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Life in the Empire

Because that about sums it all up in a 'nut' shell. And because I need a place to satisfy my misanthropic rantings and save funny videos.

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Religion could use a thread all its' own. But it's hard to separate religion from other forms of stupidity. They kind of go hand in hand. So let this first post be an inspiration for you.

Religion already has its own thread!  Snakes and Ladders

Plot Summary: 

 

Once upon a time there was a hill.  The hill is still there.  But the people who were there once upon a time are not there yet.  First things come first you bet.  There was their whirr planning a block party.  Everybody is supposed to have a costume, so it must be Halloween.  But it is hotter than bubble neck bones, so it must be July.  Oh my.  Once upon time gets confusing never mind.  Story must have an ending to get behind. 

 

Ono is in charge.  She minces about telling Marge where the tables should go, and approaching Ono from behind Winnie the Poo.  Howdy duty rumbled dew tea fight begins.  Pay attention, now, or nobody wins.  Winnie had the skinny from the boss, you see, where the party favors and guesses should be.  Scones and crumpets are flying saucer teapot outs a bag.  Remember they are performing this in drag. 

 

Lil Abner playing baseball north of town delays the clown who is supposed to make balloon animals for the kids.  Now they talk about feelings and nobody sees their stealing base platters from the batters making cookies.  Rainbow puppies dancing bear throwing glitter everywhere and ice cream jingles the rookies.  Panda Mick is coming down the pike bass are drumming and the children are not supposed to see the bookies. 

 

Dutch boys in wooden shoes clop they Yankee Doodle dues while belles sell phony twitter tweets.  Chirpy mars a pan and according to the plan come mutiny marching up the streets.  All is going well and that Ward does not ring a bell as the Beaver stuffs her muffin full of sweets.  Gnu birth of freedom from the zoo kangaroo courts Santa Claus gum on the seats.  It is a happy tale wagging cupcake walking music on hand-out sheets! 

 

Somewhere inside a puppy is whimpering.  Nobody is there to pet it.  On once upon a time hill a Rose left a secret.  Nobody has time to get it.  They get rituals like noisy gongs and clanging symbols.  They get actions and jesters.  It festers like a Thorn in the language they think they were born with.  Here is a gift from your mothers while you watch base ball of your brothers.  It comes from your mother Germania

 

Gloriana is used to the mania.  It was the revolution of forty eight where they almost got it straight from the hill where Rosa grows like a frail weed.  She grins at you like a Halloween pumpkin.  Es ist ein Ros entsprungen! She holds it in her right hand with a poky thing:  a little boy hears a puppy sing.  He mocks a planning block party.  Nobody likes a smarty.  Sounds like Christmas what is up?  He goes to find the pup. 

 

Ancient wisdom is a little dog song.  We forget what we know all along axial precession heard a little Hessian.  We are busy keeping score and what lets you open door or at least try is a cry of a puppy.  Degree of difference takes a life time.  How long have we been keeping track?  Once you are here you know you are going back and fourth day baggage trail looks like a line.  Block parties are fine but here is what you are looking for. 

Do not forget it:   

Get it!    

 

 

Oh for the dumb!  Oh for the stupid!  I thought this was about Elizabeth.  No!  It is about Rose

Very Alice in Wonderland-ish. A nice blend of humor and the macabre.

Of course, being a designer type -- all angles and juxtaposition -- I could never hope to be able to write like that. Hell, I can barely understand it. But I sure do like it.

HERE is the spiffed-up wordpress virgin.  

Aus Gottes ew'gem Rat
hat sie ein Kind geboren
und blieb ein reine Magd.
or: Welches uns selig macht
 

At God’s immortal word,
She has borne a child
Remaining a pure maid.
or: Who makes us blessed. 

It is more than two languages, Gloriana and Germania.  Island nations and continental nations who had a rougher transition than the Brits did, and of course not all Brits are English.  Just like not all Germans are Dutch.  Rose is the Fairy Queen and she is still there on top of Cemetery Hill.  One of these days someone is going to see her because it is  fashionable or makes money from the tourists or something like that.  Perhaps you and I will.  See her, I mean.  

English language has strange,  Like quarks or languages, it has magic.  Rituals and symbols, actions not to be confused with cymbals , and of course language.  Not to be confused with coarse language in Gettysburg.  Rose was born, that we know.  But who was the lady on the hill?  Was it Elizabeth?  Witch Elizabeth? That is the story.  Witchcraft is alleged to be the practice of magic, Queen Bess would be guilty as charged. 

That is who Elizabeth thought she saw on the hill.  Gloriana was a real person.  Germana is only a cymbal witch used to sound from the ground at Gettysburg.  Democracy was dealt a serious hit among the krauts, and the losers fled here and brought communism with them (a meme) or at least that is the same crowd is still freaking out about today.  The Confederates, I mean, and maybe history has been kinder to them than they deserve.  But I love the South.  Take off. 

Rose was conceived during the Civil War and her quickening occurred during the battle.  We do know the real Elizabeth Thorn  worked "...with all that stench. And in three months after I had a dear little baby. But it was not very strong, and from that time on my health failed and for years I was a very sickly woman."  And of course we know early child care was an idea pioneered by the Nazis, but that is another story, isn't it?  This is how Rose became the fairy queen. 

She is the same Queen Mag about whom Shakespeare wrote.  Was she real?  This one is.  Rose Thorn is as real as Elizabeth I is, and they are both dead and so is Shakespeare but only the person.  That is why you can say, ",..do you know Shakespeare," and it does not sound as strange as, "do you know Queen Bess or Rose Thorn."  Her name says it all, Rose Thorn.  How did she die?  Did she ever get her period?  What was she like as a girl? 

These are questions a women might ask, or at least I would ask were I a woman.  That is the feminist side of the story, questions asked by Rose.  Rose is on Cemetery Hill now because there is not only one word for the fairy queen, just like there is no plural word for "savior" in German, I am told, but it would be easy enough to conjure one.  See Rose has a meaning of battle too long obscured by war.  Lincoln framed it as best he could,  Of, by and for the people they say.  

That is the comic part of the opera, although you might need black humor to get it. It is as forbidden... verboten... as black magic, so we will not go there.  Nor is there any need to go into the weaponry, which was laughably crude as the medical care was and still is today.  Care has improved the same way that language and weapons have.  All men are equal?  Is that supposed to be funny?  Well... it is.  But Rose has not perished from the earth.  Not by a long shot.  

Rose is Germania's gift to the English-speaking people of the United States.  The Germans had heard all that Confederate states Rat wurst und ist nicht aber Junkers und Bourgeois.  And even a stupid Dutchman like me can get the idea of socialism and the folk who brawl about their property rights.  Apparently the Know Nothings were quite active when Elizabeth was married on the day the cornerstone was laid for her house.  Did Rose learn to speak German?  Could she speak it at home?  

There were bands on the battlefield.  They played the Marseillaise on Cemetery Hill during the battle.  Every European knows what that means, but especially French and Germans.  English had that worked out earlier, both as a nation and a language. This knowledge is what Rose learned from the lady on the hill.  Elizabeth only saw her once, and that was Halloween night.  It could have been a labor dream.  Probably was. 

Rose saw the lady most of her life, and they came to know each other quite well.  "Are you all here?"  The lady would ask Rose.  Did Rose see the lady after the Thorns moved down to town?  Nobody knows.  But one Rose was all there, and that when she became fairy queen of the hill.  Rose is the watch-fire light flickering in the eyes of soldiers long dead.  Cause and comrades sorted out long before this.  Rose is the light that still exists on the ropes in light of the stars not purchased by popes.  Rose is part of that dream. 

Do not forget it. 

Get it. 

At the end of seven years
She pays a tithe to Hell
I so fair and full of flesh
I fear it be myself

Child 39A

We do not want to be so many that we are all the same.  We do not want to be so few that we are not very strong.  Like Rose. 

 

HERE is the spiffy wp post. 

Americans are Idiots promises to be a long thread. 

Whether you want to get to into the Cantor Brat wurst or the shooting du jour.  It is the same kind of shooting war that was caused by the same stupid shit, namely, the the cracker "capitalists" who also fancied themselves "aristocrats" and were looking out for their "property,"  their heads stuffed with Ivanhoe or some kind of kandy korn bullshit. 

We (USAns) are really good at turning good ideas (like the "American system of manufactures" into BELIEF SYSTEMS but I think we got that from the Europeans.  Euro-centric English, some of our most wretched refuse, turned Christ to Calvinism, another European idea that is still stinking up our culture like corpses at Gettysburg.  

No one can smell the stink now, but it was the fabric of Rose's life formation. 

Yesterday's shooting just happened to be at my wife's old high school. No doubt the kid that did it had emotional problems. I don't know if he was stupid or not. 

On a cultural level, the arguments against gun control seem pretty stupid. But what really concerns me is the whole mentality that guns are a symbol of power and masculinity. It's so fucking regressive. But then that's how I'd describe American culture in its' entirety. Few in this country develop in maturity beyond the age of ten.

In the land of the free market, all we've ever been concerned about is what to exploit next. And now that our economy is collapsing, it seems we're left with nothing. At least Europeans know the drill. And they've built some character because of it.

So why are so many school shootings happening here?. Maybe it's because training the kiddies to be good little capitalists doesn't work when they know it's all a charade. And some are having psychotic reactions to the overwhelming cognitive dissonance they find at school. 

I will never condone violence. But I can understand why some might be 'acting out.' The stupidity lies in Americans acceptence of it. 

THIS is a week's worth of work full-time in June of 2014.   Libretto for Into The Woods is attached for comparison. 

The :"conservatives" here in Krakkerland are arguing about who is more "conservative."  It's like living in an episode of Dumb and Dumber.  We got a guy who thinks the Girl Scouts are a Communist plot.  He represents my neighborhood.  Lots of hide-bound Brit catholic families who made a fair amount of boodle mixed in with the Amish. 

I am an old agnostic Dutchman with a fair amount of English.  Out here out on the compound we have chickens and stuff.  But we are legally the knife-edge of the city.  We are the left flank.  It ends here.  God Bless you, Colonel Chamberlain.  Ricky tic tic it is 1914.  One hundred years ago.  Guess it is about to go down again. 

The Amish and the English generally don't mix here.  Meine spreche ist schlect, but I speak german to them sometimes with fun results.  I can pass for a German, so generally not regarded as a Yankee.  I was raised as a Methodist boy, so I can pass for a Christian too sometimes.  But the thing about god, well, it's complicated. 

I grew up in the city.  It was and still is a small town.  But parts of it are city just the same, like Chicago or New York or anywhere else that's dense.  It's dense out here, too, just not as much traffic.  God is a question with most of my neighbors, They understand god about as well as they do war.  One must get along with the neighbors. 

The neighborhood of my youth was country back during the Civil War.  Abolitionists we regarded as crazy.  But my family was not here yet.  They came over from Hesse in 1880.  It looked like they were going to be fighting for the Kaiser forever. Enough of that.  My neighbors are in awe of the warrior class, as they have been taught to be.  

Gettysburg is a microcosm of what has been happening for the last 200 years, which stretches most of our historical perspective.  In Gettysburg the neighborhood is still pretty much intact, And like my neighborhood, the war perspective has colored most of their view, and for a white man, I am about as colored as you can get.  

English language has been our trade for three generations. German was never spoken in our family.  My father grew up speaking up very little, and I grew up speaking none.  I had to learn it later to understand what made the Nazis the not-sees.  We did not know.  Americans should have their nose rubbed in Gettysburg like a bad kitty should. 

A magnificent sight it was, too, if it had not been so incredibly stupid.  Since then, "Patriotism" has been taught as a virtue.  Waffen SS were "patriots" too, by jingo, and you have to admire that.  God damn that all to fucking hell.  In polite and public conversation, that is about as close to god as you can get.  Bad kitty!  Bad kitty!  Stinking cat pudding pew.  

They sit inside their churches wallowing in this shit.  War is an abomination stinking in the nostrils of any god that has a nose, and that is the problem.  Isn't it?  Nicht wahr?  They herded people into vaults and gassed them with cyanide, but they were patriots and that stinks like smokestack lightning striking Cemetery Hill. 

It started a pandemic brush fire of memes.  My neighbors understand metaphor about as well they do god or war, and one must get along with the neighbors.  These men were not dew-eyed "patriots" as much professional laborers well-practiced at the work and getting along on the job. If they had controlled the means of production, it would not stink today.  

So let us explore the flip-side of glory that should have been left in the litter box.  Much of it was, but we are still stepping in it- why is that?  "Conservatives" like to make up something to conserve.  Those boys on the hill in the summer of 1863 were not thinking much about conserving anything except maybe ammunition when they were about to run out. 

Now they are all abortion or terrorists or crime or Mexicans all of witch is sure enough real.  The witchcraft is getting them to think it is bigger than it is, Meanwhile global warming is not even on their screen because they can "believe" in an invisible man more than physics.  What is that smell?  Patriotism.  Witchcraft is getting them to raise a stink. 

We here highly resolve that these dead should not have died in vein.  And we mined it like crazy and sold it as patriotism which is nothing more than nationalism in drag.  Send in the clowns because the right flank is giving in.  Clowns will make balloon animals for the kids while responsible adults get drunk and make passes at each other. 

That should clear up a few things around here. 

Ammunition is toilet paper.  So make yourself a spear here and use literature. That is what you tell people while you are stashing hoards of ammunition and ass paper.  See a pattern here?  Metaphors are becoming flash and dwell among us.  They are cleaning off the shelves so run and get some for yourselves. Not too surprising when the warrior class says write about what a hero I am or I will kill you. 

Yassa Boss Massa,. Ol Chitlins got that colored perspective with lots of practice.  So they filed in and started throwing banana cream pies. The suffering and death at Gettysburg is framed in terms of bananas throwing banana cream pies.  There is humor in that which somehow falls flat.  Like throwing shells toward Coontown. 

We did not know.  Elizabeth Thorn will become a new hero of Gettysburg like the bananas in the pie fight using ram rods and hand spikes against furious Louisiana Tigers. Rose has the story I want to tell.  Like Otzi, she has transcended time. Like Elizabeth, her mother and teacher appears like a mountain goat. 

What is she doing way up here?  

  

Attachments:

Kitties don't train all that well....

I walked up on a mountain in the middle of the sky
Could see every farm and every town
I could see all the people in this whole wide world... 
That's the union that'll tear the fascists down

-- Woody Guthrie  

Now we can whip out our smart phones and Google it:  fascism is a form of authoritarian nationalism.  Patriotism is nationalism served up the way it benefits authoritarians the most.  We are not going  to send troops to Iraq.  Well, yes we are, but to protect our interests, corporate oil production.  

Now come the gladdened multitudes complaining why the president does not do something about high gas prices.  We can no longer afford such stupidity    Theater of war must be recognized as the distraction  it is and  political process as we have taught to recognize it no longer exists.

Energy is the issue, not liberals or conservatives, republicans and democrats. That's the union that will tear the fascists down. Privatize the profits and socialize the costs while fascists try to distract us with another war of choice.  Put the yellow ribbons away and recognize the difference between fantasy and physics.  

We have no other choice. 

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