=jr050641 JOURNAL FROM 11 JUNE '05 thru 19 Aug '05 MUCH OF THIS IS VERY ROUGH-DRAFT MATERIAL, ESPECIALLY THE DRAFT POEMS -- Most of them are just notes for poems ------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 10 Jun '05 It is clear enough that airlines, obliged to provide budget travel, try to make it so unnecessarily miserahle that any traveler who can afford it will upgrade to a level, not of luxury, but of minimal human decency. Budget travelers lack sufficient air, sufficient toilet facilities, and have less free space than a prisoner in a closed mental ward. Budget class passenger ferry service in the Mediterranean shows some of the same infliction -- reclining chairs are made as uncomfortable as possible, with fixed armrests, and usually placed in a budget lounge area where it imposssible to get adequate sleep even for an hour -- but in general do not restrict budget traveler access to decks. ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 10 Jun '05 (Ckueb, noting that in 1919 Emma Goldman, "and 248 other accused radicals and Bolsheviks were feverishly deproted to Russia in 191 -- also a time of a domestic terrosim scare." It is clear enough that the USA goes through periodic yahoo fits - - a sort of national hysteria -- over seecurity issues. The ani-Communist Witchhunt of the USA 1950s was the post recent to precede hysteria following the terrorist destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, on 11 Sept '01. ---------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 10 Jun '05 (Frank) Some chap named Dusenbery, retired from economics at Harvard, - I think I went to Belmonet High Schooll with one of his sons, who was of couse called "Doozer"-- had, it is reported, a theory that, in passing, suggested that someone who was rich but fell back from that, tends to continue to spend at the same level, because he just can't quite take the shock of it all. The rpoter puts it: Dusenberry argued that families look not only to the living standards of others [ a sociologic drive for upward mobility that is a major motivating force in consumer behavior ] , but also to their own past expereince. The high standard enjoyed by a formerly propserous family thus constitutes a frame of referned that maeks cutbacks diffiuclt, whieh helps explain why consumption levels change little duirng recessions." Well, the Talmud said it first: His son came home and said, You do not need to continue to give tzdaka to so_and_so, old wine is poured for him. 'Oh,' said the sage, 'is he really accustomed to such luxuries' -- and doubled his contribution. The loss of a luxury may hurt more than the lack of it. That is quite a compassionate perception. My Sufi crew would say: But heavaen always sends us just the tests we need to advance spiritually, and in papering it over with tzdaka, you have depreved this guy of the opportunity to progress spiritually by transcenduing his attatchments. Mazaltov, but what if he don't want to progress spiritually. Maybe he'd rather just sit on his duff and take handouts. But maybe also this guy has been so beaten down by life that he no longer has the koach to jump over any more hurdles. So his choice is to sit on his duff and take a handout, or sit on his duff without a handout. And this is that set of stories, in Berachot I'm sure, of one rabbi who finds another rabbi sick. So he doesn't rush right in and heal him, first he asks, do you wish neither the suffering, nro the reward [ for transcending the suffering ] That is, do you wish neither to accept the suffering [ a bit weird, but some folks are into that I guess ] nor to transcend it. The guy who is sick says, No. So then the other guy cures him. You may say, so that day was a wipeout for the Angels. "No one was saved." (Beattles=) But I say back, spirituality is not only a Great Leap Forward to a higher maquam, spirituality is also in the blessing we say after taking a piss. Or, I suppose, though it didn't make siddur press_time, after a toothache goes away afater I pop a few Alcomol Forte, Morty. That's a point of the sort I have lately been trying to make in my notes to my RSC verbatim retypes. --------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT, 11 Jun '05 -- (Rosenthal/Povoledo) In urging the Italian electorate to boycott the referendum on repeallinig Italy's near-ban on fertility treatments, Pope Ratzinger has clearly staked out the position of the Roman Catholic Church amngst the religious yahoos of our time -- including the USA Bushies, and Islamic (but I think, not Jewish) literalists. First of all, the electoral participation required to make the results of a referndum binding, should not be 50%, but rather, the percentage of the electorate which parcipated in the previous election of the legislature. Second, there is a gross and simplistic sentimentality in personifying an embryo. On the other hand, nowadays many prosperous women wish to have children, though not necessarily a husband, as a sort of fashion accessory. In Hollywood its quite the thing for the prosperous lady star who has had severl mansions and husbands. It is tempting but simplistic to say that procreation is and should entirely remain in the hands of heaven But of course it is deemed not merely the right but the obligation of man to intervene in other bodily functions, notably illness. The ethics of Judaism are ostensibly drawn exclusively from the Bible. I do no know where Catholicism gets it guidance, nor how great a role it allows the Bible. Christians, at least the evangelicals amongs them, are continually drawing from are Bible apparent prophecies of the events in theirs. There assumption seems to be -- since we (Jews) take the Old Testamanet literally, even though they don't, then if they can show that our Bible prohecied the events in their Bible, then we must agree that the events in their bible are true. But if course we do to take our Neviim as necessarily ispired, nor as authoratative. And as for pedicting the future, we regard that as the least important of their functions. They were primarily politial nd social commentators. If I recall, it was hescel who made that point. In the Bible, women often overcome infertility by the intervention of heaven. Sometimes, as with Samuel, the child is then pledged to the service of heaven, as a priet. As for fertility treatments, there is the ironic story of Rachel and Leah. Rachel is beautiful, apprently slender, but seems to be barren. Leah is clearly unattractive -- the bible says only, weak eyes, Graves says she was called 'cow-woman'. She seems stocky, and is clearly well-built for having children. One spring day Leah's son Reuven finds mandrakes, believed to enhance fertility. Rachel begs them of him. Leah demands payment. Rachel, who has taken Yakov from Leah, gives him to Leah for one more night. It is Leah who becomes preganant as the result of her son finding the mandrakes; Rachel gets only the mandrakes. -------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- The day cows go up to summer pasture in the Alps is called Cow Up Day It is June 15 This yeaar Cow Up Day was on galuutz Shavuot becase Swiss cows are in galutz from India and so they go up to hear the Torah and everyone knows that the Torah of Cows is alpine flowers. ------------------------------------------------- Ma'ariv is optional. Because the poor man eats while it is still light, and can then fall asleep. One does not normally stay up until the stars come out, especially if one is dwelling inside with no light to spare. -- That is, no oil to burn (and Cf. the USA expression, "money to burn") rather than eat. Especially olive oil, which was maybe the most available then, tho I can't guess. OK, so normally one gets up when it gets light, and goes to bed when it gets darkk. But there are two exceptions -- slichot, in the month of Elul, when one rises shortly before dawn (minhag Sfardi), and the Omer period, when one most convenitently stays up until the stars come out. --------------------------------------------------------------- Poems, preceding JR, Mistress Pizza, change to_ 'fancy man' -------------------------------------------------------------- And Ciel said If I were a grandmother with a granddaughter I would ask any suitor 'Young man, are your intentions honorable?' Meaning, not chastity, but 'Do you intend to show here a good time.' ---------------------------------------------------- =========================================================== REWRITE FROM =pomo0504 from JR*., posted I think Applied Loshon Hora Get por*. Pre-emptory reply to any potential critic: "I can make little of your letter; if you can then write this better." Now for my virtues or my sins I'm exiled from our Holy Land In fifty years ('twas quite a feat) we've covered it over with concrete a thousand cars a minute pass carcinogenic unleaded gas security crooks came quick and 'gyp'd us of our shield of eucalyptus a bungalow steel re-inforced concrete da-da-da a summer oven ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hillonim Reconsidered: Some dum_de_da_dumb whom I have not known is trying to throw me out of my home It seems in brief the wraith* is meaning to use me for his Pesach cleaning. Now what can I save from the wreck of this involuntary Exodus. Notes: *wraith -- Cf. Tolkien's Trilogy -- 'Ring-wraith' -- a being, formerly human, spiritually and ethically eviscerated by power. (Campra, 15 April '05 -- 6 Nisan ) -------------------------------------------------------------- 'Fixing'* Reconsidered: "And if the goyim wear red shoelaces, we wear black." (?Kitzer Shulchan Aruch? (paraphrase)) "Oh Pious Ones"** you've done me wrong so when I'm tempted to a sin _____( conquilles sans Jacques*** or similar stock -- __________or stroganoff is sin enough -- _______________I ought not err so far off course _______________as eat my my pig or dog or horse ____________________though Friday bedtime I just might ____________________flick on and off the potty light _________________________and will continue if you please _________________________to try the Alpine yellow cheese ______________________________I cannot deem it such a crime ______________________________to mix with milk a bovine enzyme ______________________________'tis less than one part under sixty (and even (it may come to that!) from time to time take off my hat) I'll think of you and do it. (Campra 15 April '05 ) Notes: * Fixing -- Tikun -- Cf. Malmud, 'The Fixer' A tikun is the compensation if not rectification of a worldly inustice ** "Oh Pious Ones" -- Rumi, as translated -- "Forgive me, oh pious ones, I am drunk with ecstacy' (quoted from memory) *** Conquilles St. Jacque -- some sort of scallop dish, no doubt fried with herbs and white wine in butter, which I would often see advertised at a restaurant in the Old Town of Rodos, but then, to my regret, resisted. I did once make it for a Jewish young woman whom I was, if not quite courting, sporting; she subsequently married another. ---------------------------------------------------------- Fragments of a Reply: I beg you, thou its rather odd have merce please, upon the Va'ad Vaad has a heart like you or me XXXXXX sundries his old lady's undies whatever he's got it sure ain't pot to throw young mama's on the street it is for Vaads a special treat a Red Alert is heart and thence we throw it over the Rabbi's fence whence to this day the people say 'Cut the Rabbi's grass today.' Listen Comrades and you shall hear -- Just once, we had a read Shomer here maybe somebody's uncle wanted his job and ratted him out for long-gone job Unless that fink hammers nails with his head if he reads Shemoneh Esre on weekdays he's dead. Here's our Gemtleman, and rather a grand one: he tells the truth, but only at random. You've evidently got my goat but I'll fight back, for I'm a poet. and if this is poem then Pope does rap. ? lst Preface, some gather ? Another Email from Rinatya: The night my brother was born my Bavarian Catholic father celbrated by raping me so later I become Jewish like my father's father and also lesbian and after menopause before doing psychotherapy to put him out of my mind I asked a Rabbi must I still obey the commandment to honor my father the drunk. He said, 'No.' -------------------------------------------------- She has long done ill to many but fears not curses of magicians nor of simple folk from whom anger long withheld may burst forth as sigh or cry though she'd be safer to walk blindfold across the Speedway slowly. --------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 16 Jun '05 (Editorial) The Vatican played politics legitimately in exploiting a flaw in Italy's referendum law by calling on the faithful to boycott the vote, because a majority vote in a referendum wins only if a majority of the electorate votes in the referendum. --------------------------------------------------------------- No hablo psychobabble. Not merely do they "wear my heart on my sleeve, for th' 'daws to peck at" (Iago, in Othello), but they play games with it! I can hardly bear feelings while listening to music or reading ficiton at home. ------------------------------------------ shkiya Eclectic Camp shlal seudas I'd maybe talk about it but some rich strong young chap is saying sitting at table eating "I'm always afraid nobody likes me. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Honest George drives up in his Army Surplus Jeep with brand_new lug_tires to drive over boulders stops and writes the Menu du Jour on his Restorante chalkboard. (Campra, 19 Jun '05) ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Thank you for sharing": "I don't wear underwear but tell me how often should I change my socks." Campra, 20 Jun '05 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Honest George shows true colours -- screaming orange colour of the mad. Large pot slops over shorts Honest George goes out to pick greenery to dress a gracious table. He spies a little pine which tries to bend away as he rips off several branches like the necks of his enemies. Campra, 21 Jun '05 ------------------------------------------------------------- A great man is both great and a man; both a public and a private being; and claims upon the private person do not entail claims upon the publc being. Eg, to inherit exclusive rights to his Nachlass as literary executors. For intellectual property is both intellecutal and property. The property aspect may belong to his descendents -- eg, net profits from publication -- the the intellecutal aspect is to the unrestricted community of thinkers -- which for teachings on religious Judaism is 'all Israel'. With regard to the tapes of R. Shlomo Carlebach teachings, this was a ruling of a Bet Din convened, with regard to claims made by his divorced wife, ostensibly on behalf of their children, shortly after his passing, as I heard it from -- I think from BZ. That the physical property of a rabbi belongs to his descendents, but that his teachings belong to all Israel. It was further suggested by the Bet Din that 15% of profits from any publication ought to be voluntarily paid to his -- descendnets, I assume. Some small profits accrued from release of some of his recorded songs. I doubt that significant net profits accrued from publication of his teachings. I further doubt that one could anticipate further profits from any such publication. ------------------------------------------------------------------- In 1803 France sold the entire watershed of the Mississippi to the USA for 3 million dollars. sharon's Gaza giveaway makes that look like shrewd business practice. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Bread and soda-water and a little old mixed salad dressed in salt-water and vinegar 13.50 Can't throw the bread-crusts to the birds Might give them heartburn. (Camperio, 17 Jun '05) ----------------------------------------------------------------- White-haired and darned near toothless My best goof yet Wait till I get back to my 20's and tell all the acidheads. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Got one student and she's not talking to me now. One person in the world who sometimes understands me and she's not talking to me now. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The land you left is empty now just Swiss in it little men and the Rhine flows nowhere now I kept the Castle garden but you did not come to walk it. -------------------------------------------------------------- No more money Oh that's funny Guess it's gone Might be nice to sit at home and eat brown rice. :Pre-Ming Phase of the Moon (17 June '05) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Tandem Attunements: The eagle is flying somewhere. Guess it's time for us to cook supper. (Lugano, 2nd day of Shavuot) --------------------------------------------------------------- Americans remove obstacles; Sufi's transcend them. ---------------------------------------------------------------- "What are you going to do today" Don't know. Have to ask my donkey when he wakes up. :At the Zenith Workcamp, 2005 Sh_HeChIa_Nu --------------------------------------------------------------- The Campers are going for a hike The white mini-van drives to the doorway to take them to go hiking. ----------------------------------------------------------------- He comes to Sunday breakfast at the meditation workcamp dressed in his underpants and a T-shirt artfully depicting a pussy with the motto "What a man Wants". :Courtship of sorts ----------------------------------------------------------------- Type A CEO: "V_NaFSh_I K_'aFaR L_KoL T_HIeH" ("and my soul -- like dust to all, may it be" (Siddur, Amidah, close) Ain't seen nor heard from him in 10 months holding my mark in cold fog and first thing he says is You got a pot_belly. ( Campra, 26 Jun '05 ) ---------------------------------------------------------------- For one who asked me to keep a Camp Journal: She takes a bed in the Men's Dorm and says, don't mind me I'm a grandmother. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Heard from Latifa, 26 Jun '05: PVK called Latifa and left a message on her machine: 'We have a new situation -- I have a cancer: let us discuss modifications in plans.' He called Taj Inayat and said I want to take the Concorde to California and talk with you. She said, Perhaps you should begin a little to let go. ---------------------------------------------------------- "I gave up spirituality." If you find a plateau why keep climbing -- pause and enjoy the scenery. -------------------------------------------------------------- He sees and builds a tidy two-story house. I like Perian miniatures but also middle Kandinsky. Let Holland visit Poland and maybe someday Isreal. (USA? -- passE') ---------------------------------------------------------------- A Calumny: Honest George neurotic gorilla is tidy and when the dust_bin's full he hides his bags of garbage in his Restorante until the trashmen come and go then dumps it in the empty bin to sit there for a week neatly. --------------------------------------------------------------- Three riders on horses that poop in the parking lot reach our alp. The riders walk past the horsecrap maybe waiting for the horse to do it. I shovel it up lest Honest George wait a week with that pained expression of an ill-served aristocrat for someone else to do it. ------------------------------------------------------------- My father made a small new discovery. He said, It might be used to map the stars or it might be used to build new weapons though I hope it is not. ---------------------------------------------------------------- "Would you like to do some extra work?" "I think I've got enough to do." Mazaltov; so do I. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Shabat morning I walk into the staff house singing Shlomo songs. The Preacher says 'You took away the new-made tea: maybe you should see what's going on before you change it.' :Sinuit chanin = personality clash. (Campra, Shabat, 9 July '05 -- 2 taMUZ ) ---------------------------------------------------------------- I cannot turn on my computer on Shabat. Because it is either kindling a fire, or completing a circuit. OK, it is simply not kindling a fire. I derive neither heat nor light from it. Unless I plug in my electric toaster to the UCB port. So ok, can I use the computer if I turned it on before Shabat. I can watch the SuperBowl on Shabat in Zfat if I turned on the TV beforehand. I think that one time happened, but maybe I mistake. I cannot write on Shabat, because that is making a lasting mark. But can't I input text into computer -- I am just moving a few electrons around. What is forbidden -- the action, or the end result. Writing or typing on computer -- the actions are very different, the end result is the same. (Campra, Shabat, 9 July '05 -- 2 taMUZ ) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Can I throw away a few cardboard boxes on Shabat. All the public space of Campra is the courtyard of my home -- though it is not enclosed by walls nor eruv. So maybe I can do it if I want to. Because I can do what I want to on Shabat As_it_is_said (by Mark Twain in Tom Sawyer) "Work consists in what a body is obliged to do, and ?play? [or maybe better: 'not_work'] consists in what a body is not obliged to do. So if someone asks me, can I do it. Better not, because I might be tempted to do so to curry favor. Especially if that person is a boss. And one cannot curry favor on Shabat. But what if I don't want to be bound by such minutiae. So it is my oneg on Shabat, my pleasure, to shlep the ruddy box. But Is this *casting off the yoke of Torah* -- for which I must repent on Yom Kippur -- or merely the rain_soaked__woolen_cloak ("wet blanket" -- USA slang, 1800's) of two millenia of nit_picking rabbonim. Maybe the oral law was revealed on Sinai, but the rabbonim were not. Shlomo did not stay in his house at the Moshav when he sat shiva. He said, all of the Moshav is my home. But the Moshav has an eruv. (Campra, Shabat, 9 July '05 -- 2 taMUZ ) ---------------------------------------------------------------- I walk into my container carrying on Shabat an halachically problematic used cardboard box that knocks over my glass of halachically problematic kiddish Chianti. :Ambigious Omen (subtitle after Klee) (Campra, Shabat, 9 July '05 -- 2 taMUZ ) -------------------------------------------------------------- The in-crowd goes out to walk up the cows and comes back with cow-pies on their boots. They don't tell anyone because then everyone would want to too. (Campra, 9 July '05) -----------------------------------------------------------------ù The lover will give the beloved anything but the freedom to say no. That ain't love, its greed. 'Emotional materialism', to shape a phrase from Chungyam Trumpa, Rimpoche, 's concept 'spiritual materialism.' --------------------------------------------------------------- It is unfair to fault a person for physical disadvantages which they cannot remedy. That entails the unjustifiability of age_ism , sex_ism, and discrimination against the handicapped. Kindly accept my regrets, madam, for pissing next to your tent each night. Unfortunately, our camping space is limited. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The principle behind Godel's proof is that no system is entirely sufficient nor valid. So one must use common sense to hold a proper place on a "slippery slope". That unjustifies the rabbinic principle of "build a fence around the Torah", and the common legal error -- Rehnqist was one of the worst, most catastrophically in aborting the Florida recount in the U.S. 2000 Presidential election, for fear that if the Supreme Cout invalidated it after Gore had been shown to have won, the court might be accused of partisanship and so come into disrepute -- a bit like reporaching a whore for unchastity, except that a whore earns an honest living -- -- as in a recent U.S. Supreme Court unaanimous decision support the claim of the federal government to a right to to prosecute the possession for personal use of home_grown marijuana (thus neither commerece, nor interstate) in order to defend the right of the U.S. Congress to regulate interstate commerce -- and that is Wittgenstein's point, articulate from G.E. Moore's merely pugnacious affirmation of the essentiality of common sense, which Moore must have got from the 'Socttish Common-Sense Philosophers' -- someone at Columbia did a course on those turkeys at Columbia in 1963. A sociologic corrallary of this is that: The sturcture of every group will incorporate certain fallacies, which then manifest as weaknesses in that structure. That's why I take an anti_hierarchical , anti_authoritarian -- anarchist really, albeit more nearly in the sense, clarified by Dorothy Day in the Catholic Worker movement -- and Amnon Hennesey too, and maybe more so, I assume -- of anarcho_pacifist -- and absolutely not in the sense of the Greek anarcho_nihilist -- one can't call it a group, nor a movement, it may be merely a front for facist agents provacatuer -- stance at Zenith Workcamp. Sort of a one-person shadow government, a loyal potential opposition (those are English concepts, though maybe shared by the blue_bellied Welshmen and pinch_penny__porrigide_slurping Scots -- a matter of playing Left-center field, the 10th boy on a 9-man baseball team -- so if a grounder gets past the shortstop, and also past the outfielders, I can run it down and try to throw it back into play as far as I can. --------------------------------------------------------------- His woman once said, 'I'd like to hear you preach.' He said, 'No, this is serious.' Later she left. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Titles for Collected Poetry: Sly Biters Pissing against the Wind (Sly Biters are little dogs that run behind you and then nip at your ankles. I heard that phrase from Roy Lapidus, Baron of Doberdane Estates ) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Wally the Hippopatamus is not master of even his own balls. (afer T.S. Eliot, at a safe distance for both of us ) ------------------------------------------------------------------ I'd sweep the floor but Honest George expanding his empire has locked up broom and dustpan. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Knocked off my high horse: I walk past the Restorante singing oud. Pirate Jenny who cleans the toilets calls out "cock-oo" soft and sharp as she polishes the sink. -------------------------------------------------------------- "How do you support yourself?" "Why do you ask." "I'm curious about your life." I sleep on the ground and eat brown rice. :Rich kid -------------------------------------------------------------- Soup's too sweet lentils too sour but the boiled potatoes are ok and so's the tea. :Young spiritualists ----------------------------------------------------------------- In a land where they have lost the stars and dirtied their own air and sold the silence, they are taking away my concrete home. (Campra, 6 July) Cf. PVK: "a breakdown which may aver itself to be a breakthrough" ------------------------------------------------------------------ Re: The Compleat Idiot's Guide to Talmud, page 211: That one will be taken by Heaven in one's time does not entail that one will not be taken by earth before one's time. It entails only that accidents ain't caused (using 'cause', not in the Hume_ian billard-table tense (Artistotle's 'efficient cause'; but rather, in the sense of Aristotle's 'formal cause' (Plato's 'archetypes') and/or 'final cause' (telos), Whitehead's 'eternal objects', PVK's 'Divine Programming' ) by the will of Heaven, but rather, just by the stupidity of humamnity. The main example of that is the Shoah. Don't look for a divine purpose behind it, it was intentionally contrary to divine purpose, the purpose of the Jewish people was to survive and be "a light unto the nations", not to serve in some perverse heretical sense as a sort of Christian sacrificial lamb - - so the term 'Holocaust' is most inapprropriate. A more common example, is "but for our sins, the Temple was destroyed". Don't read "for our sins" but "from the sins of the goyim". Ok, so our sins played a part -- -- though the sins of Herod the Great Foornicator played a greater part -- -- I mean, the Torah was quite explicit,, build the simplest altar possible, out of earth or uncut field stones -- not some pseudo_Grecian marble monstrosity that will incite the covetous lust of the goyim -- but we could have muddled through as usual; there was no need to burn and raze the darned thing, and then sow salt in the earth. yaaziz@tiscali.co.uk 8 July '05 (Aziz Dikeleous, London SO ), write: "When I am afraid I think of the words that 'nothign can happen without G_d's will' ... and even if my understanding is pitifully inadequate, I accept." But it is wildly unclear what that is intended to mean, especially in this re_use of those quoted words. As it stands, it is mere piety at best, and most likely misleading. for starters, it seems to leave no place for human free weill, nor for the (popularly anthroporphized, in Christianity and (subsequntly, I think) Judaism) notion of 'Meshiach' -- the ntoion that the implementation of Divine Porgramming by humanity -- and PVK conceptually adds, even Divine Programming itself -- is evolving, apparoaching a State of Perfection -- albeit that State as a maybe infinite limit (to take a notion from introductory calculus ) not a finite limit. Jesus remark about Judas is relevant here -- "it needs be that evil come into the world, but unto the man through whom it comes" Too, this is SHEHABUDIN's FALLACY -- mistaking Elo(k)un for Y(K)V(K) -- the personalized phenomenal transcendentally necessary Supreme_Being_of_the_Universe -- of infinite compassion -- Errachman/Errachim -- with the -- contingent, I suppose -- impersonal noumenal Supreme Being of -- to use PVK's terminologic distinction between 'Universe' (the material and non_material realms) and 'Cosmos' 'the Cosmos' (the material realm.) And that, I think, the first two-thirds of the Trinity. Well, maybe that's enough of a morning's work. Aziz makes a similar mistake, in looking for purpose behind the London bombings: there's no imagineable justification, not on any level of reality -- except possibly tactical -- that is, intentionally killing civilians is a military and quasi-military tactic that can be justified if the cause in which they are killed is just. (I'm not comfortable with that; in the good old days, when wars were fought only between soldiers in pretty uniforms, intentionally killing civilians would unequivocally have beena war crime -- although also it occurred in almost all wars, except maybe during the Enlightenment -- I don't recall reading of incicents of it in the U.S. Revolutionary War -- So killing civilians was used a tactic by the Spanish facists at Guernica, but the Nazi's in the London blitz, by the British at Dresden, and by the USA at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And by the USA in Vietnam. And torture was used by the French colonialists in Algeria, quite possibly more as a tactic than to extract information. It is also used, with no reasonable justification in terms of possible intelligence, by the USA in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their associated gulag. ) This point is made in Apocalypse Now -- but put in the mouth of a madman, Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz -- So the London terror bombing is justified if you assume that Divine Truth can be mediated through and only through rigorous Islam -- the re-establishment of a strictly religious Islamic empire. If not, you should have shot the bastards before that did it. Which does not justifying shooting them after they did it. That's merely vengeance, it helps nothing. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "How did you get involved in the Sufi movement?" "I needed a spare religion, and I'd run out of the other ones I'd been trying." :Callow Fellow ------------------------------------------------------------------- "You look as if the sun had gone away." "As a matter of fact it has, but that's another story." You've not even left yet and I'm writing you poems. (Campra, 6 July '05 ) ---------------------------------------------------------------- ANDREAS appears at breakfast looking spiritual as a week-old latka. -------------------------------------------------------------- An Introduction to non-Euclidean Geometry: BERN is so prceise he could be a Swiss watch. He sees me dancing on the edges and says 'What is he doing here?' ---------------------------------------------------------------- Alpine flowers on a cloudy day: Agnieska makes her break quick davka flown to London before anyone can think to say 'Chick, what ARE you doing.' ---------------------------------------------------------------- A self-defensive grey-haried German parks her and pitches her tent where I'd been wont to piss. I try to say I liked to sleep beneath that tree. She points to a patch of dirt and says 'There's still room left.' A good time to take a long walk. (Campra, 3 July '05) ----------------------------------------------------------------- "the horns on that sheep's head, Sir they reached up to the moon; a man went up in February and didn't come down 'till June." (English folk song, "The Derby Ram") This poem has been removed. sa 6 Oct '05 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Al Quaeda is something out of Batman Comics, re_invented by the Bush Administration. A chimera used a front for American Facists. One cannot assume that there will be a fair Presidential election in 2008. ------------------------------------------------------------------ It is simplistic for Roger Cohen to say (IHT 9 July '05) that militant Islamic literalism is anti-modernist. ------------------------------------------------------------------ An IHT editorial (9 July '05) speaks offhandedly of "the way Africa straddles the increasingly fraught divide between Islamic and Christian civilizations." I suppose that is the new ideologic cliche, practically a copy of the simplistic totaliarianism of Orwell's "1984". And 'Christian civilization', from the Crusades to MacDonald's, is a bit of an oyymoron, but so is George Bush Jr. --------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 8 July '05 (Zezima) As an expatriate New Englander and citizen of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I am shocked to hear of the proposed closing of military bases in the region. Who knows when the British may return. The submarine base in Groton has traditionally offered CNVA pacifists free rides at each new launching of a nuke ship. And on Cape Cod, it has long been possible to microwave a chicken on the beach from PAVE PAWS radiation. --------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 8 July '05 (AP) This is a nice example of anti-Israel media bias expressed in the manner of editting an apparently factually accurate story. The first paragraph reads: "Israeli soldiers on Thursday shot and killed and armed 17-year- old Palestinian they said they suspected was preparing to ambush a convoy of Jewish worshippers near Nablus, the army said." Paragaphs 3--9 discuss the Gaza pullout. Paragraph 10, the 2nd_to_last paragraph, reads: "In Nablus, the troops killed the teeneager in the West Bank and severly wouned his friend as a onvoy of Jewish worsippers left the Joseph's Tomb holy site. the army fired on the two, who were armed and on the side of the raod, apparently prepared for an ambush, the army said." In short, the lead paragraph insinuates that the army shot the two without good casue. The pentultimate paragraph, practically buried under a disuccsion of an unrelated topic, indicates that there apparently was good cause. Both paragraphs are apparently based only on the Israeli Army press release, although they are datelined "Nablus, West Bank". --------------------------------------------------------------- Is Mandrake Ginseng? Panaxan. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sent JP via Swisscom In 1803 France sold the entire watershed of the Mississippi River to the USA for 3 million dollars. sharon's Gaza giveaway makes that look like shrewd business practice. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sleep as a reformat of mental X -- when you need a reformat, sleep refreshes? you -- but when that's done, sleep just makes you drowsy -- so this is the secret of what PVK means by 'sleep quick' -- don't take more than you need -- and also maybe the difference between REM and non-REM sleep -- One sleeps when the mind is filled to saturation, as well as when the body is -- ------------------------------------------------------------- A sidewinder snake could walk along the sidewak of the Grande Hotel Splendide in Lugano only sideways because if you can stay at the Grande Hotel Splendide in Lugano you need never walk. (Shavuot, Day 2, '05) -------------------------------------------------------------- Jesus' 'Wedding Shirt' Reconsidered: So ok, I need a bath I'll go look for the lake. But I think a see a servant so I hold out my cup. He pours. My cup is thin it cracks a little of course but I can still drink some. :Before trying to borrow a thunderbolt Notes: Cf. of course the image of 'vessels' in Lurianic kabala (Lugano, Terrace of the Chinese Restaurante, Shavuot, '05) --------------------------------------------------------------- One should not drink until "the sun is over the yardarm." Somewhere on one of the 7 Seas, or rather, the great oceans (for the 7 Seas are those of the Mediterranean) a great sailing ship lies broached, mast lying on the waves. And this is so I can take a brief apertiv, or rather, digestiv, before breakfast. For some of the Zenith cuisine is creative to a fault. --------------------------------------------------------------- LIlO/LIFO W_Verse: Today I got a FAX which is what Very Important People get. I have not opened it yet. I think it is from the holy Va'ad of my holy Moshav saying they will seize and eat all I own unless I give them all my money forever. I have put it in my In-box at the bottom of the pile because it has to wait its turn amd when I have other things to do I will put them in my In-box at the top of the pile. I have a lot to do Heaven be praised. (Campra, 11 July '05 -- 3 taMUZ ) ---------------------------------------------------------------- "To every man there's some appointed Satan. FINGARETTE's demon is trivialization." (sa, ca. 1968) Amalek, like idolatry, is a relative and contextual term. My present Amalek is the Modi'in Va'ad, who to to sueeze out a a few more unearaned thousands of dollars to misspend, would ruin what is amongst the best times of my life with a preoccupation in a no_win situation about which I can do very little and from which I can gain nothing. My present temptation to idolatry is the prevailing attitude toward ZIK, who in the name of continuity -- an essential goal, but one that can only be earned, not assumed -- seems to be taking on all the trappings of spiritual leadership long before he has attained the qualifications. If that is so, then his present writing will be of trivial value, and he is headed for a bad fall, for one who is spiritually ambitious and will not truly humble himself, will be humbled by circumstance. So to indulge him in this, or even to refrain from confronting him on it, is a great , opportunistic, and cowardly unkindness. "The times are out of joint; curse'd be the day that I was born to set them right." (Shakespeare, Hamlet= ---------------------------------------------------------------- The Post Office returns my application for a VISA Credit Card for lack of a 20-cent stamp. -------------------------------------------------------------- A fool "d'une certaine age" builds walls about her limitation. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Strike three: "Will you tell me a story from your life?" Just read the label on the glass museum case. But mind the formaldehyde. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 13 July '05 Somewhere a great sailing ships lies broached upon the 7 Seas, the rising sun shining over her prone yardarm, so that I may have my pre_breakfast apertiv -- or in the case of Zenith cuisine, my post_breakfast digestiv. BRAULIO is quite adequate as, I suppose, the latter. Via Roma 27, Bormio (SO), Italia as_it_is_said (USA 1940's) "Don't drink until the sun is over the yardarm." ---------------------------------------------------------------- Send JP ASAP: Re: IHT 13 July '05, front-page headline and picture To minimize the risk of terrorist attacks on its 9_mile__wide Netanya "waist", Israel should build any necessay security walls wherever necessary, with any necessary checkpoint procedures. Palestinians are disingenuous in claiming that the security wall disrupts their lives. Modern civilization disrupts everyone's life. And most folks do not need to go out every day to watch their olives ripen in the sun. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I try now to do no more than is needed, and as much as is needed. The former is much harder. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Like a child with a dead frog offered like a gift from heaven she quickly brings back to me as an anonymous curse little personal bits of loshon hora. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Americans remove obstacles; Sufis transcend them.. ------------------------------------------------------------------ I see ANDREAS is not here and never really was. (Campra, 13 July '05) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Dialogue en passant: "Hello, Steve -- I had to work today. I was in a very bad mood but now I'm fine. Maybe I escape tonight, I'm not sure. Bye." -------------------------------------------------------------- My Daddy can't come to Camp. My Mommy won't let him for fear he maybe chase the ladies and (which is worse> might get one. So holy is as who' he does and that be the because meditation is the reason my old bull ruts out of season. --------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for continuation of a poem that I've misplaced: "Applied Loshon Hora" ---------------------------------------------------------------- To the yahoo's of the U.S. radical right, children are the revenge of heaven for fornication. That is why they are so anti_abortion. Let not my sister escape the judgement that I have suffered. This is of course primarily the attitude of women. White trash, if not po' white trash. ---------------------------------------------------------------- News Summary 14 July '05: 1) The London bombings were organized by a major faction in a foreign Arab state. The key is the military-grade explosive used; it must have come in by diplomatic pouch. Best guess is the Pakistan Secret Service, which is largely pro-Taliban. To the extent that this case has been solved, and so quickly, it is a new era in crime-solving, due to the all-pervasive surveillance in metropolitan England. Other nations may soon emulate that. 2) Karl Rowe divulged the identity of a CIA agent for petty political revenge. He will soon resign, and be indicted. His defense -- that he did not identify her, because he did not mention her name, only her relation to a named person -- is a new high in legalistic stupidity. Maybe Gonzales planned that strategy. 3) Israel muddles on, though it is not clear in which direction. Sharon lacks a popular mandate, but Tom E. Friedman fantasizes one for him. ----------------------------------------------------------------- This week we bought a new meditation tent made in the USA for ten thousand dollars plus customs and saved 3 SwissFranc a package by feeding the workers El Cheapo Coffee. --------------------------------------------------------------- To be Jewish is to accept an oblitgastion to oppose rather than ignore* nor collaborate with, injustice. * "Thou shalt not stand idlely by the blood of they neighbor." (Bemidbar?) -------------------------------------------------------------- Within the organization of Zenith Workcamp, I play counterpoint -- like a saxaphone is a motet. -------------------------------------------------------------- "About midnight I came back from off the cliff scared and thirsty sand hungry. there was light in your shack but only the computer was awake. So I went to the Staff House to steal food but people were still up there and I did not want to introduce myself under such circumstances." "You should have come in to eat and drink anything. Maybe I grab you say No I say OK and we both go to sleep." "That makes me very angry." "Apologies." Next evening she gets caught in a downpour walks in to warm herself by the electric toaster. I come back with a few plates of food turn on the teapot and her dry socks. The sits on the bed and when I want to sleep I sit on the other half and she talks non-stop. Well, I was quite awkward. Next day I walk out find the socks on my front stoop and toss them in the free box. A friend for seven years. I thought to feed her to Pascal. :No Bread_and_butter__letter__anticipated ---------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 19 July It is illegal to reveal the identity of a covert CIA agent. To reveal the name is to reveal the identity. But an identity can also be revealed by revealing the relationship of the agent to a named entity, if that relationship is unique. 'The wife of King Solomon' is not a unique description. Is it then illegal to reveal the identity of an overt agent. Eg, the CIA Direxctor. It is illegal insofar as that overt agent functions in covert activity, and the overt identity is linked to the covert activity. ------------------------------------------------------------------- On Shabat we abstain from tikun haOlam. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Only a German can turn 'Good Morning' into verbal aggression. ---------------------------------------------------------------- a self-protective novice spirituality manifested as effeminancy. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Shalom. You are Steve. Yes. I am Russian Jewish. I live in Berlin. I have been in Israel. But after the killing of -- what was his name -- Peres ? -- Rabin. -- I do not go there anymore. It was noot a nice thing to do. Yes. It would have been better if he had gone to the USA and we got him a job as a foreman on an automotive assembly line. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Our Peerless Leaders stay a week behind locked doors with half the potties and showers or 10 people in 400 and leave a large black bag of acrid garbage in their kitchen. Sunday 31 July '05 ---------------------------------------------------------------- For the rich, spirituality is just another affect, like a new piece of costume jewelery or a Rolex watch. Something more to which they are entitled and for which they incur no obligation. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sometimes its less trouble to do something than to think about it -- every time you pass by, until someonee else does it. --------------------------------------------------------------- Maybe you put away someone's shoes. She left them by the office and went away a day and next day they are gone. Maybe. if so against the rain maybe. I don't recall but if so, not far and I can find them maybe. No. I only want you to know. She is gone now. Angry. Barefoot? -------------------------------------------------------------- Shabat afternoon rain 6 of sit in cook-tent with the last half-pot of soup. The Cook comes in and says 'There are 400 people at Camp with no soup' and walks out with the last half-pot of soup. 30 July ------------------------------------------------------------- AL comes home from Brighton Beach. Aziz, who is from London but really Sparta says, 'Well done.' 28 July --------------------------------------------------------------- Sent JP 22 July MODEST PROPOSOAL 050722 Until all the details hae been worked out by negotiation, Israel should delay Sharon's prmoised withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. With good faith on both sides, an orderly handover should be possible in a year or two. --------------------------------------------------------------- Feels like rain from the north. Outside our office the Secretary files sit in a metal box for 3 days facing north. I ask the boss can I put it back inside your office. He says It's her headache. erev Shabat 22 July '05 --------------------------------------------------------------- 'Turn off the light, people are sleeping here.' "They should not sleep here." 'Of course they should. It's warm and dry.' "The boss told me they should not sleep here. Ever." :Natural and artifical authority --------------------------------------------------------------- "You have an an American twang -- are you part of the Sufi Camp?" 'Yep.' "You look as if you could fit in." :It's the colour__co_ordinated beige trousers. --------------------------------------------------------------- sailing in the mist feel like I know my direction maybe but don't know where I'm going. Don't know my landmarks. Maybe I'll know them when I see them. --------------------------------------------------------------- Running with the wind when they should be tacking. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Wheelchair people on an outing come to the Restorante. I move a 4-chair table to faciliate access. Honest George comes out evaluates the situation lets them in and then moves the table back in place. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Blone Larry: "The only rule is there are no rules, and to live here costs all you've got." PVK made one rule (no drugs) and said he would never make another rule. "To live here costs all you've got" -- this is the Shma -- v_ha_kol moed_echa And the Shma entails the obligation of tzdaka. -------------------------------------------------------------- Gemilut Hasidut -- Dialog with a CEO: We need a free loan fund. 'Why?' So rich people can give to it. 'They already can give to the Calcutta cripples and feel good.' But also for our local poor. 'Poor can't pay back. So our poor will feel guilty.' I'd rather feel guilty than cold and scared and hungry. 'That's quite unlike you. ' --------------------------------------------------------------- To JP, Sent Ahron in old age is a once-great soldier who now runs under fire, and who yields land to curry favor of an alien Empire. --------------------------------------------------------------- Until marriage, a young woman should have only lesbian relationships. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Suria Less: You must follow the rules, even if they are somewhat stupid. Because the light needs vessels, even if better vessels might have been designed. And vessels, human social organizations, are built through rules. First the organization can be built. Then you can start filling that vessel with light. And may e somewhat modify the vessel to hold more light. -------------------------------------------------------------- PVK: "In a battle of egos, the" -- man of faith -- Kierkegaard -- "will (usually -- sa ) lose" because he avoids Guidance. --------------------------------------------------------------- Remedies for Manic Depression: For acute agitation, a six-pack of beer, any brand. For chronic agitation which has reached the pint of incapitating dithering -- "Dutch courage" -- fresh-ground coffee beans, any band, brewed filter . ----------------------------------------------------------------- Why should Sufi's not give advice -- because advice is given in reaction to the text, but you do not learn the subtexts -- nor even does the person saying them. So the text is doxa, opinion, and only the sum of all the subtexts, all the overtones, is nous. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 3 blind mice around the laptop trying to get into Internet asking advice of only each other. ---------------------------------------------------------------- At about 10:30 as i'm walking to may SHACK to make havdalah she asks for a glass of wine and hands me a crisis that must wait until and can keep me awake all night saying, 'I just wanted to share this with you because you have been so concerned.' Notes: Cf. a story by PVK: His mid-day nap was interrupted by a woman crying in front of his tent. She said, 'I jusst wanted to get your attention.' His comment was, 'Thanks a lot.' ----------------------------------------------------------------- Surely Hope Hopenstal was born to be a gambler, as_it_is_said, "Unlucky in love, lucky at cards." For although she readily attracted men, she was unable to hold one. It was as if somewhere it was written, "Abandon Hope, all ye who enter her." ------------------------------------------------------------------ An Interfaith Dialogue: A salaam. My name is Stephen. Oh, and if I stone you will you say, I see the heavens opening up before me? [ Well actually, I'd be more likely to unfold an Uzi. ] (Zenith, ca. 1996 ) ------------------------------------------------------------------- In Aqila I sit on on a crate at the bus stop and watch the holy people drive by. Do they think I'm counting the chickens? ( 12 Aug '05 ) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Dialogue with our Zurich Leader: This van is Mike who built Zenith. "Great." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sent JP 14 Aug '05 -- Tesha b'Av The ostensibly non_religious politicians who run Israel's semi_democracy show great religious sensibility, albeit on the side of the devil. They brough us Oslo in the Days of Judgement, and now exile the Jewish people from 'Aza precisely at midnight after Tesha b'Av. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Sent JP ca. 12 Aug '05 THE FIRST GENERAL TO LOSE TERRITORY: Sharon should shoot himself. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Showers poem: & semi-private potty too to poo-poo do in solitude ----------------------------------------------------------------- At the Office: The Secretary sits on her paramour's lap, I walk in to xerox and the CEO says, "Why do you have to do this today -- a lot of people work here today." Sunday 14 Aug '05 -- Tesha b'AV ---------------------------------------------------------------- The Cook locks up the water. The Secretary locks an old man out of potty_closet. ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 17 Aug '05 (Savage) Robers and Rehnquist were quite right: The constitutional law stateing that "Congress shall make no law ... respecting religion" does not entail a prohibition against a moment of silence -- nor, for that mattter, silent or even vocal prayer of any sort -- in public schools. Jewish and Islamic religion, unlike Christianity, requires daily prayer, and (also unlike Christinaity) requires that specified portions of those prayers be said aloud. So a prohibiztion of prayer in public schools would violate the religious freedom of non_Christians. On that interprettion, a constitutional ammendment intended to safeguard the right to practice the religion of one's choice, would have ended up violating that right for one class of persons (students deemed adult by their religion, but deemed minors relative to compulsory public education) at certain times (the times of required prayer during the times of compulsory education, ie weekdays), and moreover would have done so in a manner discriminatory against serveral minority religions (Judaism and Islam) of the (majority Christian) nation. That would be a reductio ad absurdum of the intent of this constiutional ammendment, and hence cannot be a correct intrepretation of its implications. The same article notes that Robers was critical of a federal ruling that paying secretaries less than truck drivers was discriminatory. The federal judge had ruled that each produced the same "worth" of work. Well yes, and neurosurgeons are essentially doing the same thing as tailors. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 17 Aug '05 -- (Zev Chafets) Mazaltov, so finally its out. Chafets notes that on 12 Aug '05 Sharon told Yehidot Aharonot: "I've reached a eal with the Americans. I prefer a deal with the Ameircans to a deal with the Arabs." Mazaltov. The deal is that Sharon pulls Israel out of Gaza and then gets to keep the heavily settled areas of the West Bank. Mazaltov. Except that Israel is an independent nation, not a vassal to the USA. Any anyhow, Sharon's 'Americans' boil down to George Bush, Jr., who is a cross between a lame duck and a minature gelded turkey, with less backbone than a small squid. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hands-on Foreperson: Our burnt-out Administrative Secretary lies in her little room with an electric heater a semi-private potty and this summer's Prince Consort overlooking the cement cesspool and only comes out to boss the Workers. She says, "Last Fall for our farewell House-Cleaning I had to 'kick ass'." --------------------------------------------------------------- Fragment (after a chance remark by the portagoniste): the holy lamb who toils away the sins of man upon her back ------------------------------------------------------------ German Courtesy in the Kitchen on a Sunny Morning: "Good morning, Steve." "I already said Good Morning. He's looking for my umbrulla." ------------------------------------------------------------- Bivouac on a relative maqam: She thinks she has finally found someone dumber that herself. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sent JP, Printed Carolyn Glick writes (Column One) "The global jihad ... is rooted not in terorism, but in culture and religion." No; it is rooted in fatalistic nihilims, which is an opposite of both culture and religion. And to "expose and destroy the cultural base" would itself be nihilistic. 7 Aug -- 2 Av -- Incidentally, it appears that those of my letters which the JP printed can be located by using the JP Search on www.jpost.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- Space Cadet flying on burnout Bound to get somewhere but can't steer much. I tell him, 'She's your woman for now so take her somewhere maybe sunny Italy.' He says, 'You tell her.' (Campra, 9 Aug '05 -- Nagasaki Day ) ---------------------------------------------------------------- sa, Campra, 19 Aug '05 -- 14 Av -- 13 Rajab Warm quiet night, light clouds =================================================================