Let's Talk Money, Honey!

by: Konagod

I am already so weary of this so-called "class warfare" thing going on in our political discourse.



For the purpose of what I have to say on the matter, let's remove from the table any discussion of tax rates, what's fair vs. not fair, whether the rich should pay a higher percentage than those at the poverty level, etc.



OK, let me say one thing and THEN we'll take it off the table. The debate at least has some merit. I understand why some people with a rather narrow view might think it's so unfair that someone making $5 million a year is taxed at a higher rate than a family of four trying to get by on $25,000 a year...or less. If you are in the camp that believes everyone, regardless of income, should pay a flat tax of 10% because it's "fair", I think you are full of shit. As soon as a tax rate starts to take basic necessities of life away, then it's too high and unfair.



Someone working minimum wage, or two minimum wage jobs, and trying to support a child while being taxed is going to be forced to do without something basic, and adequate food will quite likely be one of the many sacrifices.  Anyone making $100,000 probably isn't going to need to skip a meal due to finances even at a higher tax rate. Depending on where they live, the yacht might have to wait, but so be it.



Now let's just focus on income rather than tax rates. What do you suppose would be the reaction if the top 3% of our school teachers -- the best of the best -- were being paid $300,000 or $400,000 a year? There would be an uproar the likes of which we'd never heard coming from the right, center, and probably even from some on the left. What about the best of the police? (The ones who aren't out using their clubs and teargas to suppress people exercising freedom of speech.) And what about nurses and firefighters?

I can't think of a single ordinary job description which doesn't have some kind of salary range which everyone accepts without question. We all know the kid at the Pizza Hut probably isn't hauling in 70-grand a year no matter how hard he or she might be working, or how great they are at what they do.



I consider myself to be extremely fortunate with my career in advertising (despite my current unemployment). I've always known the positions I've held in the industry were critical for the success of the organization and the client base. If I failed to get creative materials to a media outlet in a timely manner, the advertising campaign could be jeopardized. Having been a media buyer for 12 years, I know that if I don't secure the time slots on desired networks, the commercials will not be seen.  And not to strictly toot my own horn, I also know the commercials themselves have to be compelling enough to get a certain number of average television viewers to pick up the phone or go to the website and order the can't-live-life-without-it widget for $19.95 plus $7.95 shipping.  If they don't, then it doesn't even matter how well I do my part.  No money coming in means I don't have a job, even if I'm the best damn media buyer on the planet.  So thank you creative directors and producers everywhere!



I have worked as hard as anyone in the industry and have played my part in generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue for agencies and clients. A lot of profits have been made as a result of my efforts.

All that being said, my compensation has always been salaried with a small percentage of my salary coming as a bonus some years. And by small percentage, I'm talking 10% maximum and as an overall average through the years more like 3%-5%. Regardless of how much revenue I generate or how much profit a client might make as a result of my efforts, I know as a media buyer that I will never make $500,000 a year, nor should I.



I have made as little as $43,000 and as much as $88,000. Those salaries, particularly the latter, would be seen by many people as wonderful and I never took it for granted. The advertising industry is not what I would call stable work and that $88,000 salary lasted less than a year and was followed by 5 months of unemployment and then by a job paying half as much!  Worth noting also is that the highest salary I earned did not come with any benefits whatsoever.  It was freelance work.  No medical, no dental, no paid vacation.



Perhaps because of my experience, and a constant awareness that I've been doing OK because somebody...a LOT of people who might not be doing as well as I am have been ordering a bunch of stuff they see on TV and therefore I knew where my money was coming from ultimately.  I, along with everyone else in these organizations, are making a living thanks to people buying mops, steam-cleaners, hideous knives which are guaranteed to send x number of people to emergency rooms, food dehydrators, hand blenders, appliances which catch on fire after 3 uses, robots to vacuum your floor, 935 different devices to make you thin or have awesome abs, ladders, woks, drills, paint appliers, paint removers, pasta makers, chicken rotisseries, cat piss odor suppressors,  zit removers, teeth whiteners, breath fresheners, memory enhancers, spray-on hair for bald spots, "gold" colored coins being marketed as "investments" that have a fucking fleck of real gold in them worth about 80 cents, and wealth-building methods which, if successful, God-forbid you should pay more in taxes!  And let's not forget pills that make your dick hard so you can always be ready to fuck on a moment's notice.  (Make sure you have health insurance because if that boner lasts more than four hours you need to see a doctor right away!)



Yep, I've always known who butters my bread.



I also take it to the next level.  I look at corporate profits.  Let's take the Waltons for instance.  No, not John, Olivia, John-Boy, Mary Ellen and the rest of them.  I'm referring to the other, slightly more fortunate Walton family....the ones worth about $93 billion, give or take a little, thanks to a thriving chain of retail outlets selling lots and lots of people even more cheap shit than I can fathom. 



I am trying to imagine how anyone makes money that isn't somehow, directly or indirectly, made possible by consumers like us going out and buying stuff.



On a side note, I do appreciate it when someone like Alice Walton comes along and decides to give a little something back
to the local community, I don't see that happening nearly enough, and
she still could have, and probably would have, if she'd paid 5% more in
tax on those billions.  But hey, museum admission is FREE thanks to Wal-Mart! 
God bless them.



When I was a child, I remember being able to put 5 cents in a vending machine and getting a cold Coca-Cola in a bottle.  A gallon of gasoline was less than 50 cents and some dude would come out and fill your tank, check your oil, and clean your windows!  With a smile on his face (sometimes).  Back in those days, if you mentioned that you'd bought something made in China you'd probably have been branded a red communist on the spot.



Thanks to corporate greed, it's hard to find an American flag decal for your Hummer that isn't made in China.  And this is where I start to come unhinged.



We pay the same or more for the same products as we did a few years ago when those products were made in North America or even Europe.  Manufacturing jobs vanished as corporations hauled their production to countries where wages are pennies compared to dollars.  Corporations are doing great as a result of these and other tactics aimed at maximizing income and pleasing their shareholders.



As an example I love to use Ray Irani, CEO of Occidental Petroleum, who in 2010 had a salary of $1,191,667.  Not bad.  I'm not sure there's a man or woman on the planet who is actually worth that kind of money, but hey.  I'm sure he has a family to feed just like most other working Americans.  And I'll bet his mortgage payment is a bitch.  So I don't begrudge him for it.   Really, I don't.  I'm sure he hates long meetings and conference calls as much as the rest of us do.



However, I do know that salaries like that are made possible, and only made possible, because people like us are buying shit or services.



But here's the real kicker.  Mr. Irani can certainly survive quite well on that salary.  He might have to make some conservative adjustments here and there.  He might have to save up for 7 or 8 years before he can afford to buy his yacht.  I have no idea what his living arrangements are but it might be rough if he wants a 10,000 square foot home in Los Angeles, even in Compton (if there is such a thing as a home that large in Compton).  Maybe he'd have to settle for 4,000 square feet.  Hey, life's tough and we have to manage it.



But he doesn't just make $1,191,667.  Mr. Irani also raked in a little extra as a bonus in 2010:  $32,975,000 to be precise.



OK, I'll be totally honest here.  I just lost any fucking compassion I might have had over his cost of housing dilemma.   Or how long he might have to wait before he gets his goddamn yacht.  Before all of you start screaming "but...but...what if, like you, he had a rough year in 2009 and only made half of what he was making in 2010!", let me finish.  I'm not done yet.



Also in 2010, Mr. Irani got some stock and options to, you know, help pad his condition a little more just in case he might have been irresponsible in some way and squandered $10 or $20 million after too much rum punch at a black tie gala.  That bumped him up another $40,250,000.  But maybe we shouldn't even count that... it's all just on paper for now.



Total compensation package for 2010:  $76,107,010.



If my 2010 bonus alone, as a percentage of salary had been that much, I would have been given an extra $1,660,279.30 for my superb contributions to the advertising agency.  I would have told them they were out of their minds (after waiting to be sure the check was going to clear the bank).  And then I would have promptly resigned because (a) that's just insane business behavior, (b) it seems unsustainable and would put me under incredible pressure to live up to that value, and (c) I could easily retire very comfortably on that sum.



Now you know why I love using Mr. Irani as my example.  He's not even the top dog in the CEO pyramid for 2010.  That honor goes to the head of Viacom who edged him out by about $8 million. That's OK though because they did OK too based on 2nd quarter financial reports just released on May 3rd. Believe me, that 8:30 AM conference call on Friday was probably worth attending!



In light of all this I totally understand where Mitt Romney is coming from.  These are his people and his world.  And in their eyes it's just not fair that a majority of us want them to pay a higher tax rate than a Mr. and Mrs. Gonzalez trying to make ends meet by pressing out tortillas in Tyler, Texas all day so they can afford to fill up their tanks at the Exxon station on the way to Wal-Mart or Kroger to buy shit for their kids to eat for dinner.



There's just a couple of things I do not understand.  At what point does executive compensation become immoral?  How much is too much?  Do we draw the line at $100 million a year?  And why would anyone in their right mind want or expect to be compensated that much in one year anyway?  It's almost more money than any human could possibly spend unless they want to go the extra mile and do something crazy like...I dunno... what?  Buy an election?  Control the entire political process?  You tell me.



One of the joys in life in setting realistic financial goals and reaching them;  $70 or $80 million a year kinda takes the fun out of that aspect.  Maybe I'm just a little too sensitive because if I was raking in $2 million a year I'd be running a kick-ass food bank or something instead of trying to figure out where my next $60 million was coming from and whether all the liberal socialists were going to jack up my tax rate because of some podunky thing like our educational system falling apart, roads and bridges needing repair, water systems in dire need of updating, and preparing ourselves to be technological stand-outs in the fucking 21st century which, by the way, is already 12% behind us while we squabble over marriage equality and the evils of reefer, both of which will surely, sooner or later, rip apart our moral fiber and destroy our civilization.



But what truly blows my mind to shreds are not the Mitt Romneys of the world, or the people making so much money it can't possibly be spent on any personal "needs" without appearing to be a complete and total self-absorbed prick with horrific taste in chandeliers.  If a family of 8 could live comfortably in your master bath and walk-in closet, you might need to take a step back and self-evaluate.



What I'm throwing my hands in the air about are the people like you and I, who are making $25k a year, $50k a year, $75k a year and are actually having to feed and educate their children, and keep them clothed, and look after their health care needs, make sure the mortgage payment is sent in on time,  try to sock a little back for unexpected emergencies, and plan for retirement, all of which are generating more wealth for those corporations who control this system, while these very struggling people simultaneously weep these ridiculous tears that it would be so unfair to tax the rich at a higher rate than anyone else, and because those of us who are actually blessed with a functioning conscience, we must be Marxists and anti-American.  (Or French.)



I am not a Christian but all of this is enough to make me wish Jesus would come back right this instant and yank so many of his followers' heads out of their asses.  But I have a hunch we're just going to have to let this play out, and the ride is not going to be one of joy.



Thanks for listening, and Vive la France!

The Truth Is...

by: Peter of Lone Tree

"The Truth is that The Bible is: A Collection of Writings of Unknown Date and Authorship Rendered into English From Supposed Copies of Supposed Originals Unfortunately Lost." -- M. M. Mangasarian

Who Wrote The Bible

Fukushima Daiichi Site: Cesium-137 is 85 times greater than at Chernobyl Accident

by: Peter of Lone Tree

LINK

George Bernard Shaw:

by: Peter of Lone Tree

PETKOFF (with childish awe). Are you Emperor of Switzerland?

BLUNTSCHLI. My rank is the highest known in Switzerland: I'm a free citizen.


Arms and the Man

This sums up current America's Politicians and Business nicely! Spread it around!

by: Father Tyme

Pathocracy


Pathocrat

1. suppression of individualism and creativity.
2. impoverishment of artistic values.
3. impoverishment of moral values; a social structure based on self-interest and one-upmanship, rather than altruism.
4. fanatical ideology; often a corrupted form of a valid viable ‘trojan’ ideology which is perverted into a pathological form, bearing little resemblance to the substance of the original.
5. intolerance and suspicion of anyone who is different, or who disagrees with the state.
6. centralized control.
7. widespread corruption.
8. secret activities within government, but surveillance of the general population. (In contrast, a healthy society would have transparent government processes, and respect for privacy of the individual citizen).
9. paranoid and reactionary government.
10. excessive, arbitrary, unfair and inflexible legislation; the power of decision making is reduced/removed from the citizens’ everyday lives.
11. an attitude of hypocrisy and contempt demonstrated by the actions of the ruling class, towards the ideals they claim to follow, and towards the citizens they claim to represent.
12. controlled media, dominated by propaganda.
13. extreme inequality between the richest and poorest.
14. endemic use of corrupted psychological reasoning such as paramoralisms, conversive thinking and doubletalk.
15. rule by force and/or fear of force.
16. people are considered as a ‘resource’ to be exploited (hence the term “human resources”), rather than as individuals with intrinsic human worth.
17. spiritual life is restricted to inflexible and indoctrinare schemes. Anyone attempting to go beyond these boundaries is considered a heretic or insane, and therefore dangerous.
18. arbitrary divisions in the population (class, ethnicity, creed) are inflamed into conflict with one another.
19. suppression of free speech – public debate, demonstration, protest.
20. violation of basic human rights, for example: restriction or denial of basic life necessities such as food, water, shelter; detainment without charge; torture and abuse; slave labour.

Whassup?

by: Lisa Ranger

Greetings from the Gunshine State!

What's all this about Trayvon's killing being racially-motivated? We do not have the facts, yet the liberal blogosphere has been crying for vengeance since Day 1. Do you know why? Because a man named "Zimmerman" in a gated community shot a young black man.

Let's go straight to the presumptions:

Black people don't get to live in gated communities. Zimmerman must be a card-carrying member of AIPAC, and since they all hate the poor Palestinians it's just a hop, skip and a jump to hating blacks. That's what stoked the fire before any news beyond name and race of the deceased was known.

None of this is true, of course, but depending on your political skew you rushed to your own judgement. Is it fair to expect if I walk around in a Slutwalk uniform -- say, bra, panties and jackboots -- and want to enter a workingman's pub at midnight for a brewski, that I not get hassled? If you're high-minded and blissfully unaware of human behavior, you will say, "Of course it is!" No, it is not. That is not the world in which we live.

What is fascinating is that the family of the neighborhood watch shooter (Zimmerman) was quick to point out he was himself Hispanic -- a man of color. In other words, he could not have harbored the malevolent intent that surely a white would feel toward a black youth in a gated community. Moreover, we now know Mr. Zimmerman attended Catholic school and was an alter boy. Does this imply the Catholic religion was to blame for leading him astray?

And yet, blacks attend Catholic school, too. Their are dioceses in metro areas that are almost entirely black. So it can't be his religion that is the problem.

Nor can the problem be that only black people are shot unjustly for being in the wrong neighborhood. As a white person, it would not be wise to walk after dark in certain parts of, say, Southside Chicago. For some reason, such a shooting would not raise our national hackles; he had it coming to him/her. Because, you know, that would simply be folly.

What's the not-too-veiled subtext here? White people should control themselves better. I would argue, all people should control themselves better, and nobody should shoot anybody. fat chance that, right.

However, my deeper implication is rarely addressed: We are racist in that we EXPECT black people to go for their nine. That that behavior is neither shocking nor rare is what we should be addressing before, during and after the tragedy of Trayvon, because then you would be approaching a real solution rather than a cathartic feel-good chest-beating. There is some deep racism in this country among all races on a slow boil every day.

Geraldo Rivera was right when suggesting death by hoodie. When President Obama said that Trayvon could have been his son, I wonder if he would've allowed his son to walk alone in the wee hours to a convenience store and back in an unfamiliar community. I am not saying that activity is a crime (and we do not know the details of that engagement) but I am saying if you look like you're in the wrong neighborhood, you will be noticed. To pretend otherwise is folly.

A parallel example occurred for me when I attended a black university for a semester (Florida A & M). I will relate but one example of the prejudice which I encountered as a white person on that campus.

Walking to my car, I noticed a FAMU patrol car pulled in haphazardly behind my vehicle, blocking it's exit, ala Starsky and Hutch. I was then confronted by a FAMU patrol officer with his 9 mm drawn -- yes! Not pointing AT me, but drawn. I asked what was wrong -- NO LIE: He questioned the authenticity of my parking sticker, and accused me of forgery!!!

You must understand that Florida State University and FAMU had full reciprocity on matters such as parking, library privileges, etc. This was so surreal that I smiled and asked, "Are you serious?" Thank god it was daylight, and he did not have an itchy trigger finger. Sullenly, he holstered the gun and said, "I've got my eye on you."

The terror only hit me as I entered my car and made to drive away, shaking and weak. As an older adult, I am outraged at that inappropriate threat of force. I was a small white woman burdened with an armload of books approaching her 17-year-old Volkswagon. What insane bullying, and if I had known better or had support, I would have brought that matter to my local representatives, at the least. I did not know better, and just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.

That said, I met some very fine and welcoming people at FAMU, as well. BUT, those introductions were usually facilitated by a black friend; unaccompanied, I was suspect. I was told by a black male study partner that he wished he could introduce me to his fiance, but that she would be antagonistic to my whiteness. (I later encountered them in a store and he looked away.)

I was enthusiastically asked by members of my African-American Lit class after I'd made a presentation of Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" -- how I could possibly have understood the trials of a black woman so well, they asked. I quoted Sojourner Truth ("Ain't I a Woman?) And so it goes.

That is the measure of the prejudice in your nation: Black-on-black -- or at least, dark-on-dark crime -- is permitted. It's expected; it is as old as the hills.

So, what do we call it when blacks murder blacks? We don't seem to call it anything. How about if a black person murders a white -- it does happen, you know? Are those racist occurrences, or simply pathetic and tragic murders?

The liberal pack is calling for everyone's head, but in order for the police to arrest a suspect they must have a court-issued probable cause warrant. Zimmerman is not a flight risk; he had called the police prior to the shooting event. He tried to coordinate with police, and they displayed negligence and a negative attitude by not responding.

This should be a problem of concern: Many police department are suffering budget cuts and a shortage of officers. Maybe several of them are on duty in Afghanistan. There was clearly a problem in the neighborhood. Zimmerman was following Florida Rules of Engagement as opposed to Afghan rules.

My main point is obvious: We all come with preconceptions and fears, founded or un-, and how to countenance that is our mission. If all followed the rule of law and respected his fellows, and expressed honestly and clearly at the first sign of feeling threatened in the spirit of seeking consensus, we wouldn't have these shootings, would we?

Is this our country as you know it? Is this your house, as you know it?

We should suspend judgment until the facts are known.

For now, we can call it, "Death by Hoodie".

[cross-posted @ RangerAgainstWar]

Test

by: Peter of Lone Tree

Test

"War Clouds On The Potomac. No Not Iran. War Declared On You."

by: Peter of Lone Tree

"All of the fear mongering about attacking Iran and launching WW III is a psychological ploy to keep you distracted from the ongoing theft of tens of trillions of dollars from you by the New York and London banks. This is a long term project to reduce us all to Debt Slavery. It should not take much longer for them to steal what little remains to be taken. All they need to do is to keep your mind focused elsewhere for a little while longer."

READ THE REST

Medievalism, 2012-Style

by: Lisa Ranger

Medievalism. Nope, we're not gonna talk about Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan or the lot of them. We are talking right here in River City.

It doesn't seem real, this focus on women's bodies amongst the Republican presidential contenders. Our economy is in shambles; we are at war; the country's basic needs are profound -- and yet somehow, women's bodies have become the battlefield.

We did become fully human (almost) in 1920, with the contentious ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. For over 90 years, women have been granted full manumission in the U.S., in terms of being allowed to exercise our rights of citizenship (even Mississippi ratified the amendment, albeit in 1973.) And yet, our rights over our very bodies remain in the hands of men.

For less than 40 years, women have legally been allowed to determine whether they shall carry a pregnancy to term, without risking our lives in shoddy back alley operations or self-inducements. This right has been contentious since it was granted, but now in 2012, Rick Santorum -- Republican frontrunner -- suggests that contraception is harmful to society and pre-natal testing should be curtailed as it promotes abortions.

Santorum approves of some pre-natal tests like sonograms, but not amniocentesis, on the basis that it encourages abortion. “Amniocentesis does, in fact, result more often than not in this country in abortions,” Santorum said. “That is a fact” (Rick Santorum: Prenatal testing encourages abortions).

That is a disingenuous statement. The test itself may result in a 1-5% chance of miscarriage, but the test does not result in more abortions. What it does result in is an informed woman who may then make choices based on the results of accurate scientific testing. We did go through the Scientific Revolution so that we might avail ourselves of technology which might reduce human suffering.

Amniocentesis is ordered when a basic sonogram reveals abnormalities. Because there is a risk of false positives with a sonogram, amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS) are then necessary to give an almost 100% verification of chromosomal abnormalities like Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21), or Trisomy 28, which Santorum's child has.

Santorum's wording is painfully ignorant when he says things like, “The president has a very bad record on the issue of abortion and children who are disabled who are in the womb. I think this simply is a continuation of that idea.” How do these children crawl retroactively back into a womb? Children result from a live birth. Words and their meanings matter.

In Susan Faludi's The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America, she argues that the events of 9-11-01 allowed for a cultural atavism, in which male folklore returns, imperiling feminism. Rick Santorum is resonating with the people because he embodies, if not the machismo, then certainly the subjugation of women in the guise of protectionism.

We have a Homeland Security guarding our borders, why not a president who oversees the gateway to the uterus? This is not benign concern -- this is a brazen attempt to co-opt women's decision-making. It is malevolent paternalism.

How is this even a topic of presidential concern in 2012?

[cross-posted @ RangerAgainstWar, with links]

Quote of the Day

by: Peter of Lone Tree

"This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." -- James Bond Stockdale

The Vedic Experience by Professor Raimon Panikkar

by: Peter of Lone Tree

"The Vedas are mankind's oldest scriptures considered by Hindus to be a direct revelation of God. One of the finest translations to the English Language is done by Professor Raimon Pannikar, who now lives in a small mountain village in Spain. Himalayan Academy has been commissioned to publish his 1000-page anthology of the Vedic Experience in a special edition in the West, while Motilal Banarsidas has produced the Indian edition. In July of 1995 Professor Pannikar gave permission for these Vedic verses to be published on the World Wide Web. Finally we have all the seven parts of Vedic Experience on line. In the future we will make it more user freindly with its footnotes."

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/resources/books/vedic_experience/VEIndex.html

A prayer for a New Way

by: Peter of Lone Tree

I pray for a new way to come about, a way that will cause the barriers
between nations and between individuals to fall away, —that we may
come to the realisation of a new way.
I pray for peace and harmony and good will—above all, good
will—among men. I pray for the emergence of a greater understanding
and a breakthrough in the attitude of division, be this either political,
social or religious. May all men be brought to the realisation that they
are members of the one planetary family, regardless of color or creed,
regardless of wealth or poverty.
I pray for prosperity, that each man and woman and child may
have what is necessary to live in decency in this world, so that their
passage on this planet will be a joy and signify a progress, —a
spiritual and a material rise.
May each man come to enjoy the possibility of moving about as he
wishes over the Earth, as his one home and the one home of all his
brethren; and to express himself as he may like; and to know freedom
in all things. But may this freedom be only for the expression of the
highest part of himself. May all the ugliness of the old man fall away.
May the whole Earth come to realise the one goal, and to
understand that no matter how contradictory the appearances may be, each
of us is here for the realisation of the One Goal: to help the Earth to
realise herself, though her ways are many and appear each one to offer a
resistance to the other. Yet this resistance is merely to create the conditions
needed for the realisation, the all-embracing Realisation.
Let each person see the cause within himself for the suffering and
the agony of his Earth. Let him understand that the division in his
being is productive of a division within his society. Let him heal this
division, and then come to a new way in the collective body—that of
true collaboration in a life of harmony, of positive growth, and of all that
is true and good and real.
May all the forms of religion fall away—anything that seeks to
pull this new light into the ways of the past: there is a way that is not
religious, —may this be revealed.
May the new light shine forth with a brilliance such as has rarely
been seen in the history of the Earth, and may this be as a magnet which
draws people to it and fills them with the thirst for Truth; and grant
them the power to express this Truth in all the ways of life.
May we not seek miracles—let us rather have realisation. This is
the solid way. Let us not see visions or lights or etheric forms . . . let us BE
light, let us SEE IN UNDERSTANDING, let us be the ‘new seeing’.
Let the new way of Love manifest, the real way, that carries in it a
power of transformation. Though we may not recognise it as Love, let it
BE, in spite of us. Let Power indeed lend itself to Love, and these two
will carry us forward on the glorious new way. Let each man and
woman and child be touched by THE NEW WAY OF POWER AND LOVE.
But let us truly move forward to the New: let us not call the Old
the New. Let the New come forth in spite of ourselves.
May the Power of Harmony, the Power of Truth and the Power
of Love manifest, and may we become each day the purer instruments for
this integral realisation.

‘a preamble . . . .’
by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (Thea)
as found in
The New Way - a study in the rise and establishment of a gnostic society
Ćon Books (1981)

Battle of the Bulge

by: Lisa Ranger

[Addendum to From Twinkies to Fuel]:

Lipofuel is actually a serious proposition, and quite reasonable, once we get over ourselves.

One of its major attractions is that it's fully renewable, especially if it were possible to re-mine living sources. In the distant future when we have depleted other extant sources of fuel we will see that re-purposing our own "waste" matter will be a logical decision, and will be divested of any prurient scatological associations.

Much as with electric cars, the people whose fat is farmed might submit to periodic suctionings. Obviously, they would incur no cost for the liposurgery, and as a donor they would enjoy the very lucrative benefit of grazing copiously and being able to shed themselves of their avoirdupois as it became burdensome. Each may divine the line of sloth for himself, and decide whether the transgression can actually be transmogrified into a good.

Lipo would no longer be relegated to the back rooms of shady plastic surgeons but could become a perfected art, the domain of top surgeons and not just inferior pimple doctors. There would be no more jokes about "did she or didn't she"; yes -- she did give to her country, much as a blood or plasma donor does today. Instead of a little blood drop stick pin, a little golden fat globule to wear proudly, like the "I Voted" sticker.

Perhaps not to you, but to some people, that freedom to graze would be felt as a great blessing. For those amongst us who are weight-challenged, the battle of the bulge can become a debilitating daily fixation. The types of diets are legion, and sadly, science is telling us that once grown the fat cell never returns to a slimmer state. For the person who has shed weight, her newly lean cells are simply fat ones in hiding --imposter thin cells -- ready to chow down on any calories thrown their way. Ingest all the Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) or Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HGC) you may, a fat cell is a "fat" cell. It will always have space to grow.

Rather than occupying space as inert lumpen who may only use their minds or physical exertion to produce meaningful results, why not farm the last readily-accessible frontier -- the human body -- and allow people to produce? Why can we only accept organ donation upon death? Why these odd lines? If organ harvesting is for a good purpose, then so tissue farming (blood is a "tissue").

Unfortunately, humans are wont to ideate and fall into the slippery-slope fallacy that if fat were farmed from corpses -- and perhaps willing live donors -- than it is just a hop away to breeding humans who would sit inertly in a lab and be force-fed like like geese to produce fois gras, except they would be sucked of their fat.

Here is a perhaps vulgar thought question, but what is so different from the human who goes from cubicle to home office, sitting before a screen all day and ingesting chips and soda which the body converts to fat, and the immobile goose force fed to produce its succulent fois gras?

We think nothing of re-producing offspring -- expulsing genetic material into the world. Why not put some of our inert matter to good use? Instead of having it sit in front of Facebook 24/7, give a little back to the world.

If we think nothing of mining the liquified remains of long-dead animals processed naturally, then why not our own?

(cross-posted @ RangerAgainstWar, with links)

From Twinkies to Fuel

by: Lisa Ranger

And speaking of sows . . .

In the spirit of renewable resources, we proposes a new green initiative based on his observations of people and their ever-present need for fuel: Render their fat upon their expiration.

Human fat -- adipose tissue -- could be sourced from both the living and the dead to manufacture any number of products, much as whale tallow keeps entire societies alive. Perhaps the thought of rubbing it on your skin as an emollient is unpleasant, though many pay dearly to do just that with human placenta.

The urge for the fountain of youth is a powerful motivator. Geraldo Rivera had his buttock fat injected into his face for a more comely appearance (the jury is still out). The poet William Butler Yeats had monkey testes implanted in his scrotal sac in his quest for potency in his twilight years (though some argue they were goat testes.) Sometimes, one just needs a little push to mount the hill of resistance, and vanity is one of those.

But forget vanity as the lead motivator. Fuel to power our motoring needs could be the primary use. America is slap filled with fat people: The Centers for Disease Control says about one-third of us are obese, which the CDC defines as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or higher; another third of us are overweight, making for a gravy train of adipose. If their fat were to be rendered, we would have an excellent source for bio fuel.

IN fact, Beverly Hills liposuction doctor C. Alan Bittner, M.D. did just that [Forbes reported on it in 2008]. Dr. Bittner removed the unwanted fat from his patients, processed it, and used the resulting biodiesel "to fuel his Ford SUV and his girlfriend’s Lincoln Navigator." That's a lot of fuel consumption, and he introduced his success to the world at his now-defunct website, lipodiesel.com.

Unfortunately, California had a legal proscription against using "medical waste" for fuel purposes, and the good doctor is reported to have fled the country. (Maybe not such a good doctor, as he also tended to "over-render his patients," making for a lumpy result). Can't get greedy.

The time for creating truly sustainable energy resources is now. How can anyone get excited about the thought that fracking might provide 100 years of fuel? OK -- what then? "Oh, I'll be dead, then", y'say? Well, part of life is aspiring not to leave it much more effed up than when you entered it.

Fuel is but one possibility: cosmetics, soaps (the Nazis innovated that), enviro-friendly candles -- every petroleum-based product could be tweaked to use this seemingly limitless resource (well, not in Somalia, maybe.) Reports of a Peruvian black market for human fat erupted in 2009, and then disappeared from the news. Were the Peruvians doing something beyond selling the fat to fancy European cosmetic manufacturers?

Rendering people's corpulence would make of them national assets, rather than the butt of jokes, and give them much-needed self-esteem before they enter our gas tanks. The Hurley's of the world would give far out of proportion to their person and as such would be saluted, rather than maligned. Wanna stop bullying? Render the hefties! From Twinkies and margarine back into fuel source -- this is the miracle we have been waiting for.

The benefits would spread everywhere: As they would be corporally leaner at death, the donator's caskets or vaults could be made smaller, for instance. This would be an apres-death reduction of their carbon footprint. Although one of the 12-Step programs could be eliminated, that would still leave many other 12-step programs at which the predatory may hook up with the stability-challenged of the world. (And there are always yoga classes and the Self Help section of the bookstore, if any of those survive the Kindle.)

It's time we get over being squeamish over our bodily emanations. Landfills, barges, tugboats and mountains have hid our waste for some time, but as we and our waste products multiply, the day of not seeing is nigh upon us.

Devastatingly large and toxic "garbage islands" exists in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Eastern Pacific Garbage patch is twice the size of Texas. C'mon, people, time to face the music and pay the piper!

A recent update on Swift's Modest Proposal from WaPo's humorist Alexandra Petri suggested eating old people (Eat the elderly! Except Warren Buffett. He knows where they hid the money. Sure, they’re old. They’re wrinkly and taste sort of gamy, with a hint of talcum powder), but we think food production is not as threatened as fuel sources.

Perhaps we are not ready for pure cannibalism, but we have been cannibalizing (sourcing) parts of the human body for a while now. This is simply an extension of being an organ donor; tissue harvesting already occurs.

This is no time to stand on fallow ethics or haughty revulsion. This is a win-win for all.

--cross-posted at RangerAgainstWar, with links

Cautionary Note on Trying to Change the World:

by: Peter of Lone Tree

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's asshole.