I have a new project - Armed Bohemian, a blog on some specific ideas about war, culture, warriors and related thoughts, problems and snarky comments.
This will let me leave Rum & Donuts as the personal forum I've created it to be. The ideas and questions that will be shaping Armed Bohemian are rather constant for me, and I'd rather give them their own playground than dominate this space with them.
Stay tuned - More to come, here, there, and elsewhere!
Showing posts with label NeoBohemian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NeoBohemian. Show all posts
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Once More, The Sound of Guns...
I've actually tried to avoid gun blogging. I don't want to be a "gun blogger", something I've always found limiting, even if only in the eyes of others. It is inevitable however. It has to come up. I am a strong supporter of the right to keep and bear arms. Skill at arms is integral to my philosophy of a "neo-bohemian" lifestyle. In my little "Uber Mensch 2.0" ideal, being handy with a gun is as essential as the ability to read, write, drink coffee and wear trendy hats.
Cute oversimplifications aside, I like the guns. The guns are an important part of my life, and my social consciousness. Unfortunately, this turns a lot of people off, people who otherwise agree and identify with me and vice versa. A lot of my politics and philosophies are currently quite popular with a set who abhor the idea of guns and gun owners, much less an active pursuit of firearms use as a skill for saving lives. This is something I've learned to live with, and try to do what I can to change one person at a time. Usually, I don't have very high expectations, but from time to time a surprise comes along from an unexpected corner.
Such an unexpected corner was this article in High Country News: Why We All Need the Democrats to Abandon Gun Control
Its a good article. Do I think its spot on? No. But I think the ideals of that article would be a good place to start.
My only real criticism is that I think it is a mistake to look to the Heller decision as the end all be all of Right to Keep & Bear Arms legislation. Heller, while a real victory for RKBA, left some holes that we must be aware of, and be ready to fight. That said, in the context of the HCN article, and its target audience, Heller as a benchmark makes a lot of sense.
There will be more, in coming days/weeks/months. Somewhere in my head there is an epic post about guns, in general. As well as a lot more. One entry at a time, though.
Cute oversimplifications aside, I like the guns. The guns are an important part of my life, and my social consciousness. Unfortunately, this turns a lot of people off, people who otherwise agree and identify with me and vice versa. A lot of my politics and philosophies are currently quite popular with a set who abhor the idea of guns and gun owners, much less an active pursuit of firearms use as a skill for saving lives. This is something I've learned to live with, and try to do what I can to change one person at a time. Usually, I don't have very high expectations, but from time to time a surprise comes along from an unexpected corner.
Such an unexpected corner was this article in High Country News: Why We All Need the Democrats to Abandon Gun Control
Its a good article. Do I think its spot on? No. But I think the ideals of that article would be a good place to start.
My only real criticism is that I think it is a mistake to look to the Heller decision as the end all be all of Right to Keep & Bear Arms legislation. Heller, while a real victory for RKBA, left some holes that we must be aware of, and be ready to fight. That said, in the context of the HCN article, and its target audience, Heller as a benchmark makes a lot of sense.
There will be more, in coming days/weeks/months. Somewhere in my head there is an epic post about guns, in general. As well as a lot more. One entry at a time, though.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The Horrible People
She called me, "I'm feeling masochistic, and I don't know what to do". Her options she said were to go to her ex, who is infinitely bad for her, or to find someone else to satisfy her need.
Finally she asked, "How good are you with a knife?"
When I was done there was blood on my sheets, drying on my hands and the scalpel blade. The rich smell of copper and flesh filled my nostrils. Incised into her back was a rose, of a delicacy that surprised even me. The only errors in it were where she had arched her back, or wriggled, in combination with one of the deep throaty moans she'd make each time I drew the blade deep and long across her back.
Walking out the door she was happy, and seemed somewhat spent. I, on the other hand, was on an endorphin rush that kept me above the water for several hours afterwards.
It had been years since I took a blade to someone else's flesh for their pleasure. Since I had allowed myself to revel in the smell of blood, and the careful, small, shallow movements of the knife; the orchestration of damage to the tune of moaned responses. Afterwards I was on a high to rival all the alcohol, strong cigars and danger I've put myself in chasing adrenaline. I'd hurt someone, and she had liked it, and I was ecstatic.
I've hurt people in my life. Emotionally, physically, angrily, panicked, out of fear, in defense. It's been justified, and unjustified. I've left people in tears, and occasionally (always with reason, the immediate need to keep breathing) injured. And every time I've hurt, torn someone with a word or dealt a physical blow to someone to defend myself or another, when it was over, when I was walking away, I've had that sick knot in the pit of my stomach. I don't like doing harm. I don't like violence. Even if I am right, even if I was justified in my argument, or my attack. Never has it made me feel better to lay true harm on someone else - Glad I was alive, reinforced in some conviction or another that had been central to the argument, these things yes, but there is no high from that kind of harm for me. I don't want to tear someone apart emotionally. I don't want to feel my palm driving that man's nose inwards, his head against the tiled bathroom wall, the ceramic breaking beneath his skull as he goes limp under my hand. I've never wanted that.
But I do want to feel her smooth, soft, curved body pressing against mine. I want to feel her heat, and her sweat, and the smoothness of her skin, and her hot blood on my fingertips. I want to feel the air fill her lungs as she draws in to release a moan that will vibrate through her diaphragm into my pressing hands as she arches her back into my blade. I want to feel the radiance of her smile as she enjoys the subtle pain, the impermanent wounds.
There is hurting people, and then there is hurting people. I know the difference. I'm good at both - but one is easy. Cruelty, maliciousness, is easy. It rises up and all it takes is a word, a contortion of muscle, to leave someone scarred, bleeding, tormented.
The other is difficult. The other requires empathy, and kindness, and gentility, and strength, and force, and will. It is not something everyone can do, not something for just anyone to play with.
There is a difference between the types of hurt inflicted. One does not equate the other.
Yet too many think it does.
Too many assume sexual sadism is the realm of serial killers, rapists and torturers. People who inflict themselves, inflict inhuman pain on the unwilling, undesiring, and defenseless. This is tough for those of us who enjoy the exchange of giving/receiving pain-pleasure, but the real problem is - Too many people who are capable of sexual sadism, look at it this way. It is the infliction of pain and harm that excites them. They relish in terror and suffering. And this extends outside the bedroom. They treat others with a cruel hand, the misery they bring to others irrelevant to their own glee at hurting and domineering.
I was reading another blog tonight, and the author was saying she very much enjoyed this area of sexual exploration but was discouraged in that, "The biggest problem is that the only people who're willing to do horrible things to me are... well, horrible people, and will keep their knives to themselves, thanks."
This really sums it up.
On both sides of the coin are horrible people who want to participate in horrible things for the sole reason that it allows them to be horrible to someone else. It is not a mutual thing - It is not a give and take. It is a take, and take only, activity for them. They trade is misery and suffering.
Some, I imagine, wont see the difference. They will see the blood, and pain, and enjoyment and immediately file those participating as "horrible". It is not their cup of tea, and outside their scope of understanding. And so be it. Just another example of how this is not for everyone.
This realm is something unique, to be participated in by unique people.
When I was done with my friend's back, before she left, before I found myself lost to adrenaline in the absence of her flesh to consume it, she was expressing her surprise to me, looking over the pictures of the process on my digital camera. "This is a side of you I've never really seen" she said.
And its true. Most people know I am kinky. I am an open book, and my friends know who and what I am. But, along with that, I think most make assumptions - Because I don't push it. Unless you want to explore it with me, I am happy to let you do that. Explaining is just too much work sometimes. And really, unless you are on my side of this, there is no good explanation of my intentions, my attitudes, and the care and gentility with which I approach hurting someone for their pleasure. The empathy to know which touch is right, and which is undesirable, the kindness to be unreserved in exploring their desires, the strength to maintain control of an inherently dangerous practice and the restraints (or lack there of) with which I practice it, and the will to put it all together in a focused, concentrated, effort for mutual benefit. And even then, there is no good explanation unless you are someone I am willing to do that with - Which is, really, a select few. Some people's masochism is self destructive, and I refuse to indulge that.
The assumptions created by the horrible people leave a stain on the rest of us. Their actions and their cruelties muddy the waters for those of us doing "horrible things" without being horrible people.
Its a fine line - And a misunderstood one. The line of just enough pressure to not go too deep, without having so little as to make no mark at all.
Finally she asked, "How good are you with a knife?"
When I was done there was blood on my sheets, drying on my hands and the scalpel blade. The rich smell of copper and flesh filled my nostrils. Incised into her back was a rose, of a delicacy that surprised even me. The only errors in it were where she had arched her back, or wriggled, in combination with one of the deep throaty moans she'd make each time I drew the blade deep and long across her back.
Walking out the door she was happy, and seemed somewhat spent. I, on the other hand, was on an endorphin rush that kept me above the water for several hours afterwards.
It had been years since I took a blade to someone else's flesh for their pleasure. Since I had allowed myself to revel in the smell of blood, and the careful, small, shallow movements of the knife; the orchestration of damage to the tune of moaned responses. Afterwards I was on a high to rival all the alcohol, strong cigars and danger I've put myself in chasing adrenaline. I'd hurt someone, and she had liked it, and I was ecstatic.
I've hurt people in my life. Emotionally, physically, angrily, panicked, out of fear, in defense. It's been justified, and unjustified. I've left people in tears, and occasionally (always with reason, the immediate need to keep breathing) injured. And every time I've hurt, torn someone with a word or dealt a physical blow to someone to defend myself or another, when it was over, when I was walking away, I've had that sick knot in the pit of my stomach. I don't like doing harm. I don't like violence. Even if I am right, even if I was justified in my argument, or my attack. Never has it made me feel better to lay true harm on someone else - Glad I was alive, reinforced in some conviction or another that had been central to the argument, these things yes, but there is no high from that kind of harm for me. I don't want to tear someone apart emotionally. I don't want to feel my palm driving that man's nose inwards, his head against the tiled bathroom wall, the ceramic breaking beneath his skull as he goes limp under my hand. I've never wanted that.
But I do want to feel her smooth, soft, curved body pressing against mine. I want to feel her heat, and her sweat, and the smoothness of her skin, and her hot blood on my fingertips. I want to feel the air fill her lungs as she draws in to release a moan that will vibrate through her diaphragm into my pressing hands as she arches her back into my blade. I want to feel the radiance of her smile as she enjoys the subtle pain, the impermanent wounds.
There is hurting people, and then there is hurting people. I know the difference. I'm good at both - but one is easy. Cruelty, maliciousness, is easy. It rises up and all it takes is a word, a contortion of muscle, to leave someone scarred, bleeding, tormented.
The other is difficult. The other requires empathy, and kindness, and gentility, and strength, and force, and will. It is not something everyone can do, not something for just anyone to play with.
There is a difference between the types of hurt inflicted. One does not equate the other.
Yet too many think it does.
Too many assume sexual sadism is the realm of serial killers, rapists and torturers. People who inflict themselves, inflict inhuman pain on the unwilling, undesiring, and defenseless. This is tough for those of us who enjoy the exchange of giving/receiving pain-pleasure, but the real problem is - Too many people who are capable of sexual sadism, look at it this way. It is the infliction of pain and harm that excites them. They relish in terror and suffering. And this extends outside the bedroom. They treat others with a cruel hand, the misery they bring to others irrelevant to their own glee at hurting and domineering.
I was reading another blog tonight, and the author was saying she very much enjoyed this area of sexual exploration but was discouraged in that, "The biggest problem is that the only people who're willing to do horrible things to me are... well, horrible people, and will keep their knives to themselves, thanks."
This really sums it up.
On both sides of the coin are horrible people who want to participate in horrible things for the sole reason that it allows them to be horrible to someone else. It is not a mutual thing - It is not a give and take. It is a take, and take only, activity for them. They trade is misery and suffering.
Some, I imagine, wont see the difference. They will see the blood, and pain, and enjoyment and immediately file those participating as "horrible". It is not their cup of tea, and outside their scope of understanding. And so be it. Just another example of how this is not for everyone.
This realm is something unique, to be participated in by unique people.
When I was done with my friend's back, before she left, before I found myself lost to adrenaline in the absence of her flesh to consume it, she was expressing her surprise to me, looking over the pictures of the process on my digital camera. "This is a side of you I've never really seen" she said.
And its true. Most people know I am kinky. I am an open book, and my friends know who and what I am. But, along with that, I think most make assumptions - Because I don't push it. Unless you want to explore it with me, I am happy to let you do that. Explaining is just too much work sometimes. And really, unless you are on my side of this, there is no good explanation of my intentions, my attitudes, and the care and gentility with which I approach hurting someone for their pleasure. The empathy to know which touch is right, and which is undesirable, the kindness to be unreserved in exploring their desires, the strength to maintain control of an inherently dangerous practice and the restraints (or lack there of) with which I practice it, and the will to put it all together in a focused, concentrated, effort for mutual benefit. And even then, there is no good explanation unless you are someone I am willing to do that with - Which is, really, a select few. Some people's masochism is self destructive, and I refuse to indulge that.
The assumptions created by the horrible people leave a stain on the rest of us. Their actions and their cruelties muddy the waters for those of us doing "horrible things" without being horrible people.
Its a fine line - And a misunderstood one. The line of just enough pressure to not go too deep, without having so little as to make no mark at all.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Go Back - Bad Air
It began at REI, on a rescue mission, and a few other places, the idea that our little group of rogue hikers should go into an old mine. We are weekday slaves, working for the simple goals of exhausting ourselves, endorphin rushes, eating red meat and drinking good beer and Scotch whiskey every weekend. Our frequent lack of preparation, equipment, or a plan is something of a running joke between our small group, so the idea of taking this ethic into an abandoned mine tunnel seemed perfect. Why? Not to higrade minerals, not to drink, party or vandalize as so many do, simply for that one age old reason; Because it's there.The sun was sliding low in the sky as we gathered to leave from the house. We had decided to go in the evening, so that Joe, our 'expert' via experience (the only one of us ever to enter an old mine previously) could finish a shift at the bar. The three of us, all roommates, gathered to inspect our two hard hats. We found them to be indeed hard-hats, and divvied them up according to who had the hardest head and therefore didn't need one. Ian, our resident (and very lost) Dane, decided he would go without and we set off.
The road from Socorro to Magdalena is a twenty-six mile stretch of highway rising nearly 2000 feet in elevation from the Rio Grande river valley to the mountain village. Passing through a rocky section at the northern end of Box Canyon before rising up onto the flats, the road carries the westward traveler inexorably into the Magdalena mountains. Dark golden with deep shadows in the late afternoon sun, the “Maggies” seem to tower over the road, standing taller above the black ribbon as it disappears between low lying foothills. With the windows rolled down, and the smallest of us folded into the narrow extended cab backseat of my old truck, we tore down the road, iPod jacked into the blown stereo fighting for sound dominance over the wind and unmuffled exhaust system. We laughed and were silent and sang along and were fixed in our place, time and purpose as we came roaring into town.
Magdalena rose before us in its most tarnished and weather worn glory. A town of roughly nine-hundred permanent residents, and a few dozen communal dogs, it was once the largest cattle rail-head in the world, as well as a center of mining activity. Now it lays nestled in the mountains, a wide spot in the road, with pretenses of being a struggling art locale. Making a left off the main drag onto a dirt street we begin to climb higher into the mountains. The music was turned down to discuss who knew where we were supposed to be going and so I could relate a story of the old house of ill-repute, which now belonged to a retired kindergarten teacher, perhaps a descendant of its last madame. Small town sounds filtered in the open windows, only to be left behind for the desolate crunch of gravel beneath tires as we left town once more.
The mine opening was small, hidden behind brush in a carved out section of hillside, a few hundred yards up-slope from the old head-frame. None of us knew what it was, it wasn't the mine we had come to find. We all agreed it was the one none the less. A small hole, carved into dirt and loose rocks, with shoring set a few feet in, it appeared to descend slightly and quickly entered darkness. Atop the shoring further down the tunnel, rubble and rock had collapsed, but the shoring held, creating no blockage. Painted around the entry timbers were multiple warnings, some of them unreadable from age, some of them rather fresh; "Go Back!" in white, and under it in black "Bad Air". We looked at one another. We breathed deeply of the cool air emanating from the breathing hole. We grinned. Joe donned his hard-hat, turned on the headlamp and hopped over the first timber dropping into the tunnel. He moved forward a couple of paces and looked back, a grin saying "C'mon you apes, wanna live forever?"
A short ways into the half-man-height entry tunnel there was an old steel door, propped three quarters open by rocks and time. Beyond was the carved out rock of the mine, ceiling barely standing room high. The darkness swallowed us deeper, sunlight making only fearful steps further in. Several yards down this tunnel we entered a larger opening which branched off in three directions. The floor was strewn with litter; old batteries, an ancient GE camera flash array, and small pieces of trash indistinguishable but distinctly human. To our left a head high tunnel carrying straight into darkness impenetrable by even our brightest LED lights. To our right a small crooking tunnel that turned downwards, descending into another bifurcation of lower tunnels. Straight ahead was a narrower, again man height, tunnel which had to be accessed by crossing a single loose board of indeterminate age covering a narrow, barely shoulder width, shaft which ran deep into darkness beyond the throw of any flashlight. We chose the right hand path, and entered on hands and knees into the lower tunnel junction via the low ceilinged, dropping and curved short tunnel. Beyond we found two tunnels of undesirable looking stability, which looked both cramped and to have been victim to recent collapse activity. We turned back, going back up to re-decide our path.
The path, as we chose it, was over the rickety board, which seemed to hold each mans individual weight without complaint. The darkness below our feet stretched away, untold depths beckoning a slip, a fall to the conspiracy of gravity. Across the board, beyond the beckoning hole, we went deeper into the rock and earth. As in the first atrium-like intersection of tunnels, small traces of human activity were present, primarily in the form of dead batteries strewn about the floor.
We passed a left-hand side tunnel, continuing straight into the depths of the mountain until we came to an obvious area of collapse. The tunnel roof dropped two feet or more in a quick grade, reducing the height to no more than three feet. Snapped timbers, splintered as if blown apart and crushed down onto themselves, lined the compressed tunnel walls. Great sections of rock protruded between beams, their smaller cousins, shattered remnants of the mountain's labor, scattered the floor. A fine dust sat on everything, powdery gray like the surrounding stone. The tunnel continued on like this beyond the play of our headlamps. We turned back.
The side tunnel we'd passed before, now on our right, seemed the best bet and we struck off into it. It was head height or better, and remained well shored. A few cracked timbers, and the usual small rubble on the floor, but no worrying amounts of damage. We continued on as this tunnel curved, and branched into another.
One branch led to another, led to dead ends and turn arounds, and returns. Along the walls were the occasional spray paint graffiti markss, remnants of post-mining explorers hell bent on being remembered by other idiots, and the more common pure black scribblings of miners, written with finger tips coated in lamp black. These soot scrawls hung on the walls, fresh as the day they were written, telling stories of the men who had pressed finger to stone that they too might be remembered, even if only to themselves. Most of them were over a century old, and many of them carried finger prints so clearly that at a turn we expected their author to be standing beside us. We looked, and did not disturb, and continued on down the tunnel.
At one seeming dead end, the side tunnel we had taken ended abruptly in a wooden chute, coming out of a higher tunnel, some four feet above the floor we stood on. A single rope of old hemp hung down from the chute. We grabbed hold and climbed up clamoring over the old oak framing and the rusting ore cart jammed into it at the top. The tunnel we entered sloped up steeply, rotten steel rails along its bottom lost in debris and loose dust that slipped under foot. Bracing hands and feet on opposing sides of the shaft we shimmied our way up and into a larger room. The confluence of three tunnels, all collapsed not far in from where we stood, had a ceiling fifteen feet over our heads, and was partially filled with rubble. In our lights everything flickered and flashed, including the very dust stirred under our feet. A rampant crystal growth covered almost all exposed surfaces. Bundles of millions of long, tiny crystal formations, sprouting out like glass thorns in all directions, none larger than a needle, and many finer than hair, laying across the rocks and dirt in great long bundles. We spent several minutes in awe, examining the crystal growth in all its fine forms and shapes before moving further on to explore the tunnel we'd branched off from to find this room.
This exploration lead, in eventuality, to another dead end, of sorts. At the end of a tunnel, we found the rocks smoothed and round, carved by years of water erosion, not picks and hammers. The rock turned back, a hollow to the side, and its smoothed features continued up, drawing our eyes to look for a ceiling we found absent. Instead, rising up into blackness was a smoothly contoured shaft, five feet at its widest and extremely smooth. A single hemp rope, knotted every foot or so, hung down from the blackness ascendant. We mingled at the bottom, gazing upward, like fearful natives below an eclipsing sun, until one of us struck upward with a hand, seizing the rope firmly and jerking it savagely. It pulled taught and held fast. Grabbing it with the other hand he pulled, bracing his feet on the wall and letting his weight hang. The rope held. He began to climb, hand over hand and with braced feet, into the blackness. He disappeared around a slight bend in the shaft, the rope quivering in the jaundiced beam of my incandescent headlamp the only reminder that he was in fact still there. The rope fell still, and his voice came down to us. The rope was securely fixed at the top, and fairly new it seemed, and we needed to come see what he was seeing. So up we went, one at a time, pulling ourselves up the rope, feet bracing and pushing on the rare shelf or rough surface of the surrounding rock. Thirty feet or so later, we emerged into a huge space. Blackness surrounded us, the walls and ceilings all nearly out of reach of our lights. The floor was hidden under masses of rubble, rocks large and small piling across the expanse. The cavern sloped distinctly downward, toward where we stood and beyond, into a piled depth. Spires of rock rose near the walls, carved out by water, lending an ancient temple like quality to the room. Bats scattered in our light, flitting and darting into the shadowed recesses of the walls, and upwards into the fractures and secure dimness of the ceiling. One side of the cavern gave way to another water carved tunnel, this one sixty feet wide or more, and half piled with debris, descending at a steep angle into unknown tunnels below. The cavern rose, sloping to an upper plateau of broken rock and dust, into which opened the remains of another mine tunnel. The rubble and combination of cracked, fractured and smoothly worn walls and ceilings suggested eons of water flow, creating labyrinthine structures deep in the mountain, suddenly invaded by hand picked and drilled tunnels of mens design and craft. The resulting years depredation of stone finally took their toll and rock broke and collapsed, dropping tunnels out, and widening the cavern. Fresh air permeated the space, a cleaner, more flowing air, than lower in the mine tunnels. We followed the movement of it up the man-carved tunnel, hoping to find an exit, until we came to a dead end of rubble. The air continued to flow, and the tunnel was rife with cracks and openings a bat could easily have moved through, but passage for a man was impossible. We turned back, moving out of the laboriously carved tunnel and back into the great cavern, carved by the violent casualness of water over eons, and victim to its own instability in the face of invasion. We made our way back down over the subterranean scree slope, until we reached our tunnel down. One after the other we knelt, grabbed the rope, swung around and climbed down, hand under hand, feet braced slidingly, on the smooth walls of the shaft.
Backtracking we reached the site of one of our previous side-tunnel excursions, and had a minor debate on the way out. I insisted the tunnel we were in was the right way, but one of us was convinced that the curving tunnel to our side was the way. We disagreed, but would leave no man alone beneath the earth, so we followed. After a short exploration he realized his error, and the three of us returned to the right path.
Darkness ended abruptly as we entered the last stretch of tunnel before the entrance, a fading gray-blue light slipping its way inwards, in a darting insurgency against the shadows. We crawled past the old iron door, and out into the fresh air and late afternoon flat light of just past sunset.
We walked slowly down the slope, back past the old headframe towering monolithic and iron above a four hundred foot shaft. Our footsteps crunching in the rock, we simply lived: Breathing, tired, covered in dust and bits of debris, firm in our conviction that we were lords of the Earth, and that all our worldly concerns lay behind us, other ghosts in the subterranean playground of fortune seekers and fools.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Blacksmithing
My grandfather was a blacksmith, among many other things. He was a machinist, woodworker, saddle-maker, rancher, shootist, father, husband. He was everything he needed to be, to have the life he wanted to have. A quintessential New Mexico high-desert renaissance man. The kind they don't make anymore.
He died in 1972, of cancer that did what men and cattle and austere living never had been able to, more than a decade before I was born. Growing up was like living in a burned forest of his life. The skeletal remains of his work, his things, decorated the landscape of my childhood home, and my childhood imagination. The lathe he had built from spare parts and hand-made parts, sitting hulking in the corner of the ranch workshop, dusty and partially draped in oily canvas. His forge, a great iron bowl on legs, resting under an elm tree surrounded by scattered scraps of steel and copper. The original homestead house and shed, great tumbled piles of red-rock, partial walls and tin roofs, had become his scrapyard - Home to old cars, motors, bizarre and cryptic innards from locomotives and transistor radios, great piles of scrap iron and spring steel. Rust, and earth, and rotting wood, scraps of oil cloth and canvas, mysterious handmade tools of unknown ends and meaning, bits of silver and leather, the growing green corrosion of old copper - This was how I knew my grandfather. How I felt his presence, so obvious in its absence by what he had left behind. Some of it still in use, some of it languishing, victim to entropy, abandoned by the mind that had conceived of it, and its usefulness. A mans works, like children, orphaned to the timeless hand of oxidization and death.
I grew up knowing men could make things with their hands. My grandfathers bones lying scattered around the house, my mother's art on the walls and pottery on the shelves, my fathers photographs, bridges and buildings he built, surveyors maps. I knew that these were the possibilities of human hands. So when I was fifteen, and found myself cultivating a taste in fine knives to compliment the taste in fine guns I'd been raised with, the natural path seemed to me to be making my own. I couldn't find the perfect knife for sale, or at least couldn't afford it, but I certainly felt it possible to make one.
I acquired a few more tools and set to work, quickly making a savage dent in my fathers collection of files and rasps. I initially approached knife-making via the stock removal process: Taking a raw bar or piece of steel, of roughly the desired length, width and thickness of the finished knife and simply grinding away everything that didn't look like the desired result. Although effective, and fairly common, this is a somewhat wasteful method of making anything as a good portion of the investment in raw materials ends up as dust on the floor of the shop. My learning process eventually lead me towards blacksmithing, as it allowed the best use of materials, with very little waste required. Being able to use an entire piece of steel by heating it and hammer forging it into the desired shape without the need for heavy grinding both provided a better financial return, and allowed a greater artistic range of possibility. Some shapes and angles are simply easier to forge into a piece than grind out of one.
In the late spring of my 16th year, I approached a blacksmith in the nearest town, Magdalena, about apprenticing with him. John was kind enough to allow me into his shop, to help with his projects and learn smithing in the process, while also getting to pursue my own interests at the forge as my skill improved.
John had learned to smith while in the Navy as a SeaBee. Once upon a time, large naval ships had forges inside the ship, attached to their machine shop, to facilitate the ease of repair and fabrication of parts while at sea. John was a product of this environment - It was there that he had made his first knives, and begun hobby smithing as a way to keep himself entertained and explore his creative depths. After the Navy John had continued educating himself at the forge, and refined his craft over the decades. Neither a production, nor a modern, smith John worked at the forge because he enjoyed the work, and the tradition of making much with little. His shop, built of block and wooden framing, was more reminiscent of an early 20th century mountain smithy than anything else. There was no power in the shop, electricity would only let him light the place and stay out there all night long John said. The doorway was usually open, as were windows, the regular draft allowing fresh air to continually circulate, carrying out smoke and fumes from the fire. John's forge itself was built from bricks and stone, by hand as the rest of his shop, and was fed only with coal with fuel. A hand-crank blower provided the necessary airflow to bully the fire into the required heats for smithing. Propane was a foreign idea, relegated to some of the books and issues of Metalsmith that scattered John's workbench. It was, as far as I am concerned, the best way to learn the art of blacksmithing. We used scrap materials, salvaged steel and iron, wood for handles that John had harvested himself, and did all our filing, sanding and polishing by hand. It was hard, dirty, sometimes frustrating work - And at the end of our weekly sessions I left tired, filthy, and sometimes chagrined at my own folly in the shop, which John always corrected sternly, but not wrongly.
I wish, looking back, I had spent more time there. I visited John weekly for several months, on into winter when the cold weather finally drove us out of his open, uninsulated and power-less smithy. When spring began to give way to warm days however, I failed to return. I had become invested in the other pursuits of a teenage boy, and feel victim to my own timidity as well in broaching the subject of returning. But I never forgot.
In general smithing was one of the many things I let fall by the wayside between the tail-end of high-school and beginning college. I had gathered the materials to build a forge, and made some small efforts at restoring my grandfathers forge and blower, but had never actually carried my intentions to completion. I still made knives, and still fully intended to get a forge up and running, but it just didn't happen. I let myself believe I didn't have the time, or resources, to devote to forging. Equipment languished, coal I had bought became dust in the bin, and my regrets at not continuing my smithing piled up deeper and deeper.
Finally, in the fall of '06, something changed. I'd changed schools, to be closer to home and pursuing my degree in an environment I liked better, and was spending quite a bit of time on the ranch. In mid October I went out and started rummaging among the derelict pieces of my grandfathers life, and set about cleaning up his forge. The forge itself, an iron bowl almost three feet long, two across and six inches deep, atop four sturdy legs, was in fairly good condition. The old hand-crank blower however needed more work. After several soakings in penetrating oil, and careful taps with a deadblow to loosen up old rust, I managed to free up the impeller with a final effort of elbow grease. Once free'd the impeller turned like it had never been stuck, and produced great volumes of air with even a moderate turn.
The first firing of the newly restored forge, late one cool October evening, was one of the most satisfying experiences I've had yet - I was thrilled to see my own work restore functionality to something my grandfather had built so much of his life with. Those first flames, dancing up between chunks of pinon charcoal, carried away old ghosts of neglect and regret, both for me and the tools under my hand.
Since then I have expanded my smithing from just blade-smithing into artist blacksmithing in general. Very few things are as satisfying as spending an afternoon working over a hot fire, getting covered in ash and grime, only to produce something fine, and delicate and shining, and above all, functional at the end of it. I can become lost in the work of tending the fire and shaping, directing, and cultivating hot iron into a tool or other thing of beauty - Things fall away from my mind as my hands set into their work, each blow, drop of sweat and burn from hot slag reaffirming a capability essential to every man since sun first rose on a flint knapper on some faraway plain - To be able to make the things you need, create the world you desire in your locale, to provide the life you want for you and yours. There is nothing more complete or satisfying than this.
My large forge is a permanent part of the ranch. It is both too large, and has too many ties to that place to ever be moved to town. I feel strongly about this, although its a source of regret while living in town pursuing my degree. Or, was a source of some regret. A friend's fiance, Pat, himself a blacksmith who had let his hobby lapse in pursuit of his degree, had left a small old coal forge sitting under an elm tree in his future bride's front yard, and was sad to see in languishing unused. A short time after being introduced to him, Pat gifted me with this small forge, so as to see it put to good use. Once again I had in my hands an old, but loved, tool - Once essential, now relegated to artist, hobbyist and anachronist in the majority of the world. It took some time, but I finally have fired it up, and am ready to set about using it in earnest.
Since I first came to New Mexico Tech I've been taking Metal Arts or Armor making classes offered in the fine art department of the community college. The instructor, Theresa, is one of my favorite people, and I feel comfortable calling her a friend. Since I first started learning from her, we've repeatedly discussed the addition of both propane and coal forges to her class-room. Though not one of the Teaching Assistants for her classes in past semesters, my role in the classroom has become increasingly instructive as I've stuck around longer and longer, and the interest in building forges and adding smithing to the regular curriculum has increased. A year ago, at the beginning of the fall semester, I arrived for my first day of class with four bags of quickcrete, as an incentive for Theresa to stop talking and start acting on the forge plans. A year later we still have no forge, but somehow my impulsiveness and dedication finally led me to being the only paid TA for her classes, and we're actually starting to get some work done. I've also taken a select few of the other long-time students on as semi-students of my own, to come to my house and work my forge, and learn what they can from me about smithing. It was to this end that, after I'd returned to town late one recent evening, my friend Nick, his wife Raven and I gathered in my yard under the glow of a worklight. Bags of charcoal, a shovel, a small pile of hammers, a piece of railroad rail and a heavy post were also gathered. We dug a hole, set the post, and mounted the railroad rail to it with some hastily forged clinch-nails, and built a large charcoal fire in the forge. The hand crank blower rattled a steady rhythm as its gears ran along on chipped teeth to turn the fan, driving air into the growing, cracking, sparking fire. We stood gathered around it, faces lit an orange glow, sparks reflecting in our eyes, and shared a collective smile. My neighbors were having a party, and as their house and yard filled with mostly freshmen Tech students, they observed us with confusion, question and stunned silence. No words were said across the fence, they stood back from the rising sparks, spoke in hushed tones to one another, and fell silent as the ring of hammer blows rained out all competing sound in the small space between houses. Eventually my roommate, himself an accomplished knife-maker, joined us and we four stood, working the blower, tending the fire, driving hammers into hot steel, shaping and drawing the tools of our futures, the works of our lives. We stood a separate tribe from those across the fence, speaking our own language of fire, and ash and the timeless ring of hammers.
He died in 1972, of cancer that did what men and cattle and austere living never had been able to, more than a decade before I was born. Growing up was like living in a burned forest of his life. The skeletal remains of his work, his things, decorated the landscape of my childhood home, and my childhood imagination. The lathe he had built from spare parts and hand-made parts, sitting hulking in the corner of the ranch workshop, dusty and partially draped in oily canvas. His forge, a great iron bowl on legs, resting under an elm tree surrounded by scattered scraps of steel and copper. The original homestead house and shed, great tumbled piles of red-rock, partial walls and tin roofs, had become his scrapyard - Home to old cars, motors, bizarre and cryptic innards from locomotives and transistor radios, great piles of scrap iron and spring steel. Rust, and earth, and rotting wood, scraps of oil cloth and canvas, mysterious handmade tools of unknown ends and meaning, bits of silver and leather, the growing green corrosion of old copper - This was how I knew my grandfather. How I felt his presence, so obvious in its absence by what he had left behind. Some of it still in use, some of it languishing, victim to entropy, abandoned by the mind that had conceived of it, and its usefulness. A mans works, like children, orphaned to the timeless hand of oxidization and death.
I grew up knowing men could make things with their hands. My grandfathers bones lying scattered around the house, my mother's art on the walls and pottery on the shelves, my fathers photographs, bridges and buildings he built, surveyors maps. I knew that these were the possibilities of human hands. So when I was fifteen, and found myself cultivating a taste in fine knives to compliment the taste in fine guns I'd been raised with, the natural path seemed to me to be making my own. I couldn't find the perfect knife for sale, or at least couldn't afford it, but I certainly felt it possible to make one.
I acquired a few more tools and set to work, quickly making a savage dent in my fathers collection of files and rasps. I initially approached knife-making via the stock removal process: Taking a raw bar or piece of steel, of roughly the desired length, width and thickness of the finished knife and simply grinding away everything that didn't look like the desired result. Although effective, and fairly common, this is a somewhat wasteful method of making anything as a good portion of the investment in raw materials ends up as dust on the floor of the shop. My learning process eventually lead me towards blacksmithing, as it allowed the best use of materials, with very little waste required. Being able to use an entire piece of steel by heating it and hammer forging it into the desired shape without the need for heavy grinding both provided a better financial return, and allowed a greater artistic range of possibility. Some shapes and angles are simply easier to forge into a piece than grind out of one.
In the late spring of my 16th year, I approached a blacksmith in the nearest town, Magdalena, about apprenticing with him. John was kind enough to allow me into his shop, to help with his projects and learn smithing in the process, while also getting to pursue my own interests at the forge as my skill improved.
John had learned to smith while in the Navy as a SeaBee. Once upon a time, large naval ships had forges inside the ship, attached to their machine shop, to facilitate the ease of repair and fabrication of parts while at sea. John was a product of this environment - It was there that he had made his first knives, and begun hobby smithing as a way to keep himself entertained and explore his creative depths. After the Navy John had continued educating himself at the forge, and refined his craft over the decades. Neither a production, nor a modern, smith John worked at the forge because he enjoyed the work, and the tradition of making much with little. His shop, built of block and wooden framing, was more reminiscent of an early 20th century mountain smithy than anything else. There was no power in the shop, electricity would only let him light the place and stay out there all night long John said. The doorway was usually open, as were windows, the regular draft allowing fresh air to continually circulate, carrying out smoke and fumes from the fire. John's forge itself was built from bricks and stone, by hand as the rest of his shop, and was fed only with coal with fuel. A hand-crank blower provided the necessary airflow to bully the fire into the required heats for smithing. Propane was a foreign idea, relegated to some of the books and issues of Metalsmith that scattered John's workbench. It was, as far as I am concerned, the best way to learn the art of blacksmithing. We used scrap materials, salvaged steel and iron, wood for handles that John had harvested himself, and did all our filing, sanding and polishing by hand. It was hard, dirty, sometimes frustrating work - And at the end of our weekly sessions I left tired, filthy, and sometimes chagrined at my own folly in the shop, which John always corrected sternly, but not wrongly.
I wish, looking back, I had spent more time there. I visited John weekly for several months, on into winter when the cold weather finally drove us out of his open, uninsulated and power-less smithy. When spring began to give way to warm days however, I failed to return. I had become invested in the other pursuits of a teenage boy, and feel victim to my own timidity as well in broaching the subject of returning. But I never forgot.
In general smithing was one of the many things I let fall by the wayside between the tail-end of high-school and beginning college. I had gathered the materials to build a forge, and made some small efforts at restoring my grandfathers forge and blower, but had never actually carried my intentions to completion. I still made knives, and still fully intended to get a forge up and running, but it just didn't happen. I let myself believe I didn't have the time, or resources, to devote to forging. Equipment languished, coal I had bought became dust in the bin, and my regrets at not continuing my smithing piled up deeper and deeper.
Finally, in the fall of '06, something changed. I'd changed schools, to be closer to home and pursuing my degree in an environment I liked better, and was spending quite a bit of time on the ranch. In mid October I went out and started rummaging among the derelict pieces of my grandfathers life, and set about cleaning up his forge. The forge itself, an iron bowl almost three feet long, two across and six inches deep, atop four sturdy legs, was in fairly good condition. The old hand-crank blower however needed more work. After several soakings in penetrating oil, and careful taps with a deadblow to loosen up old rust, I managed to free up the impeller with a final effort of elbow grease. Once free'd the impeller turned like it had never been stuck, and produced great volumes of air with even a moderate turn.
The first firing of the newly restored forge, late one cool October evening, was one of the most satisfying experiences I've had yet - I was thrilled to see my own work restore functionality to something my grandfather had built so much of his life with. Those first flames, dancing up between chunks of pinon charcoal, carried away old ghosts of neglect and regret, both for me and the tools under my hand.
Since then I have expanded my smithing from just blade-smithing into artist blacksmithing in general. Very few things are as satisfying as spending an afternoon working over a hot fire, getting covered in ash and grime, only to produce something fine, and delicate and shining, and above all, functional at the end of it. I can become lost in the work of tending the fire and shaping, directing, and cultivating hot iron into a tool or other thing of beauty - Things fall away from my mind as my hands set into their work, each blow, drop of sweat and burn from hot slag reaffirming a capability essential to every man since sun first rose on a flint knapper on some faraway plain - To be able to make the things you need, create the world you desire in your locale, to provide the life you want for you and yours. There is nothing more complete or satisfying than this.
My large forge is a permanent part of the ranch. It is both too large, and has too many ties to that place to ever be moved to town. I feel strongly about this, although its a source of regret while living in town pursuing my degree. Or, was a source of some regret. A friend's fiance, Pat, himself a blacksmith who had let his hobby lapse in pursuit of his degree, had left a small old coal forge sitting under an elm tree in his future bride's front yard, and was sad to see in languishing unused. A short time after being introduced to him, Pat gifted me with this small forge, so as to see it put to good use. Once again I had in my hands an old, but loved, tool - Once essential, now relegated to artist, hobbyist and anachronist in the majority of the world. It took some time, but I finally have fired it up, and am ready to set about using it in earnest.
Since I first came to New Mexico Tech I've been taking Metal Arts or Armor making classes offered in the fine art department of the community college. The instructor, Theresa, is one of my favorite people, and I feel comfortable calling her a friend. Since I first started learning from her, we've repeatedly discussed the addition of both propane and coal forges to her class-room. Though not one of the Teaching Assistants for her classes in past semesters, my role in the classroom has become increasingly instructive as I've stuck around longer and longer, and the interest in building forges and adding smithing to the regular curriculum has increased. A year ago, at the beginning of the fall semester, I arrived for my first day of class with four bags of quickcrete, as an incentive for Theresa to stop talking and start acting on the forge plans. A year later we still have no forge, but somehow my impulsiveness and dedication finally led me to being the only paid TA for her classes, and we're actually starting to get some work done. I've also taken a select few of the other long-time students on as semi-students of my own, to come to my house and work my forge, and learn what they can from me about smithing. It was to this end that, after I'd returned to town late one recent evening, my friend Nick, his wife Raven and I gathered in my yard under the glow of a worklight. Bags of charcoal, a shovel, a small pile of hammers, a piece of railroad rail and a heavy post were also gathered. We dug a hole, set the post, and mounted the railroad rail to it with some hastily forged clinch-nails, and built a large charcoal fire in the forge. The hand crank blower rattled a steady rhythm as its gears ran along on chipped teeth to turn the fan, driving air into the growing, cracking, sparking fire. We stood gathered around it, faces lit an orange glow, sparks reflecting in our eyes, and shared a collective smile. My neighbors were having a party, and as their house and yard filled with mostly freshmen Tech students, they observed us with confusion, question and stunned silence. No words were said across the fence, they stood back from the rising sparks, spoke in hushed tones to one another, and fell silent as the ring of hammer blows rained out all competing sound in the small space between houses. Eventually my roommate, himself an accomplished knife-maker, joined us and we four stood, working the blower, tending the fire, driving hammers into hot steel, shaping and drawing the tools of our futures, the works of our lives. We stood a separate tribe from those across the fence, speaking our own language of fire, and ash and the timeless ring of hammers.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Sexual Immorality? Sexual Tyranny
There was another "honor killing" this week. This time it happened in Atlanta. From CNN, "Father Kills Reluctant Bride". The short of it is the daughter was wed in Pakistan to an arranged husband currently living in Chicago, and was less than thrilled with this. Trying to tell her father about her lack of desire to be married, or stay married, led to a confrontation in which it seems he wrapped the cord from a clothes iron around her neck and strangled her to death.
People being strangled move a great deal usually - The fight, and struggle, and finally writhe before their muscles begin to starve and fail from lack of oxygen. At some point they pass out, unable to move having fought to muscle failure, and shortly there-after they die. This is not a pretty death, nor a quiet one. This man held his daughter's body, supported her weight by the power cord wrapped around her throat, through the fighting, struggling and writhing, until she died in his arms. He did it willingly, and probably of sane mind, because he comes from a culture in which women are property, nothing more and nothing less, and an archaic, medieval idea of family honor is more important than love and life.
This man is not alone - There have been others like him in this country, and many more in the Middle East. There are more still who will never get the opportunity to kill a female family member, but would not hesitate to do so for similarly "dishonorable" behavior. They are, in my opinion, savages. There is nothing redeeming about that culture and I refuse to acknowledge it as worthy of my attentions. Nothing anyone has to say can change my mind - A culture that imposes that kind of tyranny on women, and then kills them for merely disagreeing with it; A culture which has so little respect for, value for, the most beautiful and essential element of our species,; A culture of sexual repression with such little respect for life and the human right* is one I want nothing to do with, unless I can be instrumental in its destruction.
On the home front, from the less extreme sector of the faithful, I commonly hear a cry that one of the biggest problems with this country is our supposed "sexual immorality". Unfortunately what these folks commonly see as "immorality" is merely sexual freedom - An existence without fear of sexuality and the freedom to express it.
I fully believe many people are incredibly stupid about sex - Particularly those who use it as a means to debase themselves and others with meaningless strings of one night stands, unprotected encounters and the like. Such "slutty" behavior, among both sexes, is frankly disgusting, and it takes a pretty stupid, or hateful (of self and others) person to indulge in those behaviors repeatedly. I have in the past, and have very little desire to do so in the future - Because I know just how much it can bite you in the ass, and while I've been quite lucky the small taste of that I've had was more than enough. It takes a special kind of person to do that repeatedly. That said, such stupidity is everyones natural born right. If we want people to be smarter than that, the answer is not legislation, moralization or other "sweep it under the rug" efforts, the answer is education.
We have a nation where-in the primary type of sex education provided for our children is "Abstinence Only" programs, where-in nothing is truly explained about the "birds and the bees" or the human body, but students are repeatedly admonished against the evils of sex, and encourages to make pledges of abstinence until marriage. Abstinence Only programs rarely teach about proper methods for condom use, much-less spermicidal lubricants, morning after pills or birth control. Taking the attitude that "This program cannot fail, so those things wont be needed" such vita information is ignored. The end result? Human beings, with all the natural urges and desires of human beings, who have not only no idea what they are getting themselves into, but often a very bad idea of the reality of it as fueled by that unique combination of pop-media and government sponsored non-education. So, they do what natural, functional, human beings have always done since the beginning of time, and they have sex - Without condoms, knowledge regarding STD's, birth control or any other safety measures. Viola - Teenagers with STI/STD's, babies and more than a few truly bad experiences and/or bad habits contributing to repeated incidents of excess, dangerous, promiscuity.
Sex is an amazing thing - Not just for how it makes you feel, but for the power it has in the human body and psyche. It is an inescapable force of our lives, in fact of the very survival of our species. Simply telling our young "Dont do this" doesnt cut it. If anything, it makes it more taboo and thus more appealing and the greater appeal and lesser knowledge contributes to more problems.
Among adults, unmarried couples having sex, homosexuality and pornography are common examples of so-called "immorality". I quite honestly have no where to begin or end with the unmarried sex issue - Stupid sex with random people is a stupid idea, but as far as I am concerned two people who are in love and committed to one another having sex with or without a piece of notarized paper and/or the blessing of a minister is just fine and dandy. Frankly, it is the most human of behaviors, the most innate and vital of our social actions. It is the one behavior, above all others, which ensures the survival of our species. In a world where the cultures of marriage have become so polluted with argument, murder (see above), and failure resulting from bad judgment, community over-pressure and sheer ignorance (see lack of education) it is no wonder many people who are truly loving and committed dont want to get married. It is not the natural state of human affairs - It is a religiously, culturally, meddled with minefield, an institution which says the body is permanently property - First of a higher power, and then of the spouse until death. What part of that sounds loving? None of it.
On the count of homosexuality - We need to get over ourselves. With a world population approaching 7 Billion at an alarming rate, we have to ask if we really need more breeders. The fact that some members of our species are attracted to and desire those of the same sex is beautiful on two fronts - First, any two people who can find love with one another, even for a short time, in this world are far closer to divinity than a legion of straight, hate spewing, couples, and secondly, anyone who isnt reproducing themselves, who has a way of life that includes living and loving while in the end actually returning resources to the pool, is doing the world as a whole a service. This is not immorality - It is love, and societal contribution (never mind the possibility of actually being a genetic device for population control).
The fact that many of these people get pleasure from looking at, or producing, visual depictions of the sex acts they favor is similarly a non-issue, in the grand scheme. We like to look at one another, particularly if we find an attractive example of the opposite sex. We responds to visual cues indicating prime mating potential, and enjoy the experience of seeing someone attractive. It is of vital importance to our species that we be able to develop perception of good mates and attractive qualities. Stimulation and endorphin release from viewing attractive people has been shown to actually improve concentration and task-performance as well. Pornography like so many other things can be used or abused - Some couples use it as a stimulus and performance enhancer for an active and vital sex life, others use it as a means to access fantasies or desires otherwise inaccessible. Like alcohol, addictions and abuse do happen - But the issue is not a national immorality, it is an immorality of individual self control. In a culture where no one believes they have to be responsible for anything (the government told them just follow directions, you'll be fine - just "dont do it", you dont need to know about it), why do we act surprised when people abuse the small pleasures?
We live in a world were a woman can be killed for disagreeing with an elder male in her family, because she didnt like being given like less than livestock to a man she had never met, to be used (and possibly abused) by him as if she were merely property. That is sexual immorality. The repression and abuse of sexuality and love. And this is not something to which Middle Eastern culture has entire domain.
Through our mis-education of our youth, our conflicted messages regarding the human body, sex and sexuality via education and the media, there exists in this country a similar tyranny of sexual repression.
No culture in which women are told they were in control of their bodies, lives and sexuality has ever fallen victim to honor killings.
No culture in which men and women were allowed to love who they wished to love, as they wished to love, has suffered hate and bigotry based assaults, rapes and murders.
No culture in which men and women are given the knowledge necessary to know and understand their bodies, and the risks to them, and the freedom in which to apply this knowledge as they see fit has suffered the extremes of broken families, sexually transmitted illnesses or sexual-confusion driven violence.
No culture in which women are told they are in control, in which men and women are allowed to love as they desire, in which people are educated about their bodies and their health, in which people can find non-judgmental, relaxed and supportive appreciation of their true (nude) form, or that of someone like them, has ever run into these kinds of problems on this kind of scale.
Or so we can guess - Because frankly, no culture like this truly exists in any widespread fashion, merely in small, isolated, and rather interstitial, pockets.
This is not our culture - Our culture is one which is being invaded, and ordered to cow down to, a culture which supports the idea of women as property and honor killings. And in the face of this, we promote a Luddite view of sexuality, ignorance over education, mixed messages of obscene false sexuality and sexual image in the mass media contrasted with our educational system's supposed "values" on that subject.
That is the face of immorality. The puritanism with which we still regard sex, the tyranny of advertising and music videos which promote unrealistic images and expectations , and the combination there of which leave people (particularly the most important generation) absolutely spinning, directionless, and horribly ignorant in the face of biology and the cruelty of human nature.
(* Without sidetracking to much, I refer to the human right, or an individual overarching human right instead of human rights because I really only believe in one, feeling that it encompasses all the others - The right to try, un-interfered with [within reason]).
People being strangled move a great deal usually - The fight, and struggle, and finally writhe before their muscles begin to starve and fail from lack of oxygen. At some point they pass out, unable to move having fought to muscle failure, and shortly there-after they die. This is not a pretty death, nor a quiet one. This man held his daughter's body, supported her weight by the power cord wrapped around her throat, through the fighting, struggling and writhing, until she died in his arms. He did it willingly, and probably of sane mind, because he comes from a culture in which women are property, nothing more and nothing less, and an archaic, medieval idea of family honor is more important than love and life.
This man is not alone - There have been others like him in this country, and many more in the Middle East. There are more still who will never get the opportunity to kill a female family member, but would not hesitate to do so for similarly "dishonorable" behavior. They are, in my opinion, savages. There is nothing redeeming about that culture and I refuse to acknowledge it as worthy of my attentions. Nothing anyone has to say can change my mind - A culture that imposes that kind of tyranny on women, and then kills them for merely disagreeing with it; A culture which has so little respect for, value for, the most beautiful and essential element of our species,; A culture of sexual repression with such little respect for life and the human right* is one I want nothing to do with, unless I can be instrumental in its destruction.
On the home front, from the less extreme sector of the faithful, I commonly hear a cry that one of the biggest problems with this country is our supposed "sexual immorality". Unfortunately what these folks commonly see as "immorality" is merely sexual freedom - An existence without fear of sexuality and the freedom to express it.
I fully believe many people are incredibly stupid about sex - Particularly those who use it as a means to debase themselves and others with meaningless strings of one night stands, unprotected encounters and the like. Such "slutty" behavior, among both sexes, is frankly disgusting, and it takes a pretty stupid, or hateful (of self and others) person to indulge in those behaviors repeatedly. I have in the past, and have very little desire to do so in the future - Because I know just how much it can bite you in the ass, and while I've been quite lucky the small taste of that I've had was more than enough. It takes a special kind of person to do that repeatedly. That said, such stupidity is everyones natural born right. If we want people to be smarter than that, the answer is not legislation, moralization or other "sweep it under the rug" efforts, the answer is education.
We have a nation where-in the primary type of sex education provided for our children is "Abstinence Only" programs, where-in nothing is truly explained about the "birds and the bees" or the human body, but students are repeatedly admonished against the evils of sex, and encourages to make pledges of abstinence until marriage. Abstinence Only programs rarely teach about proper methods for condom use, much-less spermicidal lubricants, morning after pills or birth control. Taking the attitude that "This program cannot fail, so those things wont be needed" such vita information is ignored. The end result? Human beings, with all the natural urges and desires of human beings, who have not only no idea what they are getting themselves into, but often a very bad idea of the reality of it as fueled by that unique combination of pop-media and government sponsored non-education. So, they do what natural, functional, human beings have always done since the beginning of time, and they have sex - Without condoms, knowledge regarding STD's, birth control or any other safety measures. Viola - Teenagers with STI/STD's, babies and more than a few truly bad experiences and/or bad habits contributing to repeated incidents of excess, dangerous, promiscuity.
Sex is an amazing thing - Not just for how it makes you feel, but for the power it has in the human body and psyche. It is an inescapable force of our lives, in fact of the very survival of our species. Simply telling our young "Dont do this" doesnt cut it. If anything, it makes it more taboo and thus more appealing and the greater appeal and lesser knowledge contributes to more problems.
Among adults, unmarried couples having sex, homosexuality and pornography are common examples of so-called "immorality". I quite honestly have no where to begin or end with the unmarried sex issue - Stupid sex with random people is a stupid idea, but as far as I am concerned two people who are in love and committed to one another having sex with or without a piece of notarized paper and/or the blessing of a minister is just fine and dandy. Frankly, it is the most human of behaviors, the most innate and vital of our social actions. It is the one behavior, above all others, which ensures the survival of our species. In a world where the cultures of marriage have become so polluted with argument, murder (see above), and failure resulting from bad judgment, community over-pressure and sheer ignorance (see lack of education) it is no wonder many people who are truly loving and committed dont want to get married. It is not the natural state of human affairs - It is a religiously, culturally, meddled with minefield, an institution which says the body is permanently property - First of a higher power, and then of the spouse until death. What part of that sounds loving? None of it.
On the count of homosexuality - We need to get over ourselves. With a world population approaching 7 Billion at an alarming rate, we have to ask if we really need more breeders. The fact that some members of our species are attracted to and desire those of the same sex is beautiful on two fronts - First, any two people who can find love with one another, even for a short time, in this world are far closer to divinity than a legion of straight, hate spewing, couples, and secondly, anyone who isnt reproducing themselves, who has a way of life that includes living and loving while in the end actually returning resources to the pool, is doing the world as a whole a service. This is not immorality - It is love, and societal contribution (never mind the possibility of actually being a genetic device for population control).
The fact that many of these people get pleasure from looking at, or producing, visual depictions of the sex acts they favor is similarly a non-issue, in the grand scheme. We like to look at one another, particularly if we find an attractive example of the opposite sex. We responds to visual cues indicating prime mating potential, and enjoy the experience of seeing someone attractive. It is of vital importance to our species that we be able to develop perception of good mates and attractive qualities. Stimulation and endorphin release from viewing attractive people has been shown to actually improve concentration and task-performance as well. Pornography like so many other things can be used or abused - Some couples use it as a stimulus and performance enhancer for an active and vital sex life, others use it as a means to access fantasies or desires otherwise inaccessible. Like alcohol, addictions and abuse do happen - But the issue is not a national immorality, it is an immorality of individual self control. In a culture where no one believes they have to be responsible for anything (the government told them just follow directions, you'll be fine - just "dont do it", you dont need to know about it), why do we act surprised when people abuse the small pleasures?
We live in a world were a woman can be killed for disagreeing with an elder male in her family, because she didnt like being given like less than livestock to a man she had never met, to be used (and possibly abused) by him as if she were merely property. That is sexual immorality. The repression and abuse of sexuality and love. And this is not something to which Middle Eastern culture has entire domain.
Through our mis-education of our youth, our conflicted messages regarding the human body, sex and sexuality via education and the media, there exists in this country a similar tyranny of sexual repression.
No culture in which women are told they were in control of their bodies, lives and sexuality has ever fallen victim to honor killings.
No culture in which men and women were allowed to love who they wished to love, as they wished to love, has suffered hate and bigotry based assaults, rapes and murders.
No culture in which men and women are given the knowledge necessary to know and understand their bodies, and the risks to them, and the freedom in which to apply this knowledge as they see fit has suffered the extremes of broken families, sexually transmitted illnesses or sexual-confusion driven violence.
No culture in which women are told they are in control, in which men and women are allowed to love as they desire, in which people are educated about their bodies and their health, in which people can find non-judgmental, relaxed and supportive appreciation of their true (nude) form, or that of someone like them, has ever run into these kinds of problems on this kind of scale.
Or so we can guess - Because frankly, no culture like this truly exists in any widespread fashion, merely in small, isolated, and rather interstitial, pockets.
This is not our culture - Our culture is one which is being invaded, and ordered to cow down to, a culture which supports the idea of women as property and honor killings. And in the face of this, we promote a Luddite view of sexuality, ignorance over education, mixed messages of obscene false sexuality and sexual image in the mass media contrasted with our educational system's supposed "values" on that subject.
That is the face of immorality. The puritanism with which we still regard sex, the tyranny of advertising and music videos which promote unrealistic images and expectations , and the combination there of which leave people (particularly the most important generation) absolutely spinning, directionless, and horribly ignorant in the face of biology and the cruelty of human nature.
(* Without sidetracking to much, I refer to the human right, or an individual overarching human right instead of human rights because I really only believe in one, feeling that it encompasses all the others - The right to try, un-interfered with [within reason]).
Monday, July 7, 2008
Hate America? Jog On!
Independence day has just passed. I spent the day with a good friend and her family, cracking jokes, cooking, shooting off fireworks, eating good food and drinking good beer. Present were people of diverse faith, and diverse history, ancestry and political stance - We talked guns and beer and soldiering (her father is a retired Chief Petty Officer, her brother 7 days and a wake-up from shipping to boot for the Army and others present are planning to serve) and hunting and family and old HeeHaw routines ("And the storal of the mory is...") until well into the night. Our little (neo-)bohemian circle broke conversation long enough to chew food, swallow brew and migrate to the field out back to set off playful explosives in the grandest tradition. It was in all senses a great 4th of July - A celebration of independence, nation, tradition and future.
Going to college, surrounded by the young, fiery and easily influenced (or as my father would say; young, dumb and full of cum) I hear a lot of sentiment one way and another from my fellows. But one of the ones which consistently disturbs me is the old "I hate America" line. I really think the next well fed, well bred, affluent snot nose who says that around me is going to get busted in the mouth. Wont stop him from saying it - thats his right in this nation he hates - but I'll voice my opinion in return. It's not that I always agree with the current administration - Dont recall as I ever have, nor do I ever expect to - or even like them in the least. But I am fond of this country. The country is more than the actions of the sitting government, more than the ignorance of its citizens, more than the force of its commercialism. It is an idea - A shining, golden, god damned idea that we've made work longer than anyone else who's tried it recently. That counts for something. Dont like it? Leave it. Stop using its resources and go elsewhere. Particularly if you are a college student - Dont like this country? Dont believe in its ideals? Dont feel like its worth working on? Then why in the world would you want to get an education here?
Thats where I draw the line and separate myself - I am fundamentally disappointed in my country. I love, not hate, it, and am fundamentally disappointed in it. I am disappointed because of the ignorance of its citizens, the blindness and greediness of its leadership, and the "moral decline" of it all. Not moral decline in the popular sense, not in the "fags roaming the streets, teens getting pregnant, sex on TV" sense of moral decline - The decline in the ethos and morality that was written into the nations founding documents, the decline in the belief in and adherence to those ideals. That is a moral decline - Not homosexuality, not tits on the television, not a decline in faith and church attendance - The sheer pig-fucking ignorance with which we have come to do damn near everything we do as a nation; Vote, Shop, Educate, and Believe. And that is exactly why I am disappointed in my country - Exactly why I love it - Exactly why I want to get an education from it: Because revulsion has power here, spending money has power here, education has power here, voting has power here. It may be tarnished, it may be dim, but it has power still. And it will continue to do so until the very last person has given up on voting, settled into the ignorance of letting judges make law, and thrown their library card out with the rest of the trash in favor of whats on the History channel.
Dont like that? Dont want to fight for it? Thats fine. No one asked you to. Please, be our guest and go elsewhere. Go settle somewhere that is willing to carry your burden of choice for you, that will give you all the knowledge you need to live within its idealogical framework (but no more, and none that is uncomfortable or disquieting), and will protect you from the unpleasantries of history and responsibility.
Going to college, surrounded by the young, fiery and easily influenced (or as my father would say; young, dumb and full of cum) I hear a lot of sentiment one way and another from my fellows. But one of the ones which consistently disturbs me is the old "I hate America" line. I really think the next well fed, well bred, affluent snot nose who says that around me is going to get busted in the mouth. Wont stop him from saying it - thats his right in this nation he hates - but I'll voice my opinion in return. It's not that I always agree with the current administration - Dont recall as I ever have, nor do I ever expect to - or even like them in the least. But I am fond of this country. The country is more than the actions of the sitting government, more than the ignorance of its citizens, more than the force of its commercialism. It is an idea - A shining, golden, god damned idea that we've made work longer than anyone else who's tried it recently. That counts for something. Dont like it? Leave it. Stop using its resources and go elsewhere. Particularly if you are a college student - Dont like this country? Dont believe in its ideals? Dont feel like its worth working on? Then why in the world would you want to get an education here?
Thats where I draw the line and separate myself - I am fundamentally disappointed in my country. I love, not hate, it, and am fundamentally disappointed in it. I am disappointed because of the ignorance of its citizens, the blindness and greediness of its leadership, and the "moral decline" of it all. Not moral decline in the popular sense, not in the "fags roaming the streets, teens getting pregnant, sex on TV" sense of moral decline - The decline in the ethos and morality that was written into the nations founding documents, the decline in the belief in and adherence to those ideals. That is a moral decline - Not homosexuality, not tits on the television, not a decline in faith and church attendance - The sheer pig-fucking ignorance with which we have come to do damn near everything we do as a nation; Vote, Shop, Educate, and Believe. And that is exactly why I am disappointed in my country - Exactly why I love it - Exactly why I want to get an education from it: Because revulsion has power here, spending money has power here, education has power here, voting has power here. It may be tarnished, it may be dim, but it has power still. And it will continue to do so until the very last person has given up on voting, settled into the ignorance of letting judges make law, and thrown their library card out with the rest of the trash in favor of whats on the History channel.
Dont like that? Dont want to fight for it? Thats fine. No one asked you to. Please, be our guest and go elsewhere. Go settle somewhere that is willing to carry your burden of choice for you, that will give you all the knowledge you need to live within its idealogical framework (but no more, and none that is uncomfortable or disquieting), and will protect you from the unpleasantries of history and responsibility.
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
—Samuel Adams
Monday, June 30, 2008
A Hat...
I grew up in a culture where a lot could be said about a man, without breath passing lips, by his hat. It always struck me as one of the more admirable things about cowboy culture, such awareness of identifiers. Its something a lot of people miss. As an adult, now part of no particular culture, I'm one of the few people I know who notices things like boots, belts, hats, etc. I live in a town where one of the major industries is providing training to first responders and soldiers. We are regularly overrun with Police, Fire, EMS, agents of three letter agencies and so on, and my friends are always somewhat amused (if not annoyed) when I will randomly point out an identifying characteristic of one of these folks, when we're out to eat or the like. I will notice a brand or type of boots, a particular choice or cut of garment, pocket clips for folding knives, "riggers belts" (heavy duty nylon webbing belt often w/ emergency rappelling attachments - Originally sewn up by bored Army parachute riggers), and quietly peg the bearer of said items as a whatever. By the same token, they have often also assumed I was one of their classmates because my more recent background, employment and habits lends me to many of their dress characteristics. But such things, such observation and awareness, are not the common product of the common culture - Far from it. If you want to say the unsaid, let people see the unseen, you have to scream it, or build a fire a'top it before most of them notice.
Being the gray-man, the unnoticed, has its distinct advantages, but sometimes it is simply boring. I'm at the point in my life where being boring is not what I want, and am fortunately in an environment where standing out (probably) wont make me an obvious mark on any predatory radar. College is fun like that.
I used to have a baseball cap I liked quite a lot. It said a lot about me. It was a cheap wally world cap with Stewie (the baby from Family Guy) and a proclaimation of "Victory will be mine!" across the front. I had restyled it after what soldiers and private military contractors have taken to calling "dont shoot me" hats: The hard button on top removed and replaced with a tab of Velcro for attaching an IR reflective marker, and with Velcro on the front and across the back for attaching other identifier, or morale, patches. Mine bore morale patches, as I have no need for identification as a ‘friendly”.
One of the morale patches mounted to the bill said Infidel in large capital letters. Going to a school with a fair number of Muslim individuals, I'd occasioned to wonder if this perhaps offended anyone, but have never given that line much consideration as, frankly, I dont care. Simply because, I am an infidel.
Infidel is in the common lexicon today as a word associate with extremist Islam and terrorism. Their justification for killing us is that we are infidels and wish to corrupt their pure and good society with our infidel ways (by for example, not stoning women to death for "daring" to be raped).
The word has a broader use than just in the context of Islam, but I think everyone’s idea, including my own, of it now is heavily involved with that context more-so than any other.
Context aside, the word means an unbeliever, someone who doubts or rejects the central tenants of a religion.
Now, I am not a man without belief, but I am most certainly a man without religion. I don’t have much use for it, and it separates me from my God more than it connects me. But, my infidelity is not to a religion, or even religion itself. My infidelity is thus:
If you are an enemy of Enlightenment, Spiritual and Intellectual Freedom, the Right of Personal Decision, an enemy of Science, and Medicine, I am your enemy. If you use religion to justify your hatred, and attempts to destroy, those things in which I believe, then I am your Infidel, and proud of it. My depth of infidelity and animosity towards you who would destroy the world of knowledge and light, for darkness and ignorant superstition, is beyond description - And I am unrepentant in my attitude and desire to see you struck from the earth.
If you are not one of those people, if you are not a destroyer, a bonder of people to ideas and decisions not their own, a cruel hand of ancient tyrannies, then we are not enemies and I am not your Infidel. In all likelihood, we share ideals, beliefs, and common goals.
There are few things in this world that I am prouder of than being an Enemy, and Infidel, of the destroyers of education and freedom. When I had it, I wore my marker with pride. All those who it offended, will have few greater and more dedicated an enemy. All those who embraced it, will have few greater and more dedicated a friend.
I need to get that hat back, or make another one.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Left barber college, lookin' for knowledge...
"I left Barber College, Searchin’ for knowledge, Went to the university. I must confess, Sir, This lady professor She turned me on to anthropology. Now I’m a Homo Erectus, Got to connect this, Bone that I discovered yesterday.I was talking with an acquaintance the other day in the rock climbing gym about Erebus Crystals. Erebus crystals are a rare type of Feldspar found primarily on Mt. Erebus, Antarctica. They are one of the rarer feldspar types around, given that they are found in only one other location and are formed under circumstances still not positively known. Ejected from the volcano inside bombs of volcanic glass, which subsequently wears away exposing the feldspar Erebus crystals within, the crystals are rather prized by those who can obtain them (among the small number of people who go to Antarctica, an even smaller number are actually allowed on the volcano).
Tyrannosaurus
Lived in the forest,
Died because its heart got in the way." Kinky Friedman & Panama Red
As someone who has always wanted to go to Antarctica, I was of course somewhat insanely jealous of Julien's little pile of green rocks - As I have been previously envious of Julien for simply going to Antarctica, being a phenomenal climber, etc. - and it spurred me to find out more about them and where or how I might get some. The logical answer is, of course, go down there and be doing something that would permit me access to the volcano.
So, off to the website of Raytheon Polar Services, the division of Raytheon contracted to provide all support services to the research operations at the U.S. Antarctic stations. Looking through their job listings I came across several very interesting jobs that I hope to be qualified for in ten years (provided I stay on my current path), several more I will never be qualified for if I even wanted to do them, a few that could be interesting if I felt like getting the required degree, and then one, one, for which I am already insanely overqualified for, already this far into a science degree. Hairdresser.
Yep, they need hairdressers at McMurdo station.
I should have gone to barber college.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Zen, and the art of...
Once upon a time I worked at a library on weekends, mostly to entertain myself with high-speed internet and being in a one room building with 26,000 volumes. Occasionally I ordered a book through the InterLibrary Loan program, so I could read something not in the library. One day an order of mine came in, what I expected to be a dry and highly technical book, and I found myself surprised, quietly tucked into a corner out of pestering range of the patrons, reading what would become one of my favorite books in general, much less on a specialized topic.
Its a good book - Indeed a bit dry, but with a lot of value to its contents.
There are many side-notes in the book, important single points from the main body of the text. They are quite "guiding", and I thought I'd share a few.
"The seer and the seen exist only in confusion. There is only the seeing."
You can act "without thought, without effort, without limitations. You must first understand those limitations."
"...concern yourself only with what is happening and how you are feeling. That will leave no room for what 'might happen' or 'just happened'."
"An idea is merely a formulation of thought as a symbol; and the effort to live up to that symbol brings about a contradiction."
"Concentration can exist through awareness; but awareness cannot exist through concentration."
"The truth - that which is actually happening - cannot be written down or spoken about. Once it becomes spoken or written down, it is knowledge. And knowledge is not truth, because knowledge is fixed in time. And truth is ever moving and changing, without regard to time. Truth is outside of all knowledge, of all thought. As soon as you pause to reflect, it is not truth."
"You can never learn to act. You can only learn as you act. Never limit yourself to what you know." (Slightly paraphrased...)
"Free yourself from the 'do this to get that' syndrome."
"The truth beyond the technique. The application beyond the analysis. The means beyond the methods. Here's where we stop thinking and start" acting.
"Pay attention! Nothing more really needs to be said. Most people aren't going to accept the truth of that because it is just too simple. They ask, What do I pay attention to? Just pay attention to what's happening. Its all right there before you. You must learn to see what you haven't been seeing. Find something that's out there and pay attention to it!"
"You see with your mind. Your mind and body work togather. When your body is tense, your mind is tense, 'sticky' also. And when your mind is tense, so is your vision."
"The only true limit is in the body's nervous system. Anything less implies interference from lack of attention."
"Any time you plan for action based on an idea, what happens? When you actually meet the idea - down to the finest detail - it is never the same as you had pictured it, and so your response will be lacking in creativity."
"Confidence is an emotion created by concious thought. By its very nature it can work for you or against you. When you step up" to act, "let the emotion of confidence yield to pure action."
"Do not become caught up or attached to the idea of knowing how to do something. The knowing is not it. There is only the doing."
"Everything in this book could be wrong...
Check it out for yourself. It's you who has to learn. You won't learn by copying an idea - you have to experience it for yourself. When you become the experience, you will have learned, possibly without understanding."
The quotes above all come from the book "Practical Shooting" by Brian Enos. It is about effectively working with a handgun to affect hits. I studied it to improve my ability to affect terminal effect with a handgun.
The words however apply to much more, so much more. Everything is intertwined.
Art in all things.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Wants...
I really want a good fight, a good fuck and to not have to be up for work in three hours... being a grownup kinda sucks
Friday, December 28, 2007
Friday Night at the El Adobe
Its cold tonight at the old ranch house, a dark intentioned and ill mannered wind trying to insert itself into every crack and crevice. I'm doing my usual thing when the weather is foul, and the muse feels pent by the surroundings and the afflicting chest cold: Being a vegetable in front of the computer. In my browsing of one of the 'net forums I participate in I settled in to read the most recent posts in a favorite thread; all about cigars. One poster was commenting about his recent first experience with a fine cigar - Settled into his basement "man room" with a good buddy, sipping glasses of Gentleman Jack and puffing away on Romeo y Julieta's - and it brought back memories of, and a fervent desire for, some of my favorite Friday nights over the past five months.
Gathering with friends to go get excellent green chili cheese burgers, and then retiring to a friends apartment to break out the fine liquor, good beer, and excellent cigars. Sitting outside, smoking, often with a glass of something tasty in hand, enjoying the company and conversation of dear friends in the cool late summer, autumn and early winter darkness.
Thinking of this my mouth went wet for the smooth taste of good bourbon, and the billowing, rich, flavor of a strong cigar, and my heart cried for the company of my friends. To be with those who understand, those who share, those with whom I am communal in virtue and in vice - Good company, over good food, good drink and the shared pleasure of cigars is something beyond compare.
In lieu there of, I'm going to wrap myself up with a good blanket, a hearty dose of cough syrup and a book in hopes of finding my way to sleep and fighting this demon out of my lungs. Really, its so much more miserable now by comparison.
I owe you a toast my friends, next time we circle up and do it all again, for such really is the best in life.
Gathering with friends to go get excellent green chili cheese burgers, and then retiring to a friends apartment to break out the fine liquor, good beer, and excellent cigars. Sitting outside, smoking, often with a glass of something tasty in hand, enjoying the company and conversation of dear friends in the cool late summer, autumn and early winter darkness.
Thinking of this my mouth went wet for the smooth taste of good bourbon, and the billowing, rich, flavor of a strong cigar, and my heart cried for the company of my friends. To be with those who understand, those who share, those with whom I am communal in virtue and in vice - Good company, over good food, good drink and the shared pleasure of cigars is something beyond compare.
In lieu there of, I'm going to wrap myself up with a good blanket, a hearty dose of cough syrup and a book in hopes of finding my way to sleep and fighting this demon out of my lungs. Really, its so much more miserable now by comparison.
I owe you a toast my friends, next time we circle up and do it all again, for such really is the best in life.
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