unreasonable.org

I have no interest in seeing the new Transformers movie, but this made me laugh out loud:

Since the days of Un Chien Andalou and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, filmmakers have reached beyond meaning. But with this summer's biggest, loudest movie, Michael Bay takes us all the way inside Caligari's cabinet. And once you enter, you can never emerge again. I saw this movie two days ago, and I'm still living inside it. Things are exploding wherever I look, household appliances are trying to kill me, and bizarre racial stereotypes are shouting at me.

Transformers: ROTF has mostly gotten pretty hideous reviews, but that's because people don't understand that this isn't a movie, in the conventional sense. It's an assault on the senses, a barrage of crazy imagery. Imagine that you went back in time to the late 1960s and found Terry Gilliam, fresh from doing his weird low-fi collage/animations for Monty Python. You proceeded to inject Gilliam with so many steroids his penis shrank to the size of a hair follicle, and you smushed a dozen tabs of LSD under his tongue. And then you gave him the GDP of a few sub-Saharan countries. Gilliam might have made a movie not unlike this one.

Just in case you thought you were caught up in the patriotic fervor around July 4th and thought you lived in a free country, this will bring you back to reality: Robert Zicari and his wife, Janet Romano, have been each sentenced to one year and one day in prison on federal charges of conspiracy to distribute "obscene" material through the mail and over the Internet.

Yes, the government of the land of the free and the home of the brave is so scared that somebody might look at dirty pictures, that they are forcing people into cages at gunpoint over the issue. As U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said, "These prison sentences affirm the need to continue to protect the public from obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy material, the production of which degrades all of us." I was quite worried that next time I went to the Royal Farms store the porn was going to jump off the shelf and attack me and leave me "degraded", but I feel safer now knowing that the federal government is going to protect me from filthy material.

Juxtaposing the fact that you can get locked up for selling naughty pictures with the fact that no one has been brought up on charges for the torture of detainees in Gitmo, is left as an exercise for the depressed reader.

Thought for the day: when dealing with philosophy or spirituality, you have to keep your operational levels straight. It is true, as every spiritual teacher will confirm, that on the deepest level you and I are the same, we are one; but if I go into a bank and say that I'm you, we call that identity theft.

There's a famous Zen story:

Hogen, a Chinese Zen teacher, lived alone in a small temple in the country. One day four traveling monks appeared and asked if they might make a fire in his yard to warm themselves.

While they were building the fire, Hogen heard them arguing about subjectivity and objectivity. He joined them and said: "There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your mind?"

One of the monks replied: "From the Buddhist viewpoint everything is an objectification of mind, so I would say that the stone is inside my mind."

"Your head must feel very heavy," observed Hogen, "if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind."

(Do you suppose a proper Zen answer would have been to go pick up the stone, bring it over, drop it on Hogen's foot, and then ask him if the stone was inside or outside of mind?)

See where teaching kids to trust Officer Friendly ends up? Maryland Transit Administration police officer Donald Brown has been charged with kidnapping and raping a 15-year-old girl who asked him for help after she got lost on the light rail.

From the Yin Chih Wen, or The Tract of the Quiet Way:

Hsieh Wen-Ching says: "The reason why a man has thousands of troubles is because he clings to the idea of self: therefore, he schemes and contrives in ten thousand different ways. He alone wants to be rich, he alone wants to be honored, he alone wants to be easy, he alone wants to be happy, he alone wants to enjoy life, he alone wants to be blessed with longevity; and to others' poverty, misery, danger, or suffering, he is altogether indifferent. It is for this reason that the life-will of others is disregarded and Heaven's Reason neglected. Only be cured of the disease of egotism, and your heart will be broadened even to the vastness of infinite space, so that wealth, honor, happiness, comfort, health, longevity could all be enjoyed with others. And, then, the will to live will have its way, everything will have its natural longings satisfied, and Heaven's Reason will be displayed in an untold exuberance.

Hello friends! Festival season is upon us. I'm about to head off to the Free Spirit Gathering, where I will be hosting the Bardic Circle and leading a "money washing" prosperity ritual. The latter is based around something I saw at a Shinto shrine the last time I was in Japan.

In July I'll be headed for the Starwood festival, where I'll be presenting the following workshops:

Feeling Good with Acupressure and Shiatsu

Shiatsu (Japanese for "finger pressure") and acupressure are forms of Asian Bodywork Therapy, which use pressure and stretching to relieve pain and stress. According to the theories of Chinese medicine, these techniques help balance the flow of qi, or vital energy, in the body. We will discuss and practice the use of acupressure points for physical, emotional, and spiritual balancing, and also learn a simple self-shiatsu routine. If time permits we will also do some partner work. Please bring a mat or towel to lie on for stretching.

Poets and Pagans

A recent Department of Defense anti-terrorism training document, asks readers to pick from a list of activities, "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?" The possible answers: "Attacking the Pentagon", "IEDs", "Hate crimes against racial groups", and "Protests".

The "correct" answer, according to the DoD? Protests.

Yes, folks, according to the U.S. government, wars of aggression are fine, torture is fine, "preventative detention" is fine, but peaceably assembling to petition the government for a redress of your grievances about all this is terrorism.

The ACLU is on the case. Good reminder to send them a little donation.

This is something I wrote up back in 2001, during some intense on-line discussion of the nature of the fire circle at FSG. An edited version appeared in the program guide for several years. If you'd like to borrow it for your event, please feel free so long as attribution is maintained.

The Magick of Large Fire Circles
by Tom Swiss

Fire. Drumming. Dancing. All are older than history, older than modern Homo sapiens. Putting them together is probably one of our oldest magickal activities.

You may have held fire circles in your own coven, circle, or grove. However, the large circles held at gatherings -- bringing together scores, even hundreds, of people of many different paths and traditions -- require a bit of extra thought and consideration for everything to go smoothly. Please consider the following guidelines for participating in large fire
circles.

The Fire Circle Triangle: Physically, fire requires a triangle of elements -- oxygen, fuel, and heat -- to burn. Fire circles also rely on three elements: fire tenders, drummers, and dancers.

Fire tenders start the fire and keep it fed, and are responsible for fire safety. They often have to maneuver through the circle carrying heavy bits of wood. Give them the right of way and much love, for without them the circle is cold.

Drummers (and chanters, and other makers of joyful noise) take the heat and light of the fire and turn it into sound that reaches our hearts. Do not block them from the fire's warmth, and give them space and much love, for without them the circle is silent.

Dancers take the energy of the fire and the drums and transmute it into motion that moves our spirits. Do not crowd them into the fire, or block their path around it. Give them space in which to move and much love, for without them the circle is still.

Fourteen-year-old Gerrit Blank was on his way to school in Essen, Germany, when he saw a "ball of light" in the sky heading his way. Moments later he was struck on the hand by a pea-sized meteorite which left a three-inch scar; the sound (a sonic boom, I suppose) temporarily deafened him.

Once, there was a young man who wanted a sports car.

His parents objected. "Its engine is too powerful. It will make you a danger to others and to yourself."

But the young man was clever, and knew more than a little about cars. "Mother and father, you are correct that this car's powerful engine makes it a danger. Therefore, I promise to make that engine smaller!"

So his parents assented. They watched for days as the young man removed pieces from the engine, leaving a pile of metal in the garage. They were impressed when he showed that he had reduced the weight of the engine by a sizable amount. So they granted their blessing for him to reassemble the car and drive it.

The young man installed the shrunken engine back in the car, and promptly tore off at high speed, running down six pedestrians before wrapping his car around a telephone pole.

It turned out that his idea of making the engine "smaller" had been to remove every limiter, governor, and regulator, all to make it more powerful.

There's a sort of so-called "libertarian capitalist" or "anarcho-capitalist" political theory that you often hear that talks about "smaller government", or even about eliminating government all together.

But you'll note that they never talk about eliminating government-issued land deeds, or government-issued corporate charters, or government-issued copyrights and patents. They're quite happy to have government force around to evict tenants who fall behind on rent, or to quell unruly laborers. They are generally property-centric, and ignore the fact that, beyond the natural use of own's own home and tools and toys, property is a product of government.