surprised to find there were already over thirty people there, about half older than me.

Well, there are older leftists. A lot of them were made in the sixties, something I graduated from. But thirty people at the matinee in Reagan country on Wednesday afternoon to see a piece of polarizing political propaganda? Maybe I was in the wrong theatre.

I sat down near the front, pulled out my notebook and waited for the film to start. We were in the middle of something called "The Twenty," an extended advertising opportunity showing lengthy trailers for movies and TV shows, as well as countless TV commercials. I watched something about a new Christmas movie starring Tim Allen, a NBC show about medical horrors, and some other junk.

I was a bit amused by the first TV commercial. It was a recruiting pitch for the US Army.

Maybe I was in the wrong theatre.

I figured I would stay until the movie started. If it was the wrong one I would just leave and go across the hall. Or maybe fate decreed that I should see Spiderman 2 or something else instead. I decided just to sit still and see what happened.

Numerous commercials went by. Starburst. Coca Cola. Right Guard. Low Carb Coca Cola. (Low carb coke? Isn't this ad a little out of hand? I saw an ad the other day for low carb One A Day vitamins. And my 24 grams a serving bran cereal has started putting "low net carbs" on its box, too. Ain't symbolic magic fun?)

Then we got to the previews. Phantom of the Opera. Danny Deckchair. (Might be funny.) Kinsey. (Might be atrocious.) Bourne Supremacy. (Might blow a bunch of stuff up.) Open Water. (Might just scare the hell out of me.)

Then the lights went down.