today,
nothing looks quite as deserted as a closed, off-season amusement park smack on the beachfront after a winterstorm,the pouring rain, the debris, the san lorenzo river ends here, in the sea, a loner with a metaldetector looking for lost properties, me...

osmosis

today,
I had planned a go at the simple living craze, but was distracted by an article in New York Times under the headline: CIA Report finds its officials failed in pre-9/11 efforts.

The findings, which are still classified, among other things, pose a quandary for for the CIA and the administration, particuarly because El Presidente just last month (see posting 12/15 2004) awarded the presidential Medal of Freedom to CIA intelllligence chief George Tenet, for building a strong case for going to war with Iraq.

Already and selbverstaendlich, the article also empahsizes the methods of how the CIA and the administration is covering their own asses by removing and relocating personal involved in the pre 9/11 efforts and strategics.
An official reprensenting the CIA puts it this way: "To round up the good guys and shoot them for doing their jobs - I can`t help shaking my head."
That the planes actually did hit WTC and Pentagon on 9/11 and the only conclusion possible must be, that the goods guys didn`t do their job doesn`t seem to have any effect.
This kind of bending the thruth and information per se is by some called The Republican Noisemachine.

the deathtoll today: 1333 GI´s in Iraq, 119 in Afghanistan, and an estimated 100.000 dead iraqi civilians, but still there is no official count.

today,
with the in-laws out the house heading for europe, i`m again simply too busted to do any serious posting, and with no-one answering yesterdays quiz I consider that the demand will ok me slipping in to oblivion. Maybe I should go simple living and learn how to upscale the finer values of rubbernecking The Family for three weeks, but I can`t. I aint rich enough.
I will however quote from a mail a recieved yesterday: in the land of the blind the one-eyed is king.

he said it:
http://www.monh.org/exhibits/icon/dylan.jpg

THE FLOTTENHEIMER QUIZ "ASK THE BRAIN" part 6

Though totally ingnited and ready to explode by the growing presence and pain of constantly being confronted with white rich jerks promoting the new craze of simple-living, I will as promised launch part 6 of "ASK THE BRAIN", so here it goes.

Who said:

"...anyone wishing to see what is to be must consider what has been: all the things of this world in every era have their counterparts in ancient times...since these actions are carried out by men who have and always had the same passions, which, of necessity, must give rise to the same results."

post your answers as a comment. the prize this time is a book! not just any book, but still a book.

inspired by my friend lennards blog "don´t ask me I only work here", here`s another link in the wonderful genre of pulp-art. more should come, but no, go surf!

klikken sie hier:
http://www.pulpcards.com/
und hier:
http://www.msvu.ca/english/pulp/covers.asp

today
antoher attempt to pick up where I left the ongoing...in 2004: I was writng about the MAI negotiations, and ended where WTO (World Trade Organisation) director Renato Ruggerio, stated that a implementation of the MAI, would "constitute the new global economy". He is right so far that the chances of the few to run global economy is....global, but as to covering the the concept of being global, meaning the world under your wing, he couldn`t be more wrong.
The Citizen is not considered part of the game unless he submits to a fullrange identity as The Consumer.
This is no place for small potatoes, this is merely BIG BUSINESS.

The US Council for for International Business, representing 600 corporations as the US affiliate of the International Chamber of Commerce, has been integrally involded in the MAI-negotiations. The group helped shape the US negotiating positions by providing business views and technical advice on specific issues at regular meetings with US negotiators immidialtely and after each MAI negotiation session (source: Censored 1999, The news that didnt make the news).

Some countries thought that the WTO should oversee the implementation of the agreement, while others, principally the US wanted the MAI kept within the much more exclusive OECD (Organisation for economic Corporation and Development).
So whats the status of the MAI-negotiations today, 2005: The mainstream press has almost completely ignores it, and when the treaty is submitted for ratification, chances are there is no room left for public or legislative discussion.
Me? I`ll set out to find out the status, because I dont know, I`m only driven by indignation, and as long as I dont know this posting will not count for being a part in the ongoing... WHY THIS second rate poet DOESN´T LOVE BIG BUSINESS.

tomorrow: its time for another quiz. Sharpen your pencil and tune in the Brains.

heyho,
for days there I was slipping out of focus and sticking my head up my own ass - pfff, the precious smell, get over it.
Let`s not forget where this blog was going LAST year, and as routines started again today, people running off to work, people running faster for each year passed by, people buying stuff, people throwing stuff that meant stuff away, people believing in stuff, people fighting for stuff, hoping and praying for stuff, people dying wituout ever having owned stuff and people drowning in stuff: let me for a second recuperate the direction the blog was going and that I intend to stick to, mostly barking at BIG BUSINESS and bruising my karma on El Mundo Americana.

On America, I will pick up from here:
The US is the most prosperous nation in the history of the world by far but inly so far..This affluence, however, has not brought happiness. Rather, the US is tormented by numerous domestic problems: racial tensions, poverty, a faltering economy, decaying cities, pollution, drugs, fat, stress, guns, fear and what not. The US have gone from one war to another, the people divided politically, physically and spiritually. There is a breach between the races, religions, and generations. Despite the most advanced communications systens, or because of, people are unable to communicate. Alienation of the self and severe mental diseases seems to be the agenda, the virus of this system which on the other hand no longer can be stated as an US-profile more than it is a general mock-up of globalization.

and so, back to the laundrette...

indepth, klikken sie hier:
http://www.infed.org/biblio/globalization.htm

today,
just two days into 2005, it dawns on me that I have succesfully participated in five major cultural highlights on american soil: Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Christmas and New Years Eve, and thus have earned the right to consider myself more american than I want. But then again: integration is a phenomenon and not an actual physic action.

here`s hows it feels:
http://ninobaldan.altervista.org/lyrics/hogan.htm
and here`s how it looks:
http://www.wrestlearmy.com/wrestlearmy/10415.jpg

today,
january 2005. Circle, square, figure of 8 or tipping into the ocean?
New year never escapes contemplation, wishes, talks of the future, wrong-doings and corrections, guild, morals, promises, all in the feeble construction of living.
So we ate the craps. Lust and mumbling as we dismantled the claws from the body and almost sucked out the juicy proteinrich meat. Bilingual cheers under the stars, music, dance and these messages in fortunecookies we had with the dessert:

Kim: May the song in your heart spread music to the world.
Morten: You are going to have a very comfortable retirement.
Ignacio: A financial investment will yield returns beyond your hopes.
Cora: You will bring sunshine to somebodys life.
Andreas: Time makes one wise. Ask advice from someone older than you.
Christine: If you are leading the race, don`t turn around.
Javier: Your good deeds are never forgotten.
Julius: Love can make a summer fly or a night seem like a lifetime.
Sine: To know truly is to know by causes.
Camilla: Your strength inspires others.

There were more, but some hung on to their readings, secretly and accordingly to tradition, I think. The party ended quietly absorded by morning come.

today,
an early morning wake up call: "We are going to Moss Landing to pick up the craps like half an hour ago." I dress, burn my self on the lousy coffee I buy 10 minutes later at a gasstation with the terrible honest name "Rotten Robbie". We hit the 1 south, escaping the heavy rain stalling at the Santa Cruz Mountains at Watsonville. Vast empty fields covered in plastic reflect the sunlight agressively, and we simultaneously but on our shades and light up a smoke.
The harbour lies still, not an engine running and only a few people is around. We wander aruond the boats and in the far corner we spot one boat "Beatrice" with rinsing water spilling out. A large tank on deck holds about 100 huge live dungeon- craps. In takes us about half an hour and three faild attemps to wake up the sailor, discret knocks and yells. A harbour patrol guy walks buy and tells us he came in just 4 hours ago and that it she was the only boat fishing in the storm that hit last night. Back in the car we try to figure out a plan B, as a freaky looking hippiegirl monster walks up to the boat and jumps aboard. We run out, get hold of her and purchase 14 craps at an average weight of three pounds, 7 dollars a piece, which is 60 percent lower the market price. We drive home like hunters almost feeling we actually went to sea and caught the craps.
On the patio, back home, we set up the propane stove to boil the fuckers red and dead. I call friends in Denmark just in time to hear the CityHall-bells go off, people singing the national anthem in the background I almost cry. For a minute there I`m nowhere. Not the past, not the present, not the future.

Best wishes.