Skip to content
TheTranscendenceDiaries

TheTranscendenceDiaries

Thoughtful musings for the unabashedly aware and ravenously curious intellectual and intelligentsia

  • About the Transcendence Diaries
  • About the Author
  • Subscribe or Donate
  • The Transcendence Manifesto
  • Ed Hale News
  • Videos
TheTranscendenceDiaries

Month: July 2012

Salmon Fishing in Yemen

July 29, 2012

Had to finally call it a day. Up at 7:30 am. Stop work at midnight. No, not loving it, thanks for asking. So. Decided to take the advice of my astute wife, who has a rather strict list of rules when it comes to film (which as frustrating as it is at times to find a film we both can agree on is just one of the many things that I adore about her). It goes something like this: NO violence explosions killing vulgarity rude comedy horror zombies vampires rapists glamorizing of drugs or alcohol gratuitous sex or foul language etc etc, which basically leaves Victorian era British films, old Hollywood classics, French Iranian Japanese (minus lots of fighting ) or other foreign films, and the occasional actually good American film that wants to tell a good story rather than one-up the studio next store with how vile they can be.

By now I’ve relaxed into bed with a new movie she saw on the plane over to the Middle East and suggested i watch too called SALMON FISHING IN YEMEN. The thing is that as always it’s a fantastic film so far (or why would I have paused it to share with you?) Great story, small little great stories in between, good writing and a fine cast. And see that’s the thing with film today isn’t it? Hollywood unfortunately sincerely believes it must fill its works with all of the above mentioned ‘no nos’ to create a big blockbuster. Shock, rather than brilliance is the rule of their industry at the moment. There’s a reason why Woody Allen decided to leave New York and never make another picture here and instead seek his funding from European movie studios. Google it. He refused to cave in to this wretched rule of shock and schlock. And for him it’s working marvelously.

But for the rest of us, nit so much. The theatres and On Demand and pay per view and cable are filled with murders vampires horror zombies sexual predators foul language dick jokes and vulgar comedies explosions ridiculously impossible and intelligence insulting stunts long boring car chases and a truckload full of other such nonsense, leaving almost nothing to watch if one prefers to avoid such things.

But every now and then a good one gets funding and gets through the system. And here we are. So far a damn fine film. I don’t know how long this trend of garbage spewing out of Hollywood is going to last, but I dare hope it’s not forever.

– Posted using BlogPress from an iPad. All errors typos mishaps and other such distractions are the sole responsibility and property of Apple Corporation

Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized

A Noble Lie

July 29, 2012


We just finished watching the documentary A NOBLE LIE, about the Oklahoma City building bombing. As usual the event is filled with questions never answered, numerous federal and constitutional laws broken by the federal government, lies and deceptions, murdered eye-witnesses and thousands of federal government documents, photos and videos withheld from the public ever seeing still to this day.

The term “A Noble Lie” was first coined by Plato to refer to “a false myth created and perpetrated by a ruling authority to maintain peace and security in a society.” No one would be faulted to assume that we are neck deep in one mass Noble Lie at this time in our nation’s history. The only question that remains is how long have we unknowingly been living within this Matrix of Noble Lies? Some point to the fact that the founding fathers of the United States

We the people of this country are surely now at war with the ruling powers

Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized

Occupy Your Home

July 24, 2012
      Day three without Princess Little Tree. She’s gone to see her parents in Tehran (which under the current circumstances is another story entirely). But I am not worried for her safety. I was unable to accompany her on this trip. It came at the last minute, a feeling we both had after speaking with her father most recently, and in a breath’s notice we decided it was best if she went there at once. Unfortunately it came at one of the busiest times of our current life. I couldn’t imagine working harder to be honest. And thus the trip was out of the question for me. Though for her we felt it was quite necessary. And despite the nation of Israel’s constant threats of violence and “attacks of prevention not retaliation”, though they make our hearts sad and heavy, the situation does not frighten me for her safety. Princess Little Tree is an angel of some sort, born with a subtly glowing halo just above her head, both beautifying and protective. 
        And besides, it is in her blood, and I would dare say now through our heavenly bond mine as well. I will never forget something I was told once regarding this subject. Sitting in the hot office of the Minister of Defense in the city of Tehran several years ago, sucking on one sugar cube after another while sipping on the most authentic Persian tea I have ever had the pleasure of tasting, one of our colleagues asked the gentleman if he or the other Ministers in the Iranian government “feared the West”, in light of what the United States and Great Britain were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time (and still are, only they’ve now added Yemen and Pakistan to that list). His response portrayed the long running Persian strength of will as much as it did their even more admirable strength of wit. “As a people, we have been here, in this land, the same land and the same people, under the same name and speaking the same language longer than any other nation of people on earth. We are surrounded by no less than eleven foreign countries and our history is one of constant defending ourselves from foreign invaders and occupiers from all sides. So no my friend, no matter what you may hear on the news in your own country, I do not believe that our people are very concerned with what America says on any given day about us. We have a good life here and we intend to keep it as we always have.” I will never forget his sly and quiet smile, almost a chuckle. The man he was responding to was no less than the editor of a big-time American news magazine. That quieted him up quite nicely. At least for that meeting.
        I already miss her so… Her smile. Her laugh. Her smell. Her presence. But we are busy. More than busy. We are overwhelmed with busy. And that is a very very good thing. When we are young and growing up, this is what we dream about. This kind of busy-ness and business. So no complaints from me. But I still miss PLT terribly. I feel slightly depressed when we are not together. My life has changed so much since we got together this last time and finally decided to make it official… I have structured my life in a way now where being without her for even a day is unacceptable to me. I never thought I was that kind of person to be honest. I guess we don’t really know who we are completely until we meet the ONE and then we understand why others are that way as well. 
        Almost done with this newest city street art installation. Nothing big. Just a small token of an action to feel worthy of breathing. Talk about boring and tedious. So much just sitting there filling in each letter of each word with a marker… But necessary. It’s one thing to make a little sign that says “”Occupy” something””. But I just couldn’t and can’t take it anymore. There’s just too much negativity bombarding us from all sides. The presidential campaigns are absolutely nauseating in how low they are willing to go in their lust to “win”. The problem is that regardless of who wins, they will destroy each other so much, and denigrate themselves to the core of their very nature, that being “president” will mean next to nothing. As it pretty much doesn’t now. The way people speak about our current president. Times have changed. I have never seen a presidency so disrespected and dishonored as we have over the last three years. And the one before it wasn’t much better. The worst part is that they are doing it to themselves. I don’t know what is worse, Romney’s attack ads against Obama, or Obama’s attack ads against Romney. Either way, neither of the two men come out looking admirable honorable or respectable unfortunately. And the media plays right along with it, in fact making it all the more negative. It gives one a sick feeling inside. Not exactly inspiring at all.
        Any way we can take an action to tip the scales in the direction of positivity in our world is a good thing. But the problem with “Occupy” for example is that if it’s nothing more than a little sign you’re holding and posting to Facebook, then it’s not really saying or doing much; because to many people that doesn’t even mean anything. I feel like we need to give meaning to the word. More meaning one should say at least. And not to ourselves, those of us who know and understand what the movement is about, but to the world outside the small confines of the movement.


        And this is the same problem many of us have been having with the protest aspect of the movement lately too. Just like it’s Tea Party counterpart, many of them can come off very negative. There’s a lot of anger out there, justifiably so, and many of the participants who show up to these events are there just to express their anger. Nothing wrong with that. Except for the fact that most people do not respond well to anger, nor do they respect it, nor do they take people seriously when they are absorbed in anger; besides the fact that it just adds more negativity to an already negative pool of emotion. If our tool against all the negative things in the world that we want to change is anger, which is negative itself, then we are just adding more of that same negativity to the mix, maybe just shifting it from “greed” to “anger” for a few minutes in the attention of consciousness. But it’s still perpetuating the negative. 
        Such were my thoughts last week when I came upon this idea. I decided that this idea I heard a friend of mine promote a few months back — Occupy Your Home, or Occupy Yourself, or Your World, etc. — could actually be tangibly facilitated, as opposed to just being a slogan… not just by taping a little handmade sign to your forehead that says that and snapping a picture, but in a real tangible and visible way. An “any way you can” kind of way, using your actual home. In our case we have 13 windows that face out onto a major highway/avenue in New York City. You get the idea. As I said, nothing fancy. Hence 13 posterboards that just happen to be perfectly cut to to the size to fill our windows. Anyone and everyone can do it. Imagine a world where instead of expressing our anger and dissatisfaction with the problems of the world, we instead promoted the ideals we desire most. Through any means available to us at the time. Even if it’s as simple as hanging up a few posters…
        When contemplating what the message was, that was easy. We all know what the problems are, what we don’t like, what we are trying to change so to speak… So why even bring those things up at all? STOP GREED just promotes greed. NO MORE WAR just promotes war. Well what’s the opposite of greed? Fairness. Justice. Equality. And the opposite of war? Peace. Love. Joy Cooperation. And on and on. Messages of hope and elation. For we all know too well what the problems are. And there are enough of us now working on the solutions. Tomorrow they go up. Of course by covering every window in the apartment, these posters will almost entirely block out the sun and leave me walking around in the dark for weeks, but with this current heat wave, that could be a good thing. ;->  
More later. 
Love and Peace, Fishy

Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized

Bankrupting Capitalism

July 23, 2012


        Still taking in about 50 to 60 calls a day from customers of the Room Store. It’s non-stop and extremely maddening, considering that we have nothing to DO with the freaking Room Store. Bastards. You should hear these poor people. Many of them are Hispanic or African American, or lower income Southern “white” people, many of them with thick accents and some who can barely speak English. Honestly. I’ve never heard anything like it before. But then again, I had never heard of The Room Store either. [I joked the other day to a colleague after getting off a call that lasted almost ten minutes where I had to speak Spanish the whole time, “The f*&king Room Store should pay me a HUGE bonus for doing all of this. (Now that’s a statement overflowing with irony to say the least) To not only be taking their calls for them, but where else do you find a customer service rep who speaks five languages?!?!” Of course we aren’t going to be remunerated from these corporate clock sucking crooks and we know it. At best we will find a way to get this ever growing list to the Better Business Bureau and hope they actually do something about it].
        The point of the racial reference is this: I’ve taken at least 200 calls myself over the last two weeks from these people. And I know nothing about The Room Store. But I know business. Having owned a multitude of them over the last 20 years, I know as much about target markets and demographics and micro-niche market casting as one needs to in order to make a few million a year from understanding and servicing your customer base. The Room Store’s target market appears to have been either lower income people or people of color or immigrants… or maybe it is just the nature of that particular class… lower income people; as in what they say about the immigrant and minority classes in America… how they are in the majority of those at the very bottom of money earners in the United States. Perhaps they are easy to deceive and manipulate, I do not know, for I have never had a business like that. But that’s exactly what we are hearing call after bloody call. Crazy deceptions and run around stories. Much like what the banks and the credit card companies do to these same people. And all it does is make us more mad as we continue to take these calls and listen to these people’s sad stories.

        There’s also a large pool of elderly people. God bless them. They don’t even realize that I do not work for The Room Store. They just keep going on and on asking me more and more questions. No matter how many times I tell them that they’ve reached the wrong number and I am just trying to help them out by taking their name and number to pass on to the Room Store if we can track them down. See, from the outside it appears that what this company did is stayed open till the very last moment they could and continued to sell furniture to people, taking their cash, checks, and credit card numbers, knowing full well that they would never be delivering any furniture to them. Then overnight they closed. As for the people who purchased those worthless “extra coverage insurance packages” that those of us in the know never buy, those people are also in a similarly screwed place. They’re owed something and they’ve got no number to call to speak to anybody about it except ours — because the Room Store gave everyone the wrong 800 number to call to “file their claim now that we are bankrupt”.

        Ah but the bastards had no idea that there just might be someone who gives a damn on the other end of that random 800 number they maliciously and erroneously passed out to their most infringed upon clientele. So here we are, knee deep in someone else’s dirty mess and frankly quite happy to be lending a hand. For they sure as hell aren’t. 
        I’ll tell you dear paged friend, we’ve received exactly ONE call so far from a person who I would say sounded “middle income” or remotely educated. A man who actually understood what was happening and appreciated the efforts we were going through as non-involved fellow citizens. The rest of them ask me questions like “So, uh, sir, what will happen next? Is someone going to call us back?” Poor fuckers. It’s always they who get the worst of it from the top of the heap. Now this doesn’t mean that people who shopped at The Room Store were all uneducated or lower income types. Not at all. But what it does imply is that the people who got ripped off are.
        Because those are the only calls that are coming in. Hundreds of them. So it leads me to believe that the bigger fish, the more educated folk who understand how things work a bit better already took care of themselves long before any of this bankruptcy business went down.  But these folks who are calling in now, from Texas and North Carolina and Maryland and South Carolina, they’re just clueless as to how this happened to them. And honestly most of them are still expecting someone to get back to them, as if any day they’re going to receive a call back from someone working at The Room Store who’s going to offer to give them all their money back. Even though they’ve filed bankruptcy. They just don’t get it. It is the poorest people who are taken the most advantage of in our society. And ironically made to work the hardest, and who pay the highest percentage of their capital in taxes. Simply because they don’t know any better, and because they do not have the money to do anything about it even if they did.
        It’s got me to thinking a lot about how business and capitalism works in the United States. If I weren’t so tired, or had another way in which to discuss other than sitting here typing I would go into it more. But leave it to this: anyone in America can open up a business and start their own corporation. That corporation can enjoy all the privileges and benefits of a regular human being, even getting their own social security number (except it’s called a Tax ID Number), but suffer none of the consequences that a regular human being would if they broke the law. If they run their business into the ground and in the process steal a few million dollars from a few thousand people, they can file bankruptcy and be done with it. If they break any number of laws, whether it’s for billions of dollars such that we saw in the banking crash of 2008, or just a few hundred thousand, they can expect at the most to be fined.
        If they cannot pay the fine, they can just file bankruptcy and again voila be done with it. No jail. No prison. No trouble. No nothing but a free ride down easy street.Try asking a judge for that if you get caught stealing money because your family is hungry. He’ll laugh as he sentences you to a few months or even years in jail. That’s the big secret that corporations know and regular people don’t. Bankruptcy is not something I personally believe in. I believe it to be a scam. A con. A scheme. I’ve had plenty of opportunities in my own personal and business life to do it, and I have never chosen that as an option. Instead I take the hit. The full hit. Even if it takes you ten years or more to pay back all your customers and creditors, you owe it to them and to yourself to do so. A deal is a deal is a deal. And your word is either good, or bad. No excuses.
        By the time this company’s big creditors are done with them, the judge in the bankruptcy court who’s handling this case, will have no option but to put away a very small fraction of what they owe their actual customers and order them to do their best to pay all those people back as best they can with a little trifle of the large sums the people are actually owed. And the sad part is that there isn’t a damn thing any of them can do about it. Some of the smart ones can sue, or better yet put together a class action law suit and try to go for it that way. But that takes time. And money. Commodities that it appears that most of these people do not possess. What strikes one most appalling of all is that corporations are allowed to consider “salary and bonuses” as part of their everyday expenses. Creating a situation whereby the head man in charge of the entire scheme may walk away with ten to twenty million for his salary for that year, and maybe even a bonus for handling the bankruptcy “efficiently”, but he will not get into any trouble for swindling all the poor customers who got left out in the cold with empty promises and worthless signed contracts that the company is now no longer obligated to abide by or make good on.
        That in a nutshell is American Capitalism. And it’s why each of us who live here owe tens of thousands of dollars each as our personal share of America’s debt (to who?) because we had to bail out all those banks and  financial institutions who went bust and yet in the same year the captains of those giant ships of ruin walked away with tens of millions of dollars in their own offshore bank accounts. Watch what happens if any of us attempt to stand up for what’s right and just and refuse to pay a cent of it on the grounds that it wasn’t our business that fucked up and went under. Any one of us would go straight to jail. It’s a vicious system. What these men and women of finance — and others who scam the system to their own benefit regardless of the harm it does — are doing is bankrupting capitalism. Making it appear to be something that it’s not. Ugly. Selfish. Greedy. Self serving. There is no rule that states that those are inherent qualities of a capitalist system though.
        And so the battle has just begun, three years ago to be exact. And I think it is just getting started. More and more of us are waking up and seeing things as they really are. And I dare say that my prediction is that in a very short time we are going to see waves of bold Americans refusing to take on this debt of these PRIVATE companies. What will happen then, one can only guess. But in the meantime, when we do have an opportunity to help, in any way we can, even if it is something as small as this Room Store fiasco we are dealing with, we should seize the opportunity. This considerable list will be documented and sent to every major newspaper in America along with the judge handling The Room Store’s bankruptcy and the Better Business Bureau.
        These people should be taken care of. When the most basic trusts of capitalism are no longer believed in, people begin to do one of either two things: go crooked themselves, or demand a more socialist system. As a business man myself I would prefer not to see either option exercised in my lifetime here. I believe in the capitalist system. Any man or woman can thrive on it freely and without much restraint from big government. But they can do so fairly and equitably. It doesn’t have to be the way it’s been over the last decade or two. It’s a myth if anyone tells you that it does. It is just a few rotten apples spoiling the whole cart for the rest of us good eggs. That’s why every chance we get, when faced with a serendipitous opportunity to bend the rules a bit in our favor at the expense of another, we must always refuse to take that opportunity and instead do the right thing. Thereby showing the world that capitalism can be a good thing for all, and that in and of itself capitalism is not inherently bad. It’s just some people who are.
       

Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized

Occupy Your Home

July 23, 2012

      Day three without Princess Little Tree. She’s gone to see her parents in Tehran (which under the current circumstances is another story entirely). But I am not worried for her safety. I was unable to accompany her on this trip. It came at the last minute, a feeling we both had after speaking with her father most recently, and in a breath’s notice we decided it was best if she went there at once. Unfortunately it came at one of the busiest times of our current life. I couldn’t imagine working harder to be honest. And thus the trip was out of the question for me. Though for her we felt it was quite necessary. And despite the nation of Israel’s constant threats of violence and “attacks of prevention not retaliation”, though they make our hearts sad and heavy, the situation does not frighten me for her safety. Princess Little Tree is an angel of some sort, born with a subtly glowing halo just above her head, both beautifying and protective.

        And besides, it is in her blood, and I would dare say now through our heavenly bond mine as well. I will never forget something I was told once regarding this subject. Sitting in the hot office of the Minister of Defense in the city of Tehran several years ago, sucking on one sugar cube after another while sipping on the most authentic Persian tea I have ever had the pleasure of tasting, one of our colleagues asked the gentleman if he or the other Ministers in the Iranian government “feared the West”, in light of what the United States and Great Britain were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time (and still are, only they’ve now added Yemen and Pakistan to that list). His response portrayed the long running Persian strength of will as much as it did their even more admirable strength of wit. “As a people, we have been here, in this land, the same land and the same people, under the same name and speaking the same language longer than any other nation of people on earth. We are surrounded by no less than eleven foreign countries and our history is one of constant defending ourselves from foreign invaders and occupiers from all sides. So no my friend, no matter what you may hear on the news in your own country, I do not believe that our people are very concerned with what America says on any given day about us. We have a good life here and we intend to keep it as we always have.” I will never forget his sly and quiet smile, almost a chuckle. The man he was responding to was no less than the editor of a big-time American news magazine. That quieted him up quite nicely. At least for that meeting.

        I already miss her so… Her smile. Her laugh. Her smell. Her presence. But we are busy. More than busy. We are overwhelmed with busy. And that is a very very good thing. When we are young and growing up, this is what we dream about. This kind of busy-ness and business. So no complaints from me. But I still miss PLT terribly. I feel slightly depressed when we are not together. My life has changed so much since we got together this last time and finally decided to make it official… I have structured my life in a way now where being without her for even a day is unacceptable to me. I never thought I was that kind of person to be honest. I guess we don’t really know who we are completely until we meet the ONE and then we understand why others are that way as well.

        Almost done with this newest city street art installation. Nothing big. Just a small token of an action to feel worthy of breathing. Talk about boring and tedious. So much just sitting there filling in each letter of each word with a marker… But necessary. It’s one thing to make a little sign that says “”Occupy” something””. But I just couldn’t and can’t take it anymore. There’s just too much negativity bombarding us from all sides. The presidential campaigns are absolutely nauseating in how low they are willing to go in their lust to “win”. The problem is that regardless of who wins, they will destroy each other so much, and denigrate themselves to the core of their very nature, that being “president” will mean next to nothing. As it pretty much doesn’t now. The way people speak about our current president. Times have changed. I have never seen a presidency so disrespected and dishonored as we have over the last three years. And the one before it wasn’t much better. The worst part is that they are doing it to themselves. I don’t know what is worse, Romney’s attack ads against Obama, or Obama’s attack ads against Romney. Either way, neither of the two men come out looking admirable honorable or respectable unfortunately. And the media plays right along with it, in fact making it all the more negative. It gives one a sick feeling inside. Not exactly inspiring at all.

        Any way we can take an action to tip the scales in the direction of positivity in our world is a good thing. But the problem with “Occupy” for example is that if it’s nothing more than a little sign you’re holding and posting to Facebook, then it’s not really saying or doing much; because to many people that doesn’t even mean anything. I feel like we need to give meaning to the word. More meaning one should say at least. And not to ourselves, those of us who know and understand what the movement is about, but to the world outside the small confines of the movement.


        And this is the same problem many of us have been having with the protest aspect of the movement lately too. Just like it’s Tea Party counterpart, many of them can come off very negative. There’s a lot of anger out there, justifiably so, and many of the participants who show up to these events are there just to express their anger. Nothing wrong with that. Except for the fact that most people do not respond well to anger, nor do they respect it, nor do they take people seriously when they are absorbed in anger; besides the fact that it just adds more negativity to an already negative pool of emotion. If our tool against all the negative things in the world that we want to change is anger, which is negative itself, then we are just adding more of that same negativity to the mix, maybe just shifting it from “greed” to “anger” for a few minutes in the attention of consciousness. But it’s still perpetuating the negative.

        Such were my thoughts last week when I came upon this idea. I decided that this idea I heard a friend of mine promote a few months back — Occupy Your Home, or Occupy Yourself, or Your World, etc. — could actually be tangibly facilitated, as opposed to just being a slogan… not just by taping a little handmade sign to your forehead that says that and snapping a picture, but in a real tangible and visible way. An “any way you can” kind of way, using your actual home. In our case we have 13 windows that face out onto a major highway/avenue in New York City. You get the idea. As I said, nothing fancy. Hence 13 posterboards that just happen to be perfectly cut to to the size to fill our windows. Anyone and everyone can do it. Imagine a world where instead of expressing our anger and dissatisfaction with the problems of the world, we instead promoted the ideals we desire most. Through any means available to us at the time. Even if it’s as simple as hanging up a few posters…

        When contemplating what the message was, that was easy. We all know what the problems are, what we don’t like, what we are trying to change so to speak… So why even bring those things up at all? STOP GREED just promotes greed. NO MORE WAR just promotes war. Well what’s the opposite of greed? Fairness. Justice. Equality. And the opposite of war? Peace. Love. Joy Cooperation. And on and on. Messages of hope and elation. For we all know too well what the problems are. And there are enough of us now working on the solutions. Tomorrow they go up. Of course by covering every window in the apartment, these posters will almost entirely block out the sun and leave me walking around in the dark for weeks, but with this current heat wave, that could be a good thing. ;->

More later.

Love and Peace, Fishy



Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized Israel threats to Iran, lost message of the occupy movement

Murder is Not Justice — It’s Murder

July 20, 2012

        The senseless movie theater shooting tragedy that occurred in Aurora, CO today killing 12 people and injuring 59 more is a shock to us all. These kind of events, public mass murders with no apparent intent behind them, are seeming to increase exponentially in the United States over the last ten years. There has been SIX already this year alone. The myriad reasons for this is a subject for another conversation, though one could safely assert this epidemic certainly seems to be symptomatic of our collected state of mind in modern times.
         Facebook and Twitter are abuzz with sentiments of mourning, anger, loss, sympathy, and unfortunately vengeance — some want the alleged killer to be shot dead on site. No questioning, no testimony, no learning why or how he did what he did, no habeus corpus and no trial. In other words, they want us to break the laws that govern us in handling this man because he broke the laws that govern us.
Others are already jumping to call for capital punishment against the man, without knowing anything about him or his mental state or the full details of what actually happened behind the scenes. That’s as primitive and barbaric as the alleged shooter himself. It still always surprises me when I hear people who appear relatively intelligent and sane speak of it. Killing people who kill to teach that we shouldn’t kill. No different than how this mind-bogglingly disturbed psycho in Aurora, CO acted.
        Murder is murder. We are either against murder or not. We can’t have it both ways. We’ve all heard it said that two wrongs don’t make a right. Which is why we cannot righteously defend an evolved stance against murder in a humane society while continuing to perpetuate the practice of it “under certain circumstances” (such as for vengeance or anger (terrorist groups like Hezbollah or Hamas), punishment (as in capital punishment), fear of being attacked (ala Israel or the United States), resistance to Democracy (ala Syria’s dictatorship), war profiteering or colonialism (name your country…)).
If we believe that all life is sacred and want to teach that to our children and firmly integrate that ideal into the fabric of our society then we need to walk the talk of it with no exceptions. Once and for all we need to learn that we must stop sending mixed messages out into mass consciousness and human society with this “do as I say but not as I do” mentality.

        Today we grieve for the victims and their families in Colorado. Tomorrow and the next day as well. For all the victims’ families the grieving will never end… For we the blessed who are still alive, we grieve for all who have been killed by the hands of another all over the world… The Israeli tourists in Bulgaria senselessly killed just two days ago, the 17,000 Syrian civilians who’ve been killed by their own government, the Iranian and Chinese people murdered by their own government just for speaking up to defend human liberty — and at the same time ironically all the Iranian scientists who’ve been assassinated by other countries because they are working for their government’s nuclear program, the thousands in Yemen and Pakistan who are being killed everyday by American drone strikes, the unborn babies murdered in utero by the millions in China to uphold their “one child per family” law ….
        Murder unfortunately is all around us. It colors and shapes our world as much as anything else we create as human beings…. Food, art, literature, entertainment, architecture… Murder is right there, standing side by side with the rest of it, living and breathing as part of our daily lives. We use our genius of innovation to invent killing machines and weapons of war just as readily as anything else we invent. And we reward each other for such innovations just as readily. For every iPad there is a stealth bomber. And so it is no wonder that murder is so much a part of our day to day lives.
        Eventually this will not be the case. Our species is rapidly evolving. Some say not. But perhaps it is only they who are not and thus simply aren’t seeing it. But I believe in the future of an evolved humankind. Graphed over the last ten thousand years, peering at the history of humankind, it is obvious we are well on our way to an enlightened civilization of caring and compassionate citizenry capable of both survival and love of neighbor simultaneously.
        The slow eradication of the rules and laws that allow for capital punishment, country by country, and in the United States — State by State, is just one of the proactive measures already being taken that will lead to this inevitable enlightened future. We all long for justice in cases like what we have just witnessed in Aurora, Colorado. But murdering the man is no more justice than whatever justice he himself had in mind when murdering the innocent victims at that movie theater last night. For we can be sure that, like all who take up arms and fire — whether at people they know or not, he most likely felt compelled by a righteous cause of justice himself. Did he get it? Did he achieve his goal? Or will he spend the next few weeks and months of his life rotting and aching inside from the guilt and regret that haunts us all who bear the burden of a heavy soul after committing any atrocious act?
        Instead of joining him, we would be better off beginning our ascension towards this vision of our continued evolution by setting the example of the enlightened and just society that we all claim to desire so vehemently.

Many other topics come to mind easily as offshoots of this most recent tragedy…
– Was it the new Batman movie that somehow inspired the violence?
– Is it increased violence in public art and entertainment?
– Why Colorado again?
– How have we gotten to the point of six mass public murders in one year in one of the healthiest and richest societies in human history?
– Should American society man up and increase stricter gun controls? Or would that be whimping out and dumbing down?
– Was this whole thing a staged event as some suggest in order to coerce the American people into being more willing to accept stricter gun laws and decrease Second Amendment rights?
– And what about Second Amendment rights? Should they include assault rifles and automatic or semi-automatic weapons?
– Do we all now need to pack a weapon in order to ensure our safety?
– Is there any way to protect ourselves from mad men who abuse the system without limiting those of us who enjoy our Second Amendment rights who would never consider abusing them? As in the old adage “If we outlaw guns, the only people who will have guns will be outlaws.”
– Is there something inherently wrong with our American system that is promoting such atrocious acts of violence? Something in our food or water? – – Is it our socio-political system? Has it become so seemingly unfair that it is bringing people to the edge of insanity?

This is the time and this is a record of the time. The saga continues…

Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized

Doing the Right Thing

July 19, 2012

        Well wouldn’t you know it, if we didn’t have enough on our plates already, a company called The Room Store has filed for bankruptcy and on their only 800 number left in the world they have mistakenly — (or not) — given out OUR record company’s 800 number as their “claims department”. It started about a week ago. We started receiving an inordinately high volume of calls compared to normal, and more odd was the fact that they all seemed to be coming in from “middle American” towns and States like North Carolina or Texas, places we never receive calls from. Being in the entertainment industry, I’d say a good 99% of the calls we receive come in from either New York or LA. [Hold on. I’ve got to take another call from one of them….] One can tell from the area code if it’s a real business call or not. A lot of times if it isn’t a NY or CA area code it’s a wrong number; or it’s some poor young artist who thinks they can just call up a record label and get a record contract. (I remember being like that once… So I don’t blame them. But it just doesn’t work that way. Damned if you can get an undiscovered young artist to realize that though…)
        Talk about annoying. At first I and the rest of us here at DVG just kept “ignoring” all the calls and sending them right through to voicemail. After a few days, we were going so out of our minds with it that we started answering the calls and telling the people that we were the Room Store and that we were going to award them a $500 gift certificate for their troubles. [Hold on. I’m taking another call now…] We only did it a few times and were just having a little fun. Hey, remember now, we’re in the business of rock and roll and compared to most of the things we do, this is pretty mild. But we hadn’t yet discovered what was really going on. After speaking to one too many of the Room Store’s frustrated customer’s we discovered that the company has in fact gone out of business and filed bankruptcy.

        The problem is that they owe all these customers of theirs either money or furniture! None of the dollar figures I am hearing about is [Hold on, there’s another call] too much. But “too much” is a subjective term isn’t it? Most of the “claims” I’ve been hearing about are in the range of $500. But I swear, each of these customers I’ve spoken to is acting like that’s a lot of money to them. And you know, maybe it is. Money is a weird thing. It’s all about energy and state of mind. One man’s $500 is another man’s $5,000. And so it is. [Hold on, there’s another call]
        As a note, to show just how heinous this crazy situation is to us, since I started writing this entry dear diary, I have taken at least ten calls from sad or angry Room Store customers. It’s absolutely insane. It hit me earlier this morning that I had to do something besides send all these people’s calls to voicemail and delete them. By the time I awoke this morning our voicemail was already full. I meditated on the situation. Contemplated a way that we could perhaps block all incoming calls from Room Store customers. That wouldn’t work. [Hold on, I’m taking another call now…] Thought about trying to track them down and tell them to remove our phone number from their system. I called the 800 number they’ve been giving to their customers.
        Sure enough, it says “If you are owed money from The Room Store, we regret to inform you that we have gone out of business. Please do not leave a message. This voicemail will not be listened to. Instead dial 800… and extension … and leave a message there.” Well that 800 number they are giving out is OUR NUMBER. A number we have had since the year 2000 at least. [Shit. Hold on. I’ve got to take another call…] We also thought about trying to figure out who their phone carrier is and calling them to request that they deactivate that line so the customers could no longer call that number and hear that message. But there doesn’t appear to be a way to do that. And besides, how will that help all these disgruntled customers who’re owed money?
        My guess is that they probably just made up a phone number and never bothered to give it a ring to see if it was a valid number or not. That may be true. Or it may not be. Perhaps it was a genuine mistake. Either way, we’re stuck answering the phone all day and speaking to people from all over the east coast of these great States of America about their poor claims and listening to their problems and complaints about their furniture. Seriously. Funny right?
        So what to do? Well after thinking about it, the idea hit me. If we keep ignoring these poor people’s calls and deleting their voicemails, nothing is going to be done for them. Not a damn thing. Unless one of them [Hold on. Another call!] Unless one or two of them happens to be smart enough to understand how bankruptcy works and they find a way to contact the law firm that is handling their case and they can get themselves on the creditor’s list. But by the sound of it, most of these people just aren’t the kind of people who will ever be able to figure out how to do that. It’s bad karma if you ask me. Just bad all around. So since this morning I decided that what we would do is answer each and every call and tell the customers that they’ve been given the wrong number, but that if they give me their name and number I will make sure to find the people in charge and hand over the list to them.
        So far I have taken a good 100 phone calls today alone, and written down each and every person’s name and telephone number. Easily. I’m keeping a list in a notebook. I’ll have my assistant type them up and in the meantime we will go online and find out who is handling their bankruptcy. Then we will hand over the list. Either that, or we will give it to the Better Business Bureau. That way maybe these people will get their money back. It’s a major pain in the ass. I won’t sugar coat it. But I feel like it’s the least we can do. Truth is, I’ve had some interesting conversations. And even more learning about humankind and human nature as always. The women are mostly sad sounding lower income types and they just sound dejected and discouraged, believing that they’ve been ripped off and will never see their money again [Hold on. yet another call…]  I try to cheer them up. Poor creatures. The men are a bit different. This last guy just told me “Well thank you for what you’re doing there… I hope we find these fuckers! Excuse my language.” 
        It’s an amazing experience to be honest. Half the people say “I’ve got the wrong number I’m sorry” when we first answer. Then we explain that they do indeed have the wrong number, but not because they dialed it wrong and we further explain what is happening. Most people are just so confused by what they are hearing that they just give their name and number before even thinking about it and that’s that. Some of them start asking me technical questions about their “furniture warranty”. In which case I have to explain to them yet again that this is a record company in New York City and we don’t have anything to do with selling furniture. But it’s hard for most people to wrap their minds around.
        The thing that strikes me most about this whole thing is how symptomatic it is of the economic times we are going through right now in America. Is The Room Store guilty in some way as so many other American companies have proven to be? Is this just another story of big corporate America ripping off the small everyday-man? Or did they give it their all and just not succeed in the end and have to close up shop? Well only The Room Store themselves can answer that question. I’ve got no fucking idea. I’m just a singer. But I’d love to hear the end of the story and see how it all pans out.
        That in and of itself I believe shows just how easy it is to con people and rip them off if you’re of the mind to do so. They don’t quite get it. And it probably makes it even more confusing for them when this guy on the other end of the phone is telling them that he’ll “track these people down for you and give them this list with all your names and numbers. That’s the best we can do ma’am. I’m sorry, I hope it helps.” Yes. So yet another strange bit of weirdness has landed in our world. Can’t say it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. But it may just be the funniest. At the least, I feel like we are turning something rather heinous and negative into a positive. And you can’t feel bad about that.

          

Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized

Voting For A Third Party Only Makes Things Worse

July 17, 2012

Though the intentions of the proposed action are noble, and the reasons for it more than valid and necessary, now more than ever — though an argument could be made that this need has existed for a long time, perhaps as far back as the drafting of the Constitution — supporting a third political party right up until the vote in November at this time in our American history will not help our troubled system in any way. In fact there is a strong likelihood that it could only make things worse. Read carefully one notices there are several notable clauses in the idea above that do not negate the importance or validity of the ideals that supporting a third political party are founded upon. It isn’t that it’s not a good idea. For it is a good idea. A damn good one. And entirely necessary. It’s just that now isn’t the right time for it. You’ve got to kill the buffalo buffalo before you eat. And before you kill it you’ve got to catch it. We’ve not yet even captured the buffalo

This is not to say

We sint vote for pres candidates we vite for state electors. By population. An outdated system perpetuated in order to allow corporate control and domination of political parties at the expense of anything remotely progressive happening. … He said. “I live in a State where my vote won’t count. Because of the electoral college voting system. The race for president at this point

Has to be a combined effort, a coalition from a grassroots movement decided upon ahead of time

Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized

College Tuition

July 17, 2012

Well that’s def a good blog post topic! Do they really raise tuition every year??? Is there really an ulterior motive behind it? Or is it simply increased need? Or a capitalistic desire for more profit?

Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized

Where Is Benjamin?

July 17, 2012

I was awakened this morning by a dream in which my branding and imaging agent — she’s got no official name yet though I am aware of the need for one… — was advising me that I needed to get on this task of signing up with this kick butt marketing and distribution company called Benjamin. Though when she spelled it out she said BenjaMON, with an O not an I. Strange I thought. She was intensely serious about it. As she is about everything. I asked her “What are they? Do they replace our current label and distributor? Ate they better?” And she replied “Baby they’re not even in the same league. That how important this is. Just get on it!”

Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized

Posts navigation

1 2 3 Next

A private little world for me… a private little world for you. The online journals and musings of singer-songwriter author and activist Ed Hale. The Transcendence Diaries have been posting regularly online since 2001. Comments are always welcomed. And so are YOU.

Recent Posts

  • Understanding Black America, Or Not
  • Two More Executed In Iran This Morning For Protesting For Freedom & Equality — What We Can Do To Help
  • Realism Is False — by Donald D. Hoffman
  • Transcending Genetics Through Consciousness and Particle Physics
  • Making the World a Better Place Starts With Committing and Consistently Showing Up
  • Masculina Stigmata — The Curse & Crisis Of the White Straight Man In the Modern World
  • Islamic Republic Of Iran Holds First Public Execution In Ongoing Revolution — It Is Now Time To Strike More and Fight
  • David O. Russell’s New Film Amsterdam is Flawed Sure, But It’s also An Incredible Work Of Art
  • The Mask Is Off — Pro-Palestinian/Anti-Zionism Is Not Anti-Semitism
  • A Small Concession Has been Won In Iran — But the Bigger War Will Continue Until A Full On Democratic Revolution Transpires and the People Are Free Once and For All From Tyranny

Receive Transcendence Diaries Updates

   
 

Subscribe

* indicates required
  
  
  
    Email Format    
 
  
  
 
       
   
   

Join the Ed Hale Mailing List

Ask Ed Hale a Question

Follow Ed Hale Online

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Spotify
  • YouTube
  • Apple

To Follow & Like us

RSS
Follow by Email
Facebook
Facebook
fb-share-icon
Twitter
Visit Us
Follow Me
Tweet
LinkedIn
LinkedIn
Share

Follow Ed Hale on Twitter

My Tweets

Ed Hale on Facebook

Ed Hale on Facebook

Listen to Ed Hale on Spotify

Tags

Abraham Hicks ed hale and the transcendence activism America American imperialism Avatar avatar course CNN Consciousness ed hale facebook finding God gaza god intuition investing iPhone Iran Iraq islam Israel itunes living in new york making music Music music video music videos new album new york palestine peace politics reality creation Rehearsal Relationships Religion Russia Scene in San Francisco social media songs songwriting the adventures of Fishy Transcendence transcendence diaries United States

Categories

  • Activism
  • Alternative History
  • America at War
  • American Terrorism
  • Ancient History
  • Art and Entertainment
  • Black Lives Matter
  • black people
  • Business and Entrepreneurship
  • Civil Rights
  • Consciousness Exploration and Expansion
  • Cosmology
  • Current Events
  • Economics
  • Environment
  • Evolution
  • Film and Movies
  • Friends and Family
  • Gender Issues
  • Gun violence Gun Laws
  • Health and Wellness
  • Human Rights
  • Iran
  • Israel/Palestine
  • Just Published
  • Life Hacks
  • Literature
  • Love Sex Romance
  • Metaphysics
  • Music
  • Music Videos
  • Musical Instruments & Gear
  • Nature
  • New World Order
  • Paranormal and Supernatural
  • Personal Expression Age
  • Personal Life
  • Physics
  • Politics and Government
  • Psychology and Human Behavior
  • Race Racial and Racism
  • Religion and Spirituality
  • Science
  • Social Media
  • Struggling artist lifestyle working for the man
  • Technology
  • Television
  • Terrorism
  • Uncategorized
  • Wealth Finance and Investing

Recent Comments

  • Ed Hale on Two More Executed In Iran This Morning For Protesting For Freedom & Equality — What We Can Do To Help
  • Ziba on Two More Executed In Iran This Morning For Protesting For Freedom & Equality — What We Can Do To Help
July 2012
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  
« Jun   Aug »

Archives

  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • February 2022
  • September 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • September 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • December 2010
  • October 2010
  • June 2010
  • December 2009
  • September 2009
  • April 2009
  • January 2009
  • September 2008
  • May 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • May 2007
  • September 2006
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • May 2005
  • April 2005
  • March 2005
  • February 2005
  • January 2005
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004
  • July 2004
  • June 2004
  • April 2004
  • February 2004
  • January 2004
  • October 2003
  • September 2003
  • August 2003
  • May 2003
  • November 2002
  • October 2002
  • August 2002
  • July 2002
  • January 2002
  • December 2001
  • September 2001
  • April 218

Subscribe

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

The Transcendence Diaries is a property of Transcendent Media Group LLC (c) (p) TM 2001

Idealist by NewMediaThemes

%d bloggers like this: