War Journal Day 2922

In some ways, they’re perfect for one another. He, a scheming, skulking, obscene oaf of a man, dragging his knuckles to and from work.

Always a trail of blood. It is a wonder how he came to arrive at where he is today. That wobbly, stumpy frame hides no childhood. Some say it’s human nature. Others, capitalism. Neither quite suffice. He juts out unavoidable. At once both promontory - intractable, almost natural - and otherworldly. Nothing that sinister should be explained theoretically. Yet anyone who eats himself out of obscurity deserves pity. What other use could sediment have but to break things – backs, wills, skulls? He works in tandem with gravity. As if it needs any help.

She, a three-ringed acacia, stately and attractive from a distance, loathsome and shrill up close, withered and tender inside.

Always silence. She prefers to dominate more lithely, bloodless. More metaphysically. One feels it in the walls.

He, a rock. She, an undertow.

Neither understand the rules. One assumes that’s why they stare lustily out of the window of their smallish, Cumbrian cottage. He hates women. She has no creativity for love.

One day she’ll flagellate him to death. Then they’ll both get their way.

Cooking My Way through the Gooseberry Patch

The Gooseberry Patch. A single hectare of fertile land, bright blue skies overhead, perfectly-suited for self-reflection and honest-to-god bearing all. Its inspiration stretches in every direction, touches everything. Its very soil bears many delightful earthly treasures. Like the Mediterranean's black truffle or the Atlantic's sea scallop - tins of mushroom soup, succulent handfuls of processed beef, and flattened fingers of dried spaghetti are a plenty. Yet for all its wonders it can be a terribly lonely place. Sometimes I think of Linus' silent suffering but it only makes it more difficult to endure. What I need is community - a vast social network filled with candid and quirky souls. So with my shovel I dig up the spirit of the individual pioneers, oh pioneers, like Julie Powell. And neatly saddled I ride like Elvis on their backs to fame, fortune and notoriety.

Tonight we will dine on Country Meatloaf - a true favourite 'round these parts. Just get yourself a can of mushroom soup, a pound of ground beef, half an onion, your favourite C.S. Lewis title(I'll go with the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and in forty five minutes you'll feel the touch of god's divine hand.

When we're done, Diva's Live(borrowed from my Uncle Charlie) and a tub of Ben & Jerry's. What a perfect start to the Gooseberry New Year!

War Journal Day 2915

The MET is promising us snow tonight. Here’s hoping it is more fruitful than my Christmas. An extra ejaculation at the frontier of this desolate new year. The final gracious, fleeting emulsion for our festive wounds. I will do anything for another day off school. Even speak in front of class. Something reddening. Normally I would rather die then do that. But times are drastic. I didn’t even get everything I asked for this year. All the other children have new appendages. In the year of the gadget I’m the last remaining human. An analogue vestige in the new metallurgic economy. What’s worse, my humiliation is compulsory. Tomorrow I’ll show them.

My Dental Hygenist Says...

I need to floss more.

She is pleased with her newly upgraded digital x-ray machine.

Barack Obama is now vying to become the first ever European Union President.

The Euro will overtake the British Pound, US Dollar, Chinese Yuan, Japanese Yen, and Swiss Franc as the only world currency.

In keeping with the hell-fire and brimstone thematic, according to the Book of Revelation, the Archbishop of Canterbury will depose Rahm Emmanuel and become the Antichrist's new right hand man.

The first order of business under the President's Leap Forward will be to cull the majority of the sick and elderly, thus reverting hu-man to a pre homo sapien state of savage nature.

I wonder if she really meant it when she mentioned she was sick to death of him.

I never was afraid of the dentist before.

Baseball Fury

"Industry honours Upton Sinclair, Nixon Trust heaps praise on Woodward and Bernstein and Baseball says 'Yes to Unions'"

Love American Style

American beauty is skin depp, claims Justin Webb - advocates softer lighting

The Reason Being

I would like to pose an argument.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not the same.

In response, you may want to know the reasons why they are not the same.

As a reply, I could offer any number of relatively informed arguments. I could say that the two are outcomes of the interplay of altogether different endogenous and exogenous historical forces. I could also locate the difference in their political programmes, either in the competing ultimate outcomes they wish to achieve or in the appropriate means through which these goals can be justifiably met. I could make an argument on the level of cultural difference – ethnic, religious, linguistic – that would ultimately impede any enduring collaboration between the two.

As a reasonable person, you may agree with the initial statement, but disagree with the reasons posed and instead offer a plethora of counter-reasons. Eventually, our dialogue would end with the two of us more or less agreeing that the two are not the same, albeit for different reasons.

Socrates would applaud us. But no one would be satisfied.

Of course, if we were discussing this in the stark whiteness of the transcendental void, we may take pleasure in our faculties of abstraction and our ability to comply with the universal injunctions of pure reason. We would most certainly revel in our access to the objective truth of logic.

Yet as human beings inserted unwittingly in the empirical realm, satisfaction is impossible unless we take into account the hypothetical situation from which the argument sprung and the reason behind making the claim in the first place.

If on the first of the month I am invited to a neighbour’s house and upon being served the last portion of spaghetti (food) for the entire month, I choose not to eat based on my deduction down from the claim that spaghetti and linguine are not the same and therefore I should be consuming linguine, I would be acting rationally. And although I would technically be making the correct decision, I would most likely be accused of being a sociopath.

This is the bizarre starting point of political reasoning. When confronted with the problematic of war in Afghanistan, the argument is made post facto. Instead of leaving the rational diagnostic open regarding the a priori circumstances behind an act (in this case invasion), rationality is only employed procedurally. In this case, the argument takes on a sociopathic air: the current American administration poses the argument Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not the same. Though this at first seems to undermine the afore given justifications of prosecuting a war in Afghanistan, on second glance, it is the mark of a cadre of rational sociopaths.

Spaghetti and linguingi are not the same. Instead of eating the Taliban, we should be devouring Al Qaeda. Who's hungry?

War vs Terror?