For anybody looking to make a change in the New Year...

The Complex Christ: Find the Imperfection: Exist there:

"...The root question: how do things change? What are the actual processes that people, institutions, societies go through that effects change within them? And how can we effect change? My argument was that there it is not a simple choice between step-change - where things just crunch into a new realization - and evolving change - where everything goes gently along.

... the advice of Certeau and Foucault, who counseled that we need to seek out the fissures, the cracks in culture and work there.

This is the work of Trickster, the dirt-monger. Trickster finds the imperfections, and works a newness, a change from within it. Not working against the imperfection, but through it.

For those existing within 'solid' practices, places, churches: perhaps find that crack, that fissure, and rather than attack it to rupture the solid, use it as a site for localized boiling, for initializing a small pocket of phase change. Not against it, but through it. "

Realization

The Dilbert Blog: My Huge Problems:

"I realize that people all over the world have bigger problems, but frankly I can’t feel their pain. For some reason I only feel my own. I’m lucky that way."

Obligatory Holiday Greetings! [Geekstyle]

Nothing quite like a white man playing the blues...

Ry wailing on a much more respectable than expected [given the limitations of alcohol] version of Sweet Home Chicago.

A night of pontification and drinking.

Any night where conversation runs the gamut of: Foucault, Nietzsche, Buddhism, Alcohol, Cigars, Pretension, Death, Road House, Whoring, Robert Johnson, Buggery in the British school system and in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Elvis and the importance of caliber in Firearms... well... that night I deem a success.

Tsuyazaki Christmas Concert

By the Jr High school and Elementary School kids... Some "traditional" Christmas songs and then there was a somewhat surreal parable/opera about the death of elephants in wartime, the age of children, and world peace.

Really.

I can't make this stuff up.

I'm creatively challenged.

"Everyone should have a Christmas reindeer. It's very happy."

So sayeth Sandy.

Bonenkai

Or... end-of-the-year-drink-up.

And much merriment was had by all of Tsuyazaki Jr High's teachers and staff.

Certifiable

Sandy has received some sour Skittles, but they were too sour for her.

So she soaks them in a glass of water.

Then scoops them out with a spoon and eats them.

I AM NOT making this up.

Swear to god.

Oh the weather outside is frightful

The kotatsu's so delightful
Even if I had no place to go
I hate snow
I hate snow
I hate snow

I hate winter. Really.

Wake me when it's April.

A touch of the OCD

Sandy keeps putting these two puzzles together. Over and over and over and over again. In between hours of computer solitaire, that is.

I'm not saying she has a problem. I just want something on record in case I ever "accidentally" stab myself to death in my sleep.

Ninja Rob

How one must attire oneself when bicycling through the snow and cold and rain in a sad endeavor to go to the dojo.

So that I may get beaten up.

On occasion, logic fails.

Yes.

Mochitsuki

Went to the mochitsuki pounding at Katsuura Elementary last weekend. Very cool and kinda fun.

Mochi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Mochitsuki is the traditional mochi-pounding ceremony in Japan.

1. Polished glutinous rice is soaked overnight and cooked.
2. It is pounded with wooden mallets (kine) in a traditional mortar (usu). Two people will alternate the work, one pounding and the other turning and wetting the mochi. The mochi must be kept wet to keep it from sticking to the mallet.
3. The sticky mass is then formed into various shapes (usually a sphere or cube)."

"Ours is a government of laws, not of men."

A Small Editorial About Recent Events:

"The President claims he has the prerogative to order such surveillance. The law unambiguously disagrees with him.

There are minor exceptions in the law, but they clearly do not apply in this case. They cover only the 15 days after a declaration of war by congress, a period of 72 hours prior to seeking court authorization (which was never sought), and similar exceptions that clearly are not germane.

There is no room for doubt or question about whether the President has the prerogative to order surveillance without asking the FISC -- even if the FISC is a toothless organization that never turns down requests, it is a federal crime, punishable by up to five years imprisonment, to conduct electronic surveillance against US citizens without court authorization.

The FISC may be worthless at defending civil liberties, but in its arrogant disregard for even the fig leaf of the FISC, the administration has actually crossed the line into a crystal clear felony. The government could have legally conducted such wiretaps at any time, but the President chose not to do it legally.

Ours is a government of laws, not of men. That means if the President disagrees with a law or feels that it is insufficient, he still must obey it. Ignoring the law is illegal, even for the President. The President may ask Congress to change the law, but meanwhile he must follow it.

Our President has chosen to declare himself above the law, a dangerous precedent that could do great harm to our country. However, without substantial effort on the part of you, and I mean you, every person reading this, nothing much is going to happen. The rule of law will continue to decay in our country. Future Presidents will claim even greater extralegal authority, and our nation will fall into despotism. I mean that sincerely. "

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"

No.

Shit.

College students not alone in dangerous drinking - Yahoo! News:

"Though getting drunk is often seen as a traditional college pastime, other young adults, particularly men, have similarly high rates of potentially hazardous drinking, new research shows."

And let's not forget about the Druids and the evergreens... Yeah, that's right. I want a war on Christmas.

History Channel - Christmas:

"In Rome, where winters were not as harsh as those in the far north, Saturnalia—a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture—was celebrated. Beginning in the week leading up to the winter solstice and continuing for a full month, Saturnalia was a hedonistic time, when food and drink were plentiful and the normal Roman social order was turned upside down.

...Also around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, on December 25. It was believed that Mithra, an infant god, was born of a rock. For some Romans, Mithra's birthday was the most sacred day of the year.

...the Bible does not mention date for his birth (a fact Puritans later pointed out in order to deny the legitimacy of the celebration). Although some evidence suggests that his birth may have occurred in the spring (why would shepherds be herding in the middle of winter?), Pope Julius I chose December 25. It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. "

Reality is Open Source. Seriously.

PopImage:

"Freedom is possible. Absolutely. If you exist on the landscape of command and control, then it's not possible. But if you exist in service to life then nothing can touch you. Exodus is about just such a liberation from mental slavery. It's economic, cultural, and spiritual. The key is to smash the idols - desecrate them - in order to respect life and one another instead of death.

I've corresponded with a lot of people in jail who are more free than some of the millionaires I've met.

...I suppose the dirty little secret - or happy little secret - is that all my writing really has the same intention: to help people see that our reality is an open source proposition, and up for modification."

"The people who seem to have a monopoly on the Bible right now are basically insane."

PopImage:

"The people who seem to have a monopoly on the Bible right now are basically insane. Truly. They're nuts, and believe really outrageous things about creation and judgment. Even our President believes this really bizarre stuff - on the order of Santa Claus myths, but dark and damning.

The problem is when we surrender the most potent mythology developed this side of the Euphrates to those folks. Sure, we still have our Star Wars and Matrix, but the Bible was written over many centuries, and holds open the door to a myriad of valuable mysteries.

I just hated the idea that the tools in there would be lost to our generation and generations to follow. So many big answers have been worked out, it's be foolish to have to start over. And if kids are willing to read Crowley and Blavatsky and the Upanishads, they really should have access to these stories, as well.

..."Do you feel it more pressing to explain this to those who dismiss it outright or those who praise it yet miss the point completely?

Those who praise it yet miss the point are a lot harder to reach. They're looking for the Bible to serve as an idol - and it turns out it's been written well enough to answer this need, too. It's really working on two levels at once - as any great writer attempts to. One is for the people who need to have their beliefs confirmed, and the other is for the people who are willing to have them smashed wide open.

The best writing - and I think Bible was once capable of doing this - speaks to that first group in such a way as to slowly bring them to their senses. It strokes with one hand while taking away false beliefs with the other. The problem is that the Bible was written so long ago that people no longer recognize what's allegory and what's history. The first hearers of Torah got the jokes, and saw the symbolism. People today would need to learn a whole lot of history to distinguish all the references. They may as well be reading Finnegan's Wake.

...Let me put it this way: there's something that needs to be done to the Bible in order for it to live and function today the way it needs to. In order for its power to be accessible to those who actually need it.

The wrong crowd has gotten hold of these stories, and is using them for the reverse purpose of what they were intended. And the more they do it, the less those of us ready and willing to hack reality understand that the instruction manual is available.

So to break it all open again, I need to engage people with the myth - get everyone inside - and then rip it apart.

It has to be exploded."

Rushkoff on Testament - Comics get Biblical

PopImage:

"I started with Abraham for two reasons. First, he's really the beginning of the story as far as the Hebrews are concerned. He's the guy who makes the deal with the new God. The tradition starts out as a negotiation. That's really the basis of Judaism: this guy negotiates with a new and powerful God, they make a contract - the covenant - and the rest is the playing out of that deal.

He's also really different from how people know him. His story - and those of the people around him - are some of the weirdest in the Bible. Weird sex magick, fighting giants, offering daughters to angry neighbours.

The Akedah is a particularly great place to start because it sets up the Bible's biggest theme: people who sacrifice their children are fucked up. It's time to quit with the sacrifice of the first son and get on with civilization. (Of course, this whole dynamic gets reversed in the New Testament, with God sacrificing *his* first son to *us.*

...Where we get all the weirdness, really, is in how the story is used over the next centuries. I've already gotten shit for talking about this, but the customary interpretation of this story about the sacrifice of Isaac being a demonstration of Abraham's love of God really didn't come into common acceptance until the Crusades. Many Jews felt it was better to kill their children than have them fall into the hands of the Crusaders, who might rape, torture, or simply abduct them.

But to the first hearers, the meaning of the story would have been very clear: stop burning your children to the god Moloch. There has been a change in management, and you are no longer required to do this.

I mean, look at Abraham. In the original Torah text, he only needs to be asked once to kill Isaac. But he needs to be told *twice* to put down the damn knife! "