March132012
Rock Collection
“Hey, Sass.”
She grinned and pulled strands of her sandy-brown hair back, “Hey.” I watched her for a bit kicking her sneakers into the dirt, dragging her heels and planting patterns into the mud while I sat above on a pine limb.
“Whatcha got in your pockets?” I asked, noticing two clustery bulges in her corduroys.
“Just rocks.”
“Where did you get them?”
“I’ve collected them.”
“When?”
“Over the years.”
“Why do you carry them with you?”
“Why do you ask so many questions?” She glared with cheeks like pink quartz.
I shrugged. When she bent down to pick up a stone I hopped down and rubbed the sap from my fingertips, “Come on,” I started walking.
She trotted behind me, “where we goin’?”
I didn’t answer. We walked in silence, cutting away vines and sticker bushes and shrugged off scrapes from needly- thorns. We climbed a boulder and before I grabbed a root to climb the next, she tugged on my t-shirt and rested her hands on her knees, “Can we stop a sec?”
“Rocks too heavy?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Well, why don’t you let me see them? Show them to me.”
She peered into me and bit the remnant of her fingernail. She thought heavily for a second while a cloud cast a shadow on us, “Alright.” she reached to pull them all out.
“No! One by one,” I stopped her hand, “show me—I mean, one by one.”
And there on the boulder muttered to me were the stories of jade and amethyst, smooth lake stones and petrified wood alongside countless pebbles. She held and kissed them all and so did I. When it was done and her pockets were empty, we got up and without uttering a sound we continued to climb.
January42012
Goddess in Cairo
I met my goddess—first—- in a dream after I escaped my University. Prior, I was misplaced in a bottomless ocean of majors and degrees; choosing admittance to college to feign an air of sophistication and prestige for my dear mother’s sake.
“Can you have a career in just learning, mom?”
“Would you ever like to become something, dear?”
“Who needs higher education to ‘become something’?”
“Why don’t YOU just take a year off THEN?”
—And so by and by I packed; on my creaky wooden door lay stacked a suitcase of jumbled clothing, a handful of my grandmother’s old rings, and paper. I then spent the remainder staring down the clock that was melting like Dali’s onto the floorboard, the plane-board, and then onto the dirt and sand of Cairo, Egypt.
At the brink of the Nile the wind whipped my face in the direction of the horizon in time to see a Felucca balancing on a field of lotus. I saw my goddess at the hull; her hands braced a cup of coffee and upon its termination (and before the raft even settled) she jumped out, off onto the dock like an alley cat and left no trace save the wallet that dropped out of her back pocket.
I think I heard gunshots.
I picked it up and asked a vendor selling greasy, dried kabobs;
“Did you see that woman?”
“No. But I’ll take her wallet.”
I ran after her.
I bummed a Marlboro off a 10 year old sitting outside the place before I entered red neon-lit broken apart bar speckled with graffiti that her card indicated she worked in. I rushed inside to find her hurriedly waiting tables and dishing drinks to old drunken men lapping up the spilled beer off the table (only wishing it was off her breasts). I had never seen a woman less of the Earth’s flesh.
“You look like you have hot feet,” she said to me having caught her attention, “You in a hurry?”
I stumbled.
“You dropped your wallet.”
“What?” she searched her pockets and bag, “Shit. Shitshitshitshit, I always do this shit.”
I placed it on the bar, “I have it. So what do you—what do you, uh… do?”
She leaned over the black greasy table, exposing her glowing skin. Her eyes blazed with sarcasm like fire and were almond, like Nefertiti incarnate.
“Well you see—”
[She sensed my weakness.]
“—when the sun falls I guard the gate to the underworld sucking in last breaths and crushing the backs of men with black iron. I watch them as they fell back into the sea; their flesh sinking into miles of stinking petals.”
“Uh.”
“I’m joking.”
“Oh, can I at least have your name?”
She leaned into my ear breath and I caught the faint scent of alcohol and heaven and whispered, “Maybe. Do you have a cigarette? I’m on break. Come on!”
She grabbed my hands and pulled me through the chaos of Cairo and onto a wooden shack that scraped the moon and poured her soul out faster than the imported vodka into our glasses; by the third or fourth shot and half a pack of cigarettes I fell in love. A lover like Osiris, she set fire to the Nile and I, for the first time, became awake.
Tags: /fiction /short story /Egypt /writing
December232011
The War against Women (conflict in the DRC)
This paper explores rape as a tool of war at the disposal of soldiers and rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Despite the passing of a Peace Treaty in 2003, the Maputo Protocol[1], and CEDAW,[2] these attempts at ending the intense conflict have failed to decrease the quantity of sexual exploitation against women. The US Government Accountability Office in extracted in 2010, “[that] 9 percent of the population [reported] experiencing some form of sexual violence in the 1-year period from March 2009 through March 2010,” and this statistic does not take into account the large portion of the population that has remained silent out of fear of retribution or being ostracized from the community. Due to the strikingly horrific incident reports, sexual mutilation, humiliation, and rape as a “tool of War” the conflict in the DRC has been dubbed by the international community as, “The War against Women.” This paper investigates the origin and source of conflict in the DRC, the physiological and psychological impact of rape on the community, and the role of the international community, including feasible means of acting out against these atrocities.
October162011
A Lost Account of the Genocide in Armenia
I sit and read genocide, its meaning encoded in emotion extracted from the voices of victims. Memory passed from generations in stories and transcribed (by the countries that will allow it) into textbooks. I sympathize with the personal accounts from Rwanda and the Holocaust and am despondent. Not only for humanity, but that I allowed a part of History to die with my grandfather.
September272011
Let the Cabin Burn
Your body is sorely bent against the glass archway of my cabin. The front swept you here (along with a fish or two and seaweed).
You get up from your knees when I open the door. You realize where you are and you look to apologize, “yours was the only light on.”
I move you inside with the flicker of my wrist. Papers are strewn across the memory of a table. There are post cards of the ocean charted like a map on the wall with a trail of colored tacks. You follow me through a labyrinth of books stacked high to the ceilings masked with thick dust and illuminated by paper lanterns.
“You really made a mess of this place, my dear,” your hands feel for a Morrison, “I’d never of thought you’d let her get this way.”
“At least you’re warm now.”
“I guess so.”
You search for your memory lurking in the driftwood while I’m making us tea in the kitchen. You thumb through the picture books and albums. Most of the spines are cracked or irreparable and covered in white ink.
“When you play certain songs the ink glows.”
“I’m surprised you kept them at all.”
“Of course I did.” (and suddenly I remember the curves of your body).
“Well I don’t have any reason to stay here.”
I grab the tail of your coat before it slips away again and taste the salt of your lips. The parchment is strewn off the walls. The fiction and non-fiction books flail off their shelves together like dominos (along with the seaweed and fish). From underneath the table I find a match and flick it into the heap. We sit in the center of it all and sip our tea. I pull out another and light a cigarette. I watch you inaudibly through the dancing flames and we let the cabin burn.
Tags: /burn /cabin /fiction /prose /story /weird /dance like flames
August242011
One Nation, Under Oil
It’s not often we think about where our food and materials come from, in what way they are transported, or how they are made readily available in superstores. One would presume that the energy form the government would choose to utilize in undertaking these things would provide the highest output while exuding the least amount of damage to the environment. Instead, we find our nation’s leaders have supported an inefficient energy form that is directly responsible for the deterioration of our atmosphere, has ignited wars and covert operations, and is responsible for the death of thousands. The harrowing greed of CEOs, warlords, affluent Americans, and senators is destroying our beautiful earth— the home to some 7 billion people— all in the name of oil.
Photographer David Goldblatt, author of “Sustainable Energy Consumption and Society” claims that, “Corporate and government activity is directly responsible for the majority of energy consumption, pollution, and other environmental damage.” To remove the tyrannous oil cartel would be to resolve extreme poverty in third world countries, selective education, and the destruction of the “lungs of our earth” the Amazon forest. It would be the end to the billion-dollar-a-day war in Iraq and imperialism. Preservation of our earth is symbiotic with the preservation of our people.
According to PBS’ writer Lindsey Renick Meyer, major oil companies such as ExxonMobil, BP, and Texaco spent over 393.2 million dollars lobbying governments. “Oil and gas get billions of dollars in subsidies and tax cuts—payback for an industry with strong ties to the administration and plenty of money to contribute to congressional elections.” Even the EPA, the supposed “protector of the environment” gets backing from the oil industries its supposedly protecting us from. In fact, instead of the government clean, efficient energy forms, it has advertised and subsidized gas-guzzling cars that enable a fat paycheck at the end of the month.
It’s baffling to me how so many innovative features in the US have been destroyed in the name of profit. Say we actually used a sustainable system and utilize the advanced technology available such as indestructible roads, vertical farms, algae-based diesel, EV1 electric cars, and solar paneled housing. The current government stance is “inefficiency keeps the economy going” while actually the redistribution of money would go from CEO’s and government lobbyist’s hands, to a sustained world full of innovation, freedom, acceptance, tolerance, and the unyielding exchange of ideas and job opportunities.
Take the genius and man behind AC circuits (the type of circuits we use now), Nikola Tesla. He developed a tower based off of his revolutionary invention, the Tesla coil. This giant structure has the ability to produce enough electrical power to run wireless electricity through out every home and business in the world without depleting any of nature’s resources. Rather, it converts the infinite energy from the ionosphere to useable forms. Due to the inability to make a profit from this well-constructed, ingenious invention, however it was taken down (perhaps until later generations are ready for it).
Swimming underneath the surface of oil, gas-guzzling advertisement agencies and corporate, pocketed exchanges lay an abundance of natural energy that will allow us to live symbiotically with our earth. There is no excuse as to why we don’t demand from the government what is ours. Our time is now. With 20 more years until we completely deplete our resources, we do not have a choice: either we adopt sustainability through solar panels, wind, electricity, and bio-fuels, or we lose our planet.
Tags: /Oil /government /society /energy /tesla /science /gasoline /invention /revolution /electricity /people /change /US
August232011
How to end poverty in 30 years
I sit enveloped in a pocket of wealth; my basic needs are satisfied and cushioned with an additional surplus of assets that are not so necessary: iPod, computer, closet and drawers- full of clothing. My family’s income lies just a little below average in the United States, yet my personal “global footprint” is 7.5 worlds. Meaning, I own less than average supplies, yet would still need 7.5 worlds for the entire populous to possess just as much. For those with significantly more wealth, the worldwide population may need 20, 40, maybe 60 worlds for everyone. The solution is not in redistribution but in sacrifice and personal responsibility. If the world truly wants to end global poverty, it must be willing to sacrifice its plethora of “wants” to sustain the one earth we have. As citizens of the world, it is possible to end extreme poverty in 30 years and the era of “entitlement” if we foster our children, put a strong emphasis on education, and unite our nations in their acceptance of personal responsibility in demanding equality for all people.
When addressing an absolute solution to world poverty, redistribution of wealth, higher taxation, and sole reliance on charity do not provide a long-lasting, feasible solution. The economy, in conjunction with every political reform is not rigid, rather a bell curve: changing society requires significantly more than implementing political policy. As renowned community organizer and writer Saul Alinsky described, “change has to be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude among a population,” and is a gradual process.
According to the latest study by the Census Bureau, a 3-5 year old US child has $7,680 more spent on them in a rich family than in an average-income family. This surplus of money spent on a child alone is approximately $1500 more than the average income, 280,000 INR ($6,255), of a worker in India. It is not impossible to downsize, but to many it is nearly inconceivable to persuade millions of power and material-hungry individuals to go from endless consumption to service orientation. It is time for the people, not advertisement agencies and money-mongering corporations to take power and demand a world of equality.
While 1/6th of the world’s men, women, and children starve in slums, the rich and middle class have been dubbed the “throwaway society.” According to the EPA, the Americas alone dispose of an average of 1600 pounds of waste a year with 40% of the food being uneaten. If the US and other wealthy nations simply decreased the amount of waste or donated their food to the impoverished, we would be able to provide enough food for the 1.4 billion in extreme poverty. Those absorbed in their “comforts” may say it is selfish for a government or political leader to enforce a change, but it is more selfish to sit in luxury while millions of children worldwide suppress their hunger by biting their tongues.
During the United Nation’s Millennium Declaration addressing the issue of world poverty, section 2 of their doctrine states: “as leaders we have a duty therefore to the entire world’s people, especially the most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of the world, to whom the future belongs.” The children of Third World countries could reach our hearts and teach us an abundance of lessons if we were enlightened by their stories. Instead, children in our country and other wealthy nations are bombarded daily with “over 3000 advertisements” that are even conveniently placed in student’s textbooks. When Walt Whitman told America to “Go Forth” he did not mean “Go forth and buy Levi jeans.”
US Representative Solomon Ortiz noted, “Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.” Likewise, education is also the key to ending world poverty. The passing of knowledge to the illiterate or underprivileged is not written off as a responsibility just for the rich; rather, it is universal agreement that does not entail simply writing off checks. To teach is to actively serve and inspire others to act in example. If we become involved with worldly matters directly, we also experience the benefit of cultural interaction and enlightenment. Furthermore, the lessons we impress upon children in their youth will influence the values they follow and express throughout adulthood.
As the heads of State declared, it is not the old-timers or generation X that will be managing this earth, but it will be the young. We can teach our children generosity, culture, medicine, science, and sacrifice in the same manor we teach them spending and “throwing away.” Children’s books such as Dr. Suess’ “The Lorax” and educational broadcasting such as PBS and NOVA are exemplary in the lessons they teach. The notable, dramatic declines in the quality of media that our children are exposed to have proven to be detrimental; instead of fabricating violent, sexist, and racist video-games, music, and shows, challenge artists and producers to stimulate their creativity and depict the needs of others. With the proper structure and exposure, our children can surpass selfish tendencies and materialism and formulate viable solutions.
Social leader Nelson Mandela stated, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Change is gradual and cannot be implemented overnight, but teaching and removing excess can be commenced immediately. Patience, dedication, and a strong, desire to overcome the poverty line are imminent. It is time for a new social movement: we can be the giving society, the public that is not self-serving but functions as an operative whole. We are the individuals that can pioneer a new era. Together our countries can combine our knowledge, accept one another’s culture, and decrease our “global footprint” to just 1. It is now our turn to sacrifice for the earth and allow it to replenish its bounty to sustain a new generation of children that will work together universally to end extreme poverty successfully within the next 30 years.
Tags: /poverty /society /essay /global /world /change /activism /children
August172011
Thoughts on Astral Projection
The first ‘out of body’ experience I was cognitively aware of was unintentional. See, for weeks prior I would wake up completely exhausted, drained, and even in pain. On this particular night, I restlessly felt my spirit seep from my chest and I personally battled another’s spirit. It was, all in all, quite bizarre. (I am not closed in accepting that this was just a vivid, lucid dream but it did feel different).
It is intriguing to conceptualize your spirit living on a different plane and able to go anywhere it wants to, uninhibited by the dimensions of time and space. Research disclosed that this practice is ancient and widely popular among occultists. The Catholics (I am Catholic so I am not lambasting them) banned these practices because of their resemblance to witchcraft and claimed, “If you leave the physical body you do not have the protection of the holy spirit.” I am not sure if I believe this. It is your spirit and if it is aligned good and moral I think that God/Allah/highest being or energy will protect you. Besides, it’s commonly accepted that the Catholics and their policies weren’t always…the best. Yet, I’m still skeptical of astral projection because it is, indeed, another great unknown and I could be so unbelievably, horribly wrong. HOWEVER it is just in the Piscean era that anything “other worldly” or matriarchal is condemned as witchcraft or illegitimate. I think as humans we have a lot more potential to experience the aptitude and depth of power in our brains and minds if we are open to using it. After all, all great ideas are channeled from dreams or “somewhere else.” That is not to say that the potential for malice is significantly more apt… yet I am a strong believer in Karma. If you are going to experiment with spirituality and the world, know that you are possibly meddling with things that don’t have a convenient esc button.
Tags: /Astral projection /mind /occult /science /dimensions /spirit /Religion
August112011
London Riots
There’s an age old saying that if you throw a frog in a boiling pan it will hop out quickly and live, but if you put a frog in cool water and turn the heat up slowly it’s a different story. Alas, this is not a new story, oh no, not at all. The London Riots are just another example of bored, ignorant, malleable youth following a media-driven plan to “get their voices heard” [for a measly two seconds] while being completely counterproductive in the process.
I’m reminded of the Milgram experiment in the 1960s where studies were conducted to see if subjects would electrocute “prisoners” if told to do so by an authority figure. Subjects were asked to administer a shock to the person on the other side of the wall if they answered a question wrong. Each question answered incorrectly would heighten the voltage of shock. In the end, 26 of the 40 candidates were convinced to ‘dispense” a lethal shock (keep in mind that actors were screaming in pain and agony through out). Now, that was on an individual level, the mob mentality, as we are well familiar with this year, significantly stupider. The authority, in this case, is social- media spawned indictment against government oppression and the Londoners are mindless executors.
Supposedly, first youth were invited via Facebook and other social media to wear pink and dance, next they were told to bring in a pillow fights, etc. (put the frog in the cool water). Naturally, as everything symbiotic wants to revert to barbarism and a chaotic state (and we-are-after-all-just-frogs) these “angered” underprivileged, or hell, people just wanted to break shit to break shit, went on a killing, rampaging, murdering, violating , and destructive spree (kill the frog dead). The irony is who pays for the consequences? Oh you know, the middle class and the poor who have to clean up, pay up, stumbling over the debris of their businesses, cars, homes, and streets. Congratulations, youth, we have thus further been dehumanized and the government and rich sit with their 100 inch plasma screens watching the uprisings unfold Live.
What’s startling to me is how many recorded events and experiments in history there are supporting the same exact thing yet so many people can STILL be controlled on a mass scale. Whether you function as an individual or en masse there are multitudes of examples that clearly state that violence is not a suitable resolution to socioeconomic instability in modern society (uprisings and rebellions may have worked in the 1800s but our system is a lil different now).
Take Jared Loughner, the man who shot Representative Gabrielle Giffords 6 months or so back. Sure, he was right to be skeptical at our government’s refusal to disclose certain information. His method of making his distrust in the government known was Ludicrous and again, counterproductive. I agree with his cause but not his methods, just as I agree with how fucked up our government institution is currently. Hell, I am trapped, we are trapped, but instead of burning down streets and killing people I am going to make it happen so it’s a permanent fix.
Get off your computers, televisions, and social media networks and actually do something beneficial that will change the world for the better. Make feasible, clear arguments that will demand the world’s attention. In the meantime, research the Civil Rights campaign and bus boycotts or just be patient and don’t jump or shoot when da man says so (whichever man it is).
Tags: /change /come on really? /frog /london riots /riot /society /the clash /war /bomb /youth
August82011
O Children, O Children what have we done to you?
I nanny two twins almost every morning while the dad sits upstairs and responds to phone calls, interviews, meetings etc. This particular morning I had a conversation with the dad about the well being of our children. Across the board I have noticed how screwball we’ve made the system for them. Somehow we are expecting our kids, already assaulted with wasteful ideologies, entitlement, and self-concern, to solve the problems of the earth we rapidly depleted in the name of green bills.
Say parents work X amount of hours every week to ensure that their children have everything they need and/or want. Instead, when Child, Y, grows up with a multitude of things he has lacked the one basic necessity that every culture knows its child needs to become a high-functioning, well developed individual: time. So mom and dad worked their asses off for their child and instead did the worst possible thing they could have for him. Now parents are wondering why “they gave their child everything they ever could have needed” and still they turned out to me amoral, self-centered dickwads. But I cannot sit here and blatantly point all the blame on parents.
I read this book call “War is the Force that Gives us Meaning” by Chris Hedges. He is a talented journalist that recorded the events and social mentality during wartime throughout the Bosnian conflict. One of the basic principles he discussed that struck me particulary in paraphrase, “In War the people that survive end up hating themselves because they know only the good die. You have to be a swindler, amoral, bad even, just to survive.” It’s just that. Our socio-economic premise is like Wal-Mart: steal from the impoverished give to the poor. We are essentially encouraging sub-standard work (screw work ethic! Capitalism is done for… just look at Greece). Corporations hold you under their thumb and pull you around with the puppet strings they buy with their 1 million dollar bonuses.
Just think that these corporations pay for our children to be bombarded with 3000 advertisements a day! 3000!!! (Google study) More children in America recognize the McDonalds symbol than Jesus, forget any other religion. Study upon study will demonstrate the significance of early child development…. Well if your baby is sitting in front of the television watching programs they immediately absorb that information and it will impress upon them for the rest of their life.
No, it’s hardly human…we are living, breathing, and consuming machines. Our economy survives off of the bourgeois; it encourages poverty and wasteful spending. Hell! We pay our farmers to burn crops so their prices stay on target (can someone remind me how many people die from hunger again?) We know this, go to church every Sunday, and then continue to live in a destructive environment. I’ll put it this way; we have 20 years left before we completely deplete all of our resources. I have to ask myself, “will our children be up to the task? Will they be able to give up what is necessary to sustain our earth” or will we cop out, and say, throw our trash on the moon, or encourage world war III to happen so we can have less mouths to feed. It’s a dangerous road and we are already teeter-tottering all over it.
The fact of the matter is these are our CHILDREN. And when it comes down to it, your family, the people around you that you love, strangers, people… they will provide the memories you will take with you. Not paid television shows, not work, not items. Give your children affirmation, discipline, good morals, and most importantly, your time. Show them the world and that it is theirs to sustain and share with billions of people who need exactly the same basic thing: love.
Tags: /children /society /economy /waste /corporatism /bullshit /parenting /society
