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  hardie karges 1:18 pm on April 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: conspiracy theory ( 10 )   

  Conspiracy theory runs deep on both sides, 

  both quasi-conspirators and quasi-theorists, from the secret societies of Freemasons and Illuminati to the Rothschilds’ Zion to the eye on the pyramid on the back of the U.S. dollar to the ‘New World Order’ of Prescott, Georges H. & W., and the entire Bush Brothers Band. Deep on both sides indeed, but a bit shallow in the middle. The problem with conspiracy as a way of life, of course, is that it is long on theory and short on facts. An anomalous ‘they’ can be held responsible for any and every evil deed that lacks clear antecedents, and some that do, to the point that there are really no longer any reasons to try to change anything at all, because there are so many convenient excuses for failure. If a Republican wins, it’s because he’s “their boy”. If a Democrat wins, then that’s because “they installed him” for their own reasons. It’s a loser’s paradise: “The game is rigged; all wealth is old wealth; capitalism is a pyramid scheme; nobody loves me”, etc. The extrapolation continues ad absurdum ad nauseum: the moon landing was staged; the earth is hollow (it used to be flat, remember); Argentina and the U.K. fought a fake war in the Malvinas; Saddam was ‘our’ boy; Jesus Christ never existed; WE sunk the economy of Argentina (how many times?), blah blah, yada yada, etc. etc. Now I know why courts are so concerned with motivations and forensic evidence, because otherwise stories like this could be accepted at face value as fact, given their internal logic and crisp story lines. Conspiracy theory is also certainly bolstered by the fact that shit does, indeed, happen. Witness the mock Texas border dispute that lead to war with Mexico, the unexplained battleship Maine sinking that led to war with Spain, the Reichstag fire, the Gulf of Tonkin, The USS Pueblo, maybe Pearl Harbor, and I don’t even want to think about KL007.

   

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  hardie karges 1:20 am on March 30, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: conspiracy ( 5 ), WTC   

  When the WTC towers fell a number was done on the American psyche. 

  At first I thought it was an attack on the American economy, as symbolized by the WTC itself. Admittedly a fifty-percent drop in stock prices would signal a whole new era in capitalism, or lack thereof, but that was not the most immediate effect. The most immediate effect was the splintering of the American psyche into a thousand tiny pieces, as if it weren’t ‘pluralistic’ enough already. Slowly the pieces polarize into those who see a declaration of war for a new crusade and those who figure that if we Americans didn’t instigate the attack ourselves, then at least we deserved it, or should accept responsibility for it. Out of the ashes of skyscrapers rises the phoenix of conspiracy, in which we’re all pawns in a game rigged by ‘them’, the unnamed masters of war and money. This is the world I know, planes crashing and towers falling. The Twin Towers fell like so many artificially inflated erections caught in a lie. They’ll all fall one day.
   
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  hardie karges 12:58 am on March 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: conspiracy ( 5 )   

  Democracy comes to a sad end, drowned in the fog of conspiracy, 

  millions of highly trained but idle minds second-guessing the minutiae of history rather than getting lives of their own. You can’t reason with them, even though their arguments are based on reason. The problem is that their arguments are based solely upon reason, blind logic the dead reckoning by which the argument proceeds and goes anywhere they want. People don’t examine the facts anymore; they examine their feelings. Everybody wants to be first on his block to unlock the secrets of the world, but alas, very few actually can. Conspiracy exists much more in the minds of its disciples than the supposed conspirators.

   
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  hardie karges 9:28 am on March 25, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: conspiracy ( 5 ), ego ( 33 )   

  Ego is much more of a problem in modern society than conspiracy. 

  Genius exists in the world, thank God. You’re welcome. Nobody did Einstein’s work for him, even though his circumstances were humble. If it’s getting harder to become famous, that’s only because there’s so much talent in the modern world and so much specialization that it’s hard for any one single person to have broad up-to-date generalized knowledge, much less stand out from the crowd, except possibly as an entertainer. What does that tell you? Bring on the clowns. Evolution, whether biological nor cultural, is not a straight simple path. Ego needs nothingness the same way Christianity needs Buddhism.

   
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  hardie karges 12:06 pm on March 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

  Conspiracy people don’t believe that Marco Polo ever went to China, 

  because if he had, then surely he would have written about chopsticks, the Great Wall, sweet-and-sour pork and so on, as if he would’ve been interested in exactly the same things we’re interested in almost seven hundred years later. What’s the point of the argument anyway? Even if he didn’t, many others did. He’s got nothing on Ibn Battutah, by the way. No amount of whining by self-appointed conspiracy watchdogs and other assorted speculators can change the fact that the history of the world is the history of blind circumstance and brute survival and a few great men doing some extraordinary work. If someone doesn’t do the work, then it doesn’t get done. Conspiracy people even doubt the existence of Jesus and the genius of Shakespeare, notwithstanding the fact that none of their contemporaries doubted them. Maybe conspiracy is like anti-gravity- the farther from the source, the stronger it is. Aside from the absurdity of the argument, the bottom line is that it doesn’t even matter. The work stands on its own. Somebody did it, and did it brilliantly, regardless of whose ego is at stake.

   
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  hardie karges 2:25 pm on March 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

  Some people want to make history by making up history, 

  changing facts to fit circumstances, petty details left to the spin doctors and makeup technicians and bullshit artists to plaster the cracks and spackle the holes where nails buried their pointy little heads rather than face the music for a soundtrack that’s yet to be written. The truth comes in the morning news. The memories come via the entertainment channel. The backspin comes on the history channel. The work is creative and the money is good. News and entertainment merge on prime time in a parallel universe. History is what someone says it is, subject to space availability, subject to financial support. First come, first served. Youth has the upper hand, the home-court advantage. We worship youth on the altar of tradition, as if anything they say, regardless of how naïve, is worth far more than the wisest sage could come up with, he with bad teeth and breath to boot. They’ve got a point, you know. Listen to the words of someone with years and experience, but who can still speak the language of children and fathom the path of dreams.

   
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  hardie karges 12:01 pm on March 20, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

  Ego needs new games to inspire it. 

  That’s what ego is for, to abstract yourself beyond your current position toward a new future, new pictures, new work. Ego allows you to fast-forward the tape to the future of random probabilities, instead of being resigned to the same old reruns of your old boring life like an old pair of shoes that the dog keeps dragging back. Ego must be fine-tuned to be a tool for visualization, but not a false reality to become mired in, certainly not a position to defend. Don’t let Ego out of the cage; that’s the trick. It’s like a genie that must be kept in its bottle. Not only is that good for self-discipline and good for self-confidence, but is essentially accurate. I AM the greatest thing that’s ever happened in my little world. But it stops at the door, which is to say, the mouth. If somebody thinks they see it through the window, then that’s their problem. It’s like money and the law of inverse proportions; the power is in holding it, not spreading it around. My little self-confidence device is everyone else’s pain in the butt. Success speaks for itself. You don’t have to advertise yourself unless you’re looking for work, and then only appropriately. If indulged in excessively, ego is a path of no return, married to your own mythology, divorced from reality.

   
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  hardie karges 11:05 am on March 18, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ego ( 33 )   

  Ego raises its ugly head like a shark at the beach, 

  drawing fire if not blood for whatever it fails to accomplish with pure fright. Put enough ego in the car’s tank to get in running, then cut it back before it chokes the engine out. Making a thousand minor adjustments is much easier than making a single huge cataclysmic adjustment. Keep the carbs clean and the engine tuned. Ego is like profit motive. You need some to get you going, but you don’t want to indulge in it. It’s the strategically placed carrot perched directly in front of your face to keep you turning the treadmill even though you’re really not even hungry. Even if you don’t really need the money, you still need the profit as compensation for effort expended, reward for a job well done. If you want to give something away free, then you’ll have no shortage of takers. How can you know that someone appreciates your efforts, if they won’t even flip you a dime for your time? Ego is like that, something to pump you up, imagining yourself in exalted situations, just to get yourself out of bed and maybe half-way there, on a good day.

   
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  hardie karges 3:30 am on March 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ego ( 33 ), EVOLUTION ( 21 )   

  Discover the ego gene 

  and molecular biology is now on to something, the junction of nature and culture, the nature of self-perception reduced to code and transcript. What you perceive in others usually is what you find in yourself, reducing the usefulness of perception. If you can get past perception and cultural affectations and down to underlying pre-dispositions, then maybe new options would open up for altering them, something besides drugs, that is. Drug use is probably more effective at altering perceptions of others than it is at altering behavior of the user. Experimental and recreational drug use is an attempt to approach the speed of light in thought and perception, just like back home where the lights burn 24/7 with a laser-like intensity that approaches infinity. The speed of thought might actually be first to break the light barrier, premonitions and psychic activity providing raw material for investigation. Is thought a dimension all its own? If so, is it a natural or created one? Weigh yourself down with food to keep yourself grounded in a world without weight nor wisdom.

   
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  hardie karges 12:20 pm on March 15, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

  Plants are the original solar collectors, 

  leaves bending toward the light without the aid of computers and motors. Plants are like old-fashioned women, housewives with mop and broom and the horror of dishpan hands, bending to the will of the guy upstairs. On a good day, they’ll hang out a flower that means ‘available’, just like hanging out the red lantern, and waiting patiently for a suitable suitor to come and pollinate the Hell out of them. Any stigma attached only enhances the experience, like the wounds of Christ offering validation. Life is a passive experience, sunbathing and looking pretty, creating complex carbohydrates from little or nothing, just a little water and flour and another thing or two, depending on the recipe in the DNA cookbook. The prettiest flowers grow from the ugliest plots, conspiracies of uncertainty, and experiments in nothingness. They crowd the side of the road instinctively, advertising their wares and trying to flag a ride. There’s no time to waste and no time to kill, just enjoy life to its fullest in the short time available, accumulate whatever wealth is available, and be sure to pass something on to the next generation. Go forth and multiply; go forth and divide; make the world a better place without the burden of consciousness.