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HEARTACHE TO HEARTACHE WE STAND

Any of you here practice Chaos Christianity, with maybe a side of Kabballah and some powdered Lord?

these things I make remind me of Apex's sig image.

I just noticed this sub. Was it not called this before? Anyway,

What is the deal with Richard Nixon, pork, and Discordians? I have for many years been the only person I know with a pork and Richard Nixon fixation, yet I find this board and here there are references to pork and Richard Nixon everywhere. It could only have been creepier if you'd had a subforum called :cone:.

Is anyone else here really into tinned fish, and olives?

I think that one thing that should be made perfectly clear is that an
employee is -NEVER- paid their full value.  If they were, the employer
would make no profit off of them, and that is the purpose of employing
people in the first place.

To put it VERY simply, employment is a form of exploitation.

I make handcrafted goods and sell them at a profit.  I reap the full
value of my employment as an artist, because it is self-employment.  If
the demand for my product became greater than the rate at which I can
supply it, I might hire another person to assemble my goods, while I
focus on artistic design.  I will pay that person enough that
they won't leave me for another employer, but less, hopefully far less,
than I am making by selling the goods that they assemble.  That means
I am profiting from their labor.  Therefore their labor is worth more
than I'm paying them.  I wouldn't pay them the full value of their
labor, because then I would reap absolutely no benefit from their
employment.  If that were the case, then we would be partners in the
business, because we would be sharing equally in the rewards of our
labor.

Pardon me if I was a little long-winded, but I've had people argue the
"employment is exploitation" statement before, and since it's really not
the point of my argument I wanted it to be perfectly clear so as to not
waste time arguing about it.

To get on with it; since employment is exploitation, the less scrupulous
the employer, the more distant the rate of pay will be from the
employee's actual value.  The most profitable businesses pay their
workers a tiny fraction of the value of their labor.

This is not a problem if there are more jobs than there are workers.  A
worker can take their skill elsewhere, and because the employer NEEDS
that worker to continue making a profit, there is assurance that the
worker will get at least a livable compensation for their labor,
although it will never be what the work is worth.

If there are more workers than jobs, there is no need for employers to
compete with each other by keeping wages high.  They don't need any
individual laborer to stay with them, because there are many who need to
work.  The compensation for work drops and profits rise.  Since people
have to work to live, it conditions become disturbingly close to
slavery, where a human being works hard day after day and their employer
profits enourmously from the work done while the employee just gets to
survive.

Yes, I approve of increases in the minimum wage, at least enough to keep
up with increases in the cost of living, brought about in part by the
constant drive for higher profit.

More so do I approve of laws requiring employers to actually pay a wage
reflective of the value of the work done.

Why I Won't Wear Braids Around White People

I have curly hair.

Yeah, I'm a mix, a "breed", sort of a fringe indian, not even quite half & half but one of your urban blends, white/indian/black, difficult to peg. People are always asking me if I'm Greek.

To accompany my hair I have a big nose with a high bridge, high cheekbones, deep brown eyes, adobe skin, thick lips, freckles. I'm what they like to call "exotic", which means white guys hit on me for a thrill. Racially indeterminate, I could pass for about anything and choose not to. I embrace my racial ambiguity because it protects me from the kind of ignorant commentary that comes when I do something that highlights my predominantly indian features, namely, wear my hair in braids. When my hair is loose it surrounds my head, a nimbus, my own staticky black storm cloud. Pulled tightly  to the sides of my head and trained downward into braids, suddenly my previously mysterious features come together and people go "Ah! Of course!" and immediately call me Squanto.

I don't (usually) braid my hair to look more indian. I braid my hair because it's an easy, comfortable style that stays put for three days (or until I wash my hair) and mitigates the otherwise always-imminent danger of entangling small birds and other wildlife in my voluminous mane. I think part of the problem is that when people see two glossy black braids dangling at the sides of my head, the Hollywood image of the Old Western indian comes to mind. The obvious solution for me would be to braid my hair in a single thick plait in back, but I've just never managed to learn that particular trick. It seems, when I attempt it, to require the flexibility of a contortionist and the stamina of Atlas.

Last time I braided my hair at work, I heard, in addition to "Squanto", two references to Sacajawea and several to the newly popular (thanks, Disney) Pocahontas. Yes, I realize these are the grounds for a racial harrassment lawsuit, but these words came from people who are really very decent, if unoriginal. I couldn't sue them. I like them. I couldn't even respond with the unpleasant bluntness the situation called for. I merely smiled stupidly while vowing to never wear my hair like this in public again. Yet, when invited to meet a friend of a friend, who sported some moniker like "Raindance Moonwolf" and claimed to have herself a Hopi medicine man for a spirit guide, I deliberately broke out the braids and threw in some turquoise beads to boot. Suddenly I was a Scary Real Indian, not the kind of girl she could throw around her pretend Medicine powers at. Poor little thing didn't say more than two words to me and shortly thereafter changed her name back to Cindy, or whatever it was to begin with.

Squanto, Sacajawea and Pocahontas don't deserve the disrespect of being equated with a hairstyle, and I suppose that avoiding the issue doesn't do anything to correct the problem. However, for the time being, I've decided that the braids will only come out when I'm around people who won't unknowingly disparage my relatives with dopey tomohawk references. Am I a coward? maybe so. When cowardice protects my dignity and allows me to use my energy toward real change in other situations, I think I'm OK with it. On the other hand, me using my braid power to cow the blatant misrepresentation of things Indian is in a way a misrepresentation in itself. I have ambivalent feelings about this. I'm no more nor less indian when I wear my hair in braids, and I wonder why people seem quieter around me, less chatty, sometimes more submissive and sometimes less respectful. What does it mean that they treat me differently when they perceive me as more indian? Is it racism or humility? And WHY humility, if that's what it is? I sometimes embarrass myself with these questions, because I don't want to be a race or an element in racial issues. I just want to be ME, young sassy urban momma to my baby, wife to my man, reliable but sometimes defiant employee, good friend, sister, daughter, girl with big hair who walks to the bus stop every morning at seven, gardener, neighbor, tinkerer-with-computers, me.

But race is in everybody's face, literally, and my ancestors are queuing up behind me "tsk-tsk"ing me if I don't stop sometimes to wonder what the deal is and how I can make it better. So I keep on wondering, and if in the meantime I mostly keep my hair loose, who, really, can blame me?

   12 steps to becoming a drunk suicidal poet

Step 1. Stop at liquor store for tequila and unfiltered cigarettes.

Step 2. Purchase at least 4 Leonard Cohen CDs.

Step 3. Purchase "Prison" by Stephen Jesse Bernstein.

Step 4. Stock up on notepads and pens.

Step 5. Warm up by dimming the lights. A good option is to turn off all the lights except those in the bathroom, and leave the bathroom door wide open.

Step 6. Put on the Leonard Cohen CD of your choice.

Step 7. Commence drinking and smoking. Keep Leonard playing continuously. Start thinking about people you used to have sex with.

Step 8. Once drunk, sit on the floor in the middle of the room and cry. Write down anything that comes to your mind, comprehensible or not, in verse form.

Step 9. At around 2:00am, put on "Prison". Clutch your pen tightly
      and rock back and forth while living the enormity of
      Bernstein's misery.

Step 10. Review the evening's writings; weep while marveling at
       their scope and power. Continue writing in an increasingly
       shaky and illegible hand. Freely omit key words.

Step 11. Enter bathroom. Vomit. Stumble into bedroom and attempt to masturbate. Fail. Pass out.

Step 12. Repeat nightly.

Probably about eight-nine years old?

THE REVOLUTION IS ABOUT

Selling homegrown tomatoes. In fact, it's about all backyard organic gardening and gardeners, who obtain for a season freedom from agribusiness. Many of us can't afford to buy organic produce, but we *can* afford to grow and share it. We can grow in our backyards, and offer space to our friends who don't have backyards to grow in. Backyard agriculture works.

Making a central place for children, ours or others, in our homes and businesses. It is more than an old saw that children are  our future; it is the literal truth. The people who are born today shape the world we will grow old in, and we are the people who shape them. Children and elders are pushed aside in today's pre-Revolution society; we must end that cycle. Making it possible for children to be welcome in the workplace is a small step toward a society of kindness toward others.

Knowing our neighbors. Neighborhood associations are merely a nod toward the real goal of KNOWING by face and name every person who lives on your street, and on adjoining streets. Spend time with your neighbors. Organize a block party. The safest and best neighborhoods are those where everyone knows everyone else. Our friends may not be near us in an emergency; our neighbors are. We must be ready to help our neighbors, and to protect them as needed.

Buying local. Not just from a local store, but from a local craftperson. The highest form of capitalism means a human being is able to make a real product and sell it, face-to-face, to another human being, and to prosper by the work of their own hands. In our corporate society, few people earn their worth; buying from local crafters and cooperatives makes it possible for more people to earn a decent living through their own efforts.

Selling the products of your own labor. Everyone has a skill or talent useful to somebody else, whether it be gardening, sewing, singing, cooking, proofreading, or any one of hundreds or even thousands  of other things. Most of us severely underestimate the worth of our own skills, or fail to recognize them at all. Next time a friend expresses admiration of something you do, instead of dismissing it as "easy", take another look at it. It may be "easy" for you, but worth a lot to someone else who lacks the skills, time, or interest to do what you find intriguing, fun, and simple.

Barter. Take your skills or goods and trade them for someone else's skills or goods. Most people already do this on a small scale, bringing a friend dinner in exchange for mending a shirt, or canning a friend's homegrown tomatoes in exchange for a cut of the harvest... take it a step up and explore what you can earn from other local craftspeople in exchange for your special abilities or products.

Refuse to work for less than a living wage. The Mininum Wage is a low est legal wage, to pay beneath which is criminal. It is NOT a suggested living wage,  yet many employers treat it as if it is. Refuse to accept jobs which do not pay a LIVING wage for your area. In Portland, Oregon that wage is around $10.00 per hour. Ask for that wage, or more, in interviews, and explain that your skills are worth that much so you cannot accept employment for less... at the very least, employers may start to get the idea. This works in other areas of compensation too; if you don't want to wait 90 days for health benefits, explain that you must have those benefits from the beginning in order to accept the position. You may be surprised at how well this can work, and the more people start using their own value as a negotiating tool, the more people it will work for.

Live as if indigenous. Most of us aren't indigenous to this continent, and the suggestion is by no means that anyone make a mockery of Native traditions by attempting to co-opt and practice spiritual ways not of their own heritage, but on a purely secular basis there is a lot to be said for living as if we belong to this land. Good stewardship of the land is a fundamental principle of most intact religions worldwide; we can reverse the physical and spiritual death this cultural regime is bringing upon us by doing everything we can to treat our earth with respect. The details don't need to be spelled out here; we all know what we need to do. It's just a matter of changing bad habits and instilling good ones.

The Revolution is about much more than this, but this is a beginning. Look at this list and explore what you can do for yourself, and add your own ideas. Share this list with your friends. It is an ever-expanding, ever-changing group of ideas, and it is what every person does in their own way to promote the Revolution that will end in a changed society.



Inexplicably, I wrote this at around the same time. Why?

SOME FACTS ABOUT YOUR PROPERTY AND TREES
Increase your property value by 15%
slow traffic
Reduce basement seepage
lower blood pressure
lower heating/cooling costs
improve your area's desirability
sell your home faster
Reduce traffic noise
Provide habitat for birds
beautify your neighborhood
reduce runoff


I found that, but I can't find my essay "The Future of Wildlife Tracking Devices in the Retail Environment".

This is about ten years old but it was fun finding/reading it after so long.


I have recently returned to work, a process which is very difficult for me and my daughter. Unfortunately, my husband and I have no reasonable alternative, as his income is paltry and we are already living as "streamlined" a lifestyle as possible. The changes in my life as I have adapted to motherhood have led me to spend a great deal of time thinking of the structure of our society; today, our government is instituting programs designed to help mothers get back to work and away from their babies within months after birth, spending taxpayers dollars so that strangers can take merely adequate care of infants who would be happier and healthier with their mothers.

Now, I don't think women should be restricted to the sometimes suffocating role of caregiver to their families. The vast majority of women have always worked, at least until modern times. Women have supplied their families with necessary goods, clothes, produce, household items, etc... all products of hard work. The new change is that we are for the first time in history expecting (and forcing) women to work AWAY from their children. This strikes me as unhealthy for mother and child, and therefore for society as a whole. Why are we as a people seeking ways to pay for the separation of parents from children rather than seeking to find ways to keep them together?

There are many jobs that could be accomplished in a child-permissive workplace, and with on-site daycare that number could balloon to include almost any branch of any profession. If we make that single change in the way we perceive infants and children, from nuisances to welcome additions in the workplace, we would be fostering a whole new type of culture - a far healthier one. While I have mentioned primarily mothers, fathers are also vital in the upbringing of their little ones and after breastfeeding years are past, could also care for their daughters and sons in the workplace.

We have separated too much from our children. We have come to a point at which too many people grow to adulthood with little or no exposure to the nitty-gritty of childrearing. Bringing our babies to work would also return them to the space which they should rightfully occupy at the center of our community, and would be a gift not only for parents but for an entire culture impoverished by familial distance.

Love is hard.

Love is not gentle, sweet, patient and kind; love is passionate, strong, penetrating, and febrile. Love wraps you in binding arms; love swells you at night; love changes your appetite.

Love comes to you first thing upon waking and hides in the corners of your brain while you work. Love lies with you in the afternoon and alters the flavor of your food. Love sleeps under your skin and seeps out slowly in a heavy perfume.

Love makes you feel protected when you are vulnerable. Love makes you afraid when you are safe. Love wrings the center of your personality. Love makes you sane when the world is insane. Love makes you dangerous.

Love is the truest test of friendship.

This is not relevant to anything. I wrote it when I lived in Oakland about 12 years ago.

Spring is my favorite season in Portland.  It's no season at all
here.

At home the air is weighty with the vapors of plants exploding into
a fury of reproduction, ripe with precipitation, reeking of the
human and animal and horticultural frenzy of lust for EVERYTHING
that takes over the inhabitants of the little rainy city.  The area
is covered in a blanket so green that it seethes, it gives one
little orgasms of greenness from looking at it and walking through
it.  Plum and cherry trees are thick with large pink and white
blossoms which drip to the sidewalk with the weight of their scent,
scent that buffets Portlandians on their way to and from work or
play or errands.  The famous roses have commenced opening and the
gardens are crowded with tourists from Japan, from Russia and
Germany and from the whole rest of the world, amazing locals that
there are so many rose fanciers that would seek out Portland and
insist that the gardens are so extraordinary as to be worth it.  And
there are rhododendrons in all the variety of colors and buzzing
with an assortment of insects.  The streetwashers every morning
leave the sidewalks steaming in the slanting sun, and anyone
lucky/unlucky enough to have business downtown at that time of day gets to watch the sun rise over the river and the bridges whle the espresso vendors set up and add the aroma of their wares to the
overall stench of Portland.

My husband  found all my old essays and now I will be bothersome and post them here, one at a time.


The Short People's Manifesto

We are the Short, and we've had enough. This document is for the purposes of establishing our viewpoint on the following:

We recognize normal height as being less than 5'5". Therefore, a person being over the height of 5'5" is outside the range of normal, thereby deviant.

Passenger side airbags are the concerted effort of the Tall Regime to reduce our numbers by so-called "accidental" deaths in minor traffic accidents.

We will no longer tolerate the use of high counters and stovetops in newly constructed homes. These are deliberately placed at waist level for the Tall, causing people of normal height back strain and other health problems after prolonged use.

The designers and manufacturers of chairs, sofas, automobile and airplane seats, and other forms of seating MUST STOP their systematic terrorization of people of normal height through the use of excessively long seats which prevent the normal from sitting with comfort and dignity in almost all situations. This lack of dignity is engineered by the Tall Regime to keep us from promotion and positions of influence, thus furthering their diabolical dictatorship.

We strenuously object to the portrayal of actors of normal height as Tall. We are aware of the Hollywood sleight-of-lens used to promote the illusion that certain male and female actors are of greater-than-normal height, and we recognize that it is a ploy to brainwash our young into believing that all heroes are Tall, and conversely, that a person of normal height cannot be a hero. This is unacceptable. We demand that normal actors be shown at their true height, and that the Tall actors such as Jeff Goldblum be revealed as the horrible freaks they truly are.

At concerts, movies, and other public events a Tall area should be established near the back to accommodate those with special needs without allowing them to interfere with and monopolize the view which should rightfully be shared by all. They can see over our heads; however, we cannot see through their torsos.

We do not advocate discrimination against the Tall, we merely demand equality and fair treatment as the normal majority. WE ARE NOT PETITE: THEY ARE TALL.

We have a voice and we will not be silenced. It is time for the world to recognize its true majority and put an end to the tyrannical rule of those who would force the byproducts of their unnatural height upon everyone. 

Viva Revolution!

Huh.

Well, anyway, we're back now and we must say that America is a dismal little tweaker-infested hellhole suitable mainly for staying indoors and fucking.

Because our room smelled like old-man scrotum, we went on a quest to find incense. On the way, we found a store called "ALWAYS 99 CENTS!" except a lot of the stuff within was not 99 cents, but in fact much more. It was well worth the visit nonetheless, as we obtained two drinking glasses from which to later imbibe wine, and also as we approached the cashier our way was blocked by a tweaker who was telling the manager "See the great thing about me, I mean is, I will work any TIME and I will do any THING! And if I don't know how to do it I learn fast!"

We managed to get through the checkout and left the store just as tweaker-guy was getting on his bicycle (no helmet; tweakers never wear helmets, only baseball caps) and riding away. We made our merry way (passing several more baseball-capped sketchy-looking cyclists) to a wholesome-looking bead store called (no shit, it was really called this) "Ree-Kreashons". It took us some time to figure out that this was meant to be pronounced "re-creations" and not "secretions" with an R.

There was a note on the door announcing "POTTY BREAK- BACK SOON" so we stood in the tiny, graveled parking lot for a few minutes until a plumpish, nerdish, acne-cursed young woman opened the door and skittishly apologized for the wait. "No problem" says we, "Have you any incense perchance?" which commenced the most agonizing 15-minute search during which we learned that her baby had climbed out of its high chair while she was in the bathroom, scaring her half to death but she was sure other babies have done it before and thank-goodness it was OK, all while the baby screamed and she added a few more pocks to her cratered face as she nervously regaled us with open-ended stories of eviction and her search for a new location.

Eventually she found the incense and we breathed a sigh of relief, quickly chose a few sticks, and were nearly home free when the husband arrived, stringy-haired, leaning on a cane seemingly more for effect than for support. He had a box of rings, which he plonked down on the counter and showed to me, saying "Preeeettttttyyy!" I humored him with "oh yes, aren't those nice" while straining toward the door. I had already put ten dollars on the counter but the girl was "wrapping" our incense in the back and somehow it was taking forever, and I thought about just bolting but my social conditioning is too strong.

"You like to wear pretty things? I'll let these go for five dollars" said the husband as the baby continued to wail. "I uh, don't wear much jewelry, thanks" I said, leaning a little on my other half. Pocky Girl came back with the incense and said "four dollars". "OK then," said the husband as he took the ten, and I watched warily as he pulled a five and a one from the drawer and handed them to me, and like a balloon cut from a string we were free and drifted quickly out the door on our own invisible wind with a hasty "Thank you have a great day" and then we were in the parking lot clambering into the car and exorcising the grimness of that sweet baby having addict parents by laughing and saying "Oh my God, fucking TWEAKERS" and I was joking about the name of the place "TWEA-KREASHONS" and we were on the way back to our old-man-balls room and passing the community service storefront that says "THUGZ OFF DRUGZ" and pretty soon we were on the bed fucking and then later we were on our way to dinner and caught in a freak hailstorm where suddenly there was a terrible wreck right there, just happening and the blue car in front of us went off the road and disappeared out of sight down an embankment and we parked by the field to give our names and phone numbers, just in case, and when we got back in and drove by there were two girls injured on the side of the road, bystanders covering one girl with a blanket just as we drove off, drove cautiously the rest of the way to the restaurant, pulling over for emergency vehicles from time to time, and then gorged ourselves on pizza and beer before driving back to the motel to fuck again.

Soooooooo I have been on this here board thing for a couple of weeks, and I'm starting to trust you people to some degree.
I noticed that most of you seem to know each other pretty well, as is normal and logical from being on a board together over time. My question is, how closely is wise and prudent to guard details of one's personal life and identity? Not knowing, I have been careful not to reveal anything about my family life, hobbies, or work. I figure my eating habits and education are unlikely to give too much away because lots of people take math classes and eat a lot of olives. My name is generic enough. Am I basically on the right track, or am I being needlessly paranoid?

LMNO has my email address, and from which could easily track down everything there is to know about me, but the letters LMNO seem inherently trustworthy.

of a Sno-Cone:
1/3 π r^2 (2r + h)

Wait, does that even work?