Several months ago we literally pulled a man in his underwear out of a hole in the ground in Iraq. A few days ago we hung him by the neck. Lord knows I never thought it possible to make a sympathetic figure of Saddam Hussein. It seems the only person really rejoicing about this is our President, bouncing around the White House like a monkey on steroids. Meet the new Butcher of Baghdad.
We killed the "bad guy" but how do you shoot the mentality that put him in power? Now we've opened the Pandora's box of a mad scramble for power. Civilians and Americans are caught in the crossfire. The breakdown has enabled criminals and opportunists for terror to run rampant. Remarkably, there are still those among us who think we know what's best for others. Beware the man who wants to run your life, he seeks only to ruin it.
Don't get me wrong, Saddam was a monster. He recruited fellow monsters to terrorize and exploit the country. But stopping him is not the same as solving the problem. Like the ancient Israelites, the Iraqis chose to have a king to rule them. No one gets to be stupid for free. ("When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day." -Samuel 8:18)
So we decided to play God. God turned his back on you, Iraq, but we love you. We are going to save you and you will give us all your oil in return. And then you will thank us! Instead, our President and all his followers have merely transferred the blood from the hands of Saddam to their own hands. Luckily, we know he's going to come clean of this crime and start the healing process.
"Sitting on a cornflake
Waiting for the van to come."
-The WalrusJohn Lennon spoke of when he was a youth he would look in the mirror and his face would "trance into alpha." That made him feel like a freak. And while I don't think I ever had a moment like that, I do know I've had "lost" moments I can explain to no one.
They arrive unexpectedly, when you relax - and at the most inopportune times. Moments when if you were to ask me the time or date or planet or reality, I could not answer you and have it be the truth. You stop, look around, and suddenly in you're in the universe - not some crap job or menial exisitence. It makes you want to live there forever...
One such moment for me happened on a sunny spring day in the oil fields of north Texas. I was just along for the ride with the driver who drained the holding tank of water pumped up with the oil (this has be drained and deposited at a registered disposal facility or the owner can be fined). Sitting out in the middle of nowhere, watching the breeze play with the grass and listening to the constant squeak of the pump, I lost my name.
I could have sat there forever, completely calm and content. I was in a place of dreams. If a flying saucer had landed - if anything had happened - it would have all seemed plausible. Sitting on the edge of the world, you can see into infinity. There was a truth in this moment I did not want to leave. I was timeless...
Reality was shattered by a voice of the world. "Come back," it said. "Life is all bills, bullshit and bothers." It was a sightless voice, seeing only with its eyes. "There's no other reality than what he have made." But having seen the universe, I know better.
Bar-bar-ian (noun) an uncivilized, uncultured person; a brutal, cruel, insensitive person whose behavior is unacceptable.
"The poor you will always have with you." These are the words of Jesus Christ. Perverts will interpret this to mean: "there will always be fuck-ups." And a pervert always needs someone to denigrate. What Jesus was really saying is: "the world will always be unfair."
I hear all sorts of "solutions" to poverty. With over half the world in poverty, obviously none have worked. So far we have tried: government programs, charity, socialism, communism, capitalism, this ism, that ism. You can spend your entire life dedicated to ending poverty and it will only be a band aid, never a cure. The reason all efforts fail is because we concentrate on the symptoms, and not the cause.
"You shall have no other gods before me." There it is again, that pesky ol' First Commandment. Obviously God has no fucking idea how to run a society. You've got to appeal to people's greed! It's the only way! Money first, then God. That's when you can call yourself holy - making that "work".
Problem with that is we really are made in the image of God. It's human nature to care, to give and to reach out to others. In America, if you are not for greed and selfishness, you're a traitor. Our whole society is based on greed and we want to keep it! The irony of course is that that very same greed is what will cost us everything.
We are savages; putting survival up for sale. God in her wisdom put us perpetually at the mercy of one another, to force us to learn to live together. Instead, we merely use that vulnerability for blackmail. Only barbarians build a world set up to reward taking advantage of one another. And we'll always be barbarians as long as survival is up for sale.
Here lately I've been trespassing all over the blog of the great Flavia Colgan. I saw her on TV and was fascinated by her. "Who is that woman!" So I googled her and she turned out to be all I hoped for. I even sent her an email which she graciously acknowledged. I love you, Flavia!
Her blog is much different than mine - it's actually read. So I have the chance to interact and chip in my two cents and be heard. My comments are aliased under "Sidney Reilly" and "Haiku Monk". She also does "guest blogs", throwing out others' points of view to be digested. One guest blog was from a punk kid with the tried and true diatribe on the evil of TV. Couched in the tones of a Shakespearian tragedy, he laments a nation of couch potatoes more interested in Britney Spears than the politics of state. Check out Britney's ass below and you tell me what you're more interested in.
I pointed out to my punky friend that there are oh so many more real and alleged evils in the world he forgot to rail against. Here is a listing below (feel free to add your own!):
movies, modern music, pop culture, war culture, the sixties, degenerate youths, video games, uptight yellow-bellied sons-of-tricky-Dicky, Sith warriors, illegal drugs, legal drugs, bad parents, bad schools, bad breath, mislabeling, no labeling, Twinkies, hidden gay cartoon characters (how did we ever win WWII with that cross-dressing Bugs??), big business, small business, busybodies, nobodies, communists, capitalists, sexists, racists, horny haters, horny players, horny priests, enemies of the state, radicals, moderates, pantheists and lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World!
"Under the clear skies and gleaming sun of a summer day my sorrow was as the rain.
My Quixotic sword slaying my own life.
To teach the world a lesson?
I entered all my battles in pretense, and in so doing, I lost them all. "
-Haiku Monk 
For whatever reason, I must be free of all things to have peace. At times I can recede into nature or hide in an alley you don't dare enter or like tonight I can wander in the cold when others ensconce themselves indoors. It's only in these fleeting moments the turmoil ceases. Yet were I to have the world at my feet, it would still be only in these moments I could find refuge.
Rarely am I noticed. I like to live around the edges of things. Certain spots of people and smells and activity draw me in like a moth. My anonymity allows me a vicarious thrill of worlds I cannot enter. Even if I were rich, I still could not enter such places. I would throw up a facade and bide my time until I could free myself once more. Put me in the best car, the nicest home and with the prettiest people and I will still struggle to get away.
I'll never forget the one time I got recognized. Years ago when I was a courier to nursing homes, a nurse looked into me. When you're a courier, you're a nobody by default. So my guard was down, I was relaxed and was ready to make my delivery but when I walked into the room, the nurse's eyes drilled straight into mine and I could see the question I most fear forming in her eyes: "Who are you??" I remember that jolt of fear. I averted my eyes and ducked out as quickly as I could.
I belong both everywhere and nowhere. So where is the place for me? A kind gesture to a homeless man could be a moment he remembers a lifetime. I'm sorry for all the grief I've brought to this world. I am beneath you all. The most "horrible" person in the world I crave to be my friend. But it seems I only make friends to my lies, never me. 
