Boo!

 

 

Ridin’ The Rails.

I rode the train (so cheap! so comfortable!) to Seattle this past weekend.

Good times, good friends…. I like Seattle. I do. 

Thanks to David and Jess for the 16 hour walk!

Seriously.

I Love You!

Seriously….

Geologic Map Of The Moon

Sesame Street

Midwest Meander

I am back from the road- 

Aaron is hangin’ out in the Land O’ the Hand with his mom and dad…….I wish I were with him- but there are things to attend to here in PDX.

Whadareya gonna do?

Highlights of our lil’ adventure:

1. Seeing Keroac’s ‘On the Road’ manuscript unfurled at Columbia College.

2. Dorthea Lange  exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. 

3. The Field Museum

4. Seeing one of Aaron’s favorite cities

5. Meeting some of the family:

6. Seeing my lady Court in Madison for breakfast destruction.

7. General happiness and love and fine sheets- walking till my ass hurt- smell of Lake Michigan-Life is good- stuff. Happy birthday-ness x 2.

(Feel free to click your way toward my version of happy vacationland ….).

Aaron! Happy Birthday!

As I post this

My beautiful Aaron is having a birthday- right now in some far away land (prolly somewhere South Dakotaish or Minnesota-like).

Today he is 35. 

It is a BIG day and a big deal.

Seriously.

He is a great man.

It is all true.

And I love him.

See ya in a minute.

Good Morning!

Aaron’s been on the road for a couple o’ days now- Fall Tour 08….(check out his travels here).

We commemorated his departure with some goodbye pics n’ stuff.

(sob).

 

Goodbye Hug:

Goodbye Kisses:

 

Goodbye Wave:

 

I fly the friendly skies early tomorrow morning.

We are meeting up for birthday week.

Birthday Cities:

October 15- Aaron’s big day. 35. A good solid MAN age.

October 18- My big day. 31. Very, very excited to be back in Chicago. It has been a while.

 

In the meantime I have been busy Ewoking, schooling, working and Gary-ing:

  

  

These extra Gary shots are for Aaron (who lovingly left him behind to protect me….scary times….tough doggie):

 

Gary! xoxoxoxo.

Crumble.

     “I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.”

                                      Thomas Jefferson

Woodrow Wilson signed the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. A few years later he wrote:

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men”. -Woodrow Wilson

 

Militarism Is Soooooooo Yesterday. pppffffffffffffff!

Some thoughts:

Humans have no instinct to war -to clarify- there actually is freedom from this reality- that man is not born craving war/destruction is the idea…..meaning the thought that war is inevitable is a falsehood-.

Opponents of this idea might suggest that biology dictates man’s need for aggressive behaviors.

Well-turns out,

war like behaviors are NOT cross cultural- as addressed in an  article written by famed cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead.

It is suggested that rather than biologic necessity or sociological inevitability- war is an invention of man.

 

So,

man invented war- and it should be examined within the category of other inventions- the invention of fire for example- or the discovery that sharp rocks make great tools and/or killing devices.

Historically peoples warred for various reasons: adaptation, hunting, mating- (hey- it worked).

As man has developed so have the ways o’ war. The development of technology intersects with the development of other facets of society- and the reflective side of man curbs the militaristic orgy with criticisms.

This idea of war as invention   – when coupled with those other inventions previously adopted by man-logically would follow the same path of refinement……. or replacement ….. (the hand gives way for toilet paper, leeching gives way for transfusions…..you get the point?).

 

It is History that has indeed spread the idea of warring need through romantic recreations and epic trials.

History has trained the masses into accepting war as a possible route.

It is hard to deny the disharmony associated with war these days. 

Why is this understanding important? 

Because understanding the transition society currently exists in is paramount to reinvention!

The reflective criticisms of humans are starting to intrude into the territory of militarism……..uh oh!  

 

“Strenuous honor…. abound elsewhere…… ordinary prides and shames …of man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing a moral equivalent [to war]. The only thing needed henceforward is to inflame the civic temper as past history has inflamed the military temper”.

                                                                                         -William James

*This stuff is why Barak Obama’s campaign is so powerful. He and his people understand these ideas- (in essence). I am not making these connections to deify him, but rather to show the important distinction in these ideas being re-introduced into reality (this is not an entirely new concept). What is inspiring and exciting is witnessing the mobilization of a “civic temper”…… potentially very powerful.

YOWZA.

Oh mygawd.

Maybe you’ve seen this- maybe not…….. STRANGE.