Friday, March 31, 2017

Join the Digital Resistance



Flag


Through the negligence of mainstream Democrats and the tepid involvement of weepy progressives and liberals, we have wolves guarding the woolly, drowsy flock. It's now a favorite pastime of the politically bereaved to huddle together over fair trade herb tea and gluten-free biscuits to cluck "Can you believe what the President is doing now?" Well, my delicate souls, he is doing nothing more than what Republicans and conservatives have longed to do for years. First and foremost - this means sucking money out of the common good and funneling it into the hands of their best beloveds in private industry..

Along those lines we have a new law soon to go into effect, The CRA Resolution. According to FreeCodeCamp, this new law allows ISP's to:

  • Sell your browsing history to basically any corporation or government that wants to buy it
  • Hijack your searches and share them with third parties
  • Monitor all your traffic by injecting their own malware-filled ads into the websites you visit
  • Stuff undetectable, un-deletable tracking cookies into all of your non-encrypted traffic
  • Pre-install software on phones that will monitor all traffic — even HTTPS traffic — before it gets encrypted. AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile have already done this with some Android phones.

For now, there is a relatively painless solution to this invasion of privacy - encryption, ad-blocking, and VPN's (Virtual Private Network). Easy-to-follow steps to begin protecting your internet browsing can be found in this article.

I say "for now" because "for now" it is still legal to use encryption and VPN's. You may as well enjoy a modicum of privacy while it lasts. 

~


Saturday, March 25, 2017

You Want It Darker


Candles


"A million candles burning for
the love that never came."

~ Leonard Cohen ~


~


Thursday, March 23, 2017

Our Little Donnie Loving On The Wimin


Our little Donnie

"Now she's got the big phony tits and everything."

"30's like the perfect age. What is it at 35? It's called checkout time."

"Miss Piggy"

"[a pageant staffer] was extremely proud that a number of the women had become doctors, and I wasn't interested."

"You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

"Heidi Klum - sadly she's no longer a 10."

"I bet you make a great wife."

"I'm going to get the bathing suits to be smaller and the heels to be higher."

"Bimbo."

"The face of a dog."

"I'd say she was a solid 9."

"I think Gloria would be very very impressed with my penis."

"Why is necessary to comment on [Huffington's] looks? Because she is a dog."

"I just start kissing them. ....I don't even wait."

"A big, fat pig."

"How much would it take for you to make out with Rosie O'Donnell? A trillion at least."

"It doesn't matter what they write as long as you have a young and beautiful piece of ass."

"It must be a pretty picture. You dropping to your knees."

"I did try and fuck her. She was married."



Nice try though...


Our little Donnie


Liberals like to exclaim "He's not my president!"  Overheated pwogs 
- sweating from privilege-induced self-flagellation love to shout
"Not in my name!"  How adorable. How completely 
adorable. As if they had nothing to do with
who is farting out sulfurous clouds 
of reality in the Oval Office 
these days. 

That's not an image up there. 

It's a mirror.

~

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Rock on



Jizos



For chanting along at home:

Om ka ka kabisan maei sowaka

~




Saturday, March 18, 2017

Friday, March 17, 2017

The Razor


Newbury St - Boston


"Now this, monks, is the Noble Truth of suffering:
Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, death is suffering;
sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are suffering;
association with the unbeloved is suffering;
separation from the loved is suffering;
not getting what is wanted is suffering.
In short, the five clinging-aggregates are suffering."



I sometimes forget in moments of shocking tragedy that this horror show we call life is really just operating according to specification. It cannot be any other way than this valley of tears. To want it to be different looses untold waves of additional suffering.

If only they didn't get sick.

If only they didn't leave.

If only they weren't murdered.

If only they weren't raped.

If only..

Adding the notion of a benevolent God into the midst of suffering only makes things worse. There is the inevitable casting about for a divine scapegoat. "Why didn't you protect us?" Or perhaps there is the more restrained and collegial "The divine suffers with us."

Instead - the Buddha cuts to the chase and simply says - Suffering is the way of things.

It's the way things are, the way they always have been and the way they always will be.

The only sensible response in the face of a life shot through with unrelenting suffering is to be kind, be kind, be kind.

~

Monday, March 13, 2017

Forget about sympathy for the devil


Addison Gallery of American Art


Imagine you are really shitty at something, a near-complete failure. Doesn't matter what that something is..

Now - imagine there are billions (and billions) of people who constantly tell you how great you are at the very thing you know you are really shitty at. 

Imagine the loneliness.

Imagine the isolation.

Imagine the guilt.

Overwhelming right?

If there is a God, and if he hears every day about how loving and caring he is, how all-knowing he is, what a great protector he is, what a mighty shield and buckler he is - well - that loneliness, isolation, and guilt might be what God lives with every moment of every day since he created life.

Maybe the disconnect between what people say he is and what he knows in his heart-of-hearts that he truly is bothers him. It would crush me. It would crush most people I know, driving them to despair and an endless search for oblivion just to get out from underneath that weight.

Maybe right at this moment, he is wandering around empty conference rooms in the far reaches of heaven with his hands over his ears, trying to make the incessant din of praise and thanksgiving just stop..

~


You think this is un-serious




and of course, you're mistaken.

~


Saturday, March 11, 2017

Waiting


You in the carcosa now

Being an indoor animal pecking away all day at a keyboard
has its rewards - a paycheck - healthcare - a collegial
work environment. It is not without its costs, the
biggest of which is that it keeps me from
the strangeness of this world. The
strangeness is always out
there though,
waiting.

~


Friday, March 10, 2017

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Overmatched


Squall

I think I've come to a conclusion about 
why God, his Son and the Holy Dove,
all the saints, angels, buddhas, and bodhisattvas
are so dis-abled when it comes to 
protecting anyone - except in the most
haphazard and seemingly capricious way. 

They are bunglers. 
The lot of them. 
A pack of stumble-bums. 

Instead of being angry with them and 
being critical of them about their ineptitude,
because - well - when did that ever help anyone - 
I've decided to feel compassion for them.
I know what it's like to have a job
which is way (way) over
my head.

Clearly - they are all overmatched for the
role they find themselves in.

~

Do you want to contact somebody first?


Boston Common

~


Not Too Much Time


Frank's memorial

"Life is short and we have not too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind"

~ Henri-Frederic Amiel (1885) ~

~