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  hardie karges 7:27 pm on January 7, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: America ( 59 ), Gun control ( 2 ), Hardie Karges ( 276 )   

  GUNS, GERMANS, AND STEAL: THE FATE OF AMERICAN SOCIETY 

  “Don’t fence me in,”… just give me a gun…

   The current debates over gun control in the US are nothing new, of course, and, in a way, have nothing to do with guns or murders or bullets or magazines.  It has to do with control.  We Americans don’t trust control of any sort, especially when it emanates from above or from the center, the central government, that is.  Nor is this predilection entirely an American thing, though we’ve certainly carried the argument to its logical conclusion.  It should be noted straight away that this is the same debate—not similar, analogous, or metaphorically mellifluous—that operates in any and all discussions of economic, health, welfare and other forms of policy. 

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  hardie karges 5:33 pm on December 31, 2012 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Hardie Karges ( 276 ), hypertravel ( 12 ), New Year ( 5 ), Thailand ( 76 )   

  สวัสดีปีใหม่ Happy New Year! To reflect is humane, to shine is divine… 

  Ten years ago—to the day—I was lying in a bed somewhere in northern Thailand, attached to it in fact, in a sort of makeshift traction best accomplished with metal frames and waterproof members, making up in utility what it lacked in esthetics. Ironically it’s the same bed my wife’s grandmother had just died in, the same one I’d seen her in for the year-and-a-half of my marriage, she lying there comatose, oblivious, waiting to die, I can’t remember why, though it didn’t seem to bother anyone too much, being a natural phase I guess, relatives coming in to check periodically, sometimes even cracking jokes above her head, like swatting flies mid-air that couldn’t even be seen by the one victimized, she reduced to rubble, ashes to ashes and dust to dust no more than a scarce few weeks before. So what was I now doing in that same bed, just indulging in a little macabre fun? I wished. Here’s what happened. (More …)

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    kc 8:29 pm on December 31, 2012 Permalink | Reply

    well told tale my writer friend

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    hardie karges 1:28 pm on January 18, 2013 Permalink | Reply

    thank you

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    kc 4:25 pm on August 24, 2013 Permalink | Reply

    well a happy new year to you, now at the middle of the year. yes, losing consciousness for however long is like dying a little bit. maybe dying for a short while but dying just the same is that time you spend blacked out.

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      hardie karges 9:11 am on August 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      There are some Islamic references to each night being a “little death.” If that’s the case, then what is dreaming?

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    kc 11:49 am on August 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

    dreaming is simply a rehash of our real life and days we spend in it. i think that little death was used as an analogy to orgasm and shooting heroin

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  hardie karges 10:07 am on December 26, 2012 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Christmas ( 11 ), Hardie Karges ( 276 ), hypertravel ( 12 )   

  Tis’ the Season… to Avoid Depression: FA LA LA 2U2 

  Tis' the Season… to Avoid Depression: FA LA LA 2U2.

   
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  hardie karges 9:52 am on December 26, 2012 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Christmas ( 11 ), depression ( 6 ), Hardie Karges ( 276 ), holidays, hypertravel ( 12 ), New Year ( 5 )   

  Tis’ the Season… to Avoid Depression: FA LA LA 2U2 

  I have my own Christmas traditions, developed over decades and continents, usually wherever I happen to find myself on the blessed day, either for lack of imagination or some rogue inspiration, none of which places can usually be considered ‘home,’ as the concept seems to have largely eluded me over the years.  If stuck at ‘home,’ I find that the day can even make me extremely depressed if I don’t deal with it pro-actively, because even though I’m extremely put off by the commercialism of Christmas, that doesn’t mean that I can entirely dismiss it.  I know; I’ve tried. (More …)

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  hardie karges 5:20 pm on December 9, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

  The Old Armenian Lady 

  They carried away the old Armenian lady last night.  It’s not the first time and I hope it’s not the last, but you never know.  I hadn’t seen much of her lately, anyway, not since the weather turned cold, or at least as cold as it normally gets in a heat-island affected LA in a not-so-cold-in-the-first-place southern California.  When we first moved in to the stereotypical SoCal apartment complex a couple months ago, there she’d sit all day, in one of those ugly stackable plastic white chairs parked right by the door to her downstairs apartment, with those tubes up her nose that I suppose go to oxygen or something, hopefully something other than just a warning to the young and healthy that this is what you’ll end up like if you don’t eat your peas and carrots.  (More …)

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    hardie karges 5:21 pm on December 9, 2012 Permalink | Reply

    Reblogged this on streaming consciousness.

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  hardie karges 7:12 pm on September 8, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Prayer might be more than just wishful thinking. 

  The similarity between DNA and language may be more than just coincidental. Species may actually get what they need, by hook or crook, words or visions, rather than just live or die by quirks of fate or a roll of the dice. This is what we all want, what we all really believe, deep down in our hearts, whether creationists or scientists, that there is something special about us as humans and that we have some role in creating and maintaining that specialness. Though maybe hesitant to cop to it, scientists would not be searching the heavens for other Earth-like planets, much less radio frequency signals, unless they thought this particular manifestation of biology were something divinely ordained and not just coincidence. Nevertheless, our culture defines us whether our DNA does or not, and is certainly more flexible and adaptable. This probably overrides all other considerations. Somehow I just don’t think they’ll ever find a ‘rocket science’ gene. We made all that up.

   
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  hardie karges 2:52 pm on August 29, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  SCIENCE FRICTION 

  Voices echo in my head without precedent, without antecedent, residual background radiation left over from the Big Bang, thoughts and ideas bouncing like ping pong balls in a mind too full for thinking, a brain too drunk for drinking. Quit re-normalizing equations. Maybe mass IS infinite at the speed of light. Meaningless infinities my ass; maybe more physicists should get more metafizzical. I’m pregnant with ideas, ready to give birth. Those who can’t create, consult; those who can’t shine, reflect. Radio waves are the enemy, jamming somebody else’s thoughts into my brain. TV will live your life for you if you let it. Now Internet wants to do the same or worse, creating a life of its own within the limits of conspiracy. Still I persevere. Prepare for the best; avoid the worst. Fear of success is the greatest handicap of the sensitive male. How do you score points when your best offense is a good defense? Beyond the call of the sexual wild, the call to merge with the void, beyond the sleepy call of nature two or three times a day depending on circumstances, my world is finally at peace with itself.

   
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  hardie karges 1:19 pm on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  I recognize many of the cheap motels in Hollywood movies and music videos, 

  the cheaper the better, full of character and characters. Nobody wants to see the inside of a Westin or a Hilton, except maybe Paris. They want to see the crud in the cracks and the stains on the sheets, lives of the cheap and dirty. I know those rooms inside and out, the chewing gum under the table and the burnt spots where a cigarette butt hung on the edge of the night stand for dear life, despite the warnings not to smoke in bed. They have to tell you that, in the cheap places. In expensive hotels, it’s understood. Actually the only thing wrong with the cheap places is the people who inhabit them, all too often on a permanent basis, too self-satisfied in their grungy life-style. I never stay at the cheapest places just for that reason, though sometimes they’ve got real style. Sometimes just a few bucks more a night is enough to keep the riffraff away and provide a qualitative difference, too, though. It’s not that I don’t like poor people, but generally not the type living in cheap motels. They can be real low-breeds, regardless of how high-bred, like heroin addicts watching the pile of pubes just growing higher in the corner if left undisturbed by human hands.

   
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  hardie karges 5:19 pm on August 9, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Bragging rights go to the victor, 

  language rights go to the majority, all things being equal. Nothing is equal. Language follows the path of least resistance, at least theoretically. Like animals evolving smaller as the world fills with species and the competition gets fierce, so words reserve their options until the last possible moment, eschewing bound forms and forced marriages. The occupiers usually take the language of the occupied, all the better to force their hands, unless they’re also part of a local migration, which will make them the majority of the populace, or unless the local language is just too damn hard. Such is the case with Thailand, where a Farang would never be expected to speak the local language, maybe not even allowed to. This is all voluntary, of course, the tyranny of the majority, dreadful freedom. Society is united by its lowest common denominators, the greatest good for the greatest number, and the rare birds are left to flounder in brittle cages, taking solace in mirrors and nourishment from crumbs on the floor. It’s cold in here and somebody keeps shitting in the nest. Shine some light in dark corners and let some fresh air into musty corners.

   
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  hardie karges 4:35 pm on July 30, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  We stand at the crossroads, 

  trying to flag a ride from some cowboy with shit on his boots who says he knows where he’s going, but I’m not so sure. The future is pure mathematical probability, clean and pristine, equations on a blank page. The past is a pool of blood, god-forsaken and friendless, nothing but a mother’s love, until someone came up with the brilliant idea of what the world might be like if everyone treated each other like brothers and sisters, choosing to acknowledge our commonalities more than our differences. The rest is history, extended families united by religion, safe and secure within the commonly acknowledged borders, part of something even larger beyond those borders. A devout Muslim is friend and brother to any fellow Muslim regardless of country, just as are devout Jews and Christians, particularly those of the same sects. Same-sect marriages work well where many others fail. Communism used to be the same, camaraderie across borders. This is where capitalism falls short. You just can’t get that excited about something ‘trickling-down’ to you, no matter how much better than everything else it might actually be. It’s just not inspiring. Equality, justice, peace, and abundance are inspiring.