Author Archives: jakestreet

Tea Baggers Zero/ Jersey Goombas One

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The election results are in! The votes have been counted. The message is clear. If the Republicans have any chance of staying in the next Presidential election they have to stick with candidates that can grease the competition rather than deny them oral sex and sodomy. Better to stick with a guy who can deliver the goods than a pansy who is lousy in bed and frightened of vaginas. Weight was clearly not a factor here, nor was any serious look at voting records that should be of more import. Instead the United States of New Jersey reelected their stately Monarch, the Godfather of Trenton, Chris Christie. The man with a name so nice they named him twice!

Ken Cuccinelli (know as “The Cooch” to his minions; how ironic) bit on the big one in Virginia. Didn’t matter that Virginia is for lovers his campaign was out to deflower the state right out of Bacchanalian debauchery and take us back to the time of Leviticus. Even Ayn Rand Paul campaigning for him did not help his anti anal endeavors. Despite his name ending in a vowel he was simply not the type to get it done when it counted. His flaccid campaign simply petered out and never came. The tea baggers had no imagination to stiffen him up and thrust him into the Governorship. Even with his outspoken hatred of all things Obama; he was thwarted by a prophylactic Democrat. All hail Governor Terry McAulliffe the new sultan of swing in Virginia. Maybe now the state can be for lovers again! Vaginal, Oral or Anal it’s a triple threat!

Let that be a hard lesson to all the ancient thinking Republicans who want a shot at being the next President. You can give us all the dope we can smoke but sometimes we just, depending on your persuasion of course, want to smoke the sausage, pin the tail on the donkey and rub one out for the Gipper! “If a man lay with another he must be stoned” it says in Leviticus. Damn straight and it better be some good herb. So keep the damn government out of the bedroom. Start doing some actual work in Washington. Save the Earth and stop wasting our time with arguing. Leave your stupid religion and outrageous moral demands at home and face reality before there is no Earth left to leave to our children.

“There is more stupidity than Hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.” — Frank Zappa

“I don’t believe in dressing up reality. I don’t believe in using make up to make things look smoother.” — Lou Reed

“Two Rock and Roll Icons. These are the true moral men of our time who both passed away too soon.” — Jake Shween

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Departure (Burning Man 7)

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He slowly stood. The water was eerily calm again. Makara was magnificent and deadly terrifying at the same time. He looked into the large reptilian eyes and was frozen. In slow motion, like that of a long forgotten dream, the creature’s mouth came down around the solitary figure. Gently the crocodilian mouth enveloped Billy’s body. As a mother croc would pick up her young, he was lifted unharmed into the air. Makara tossed her head back and swallowed him whole.

All was dark. He felt a solid surface beneath him. The air was lightly perfumed with the smell of flowers. He was unafraid. It was very silent. A glow began to appear before him. How far away it was he could not tell. Space and time had become irrelevant. A sound. Yes he distinctly heard a sound. It was the same tune he had hummed to himself on the beach but he wasn’t humming. The glow grew brighter. He walked in the direction of the ethereal. Soon he could make out dancing flames. The flames took on the rhythm of the tune. The closer he got the brighter the fire rose. There was no crackling noise, just the hypnotic, methodical melody.

He was baffled at first but the closer he got he began to understand. Knowledge, hidden knowledge flowed into him. The fire resembled the colors of his opaline amulet. With every color of the rainbow the flames danced a macabre ghost dance. Sparks he noticed now. Millions of sparks swirled around the tips of the flames and disappeared into an infinite ceiling of night like so many stars of the outback where he had grown up. He stood entranced almost in rapture at this gift of light in the vast darkness.

Something touched him on the shoulder. He shivered in surprise. It was Eingana. The music emanated from her very being. Her body glowed with life in the darkness.

“Well done Billy there are only a handful from creation who have made it this far in mortal form.”

“Eingana what is this place?”

“It is a place you won’t remember but also a place you’ll never forget. The flame you see is the beginning and end. Some call it the Qabalah. The sparks that dance are the souls of all that is living and all that ever has lived. Some will return to a form of life on Earth. Others will pass beyond the realm never to return.”

“Which ones return?”

Eingana laughed. “Billy you indeed ask the right question. The harmful souls will not return. The noble souls can choose to return. They may live again on Earth as the Universe decides their place.Those that are beneficent to living things around them are the right and noble souls. You have a choice now.”

“Eingana there is no choice but to return.”

“Yes but that’s the riddle. Even I cannot foresee where you will be, who you will be or what you will be if you return. Neither will you remember this place except at moments when you feel the most uncertain, even then not directly. At those troubled and confusing times the Universe will guide you in the ways of life and preserving life.”

“Eingana I choose life.”

“Of that I was always certain.” Eingana smiled and raise her silken arms above her head. The vision disappeared. All was dark.

Far away a man laid on his death bed. He was 103 years of age. He breathed deeply and looked at his grand surroundings. He was wealthy beyond measure. He had more possessions than any man could possibly use. Ruthlessly he had obtained this wealth and now it brought him no comfort other than his bed which even now felt like a prison. His body was worn out, his memories not a comfort. He reminisced of a time when he was a young man in Australia out among the bush. His Land Rover had stopped at a billabong. An indigenous Australian man was getting water. Beside him stood a young, nearly naked boy. His ribs were sticking out. He looked intently at the boy. Their eyes met. Billy turned away and grabbed his uncle by the leg. The old man was haunted by that boy as he lay in his bed. He could not get the image of him out of his mind. He took his last breath and died.

A red spark hurtled through space. It rushed through the firmament. It headed straight for a star. As it zoomed through space it passed a green spark that had been emitted from the second planet orbiting the same star. A green spark headed directly towards earth. A green spark full of consciousness and the essence of life itself.

Roy jerked suddenly in the waters of the Gulf. He had been falling in a dream. Thankfully he had not let go of the log he clung to. He looked up and saw the Coast Guard boat approaching.

CGC Heron (WPB 87344)

“Do the difficult things while they are easy, do the great things while they are small. The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Wanted: Independent Leaders for the Republican Party

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The Republican party of the United States is in dire need of a complete overhaul. Somehow they have gone seriously off course. By pandering to the far right of extremism and embracing such monolithic mouthpieces as Limbaugh, Trump and Fox News the party has become lost in a morass of discord and hatred. At least Mitt Romney had the tact to admit defeat graciously in spite of the fact that he led a devious campaign filled with distortions of reality. Now Fox News has the crazy people in their glorious team of social miscreants accusing the other side of playing dirty to win the election! Of course the blow hard Trump and Limbaugh are quick to join in this cacophony of blithering idiocy. Whoa to the Republican party if it continues to let these mental midgets define who they are!

The Republican party is in dire need of some person to step above this fray. Someone with the will and fortitude to stand up to and put to rest this creed of lobbyist Grover Norquist. A free thinker who can put the former Scranton weatherman Bill O’Reilly in his place when O’Reilly suggests that the Republican party failed because the majority of people in The United States of America have declining moral values. Stop making excuses that have no basis in reality! The American people are wising up to the Republicans distortions of reality and very bad math. Put forth a free thinker who without condescension can tell the truth to America and argue for a wiser form of government. If not the Republican party will continue to disintegrate into a party that relies on hatred, lies, distortions and name calling if they have any hope of further deceiving the general population and that is not a path to lasting success.

Unfortunately for now there seems to be no such person on the horizon for the Republicans. Any rising star they have quickly becomes part of the military industrial complex and puts on the jack boots of their party members. Even the so called mavericks of the party have been stilted. The tea party has turned into the fossil fuel party. Maybe a camping trip to Greenland in the summer time is in order to prove to the last of the nay sayers that carbon dioxide is indeed heating the atmosphere and something needs to be done quickly and completely to avert worse disaster. Republicans need to embrace science and stop pretending it is something made up to bewilder them and call their faith into question. The sooner the party realizes that it can’t bully its way out of every problem the sooner they might produce a capable and courageous candidate who will not only earn the respect of the American people they will deserve it.

“Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.” — George Will

“I have a very large Twitter.” — Donald Trump

“The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them.” — Rush Limbaugh

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Note: This was originally posted on November 7th 2012. It seems particularly relevant today as the Nation came precariously close to defaulting on its’ loans due to some delusional Republicans who had forgotten who won the Presidency. The message is the same.

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Art Brings Us Close to the Eternal

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Just when humanity brings you down once again and you are at the edge of a cliff staring at the abyss; The storm has overtaken you and there seems to be no way out; Your most beloved has departed suddenly and for no rational reason; A work of art may pierce your soul. Art redeems the purpose of your existence. Art resuscitates you. The breath of inspiration fills you once again.

Art is what differentiates us from the animals. Its’ very existence is unique to the human experience. Art makes us laugh and dream. Art has the power to make us cry and then inspire us to create. It can transport us and give us hope. When the world has gone mad we can find solace in it. We can escape into a painting perhaps. Lose our breath at the sight of a sculpture. Close our eyes and hear the sounds of heaven with songs that seem to come from the angels themselves. We might very well read ourselves into a fantastic saga of trial and redemption.

Art lifts our spirits bringing us close to the eternal. It is no small wonder that many of the worlds religions have directly inspired our most wondrous and precious art. In these days of great confusion and delusion let us remember the artists. Let each one honor the artist in themselves to lift us out of our darkness or if more tribulations are necessary to turn them into an appreciation of our shared humanity and wondrous diversity.

“The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It’s people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages”— Banksy

“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”— Banksy

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Google This; Be Wary of the Machine

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In this day and age of Facebook and Google we tend to easily lose ourselves in a barrage of endless information. Caught up in being part of what we regard as “the Pack” we tend to engage ourselves by participating in an electronic reality where it is dangerously easy to become lost in a morass of sometimes meaningless data. Not only can this become a predictable way to express our own identity it can also quash our sense of individual worth. Some of us end up believing that we need to emulate the people we see on reality television to succeed or even the boobs on you tube doing various and assorted ridiculous stunts to draw attention to themselves in hopes of creating a “viral video”. The younger generation seems particularly vulnerable and decidedly numb to this type of exploitation.  Unfortunately the very same tools which can bring about so much potential convenience are the very same ones that can bring about a bridge of no return.

Not only are we being exploited on reality television we are also being exploited by what has become to be known as “Big Data”. As the use of electronic devices become necessary for our very existence in this highly competitive and technologically oriented world it is nearly impossible to “go off the grid”. Thus we are exposed to being tracked and marketed in every sense. Every website we go to, every store we make a purchase at, the types of products we use are tracked even our movements in retail outlets are recorded for future use. Our friends are tracked as well, the products they use, our interests, their interests — all of this information becomes valuable marketing data which is bought and sold like so many sacks of potatoes. Our privacy is gone. Today as this article was updated from a previous post the New York Times reports that Google is under investigation for illegally gathering data by scanning email from people using its “free” Gmail services. This includes an estimated half billion people worldwide.

The time has truly come to fruition were the marketers can now predict our behavior to a frighteningly large degree. Why is this new method of marketing so frightening? Simply because we are now considered commodities — as opposed to being individuals with unique thoughts and needs — we have now become the property of “Big Data” and are under their control with customized advertising geared to tell us what we need before we even know it ourselves. The ancient Chinese proverb says: “May you live in interesting times”. Well indeed we are and let’s keep up our vigilance to not lose our identity or our children’s identity in a pile of “Big Data” sponsored by your friendly neighborhood Google and Facebook where we voluntarily “feed the machine”.

1871-Samuel_Clemens.jpg

“America’s Facebook generation shows a submission to standardization that I haven’t seen before. The American adventure has always been about people forgetting their former selves. Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac went on the road. If they had a Facebook page they wouldn’t have been able to forget their former selves.” — Jaron Lanier

“All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.” — Marshall McLuhan

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Offer Solutions; We Know There’s A Problem

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What can be done about so much hate and criticism all over the media these days? Its’ presence is pervasive in every form of media and certainly in the increasingly ridiculous realm of politics. People are freely sharing their hatred of one thing or another because they can do so in a fashion that appears to be anonymous. Nothing constructive comes out of any of this bullying and spewing of venom. Feel free to disagree with other people’s opinions but please note that bitterly sharing insult and vitriol is not the way solutions for a better way of doing things comes about.

We need to start respecting each others opinions and sharing our human experience and diversity. It is the politicians job to mitigate this communication and turn it into something constructive. Most need to rise above their chosen profession of law as this by its’ very nature coldly removes itself from a certain level of humanity. We need politicians who actually listen to the people the have been elected to serve as opposed to serving their own special interests and egotistical aspirations. It’s time to elevate the level of communication in the four estates of American Government; not to debase it into the name calling playground confrontation it has become.

Furthermore if we can remove the influences of big money from politics we will actually empower the individual! It’s absolutely amazing how many privately funded political interest groups use advertising and media influences to suggest quite the opposite is true. In reality, when the motivations are revealed, it’s not hard to tell the difference between the good and the bad guys. No rose colored glasses required simply a good measure of common sense. Corporations are not people nor do they behave altruistically. The Supreme Court has done our country a great injustice in upholding their rights as individual entities. Remember as well: Politicians serve the People; not the other way around!

“The more you can increase the fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.” — Noam Chomsky

“Liberals are concerned about the concentration of wealth because it inevitably leads to a concentration of power that undermines democracy.” — Robert B. Reich

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/noamchomsk166977.html#cDHWZldj6QGEAGO7.99
The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/noamchomsk166977.html#cDHWZldj6QGEAGO7.99
The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/noamchomsk166977.html#cDHWZldj6QGEAGO7.99

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Guns, Nuts and Government Ruts

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Maybe in a thousand years or so Americans will finally figure out that having a lot of guns laying around is bound to increase the probability that someone will be shot. Seems rather obvious when you think about it doesn’t it? When there is a lot of jellyfish in the ocean you likely will get stung if you go in the water. If there’s poison ivy all over the place outside you might very well step in it. The more there is of it around the greater the chance of contact. Wasps flying everywhere increases the possibility of getting stung; you get the picture now don’t you? Why are there so many people in denial of such an obvious logical conclusion? It’s hard to believe that people are just that stupid!

Speaking of nuts we need to heal our relationship with Iran while the door is opening. Never mind that they aren’t all clones of us. Forget the xenophobia you learned from the haters. The majority of Iranian people like the same things that we do: Video games, fast cars, rock & roll and movies with a little bit of hooch on the side. Their new president, Hasan Rouhani seems to be willing to negotiate and talk in a level headed manner we have not seen for many years. Let’s hear him out! Soon he will be addressing the United Nations and we need to listen carefully. Have you ever seen a pistachio nut from Iran!? They are as big as your thumb! Nowhere in the world are they as large and tasty. We need to lift trade sanctions and restore these bombs of nutrition to our tables as soon as possible!

 

Which brings us to the same old bombastic bologna happening in Congress. Once again the Republican stooges are threatening to shut down the government and not pay America’s debts if the Affordable Health Care act gets any funding in the new budget. Rush Limbaugh is calling for a “complete repeal and to start from scratch”. How about instead of that we have a complete repeal of Congress and start from scratch! The American people are overdue for leaders that will represent them and not the insurance companies, multinational corporations (big oil) and Wall Street bankers. The tea baggers have quickly outworn their welcome and proven that they are nothing more than corporate shills. It’s time we put the needs of the many above those of the privileged few.

Limbaugh Bloviating (see above)

“The miracle is this: The more we share the more we have.” — Leonard Nimoy

“Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Tea Party Nationalism & The Fourth Reich

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Welcome to the new tea party. Come on in and join the fracas. “Don’t tread on me” is our new slogan. Here we share our love of hatred. Never mind that we consider ourselves religious. Maybe we just like to burn our crosses to show their importance in our lives. Immigration reform you say? Never, not on our watch! We don’t want any new people here competing for our jobs. No surprise what party we have aligned ourselves with. The right, the right the ever illuminated right, the GOP the grand old party spread the hate and laugh real haughty. We don’t just make history we invent it! Science and education are for the birds, all we need is ammunition and propaganda to extoll the virtues of our isolationism.

Never you mind that none, that’s right none of us came from the Americas. It’s our land now and we don’t need no one else. Those damned Indians were just red devils anyway. Check your Bible it’s in the book of Cruz chapter 4 verse 20. We’re closing the doors on that god dammed diversity. It’s scary! We don’t like strangers taking our land unless its the oil company come to frack us all to our Honey Boo Boo heaven. We just like people who align themselves with our own close mindedness. There is no global warming that’s a damn hoax. Scientists with nothing better to do than make up bullshit to scare people is all that is. Burn coal and natural gas! Smells almost like gun powder and what could be better?

Speaking of hoaxes how’d we end up with a Black President? That makes us madder than a bob cat caught in a piss fire. Screw raising the minimum wage we like people to be pissed off and poor, if we have to hate now they do too! Pollution control, no way, we need the oil companies dumping filthy water on the Indian reservations in Wyoming. Serves those red devils right we never wanted them anyway. We like climate change it gives us more crap to bitch about! The north pole is melted? Let the Eskimos paddle their way out of that one, better not show up at my door. Russians probably did it anyway. Abortions!, we hate abortions, we are all god’s creatures after all, not to mention we need the target practice when those little bastards grow up and come into our neighborhoods.

Don’t you have any sense of Nationalist pride? Look what that little vegan bastard did in the Reich land. He almost ruled the world! Maybe this time we can do that here. We don’t need no melting pot of diverse cultures. We like everything the same as long as we can bitch and hate on something. No need for too much reading or writing just show me someone who can shoot a gun and I will show you the way to peace. It’s not with logic or reason or your stupid idealism. It’s with stand your ground and if you’re not from around here go back to wherever you came from.

“I think… if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.” ―  Leo Tolstoy from Anna Karenina

“If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear.” — Gene Roddenberry

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Breaking News; Christians Can’t Wait for All Out War in the Middle East!

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Thank God for all those prophets out in the desert starving, smoking weed and cooking cactus tea. It looks like all their spot on predictions are about to come true. No matter that they made them all those centuries ago under a completely different pretext. Hail Ezekiel! Wow dude you did us all a heavy! Syria is just the beginning! Read more hear about the War of Gog and Magog. Who the hell cares that no countries exist are named that. It’s Gods word dammit! We have free will to misconstrue anything He said!

Imagine if you will that Christ actually returns! Holy smoke there really was people riding those frikkin’ dinosaurs. God created it all like a weird acid trip. Six days to create. One day to rest. And he made a Dame out of that lonely bastard Adam’s rib. Holy smoke! That must have been one hell of a trip! Lucky thing soon we will have a new world and all the bad cocksuckers will be rotting in hell with that old Satan. Couldn’t he have made those dames a little quieter? Seems sometimes they get pretty bitchy! And those apples and that tree with that lousy lying snake. How disappointed God must have been when his lousy, predestined, created creatures ate the apple of knowledge. No wonder he chased their naked asses out of that Garden. Could it have been the same tree that Newton got the idea for gravity from? Hell no fool! Gravity is God’s magic force that keeps us from falling off of the earth.

Christ is coming back and there is no climate change! Damn it’s all a hoax by all those scientists that are under Satan’s control! All made up to cover up the fact that the world is coming to a blessed end and then we’ll get a New Earth. Hoo Haw the seat of paradise will probably be in Texas. Austin will be the heavenly seat. Governor Perry will probably sit at the right hand of the Father. Exciting times these are. Forget Math and forget Science! Just keep that Holy Book handy and read it whenever you’re in doubt. The answers to everything are in that Book. Just twist it around and get that meaning all up in that metaphor.

Holy Smoke, can’t wait. No more work, no more toil, sending the bad ones to boil in oil. Jesus comes back with long hair and a beard. The ultimate Aryan supremacist according to some warped factions. He gets to Perry’s house riding on a donkey. He knocks on the door of the Governor’s mansion and gets his ass shot off by Perry wielding a fully automatic weapon. No way! That means the Devil wins. Jesus don’t come back until these gun happy, pompous asses realize that they’re the fools you were talking about!

“To ‘choose’ dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and reach greedily  for the Kool-Aid.” — Christopher Hitchens

“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” — C.S. Lewis

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween