Friday, April 22nd 2022
So Russia rejected giving the ukrainians a day of peace for Easter. Not news for me. My neighbors have never respected my Saturdays. I would like to say something like you learn to live with the disrespect but you never really get used to it. Hate breeds hate and unfortunately, Russia breeds hate professionally. They are a for-profit hate agency.
***
Hi. It’s about 7:00 a.m. and I’ve been up for a little while. I’m just not moving yet. For a guy who has traditionally suffered from insomnia, I am sleeping remarkably well these days. At least I think I’m sleeping well. I’m not sure sometimes at night if I’m awake or asleep. But lately, my routine just turns me into a zombie once I hit the bed. I’m usually amazed that it’s light outside already when I actually wake up.
The Torah reading this week is a conglomeration of different readings especially for Passover. The story is that Moses, realizing who he was and the inequity of slavery, brokers or tries to broker a deal with pharaoh to let the Jews go free. Of course the economic benefit of slave labor is not to be let go lightly. Power is an addiction and addictions don’t go away at the snap of a finger. So, as life according to the Bible is basically fascist, Moses helps organize a series of miseries to balance out his request. He’s looking to make feral an offer that he cannot refuse.
Finally, I hate begets hate and pharaoh decides to take the firstborn son from every house of Israel. His thinking is that this will teach the Jews to mess with the boss. Unfortunately, with God on his side, Moses tells Pharaoh that this indeed would be the big one, the Hiroshima of the plagues, and by deciding to do this nefarious thing, Pharaoh has ensured that this is what will happen to Egypt and to Pharaoh himself.
I believe the dialogue translated from the original Hebrew is “…and Moses said unto pharaoh fuck me? No, fuck you!”
The way this would be accomplished would be that a mystical Angel would come down and bring with it the touch of death. The way to distinguish between the houses of Egypt and the houses of Israel would be to put the blood of a lamb over the doors of the houses to be spared. I guess there were a lot of one legged sheep that year.
I’m sorry, I know I should be serious about this because it’s a big holiday and Easter is coming up but I just can’t help myself.
I used to travel a lot and often I would travel by bus. Greyhound had a policy where you could just step off a bus one day, stay over at whatever town the bus was stopping at and then get back on the bus again the next day if there was room. So I took this as a way of going across the country and would often jump off when I found interesting places.
Well, we were going through farm country and I decided I liked the air. So I jumped off and stayed in some small town in rural Kansas. I played pool in the evening, caught a movie, spent the night in a motel and in the morning while waiting for my bus, I went to breakfast at the restaurant attached to the place I was sleeping at. It was one of these farm to plate places where they grew their own food and served it at the restaurant.
While I was eating, I was admiring the rather well built farm. They had a lot of vegetables growing and they kept a bunch of pigs in a pen. I noticed one of the pigs was walking kind of funny. I looked closer and saw that the pig actually had a prosthetic leg, a timber toe I think they called it.
When the waitress came by to refill my coffee I asked her if she knew something about this big. She said that that indeed was a very special pig.
“That pig is a hero. It’s a real lifesaver.”
I asked to hear the story and this is what she said.
“The first time was when there was a problem pulling a stump with the tractor. Something went wrong and the tractor went sideways and fell over. The farmer was pinned under the wheel and couldn’t get out and the auto fumes were choking him. That pig broke out of the pen, ran across the field and using its hooves and its nose dug the Earth out from under the farmer and pulled him to safety by his collar.”
“Wow.”
“That’s right. And another time, there was a fire in the main house and that pig smelled it and broke right through the screen door and made such a ruckus that the farmer and his family woke up, realized there was a fire and managed to put it out.”
“That’s amazing.”
“That’s right. And the farmer has a daughter and when she was a little girl, she fell in a hole and broke her ankle and couldn’t move. And that very same pig dragged her all the way back to the house and then screamed as loud as it could until someone noticed and came to help.”
I said that this was probably the greatest story I have ever heard. But I still didn’t understand how that pig came to have a wooden leg.
“Well, you just can’t eat a great pig like that all at once, can you?”
No, I guess you can’t. And no, this is not the story about how I became a vegan but this was one of the stories I stopped telling when I did.
Anyway, pharaoh relented and let the people go and the story of The Exodus of the now theoretically free people is what the Old testament is about. Passover is named for the angel of death passing over the Jewish houses and we have a big party with a big dinner and lots of ceremony and read all about that during this holiday.
I’ve talked about this a number of times but I saw a film and then had a look at a book called Caesar’s Messiah.
Caesar’s Messiah is a 2005 book by Joseph Atwill that argues that the New Testament Gospels were written by a group of individuals connected to the Flavian family of Roman emperors: Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. The authors were mainly Flavius Josephus, Berenice, and Tiberius Julius Alexander, with contributions from Pliny the Elder. Although Vespasian and Titus had defeated Jewish nationalist Zealots in the First Jewish–Roman War of 70 AD, the emperors wanted to control the spread of Judaism and moderate its political virulence and continuing militancy against Rome. Christianity, a pacific and pro-Roman authority religion, was their solution.
Right. Be passive, when you get slapped in the face, offer your other cheek, pay your taxes and work really hard.
Then they reworked the story of Rome’s persecution of the Jews to make it seem as though this Jesus character had foreseen it. They sort of retrofitted History to suit their needs. And they make a real point that Christianity all by itself would not have spread without Roman approval because Rome controlled the roads.
So they wrote a new book, invented some horrible frightful things to scare people with and then spent the next couple of thousand years destroying people’s lives for failure to believe. Sort of a fascist way to heaven and the blueprint for the mafia.
Easter is the usurped springtime holiday that it borrows from the tradition of having a religious ceremony just before sending the slaves to work in the field.
I don’t know really what to say about all of this. I really like not working on Saturday and I have learned to live my life as much more of a free man because of the practice of keeping the Sabbath holy. It seems that the ten commandments offered in the Old testament were a really good guideline for how to get along as Free people. Or in other words, if you just need a few basic ideas on how to live well with others, try these 10 because they work.
Orthodox Jews believe that all of these you should do this and you should do this and this is now the law and stand up and sit down are also to be followed and I believe the numbers 630 something. That is to say, if you study the Torah and take every word verbatim, there are 630 something laws to listen to.
I had a conversation with a rather learned fellow from the Orthodox Jewish community and he tried to explain to me how these 630 something commandments were actually a benefit to our lives. My response to him was that indirect conversation with god/nature the number was much smaller:
Eat, sleep, piss, shit, breathe and have sex.
You’ll notice that shopping is not in that list nor is paying taxes.
But these are just our animal nature expressing themselves. I am an animal and I am of the animal kingdom. I am of a particular species of animal that has been chosen by God to be special and to rule over the planet. I believe that this power given to me should not be exercised like the terrorists depicted in the Torah or the subsequently usurped and government issued Christian Bible. I do not believe in the hypocrisy of thou “shalt not kill” does not apply during times of War or to animals. I do not believe that “thou shalt not steal” and “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife or belongings” also falls behind during times of War or in matters of business. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy and lies are lies and stealing is stealing.
So what I’m trying to say is that I have been working in the field of anti-corruption for 20 years. I came to the idea that anti-corruption was my calling during my time while traveling across the United States looking for something real that I never found.
I thought I found a place that was reasonably respectful and gentle and found I could make a life here that I could enjoy. That came to an end because of the government and then everything came to an end because of the Russian government and now we are looking at genocidal War being practiced by those governments and many, many, many people losing their lives either physically or in terms of having their homes ripped away from them.
So I guess my point is that it’s hard for me to back fascism and hypocrisy because it just doesn’t work. Finding a way to group people together by fostering in them addictions and then playing with their heads once they’re crazy is not sustainable. The evidence of this is the scientific findings about global warming, the reason for global warming and the plagues humanity is currently facing for not letting the people go.
I’m not really trying to write a sermon today. But I am saying that if you want to look at it as if it was part of the Passover readings, please look at ramp and forest fires, rising sea levels, famine, war, drought, disease and overpopulation seem very much to be plagues given to us by god/nature for not respecting his/her/its power.
You play with fire, you get burned. You play with the devil, you go to hell. You play with power and the man that you are higher than god/nature, you’re taking all of us to hell with you.
Right after the waitress told me that story about the pig, I looked around again. There were a lot of very fat people in the diner and everybody was enjoying their bacon and eggs, they’re chicken fried steaks and gravy and their apple pie with ice cream on top for dessert.
“Tell me miss, what exactly is the name of this town?”
“Well sir, if you didn’t know already, welcome to Hell. You’re in Hell right now. Enjoy your stay and here’s your check for your breakfast.”
***
Okay, it’s coming up on 8:00 and I’m going to get moving. I sincerely doubt that I’m going to the government office today. I appreciate that they called me and that they have somewhat figured out the issues about this land inspection. But there is a nuance of whether you get the inspection during the summer or during the winter and it’s more expensive for some reason for people to come out during the winter. They gave me a price and failed to understand that it might be less if I waited a bit. When I talked to the organization last year, they told me about this price discrepancy so I guess I’m at least going to wait until next week.
I’m going to respect the Passover tradition and I’m not going to the store today. Later, I will make some bread without any soda or leavening and I will do my best to make it as quickly as possible. It’s going to be tricky because we’re not talking about pancakes, you literally have to knead the dough into a dry cake before putting it under heat. So I’m going to do my best to make simple wheat flatbreads right from scratch to heat for supper tonight. I don’t think there’s any laws about potatoes and I think I’m going to eat a lot of potatoes this shabbos. I’m getting a little tired of factory food so I’m probably going to make a big pot of potatoes and serve them with some kind of nut cream. It’ll be enough.
But before I get to do any cooking, I guess I’m going back out to try and make some more headway on that wood pile. Maybe that wheelbarrow is more trouble than it’s worth and maybe I should just throw the wood through the opening of the wood shed and then start stacking it. My back hurts already from even thinking about this but probably that’s a better way than feeling the wheelbarrow and rolling it over to the stacking spot. On a positive note, I’ve already done most of the organizing in there so everything else I’m doing right now is just feeling the space from the floor to the ceiling and making rows that hopefully won’t fall over and make me do it all again.
All of this by the way is an addition to finishing the garden boxes and even after the last wheelbarrows of Earth are thrown in, I still need to make a bunch of leaf gathering missions so that I have a layer of mulch to keep the soil moist and the weeds from growing.
It’s all a lot of work. But I’m almost there. We are almost at the starting line and the greens are already starting to appear from the gray. I’ve already had a few butterflies wake up and come to say hello. I’ve already had a few stupid bees come and get trapped inside my kitchen window. We already have the first shoots from the perennials making their appearances. Life is already starting again.
You know, if you think about it, Garden building is like Town building or city building. This Garden I have built had a basic architectural plan that had a place for people to walk around and a place for the garden to grow. There is an infrastructure that is required so that the inhabitants of my city flourish and grow. This year, it’s going to be very work intensive. It might be the same next year but much less so because I will not have to construct anything new and my early spring work will simply be to add some fertility and a fresh layer of mulch to what already exists.
If I make it past 3 years, if I’m still here, we will be starting our transition to a fully perennial garden. The trees will start to mature and the nature of the garden will change and my work with it.
Enough words? Enough words. Let’s get going.
***
It’s 3:00 p.m. and I’m going to take a bit of a break. I’m eating my last apple right now. A green one and it is very tasty.
I have not been moving fast. This job is very painful. It’s a job for three people but I don’t have the other two. Most of the jobs I end up doing by myself are probably jobs better served by multiple people. I’m not showboating or trying to build myself up. I’m just saying that I’m no good at having friends or workers around when work needs to be done. Some people are good at this. I’m not.
I’ve made a big dent in the wood pile and the woodshed is very orderly. I’m using every bit of space I have and doing the best job I can of stacking so that the pile doesn’t come crashing down. I can see maybe four or six more hours of diligent work would do it. My original guesstimate was 4 to 6 hours of work if I had help. I’ve been doing it all day and I’m tired of it.
Actually, I’m not really tired of it. I’m just tired of not being able-bodied while doing it. If I was me 20 years ago, this job would have been done yesterday. I wouldn’t have thought anything about it and would have just blasted through it and gone on to the next thing. This is no longer me and I spend a lot of time on the stool I set up in the woodshed just watching the clock tick by. I have to convince myself often to go and do another run. There’s no prize for continuing and there is no prize for sitting on that stool. There is no prize for any of this except that probably one year from today, I will be happy to have a full wood shed to help keep me warm.
I keep thinking about this business of the Russians refusing to take a break for Easter. I thought that was a pretty cool request from zelinsky. Zelinsky’s Jewish and taking a shabbos day is deep, deep, deep in his DNA. He knows this law. He knows the difference between being a free man and being a slave. He knows what a day of freedom means.
The Russians though are just made of different stuff. This is the Russians being the Russians. Of course there are no days off! Slavery never ends. The oil business never ends. “Get me my money!” is the moscovian Battle cry. Of course the oil business never rests. Of course even the religion that the country professes to be so important to them means nothing in the face of oil profits.
Perhaps this is why I am so clear on the hypocrisy of all of this. A vegan bicyclist is not immune to a bullet. But a vegan bicyclist can see through bullshit when it tries to get in his way. In a battle of rhetoric, there is really nothing clever coming from someone holding a gun.
When it’s a game of power, we don’t bandy ideas. We don’t really care about souls or heaven. We don’t really believe in any day at ease or the solemnity of saints or the importance of religious icons painted on wood hundreds of years ago. There are no church services that mean anything.
So I thought I would tell another joke. This is an old one but I think it’s a good one.
Alexander Lukashinka dies. Don’t worry, it happens to all men. It always has and it always will and the president’s time comes and his soul is transported upward and he finds himself dressed all in white, strolling the streets of Glory and listening to the holy harp strings praising God all around him.
And yet, he finds himself unsatisfied. Truthfully, he’s a bit bored with all of this worship and peace. He sighs, he looks around, stuffs his hands into the pockets of his flowing robes and wanders on
Suddenly there is a puff of smoke and before him stands a rather elegant and well-dressed gentleman who looks a little bit like the president of Russia.
“Tell the truth, Sasha, you’re bored to death aren’t you?”
The four term president of the Republic of Belarus sighs and nods his head solemnly. Indeed, it’s nice to be in heaven but it’s not exactly what he would have hoped for.
“Would you mind if I showed you something a little different?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Oh, nothing special. But I have a piece of property you might be interested in looking at that might be more your style. Come along with me. It doesn’t cost anything and you are under no obligation to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Lukashenka agrees and then with the blank of an eye the two men find themselves on a vast and seemingly endless seashore. All along the beach are beautiful girls in tiny bikinis, people are barbecuing shashlik and toasting each other’s health with what appears to be the finest vodka known to man. There are tables full of men playing dominoes together, there are people keeping volleyballs alive and right next door to the beach are hockey rinks filled with some of the greatest skaters the Soviet Union ever produced.
“Do you see anything you like?”
Lukashenka is dumbstruck.
“This place is amazing. This is heaven or at least what I’ve always imagined heaven to be. The other place is nice and peaceful and quiet but truthfully, this is much more my style. What do you call this place?”
“This? Why, this place is called Hell.”
“This is hell? I don’t understand. The other place that is called heaven is much more like hell to me. This is my idea of a good time. This is the place that I would like to consider my final reward.”
And the Man in the nice suit smiles and nods his head.
“You know, I thought you might like this. If you’re interested, we can transfer you in right away. No waiting line, no application fees. Just sign your name here on this contract and you are as good as gold.”
Lukashenka takes the pen and scribbles his name and as soon as the pen leaves the paper the picture disappears and is replaced by a dark, fiery, sulfurous chamber of horrors. People are being boiled alive in oil and tormented by devil’s poking them with sticks. Tortures are being carried out all over the landscape and the noise of screams of agony are everywhere and deafening in their Hysteria.
Lukashanka’s eyes go wide. Something is wrong.
“Wait a minute. What happened to the beach and the girls in bikinis and the hockey and the Dominos and the shashlik? I thought I was signing up for that other beautiful place. This place is nothing but misery!”
“I’m sorry if there was any misunderstanding but you see, our work for the national media dictates that we only show the best possible views of what we have to offer.”
***
8:00 p.m. on Friday night and I’m going to be getting out of here right now. I have a few prayers to say. Mostly thank you for the food and for my life and for the good fortune. I’m also going to say a prayer for peace. And I guess I can say even right now that if you believe this weekend to be special, regardless of what religion you consider yourself a part of, even if Mr Putin will not, I will wish you peace and happiness and good luck. I also wish and hope that you don’t kill me like a psychopathic killer without a brain or other purpose in life other than to bring misery to the planet.
I made a huge dent in that wood pile and my woodshed looks good. Orderly. My work is orderly.
I am cleaned up and then fresh clothes and I am really looking forward to not working tomorrow. Truth be told, I’m probably going to do what I can to finish that wood pile on Sunday. You can hate me if you want but most probably if you do it’s because you just like hating.
If the food is important, I’m cooking up sort of a potato soup with veggies and I have a very tasty hummus ready to be added in. I didn’t go for the bread because I just don’t care but I might use some whole wheat flour to make some gravy. Nothing particularly spicy here. It’s just simple food that’ll be very filling and I made a lot of it in case I’m hungry.
What else? I don’t know what the story is with my ex partner. I probably won’t know until I knock on the door and find out what the story is. Maybe we’re done, maybe we’re not. It’s more up to her than it is to me. I’m sorry if you think it’s the job of the man to go groveling to his women but if you think that that is a universal truth, you’re an idiot. And if my ex partner has got friends pointing their fingers at me, they are just conservative dweebs like everyone else around here. My
People don’t understand shit here. They think they’re still in the Soviet Union and haven’t noticed that there isn’t an automatic paycheck anymore. They haven’t noticed any of the problems because it’s always on someone else until it’s on them.
In America, they warn us that it’s important to vote. If we don’t, we will lose our rights because the people above us are absolutely set on taking them away from us. Here, I’m not so sure anybody ever had any rights or even no what it feels like to have them. Here they just follow some kind of law that they believe comes from God but doesn’t. What I believe comes from God and nature. And here is where I give my thanks to Nature and God. And peace.
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