Bubblebath, call people, dance, run errands, tv, & lots of coffee & cigarettes. I have to gradually build the energy to do things that will build more energy. Sometimes I don't have the energy to turn on music.

I do all those things. and yes, I feel like crying at times for no other reason than being tired, and have to do a bit of emotional discipline to overcome it. Some of my best writing comes when I feed off my depression. Unfortunately I don't have an internal indicator that I am tired. I don't live on any sort of am/pm schedule either. I go to sleep when I look at the clock and deduce I am operating in slow motion.

Usually I eat or just want to be on my own. Unfortunately this is a common problem 4 me cos I have S.A.D (the initials are apt!) (Seasonal Affected Disorder) which means that in the winter I don't receive enough vitamin E from the sun and so I get really tired, irritable and depressed. To combat this however I have a sun lamp from my doctor to shine on my face for a couple of hours.

I've figured I have SAD since I heard of it. My doctor says I'm low on vitamin E, though I eat E supplements. Worse, though I crave sunlight, I keep staying up till sunrise. I'd been up for a couple days. When I just woke up I was depressed to find that I'd slept 24 hours. I turned on the TV and was so happy to find that the news was morning news. I have a huge christmas gift production agenda today.

I still want to get more swimming at the beach in, though now I am unlikely to attempt tanning under our blustery skies. I moved to LA because I didn't want to have to wear Autumn clothes year round as you do in San Francisco.

Sandals are all I wear, even when hiking and climbing. Clarks are good for that while still looking good with an evening gown. I haven't been thinking about going to the beach lately and wear sweat shirts and often pants now.

I know how you feel. My school is SO cold. They are either too poor or too cheap to turn on the heat.

Yeah, mine too. Its annoying, cause I always end up wearing my winter coat during the day cause I'm too cold to do otherwise.

At leats they let you wear a coat. We aren't allowed. It's against "school rules". Apparently, it is a fire hazard.

Well that's just pure insane. Has there been violence at your school? Perhaps they are worried about a different kind of 'fire hazard'.

There is violence at every school, but not serious violence. They won't let us have back-packs either. That is because of carrying liquor and drugs, and fire hazards. ...but all that doesn't stop the fires.

That's absurd! Fire hazards? How do you carry all your books and stuff around then? Do you just take an armful at a time? What a pain in the ass!

Yeah, I used to have to take about 6 books at a time, because I wasn't allowed to go to my locker, or I would get a DR, but my teachers don't really care, so I go between every class that I am changing rooms.

There wasn't any violence at any of my public schools. (except an office arsony one summer) I never heard of anyone bringing a weapon to school except years later wher I was out of highschool and my old geometry teacher showed up on a holiday with a gun to protest Martin Luther King day. On the other hand there were drugs. We knew back in middle school (6,7,8th grades) that the real purpose behind fire drill / bomb threats was a locker inspection. I myself spent a day in the office because I had brought a leaf I found growing in my back yard in, and gave it to a chum who got caught with it and a joint (I hadn't seen one till then), both pinned on me. After many grueling hours in which I immediately confessed to the leaf, he finally 'remembered', "Oh, yeah billy bobson gave me the joint". I was ready to strangle him for keeping me in the office all day and ruining my reputation. My favorite science teacher signed my yearbook 'to a future botanist'. Still, no one ever came to school drunk or stoned. Some ditched, and I imagine some carried, but that was about it. That was middle school in the uptown of a slum, and highschool in an affluent surf/aerospace community, and more highschool in a hippie surf town. It sounds like things are different now everywhere. What happened? Different kids, different parents, different teachers? Availability of weapons, disregard for education, lack of respect, lax policies? In my time any criminal misdemeanor was cause for suspension, and any suspension was cause to be black-balled by any college bound social cliche from the French club to the Wargamers club. I take it that's changed too? What's different? I'd really like to know. Sounds like even a rich school is worse than a slum school used to be in terms of being a respected institution for aspiring minds.

Wow, I guess things have changed alot. Most people drink and/or are on drugs, usually just pot, and there are a lot of pitiful little fist fights that only lead to suspension. About two years ago, there were a few fires, only one of which was serious, and they just implimented some security cameras, but that caused people to make faces and give the finger to the cameras. Now we are too poor to even have them working anymore. But there are much worse schools I could go to.

I had friends I got stoned with once in a blue moon, and I suppose everyone drank from time to time, but only on a weekend. Are you saying buzzed attendance is popular? Hardly any of us had the team spirit the Beach Boys sung about a generation earlier, but we wouldn't have been flipping off cameras. We took school for granted, and liked most of the teachers. In both of my high schools, So-Cal. & N. California, I was in a fantasy / wargamers club (we had every imaginable sort of club ie. ski, wrestling bunnies, jams & preserves (120 members)) and both clubs met at lunch in a biology storeroom in which we either gamed or studied for tests / did homework. I was getting a D in

geometry, the next year I had an Algebra II teacher who moved me up to an A with his class policy; if

you incomplete more than 3 nightly homeworks a semester, you're out of the class.

My son's smoking most of the time now. He tell's me he's getting better grades now as his defense.

What gets me is that he doesn't drink, because alcohol is harder to come by. At my very most, I only smoked every couple of weekends. Seems more than that would create a kind of numb surreality, and the sensitive awed contemplations would fade. One hit changes my reality for a couple days. I told him he's developed a tolerance. I just got him a guitar for christmas. If figure if he's just going to hang out, he might as well at least learn something useful.

Yeah, a lot of people get high before school, but not so high so that the teachers would notice. Most people only drink on the weekrnds now too, because you're son is right, alcohol is harder to get, but if you know older people, or look older, you can get it. Grades and pot haven't got much to do with each other. I was really into drugs and cigarettes and drinking for a couple of months, and now I'm over it. I don't see the point of smoking, it doesn't do anything for me, and getting high got boring. Does him smoking bother you?

We had talked about it; he conceded that his grades weren't better 'because' of the weed. Yes it bothers me because I want him to have the fullest life possible, and though I think occasional usage is mind expanding when done with the right intent, frequent usage just makes you a target for tv ads like "bored? get a coke." He doesn't 'do' anything, and I'm thinking smoke is to blame. I talked to a few people who consider their weed years, their 'wasted' years. At his age I was going to college, acting in the Rennaissance Faire, spelunking, and exploring ruins in the mountains or finding waterfalls, learning various arts, reading up on mysticism and the occult, fantasy gaming with friends, going to punk concerts, designing steam vehicles, houses, and software... All he does is read Stephan King and play video games. When he was living with me he was drawing mazes and folding origami and making tree houses. I guess it was my vibes, and they don't travel by phone.

I can imagine tripping in a french class on the pronunciation of vous-etes & imagining it's place in a Seuss book or comparing voulez to would, wool, voodoo, etc. and maybe being inspired to write a poem, but unless the teacher is stoned too, I'd realize I'm not going to have that liberty. I dealt with my teachers face on as parents, colleagues, or employers. I would negotiate all my assignments if I had something more personally suited in mind that demonstrated the same learning. What is your rapport with your teachers like? I'd ask you to compare it to the rapport you have with your parents, but from what you've told me, you don't even have the rapport with them that I had with my teachers. In my eyes, it's a global family, and were all here to help each other. I suspect you don't enable people to help you or contemplate the value of what they could be doing. I think this is why gen-x is adrift. 'anything goes' get's you nowhere. At least in the 60's the system was turned over with the hazy goal of love, those people grew up to finally learn focus, and by the 80's were doing Greenpeace or Now or something. As I see it now, the system is completely being disregarded, but with no alternate goal in sight except maybe anarchy, which might not be that bad except a fringe crowd is still going through the discipline ropes to sell computers and buy your hours of devotion. If everyone in your video game planet drinks coke, you'll feel away from home drinking RC cola on the physical plane. The only control generation-missing-y-chromosome will have is changing the channel to a Pepsi sponsored VR paint-ball game.

Write to your Senator. Ha. Do you you even know what these folks concern themself with? Did anyone even protest when we made private communication gov't property or put 2000 sattelites in the sky to watch ourselves? The system is not going away just because 95% of the next generation acts like sheep, in fact that only strengthens it. It is your NON-participation that makes you sheep. It is non-participation that makes rivers of salmon become concrete gutters to carry fast-food packaging. Imagine if those 95% became emperor/warriors, if parents actually participated in choosing school curriculum, if people insisted that we get working mass transit again. {the big motor companies bought all the trolleys during the depression and drove them inte decay so they could sell cars} We could easily have had cars with deposits for assembly line recycling and bullet trains on every boulevard by now if people were involved in any decision bigger than 'which model do we buy now'. Look at any grandfathers photo album. We had waterfalls flowing down city hall steps, you could fish in any river or lake and catch something nice. Victorian houses with immense craftsmanship would be made to last a hundred years and passed down to the kids or sold without profit, so someone else had an equal chance {the 50's - 60's} is when people started housing price escalation. Stereos and TV's would last 30 years. Somehow, instead of learning craftsmanship to be stewarts of our heritage, we moved on to make a quick buck with the latest disposable backdrop. People remember the minor american dream "house with picket fence, 2 cars, two kids", they have forgot the larger american dream "when I grow up, I'm going to be president and make this Utopia".

You might figure, I'm a bit upset, and not just because the planet has fallen into decay, but because the people have fallen into decay by a simple attitude shift. When everyone thinks "whatever", "whatever" is all we are going to get. People will die in the millions of skin cancer and hepatitis sitting in front of a screen and we will just say "whatever". That is what I have against smoking too much weed. It hurts.

I've moved nearly yearly, but always within 10 miles of the pacific. Anything else would feel foreign.

*glub glub glub*

not far at all

*glub glub glub*

All that water. Air and fire come next. and light in every color. then earth becomes electricity. Your sequence may vary. I'm still amazed at how well you integrated earth and water. I guess you didn't have the misconception that the latter elements would totally supercede the former.

*sings softly*

Aquarius...Aquarius

What do you want for Christmas??????

I was planning a triviality for you that I might not have time to finish before christmas, but please rush me a list of all your favorite scents, esp. woodsy, fruity, florals, as well as what kind of energy you want to promote.

Me, you could visit my barter page. I like significant knick-knacks, retro-60's or things like rocks that look like indian chiefs, shreds of tire that look like demons, a post card of Eleanor Roosevelt aqua-planing, keystone or viewmasters. Movie stills of camera-men shooting a movie, a computer punch card, a glow-in-the-dark tinkerbell wand. Things that you find covered in dust or at the beach that would mean nothing to a monetary collector, but embody an epoch ie a wind-up toy that carries the heritage of the black forest cuckoo-clock makers. I collect soles of shoes that I find washed up on the beach, if that gives you an idea. I also like things to continue serving a purpose, ie. sharpening pencils. Most of my 'toys' evoke genetic memories of the planet. Creme-de-la-creme cast-aways.

The last time I played 5th dimension (or perhaps the broadway cast), and was feng sshui-ing my house with a candle celebration, it turned out to be the moment of an equinoxe that I didn't expect for a couple days (turns out my internal calendar was better than the first data I read). Equinoxes are easier to feel than solstices; The tide changes direction and creates a sort of electron flushing of everything.

You can bypass this stuff I'm passing on to you without any more loss than if you missed music, but I hope you'll find some of it intriguing enough to try out one of these years.

So how's your 'writng' going? Are you writing about meeting teachers or the weathar yet?

I just saw my first Hollywood parade tonight, the Santa Claus Parade. I went to buy my son a guitar (that'll be about 5 months debt) and ended up right at the starting line in front of Grumanns Chinese theater across from the booth with Alex Trevek and (Nancy D'Alli?) announcing and all the cameras. It started the moment I got there. I swept the sidewalk stars for Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis while blessing the Marching Bands. I had bleachers blocking my view of the approach, so I had to 'write'; We had floats for Star Trek Voyager and such. I was ectstatic when an Alabama high school had guys toss their cheerleaders 20' in the air. The camera was aimed at me after I took a picture of my neighbors. I was standing in front of the Angelyne billboard I'd been meaning to photograph for awhile. She wasn't in the parade as I had hoped, but buzz aldrin and 'a' Ricky and Lucy were. I thought she died, and didn't take a picture. Did I blow my chance? I had an autographed photo of her as achild come to think of it. She looked pretty old then.

Speaking again of Aquarius, I did some more star contemplation last night and realized that the original Orion constellation is another map of the tree-of-life.

After two prior failures, I instructed my dentist on an improved technique for filling my chipped front teeth. This one held, so I won't be asking the tooth santa for my two front teeth. {don't play a jews harp while off-roading}.

btw, Since when is vancouver *glub glub glub*? I lived there three years ago.

I was pretending to be a fish.

You'll pass.

Um, I live in AZ & all I know is that it is too far for me. Can't get any good seafood out here!

Maybe not, but the enchiladas in Jerome are heaven, so is the whole town in my opinion. I want to move there.

If you don't mind really old seafood, you can get some delectable fossils in Arizona. A little lemon and salt...mmmm-mmmm! :-9

When I was in Arizona, in my meditations, the entire place was a gulf, though it still had all those sandstone arches poking through the still platinum bays. It was gorgeous. I got the idea it was heavily salt water, but not ocean. It looked so Sci-Fi.

It took about two minutes last party went to. Young gorgeous swedish woman I'd said hello to at another party. When the band started, we were already squirming on the floor of an art-gallery stall with an audience. I still can't get over it. I didn't get to the sex point, but I've only had two partners, and they were of the life-long variety. The other weird thing about that night was that at the same time I had a love at first sight with another woman there. Gazing into the eyes with another draped across you. Weird. I was offered the physical ones number, asked for the latters number, and am now thinking I have to call the squirming partner if for no reason than to not feel so weird. I hear she's a teacher. The body language didn't communicate a darn thing (weird too). The other gal was immensely complex (she taped me to a wall as an exhibit), yet I felt instantly like we'd been lovers for millenium. The swede was more like a black sea of milk within a midnight sun. In my experience, sex has been tantric, goes on uninterupted for many hours and involves trading millenia of incarnation histories; I went to that party with an agenda of trying meaningless sex, and got close, and now finding myself still perplexed that it could be meaningless, thinking I should try again, that perhaps I missed something.

People usually live up to my expectations from the first hour I meet them, even if their range mimics the history of religion. I would marry that gal who taped me to the wall in a flash, even though I've only spent a few minutes talking to her. My last two girl friends involved a couple years of getting to deeply know each other, yet still there was a permanent mystery. I would expect and perhaps even desire that in a candidate for marriage. My ex, whom I still love, is no mystery, and that may be part of why she's my ex.

[5-10 dates, about two months] sounds about right to me, though my last was about 4 months.

I can't really say I ever dated except for the first blind double date with mutual friends that had me and my wife to be making out at the rocky horror picture show. Ever since then there was never an issue of being turned down. Even when we proposed, it was so mutual that we weren't sure who actually asked the question. We were at a pizza parlor playing centipede. My last girlfriend, I'd been visiting her house for months, near christmas I dressed in a red mini and white ornamented christmas stockings. I think if a person has to formally ask if the times right, you aren't reading each other in synch. I remember one party (where my goal was to prove wrong the host whom I wanted to marry that I could get a woman attracted to me). I flirted heavily with all her girlfriends and had the weird experienc of interlocking knees with one gal and just beaming warm love between us for half an hour. She went nuts. The last hour of the party till sunrise consisted of her screaming repeatedly at me "You don't make the F-n sun come up". We never did acknowledge any sort of relationship, or at least she wouldn't. She said good-bye when I said good job and real estate.

I called her (Heather) recently. She said she'd give me another chance at being friends if I wouldn't obsess with her or put her under any pressure, and not call or time together a relationship. I hope I can get Tara's number. (the artist who taped me to the wall). or maybe Ingrid will turn out to be someone of substance, hard to tell. At least I know now that being a transgendered lesbian isn't an obstacle.

I'm 37. 18 - 55 is OK with me except I would prefer to make life long plans and would have to be in a relationship that could accomodate changes over the years.

A few nights ago I had my first ever experience in which I wasn't keeping my eye on the life-long. I'm not sure that I'd like to date like that again though.

Judging by my 13 yr daughter and 16 yr son, I see your point but don't. My son may fritter time playing with his buddies but heart is full of slow conservative contemplation while my daughter tackles the worlds wisdom in her writing. I can see either making a point that the other has not matured based on behavior, but venture to say that even by that age in which the genders have taken to internalising or externalising their understanding that neither is wiser. Girls are probably encouraged to discuss relationships while boys are not. That leads to a different behavior. I unquestionably agree with mireillins about the easy pants while agreeing that an older boy has reached the capacity to verbalise their relationship wisdom at a younger girls level. I doubt either truly has a greater value on the consequences of dating.

You seem to have some really exterior view of good and bad, and are relating these notions to deprivation. I doubt you do things you actually consider bad by some standard of society. You don't want to stick a knife in someone, and would consider that bad even if no one told you because you understand that you wouldn't want it done to you. There is nothing bad about going to the park late at night, but like sleeping with these older guys, perhaps foolish and unwise depending on what control of your environment you have. Why should your punishment affect your desire one way or another. At most it should give you cause to recognize the extent to which someone else considers it a problem, and if you have any inkling that they are motivated by their own wisdom or experience, then that should give you cause to contemplate their motivation. My own mother probably realised by the time that I was 6 that I would not relate to punishment, and switched to practical and ethical counselling as I always did with my kids. To want something more after punisment is defiance for defiances sake. A stolen bottle of champagne will not taste better than any other. By being defiant, you are actually allowing others to control you. I understand the rush one gets from challenges and establishing their own liberty, but consider a couple things: You could be creating your own challenges (sports, art, task success, whatever) rather than insisting that other people create challenges of resistance for you. Also, it would be a far more valuable and effective challenge to earn your own authority by secretly being the one to delegate your parents authority over you and make friends with them in the process. You'll have to warm them up to the process, because I suspect they are in denial themselves. Start by asking their advice on things which you have a fairly sound opinion on already but might actually get some useful advice or a second opinion from them. Eventually you might work yourself up to "Mom, the guy I'm having sex with wants to try a threesome. I'm cosidering telling him... What would you do if you were me?" As is now, you've made your rapport with your parents useless. If you brought up the topic of sex, you might be sent to bed with a spanking.

Don Juan used to put himself in the hands of tyrants to challenge his spirit. I go a graceful step above: When I recognize a potential enemy, instead of waste life with a moments thought on fear, hatred, revenge, battle, etc. which would relinquish some of my world to a reaction to outside impositions, I immediately set out to become friends with the person. It is my personal challenge and the result is always far more rewarding than defeating an enemy. I could now ask to stay the night when travelling at the homes of people whom circumstances were pushing to make enemies of.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense, but he wasn't THAT much older, was he? It was only a five year difference, and I was so much more careful having sex with him than other people. I know that just being defient won't make something better, but if I really want something, than I'm going to get it. By doing it in a sneaky way, no one gets mad. I'm happy, their happy. Nobody yells. Just the way I like it.

Have you ever stalked your son at school? If he still seems to be more mature, then tell him to call me. "Easy pants" had nothing to do with it.

Kristal is a pretty wise gal....huh?

Jemmy replies to Twistermime

Yeah...

He plays video games and reads stephen king. I can talk with him on any topic. He lacks motivation, and doesn't care for school. He understands all the spiritual phenomena I discuss. His friends can discuss career pursuit or buddhist philosophy eloquently, yet chosse to spend their time seeing how much pain they can inflict on each others knuckles. I get along with their games by adding my "yeah, but can you do this?" I told him he lost his gal of two years from not demonstrating any passionate commitment, just 'whatever'ism. He lives in AK so you won't be seeing him.

Back to you. Change 'sneaky' to 'private'. That way the conception becomes your responsibility and not a reaction. You are taking on the responsibility of protecting your mother from what she doesn't want to deal with. As long as you do keep a secret life, recall that your mother knows you better. She will probably be imagining the worst case scenarios. Her scorn is based in fear for you (and possibly her own mis-givings). I am sure she would want nothing more than to feel you are actually self-responsible, she would be happier yet to feel that she was somehow the one who passed that on to you. If she self identifies primarily as a parent, then your failures are seen by her as her failures. Is mom happy with her life? If you could get one honest answer, ask if she was like you when younger. It would explain a lot about her behavior towards you.

So, I'm private? I guess that works too. I think she is happy with her life. And she was nothing like me when she was a child, or my age.

So, I am or am not a bitchy little brat?

No, you're still sneaky. It will take a little more than changing the word. Do you see the distinction I'm trying to make? I figured most of my life that I was nothing like my mom, in fact nothing like almost anyone except maybe Spock or Dr. Seuss, then a year ago at the age of 36 I realised that my mom has been through almost all the same experiences as I have, though she never bothered to mention it. You're only a bitchy little brat because you want me to call you that so you can deny it. You're defiantly docile or independent as suits your game. You didn't see me critiquing your sex life, yet you jump to defend yourself. I was a teen age boy once, and probably as mature as they got ~ Mature meaning ethics, future, consideration, integrity, significance, etc. outweighed sex and drinking for the most part. ~, yet if I wasn't finding what I wanted in my age group, curious lust would have shifted my guidelines. Have you asked him why he prefers you to older gals? You'll make it some fashion or another; The most I really have to say to you at this point is figure out what seems most significant to you. The ways people relate and behave, and how rewarding their life is. I worry that you're going to figure out how to marry a rich dude and have porcelain partyware and a big screen computer/TV and discover at the age of 45 that other people found other ways to be much happier. ..much like I was saying about an external concept of good and bad, there's also the external set of happiness expectations that tv sells you. Keep doing new things that change your outlook on possibilities. Look at your friends and imagine what they will be like or doing 20 years from now. Stick with the ones who you feel will have happiness and wisdom no matter what the circumstances. Be your own person. Stop asking people if you're good or bad. It might work as a method of comparison to figure out where your self-conception stands to other measures, or for simply grasping other's worldviews, but as long as you ask instead of decide, you will drift. There is not one standard of ethics. Judge you by your world, and others by their world. Establish who you are by what goes on inside you, not by your behavior.

I don't want to judge people. That isn't nice. He is gone, we thought it was best that if he was moving away, to not stay together. Now I am just confused.

Well, I'm sorry if I confused you. You can be wise about people, know the arts and sciences, and see various ways in which God has empowered you as a co-creator and still be confused. Confusion is a tool to achieve greater understanding. Just don't allow so much confusion that you are disabled. The opposite of confusion is ignorance in which we decide things are a certain way even though we aren't sure. I may have given you way more than you're comfortable to think about there. I had someone do the same for me when I got into yoga. Within 3 weeks my whole world had been turned upside down because I was willing to concede that everything I knew about myself and the way the universe works or is made of might be wrong. The result is that now I can make worlds, including the one I had spent most of my life in which most people also live in, but now I know a lot more about what it really is. I always like to to stay good friends with anybody who has been in my life, whethar they started as lover, an enemy or whatever. When I was a senior I had a girlfriend, so when mom moved out of town, I stayed behind living out of a suitcase. Eventually we married and had kids. I'm not sure how I confused you since almost anything I said this time could do it. Ride the path of open minded exploration of what really is, when you get too confused, relax, be comfortable and good to yourself, believe in things that you used to believe in. Eventually seeing a story on tv or feeling grass beneath your toes becomes a bit like hugging a stuffed animal. In summary, keep changing your beliefs, at least until you discover an enchanted way of life, but not so quickly that you drown in the water that you once thought to be land.

Um...yeah. I think I got most of that. Thanks!

Great observations. Thanks for the imput

and thank you.

Why are you thanking me? It's all you guys. Everyone literally takes my breath away when you reply to my surveys. I feel such a sense of achievement thanks to you guys! Did you know that my "Shroud of Turin" survey is on my school website! Seriously, I mentioned it to my Religion teacher. He was so proud that he posted it. Thank you guys so much!

"My ass would be grounded for much of my life" I agreee, but with a significantly differnt interpretation. You might get married for life to someone insecure who values sex more than life experience.

P.S. Keep thanking people. Once you become jaded, there's a tremendous wall to break down.

P.S. I might add in this survey that it's been a delight having you and Jemmy and Jane here. I think a year ago you all might have been less welcome amongst us 'statesman pontificator' types, but now that we've all had ample opportunity to say whatever we were going to say, I think new blood is welcome as others mature into SC parenting roles, welcoming those who contemplate open-minded particapatory adulthood. It's my opinion, and perhaps I'm only speaking for what's probably true of myself. I could be way off base in my judgement of evolving SC collective values.

Expected, Disappointed, doubt much effect. I have my doubts that we even have a two party system. I love it being this close. I want to see it go to recount, then wait for absentees, then go to the new congress, then go for re-elelection now that people see what a difference their votes make.

In LA,CA the prognosis depended on what channel you watched. Channel 11 for instance spoke of Gores chance to achieve a tie, never a victory. The way the numbers were presented emphasised one candidate or another. I chose a Bush station, though I preferred Gore just because their display had more current & diverse data. I would love to see a bill passed that prohibited broadcasting early returns and even all proactive campaigning. Let them have unlimited websites, and have the only media coverage be equal reference to site or mailer addresses, or equal debate time for ALL candidates. I might go a step further and prohibit campaign research. The very notion of 'winning' the race is problematic. We should choose the candidate who is closest to our opinions, not the candidate who can change their platform or appear to change their platform to suit our opinions. A common denominator president does not have the backbone required to make the sweeping changes made decades earlier.

I can't believe that all those Democrat voters who %?@ed up their ballot in Florida now want to vote again. I saw the ballot, and it seemed very clear to me. They punched it two times, and that is called an informal vote. If you screw the ballot up you are able to get another one before you cast it, not after the candidate you wanted loses. I'm sorry, an informal vote is an invalid vote. there is no going back after the fact. Stiff %?@ dickheads. Next time read the instructions.

Oh just wait till we get a popular vote with live reporting and the ability to change your vote for whatever reason. Besides, how do you know Rand and Gallup and the electoral board haven't been producing pure fiction for us. Are you certain it's really a two party system? Look at all the loss of privacy, wars, new weapons technology, etc. that have passed in Clinton's office while the public was glued to the Monica Lewinsky story. If you ask me, the president is a null figure head clown like Elizabeth created these days to divert te public from actual politics. Now that's an age of 'bi-partisan' comandeering.

As I type this, a show on PBS speaks of how Napolean controlled the media. Imagine what could happen these days. Why, Al Gore-ithm could be exactly that.

I find the situation very amusing.

I read that there are supposed to be 13 levels of superiority above the President. I think all supposed 'world leaders' are just puppets and fall guys anyway. Those that pull the strings are not elected, and can do whatever they want anonymously.

I would have the same attitude if it were the Republicans complaining that they were too stupid to read voting instructions before voting for the leader of the free world.

I agree with kristalrose i think we should pay attention as best we can to what is actually happening in our country and why; then fight for what we believe the best we know how. Voting is not the only way to give your voice; what is more it may not always even be the best way. You can make a change even if you don't live in a democracy. The most important changes in our country arguably came before the decisions were ever formally put before the entire body of the people. What has listening to the media this past week gotten me? Absolutely nothing, except confusion and waste of time.

One other point: I can see why people in Palm Beach would like to revote. It's not because the ballots were unfair, if the outcome were not so close they wouldn't care. It's because they believe the people of the U.S. would really rather have Al Gore as president than George Bush. I feel confident that if the entire nation were to vote again Al Gore would be elected. My first thought was screw them.. the election is done, you can't go back; you can't change the system in the middle of an election. That isn't true. We can start to change the system anytime; anywhere. If half the country demanded a new election it would cause chaos, however. So the thing to do appears to be to swallow the fact that the will of the people will not be done this election. We should kick ourselves for not foreseeing that this could happen. It's our fault, not the fault of a ballot.

Some might argue no one could have expected this. My point is we SHOULD have expected this; and we should start looking around us and figuring out FOR OURSELVES what is actually going on.

More people voted for Gore (49,222,339) than for Bush (48,999,459). But because of the American system, Bush will probably be the next Prez. That sucks.

If I remember correctly, a pressident has won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote before.

If we voted 90% Ms. X, but the media and ballot computers said 10% ms. X & 90% Mr. Y, we would have no way of denying it.

But as Kaleb says there are people you can research who have more power. PITAC (clintons tech advisors) is full of folk like the VP of sun, the Bar is composed of folk like the VP of Coke (these people create our anti-trust guidelines).

The FDA is full of Monsanto sympathisers and ex-employees. There are conflicts of interest everywhere.

Maarten: Both candidates knew the rules before they began the game. Neither party voiced any concerns with the electoral college process.

The electoral college cuts campaigning into strategic moves. Popular vote stands to gain much more media covearage, so I think there might be a push towards it.

I think the electoral college process sucks, personally, but I also think it's slimy for a candidate to voice no complaints about it until they happen to have lost under that process.

What else would ever inspire that sort of change? I think it will be a great service if he at least encourages a change, even if he does not win. It will open the door to a multiple party system and increase public involvement especially if results are reported in real time and people bring out the vote to shift total numbers instead of writing it off as a 'the states will be what they will be' kind of thing. Using alternative public checks in the system is the cleanest sliminess I've witnessed in a while.

I STILL don't know the results!!

They don't know it here either!

Yes, but did you expect that outcome? By about 8pm I did.

I might, I don't know. My guess is I'd stand nearby praying a change, I've found that works in most situations.

nickels or quarters?

Will you pray for our new cat, Stevie....We rescued her from a hellish life and she has deep mental issues...we really need all the positive thought and energy you can throw our way to help us with her.

We lost our beloved Snicklefritz. We awoke Monday morning ...and she didn't. She passed sometime during the night, on our bed..peacefully. We are devastated at the loss. We never even expected it.

and Sue

I'm very sorry about your cat **Huggz**

Oh, that's so sad. I loved the guy(?) and I didn't even know him.

Well, as far as stevie goes, cats will be who the'll be. I can say this much, animals respond far better to psychic communications than verbal. I kinda like gonzo cats with screwy eyes that bounce off walls, but fearful cats are much

different. In my experience, once the pattern is set, it takes years of patience for them to break out of their shell much. I'll send a prayer her way, but that's not really my department.

An excellent recipe for a cat toy is Catnip, Valerian, and Pennyroyal. You'll want to keep it in a ziplock when not in use; the valerian smells like old gym socks. Sew it into a leathar bag because the cat will want to shred it. I was wondering if the name came from stevie nicks too. My two brother cats are at opposite ends of the spectrum. One is the conscious attention mongering cat, the other prefers subconscious attention. The latter also prefers foot rubs so I can pick up one while petting the oher with my foot. I'm trying to teach them vocabulary like hot & cold these days. Last night I dreamed I adopted a baby. My friends house was so alive that the cats even meowed in time with the music which was in time with the building's frequencies and us.

BTW, I came up with a thought for you to hold in mind. A mystic sees it's being painted, a mystic metaphysicist sees the paint. The other night I had a hit of herb and saw a reality in which there were only five delineated senses and ones concepts; the contrast made me realize that with all my senses glued together with emotions, intuition, conceptions, and dreams; I have developed a rich saturated spectral continuum. It used to be that herb would saturate the spectrum, now it seems to be more of an aid in deconstructionism. I often wish there were intermediate levels of comma; The semicolon after dreams was too big, but a comma would have been too small. I was helping a friend who had spent about a week putting together her masters thesis in language arts accesment of kindergartners. It was so sad to see that she wasn't aware of the commas usage for mirroring clauses (something I thought was freshman college), yet she teaches. My other friend with the masters in rennaissance lit is what I consider at the doctorate level, meaning she understands all the masters before her, and can make novel significant changes to the body of experience.

Hows your writing going? Have you tried to document interactive consciousness in a journal yet? Confoundingly proliferate and entropic at once, much like a fractal. Are you talking with people at the same level as those billboards & radio yet? For my first couple years I could only listen at that level, but answer on the ground level.. and sometimes the levels required different responses. Now my high level interaction is restricted to soulmates, incidentals, and anyone present when I'm under the influence.

If you want some qabalist terminology, as far as I can tell you're playing in the realms of Tiphareth ('Beauty' liberation brings eyes for beauty (Heaven, Satori, etc.)) & Chesed ('Mercy' new plane of merging with cosmic will to balance love & intelligence). Most of the stuff below that is concerned with discipline, self-inquiry, balancing faculties, awakening etc. The Lotus Sutra & Spandas Karikas provide similar maps of consciousness.

Maybe cats are my department. The traumatized ones I was referring to didn't live with me. Mine really are buddies. My first psychic tests were with animals.

Only 15 or so. A couple items per immediate family and best friends. I love to wrap and use things like aluminum foil and marking pens. I might make potato printed wrapping paper this year. I also have been saving color sorted clothes dryer lint, egg shells and such to make paper for christmas cards. I'm thinking to make custom perfumed candles with colored flames as gifts too. I can crisply wrap a box with about 1 1/2" of tape.

When I was a kid my parents liked to sleep-in, so we were confined to our bedroom until they woke up, but we had stockings hanging from our bed posts full of viewmasters and other entertainments.

Thanks a lot for that. So you do have Zero Population Growth there. Does he hand out lumpl of coal to bad kids, so desperate parents who don't maintain warm households can at least count on heating fuel to heat their gingerbread houses?

Three years ago I lived with a man who photographed dragons in nature textures. The Jenner photos at my site have a photo of a mother & child elf with a troll overlooking in the bark of a redwood tree. There is also a painting in one photo he did of Saint Nick in the wood carving shop / antique store / 1880 converted dairy barn. When on that trip I even saw the clouds present themself as Santa and his reindeer before christmas, and the angel Gabriel before I left. The neighbors wife got to see Gabriel too. Her husband like usual was busy stepping in some dog do-do and missed it. That's quite a photo; It looks like a Russian impressionist painting from the turn of the century.

Wrapping presents has seldom been for practical reasons (except the disclosure) oterwise people would go a step further and just give cash. My mom always asks if I want money, and I always say no. All my life she has been so good at finding things I love but would never buy myself. When I moved to my current apartment she took me to the store and bought two huge folding tables (would have been tough by bike) and some houseplants. They made my place more practical and cheerful then I would have gotten around to for awhile. She's an artist. This year she hadme send measurements, so I'm expecting a dress. I'm thinking to make a concrete / bottle glass frog-winged-gargoyle for her garden with interior illumination and water spiraling down the tongue and splashing off the wing to water the garden. Last year I made them a lava lamp for the office.

Jazar, Jean, Paisley, Jaspar, Gareth, Xavin, Edwin, Rowan, Ambrose, Milliard, Alexis, Solomon, Zohar, Ezekiel, Lyndon, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, Roderick (Rory), Klaus, Horus, Orion, Kimos, Chris, Jessie, Caila, Avatar, Erin, Sirocco, Mandala, Phoenix, Finneas, Pharoah, Gilgamesh, Cameron, Ra, Osiris, Fritz, Jules, Martin, Sean,

& Myrtle the Turtle?

Strong-Wrong is what? {re: Fortesque J. Tortesque Esquire the Third}

An old best friend, Steve (Another cool name) named his son Andrew Edward Gomez Obvious Housden. I think it's so cool.

Gomez definitely should have been on my list.

My middle name used to be André.

Fox Muldar was going to be on my list.

Singe? (french for monkey)

Thor was my first name for my first 33 years. I finally changed the gender on my license yesterday. Yea.

Spencer was a candidate for my list too.

Ridley Scott filmed the scene in two takes. When the actors returned to the mannequin they had not been informed about the alien that was to pop out of the body, so the expressions of startled horror were genuine. Ash is Hebrew for fire. (Avyr is air & mem is water) They make up the three elements (proton, electron, neutron) from which earth is made.

Sidney

Stay on Earth. We have a couple billion years before the sun burns out. Nor do I think we should be sculpting 800 C ammonia cloud planets planets at the molecular level when we can't even seem to make what was once an abundant planet teeming with flora and fauna even sustain its ocean life anymore. I don't think the universe is infinite, a policy of infinite consumption is not required. I still haven't met all of the six billion people here yet. I don't see that we need more.

I like that terraforming gives us something new to do with science. I think, however we are going to have to move on to some other art form to satisfy that human need soon. Nano-technology stands to demolish the entire concept of physical reality within a dozen years. When we have the capacity to achieve anything ever done in a cartoon, Dali painting or star-trek episode, I think our last reseort will be to embed our collective intelligence into the planet itself, and pretend to be volcanos and floods for awhile until we think up something creative like 'Adam and Eve'. JPL (NASA) sends bio-rocks (Archaea - earths oldest life form with DNA & proteins, found in volcanic regions, resists acids, likes extreme heat & sulphur, carbon free, now used for human DNA testing & producing high fructose syrup from other carbohydrates) to other planets to propogate already. They also head all the modern agricultural research facilities where they create such things as gold based plants with their own microgravity. Rumors of the Earths creation include the ben-ben stone a crystal that came from space to form our own planet, guarded by the phoenix (see a cycle here folks?) whose library lies beneath the sphinx. The qaballistic tree of life is a map of such a nano-seed crystal. the powers ascribed to it and related phenomena such as the arc of the covenant, chaldean vimanas, the holy grail, the philosophers stone etc. usually involve mind-matter interfaces capable of transforming matter in a fractally cascading virulent fashion. I did a graphical meditation on the interstellar power grid. The next morning I was coincidentally emailed a photo of the cydonia site on mars with the exact same silhoette. The chaldeans fused cities with nuclear heat.

Protein crystalography is one of our modern sciences, as well as making glow-in-the-dark rabbits and cloning human brain tissue. The Van Allen radiation belts no longer exist on Mars. The battery has been drained. It is a DEAD planet.

This is what I meant by 'on the planning commission' on my apocalypse survey. This technology is available to the mystic metaphysician without the hardware, and being aligned with the creative aspect of the logos puts one in touch with the physical explanation too. For instance I prayed the Star Wars system off-line for New Years when I wanted a break from programmed auroras sending matter into nether realms like something out of 'Stranger in a strange land'. Cats cradle is another map of the caballah, capable of creating ice-nine, the gray matter mistake, J.G. Ballards Crystal world. Remember god, being all there is, is our senses and our individually tailored plays of consciousness. The Spanda-karikas / logos / trinity could ford in the blink of an eye to become a cartoon, nebula creatures, a lone rose, or anything else our hearts desire. Make plans people. The Matrix, many works by P.K. Dick, 'Stranger in a strange land' by Heinlein, Moorcock, Herbert, as well as mystical works ie. the Spanda-Karikas, the Sefer-Yetzirah, the Egyptian Book of the dead, the Tarot, Crowley, the Bible, most ancient mythology all point to this interpretation. Heisenbergs model of waves becoming a particle choice is no different than what the Spanda-Karikas taught two millennia ago regarding infinite dimensions with the perceiver creating by making a single limited choice.

Love is manifest in any experience from smelling a rose to dancing as a nebula. Thou art that, see God in each other. Don't dream it. Be it.

Let the sun and the light come streaming into my life.

A few miles of atmosphere provides some protection I guess but, as KR points out, there is no magnetic field on Mars and so no Van Allen belts.

If there were no such thing as higher and lower forms of life, fly spray would be illegal and taking antibiotics would make you a mass murderer.

Have you ever considered including footnotes with your comments?

No. Mars doesn't have Van Allen belts or an ozone layer or reasonable atmospheric pressure or an even vaguely habitable climate, and I doubt it could easily be given these things by terraforming. If you're going to get out of the earth's gravity well, there'd better be a good reason for going back down a different gravity well, and I don't see anything worthwhile on Mars.

or, "what dab said".

I was thinking to post bookmarks for them. If you go to my site, www.ereiam.com , you'll find links for most of this stuff except the books and rocky horror. They're about a year out of date, and don't include archea or protiein crystallography, but the most mind blowing sites are listed. My 13 year old daughter says they teach about archea in school now. On the other hand, they teach about the chemical make up of global warming, but blame it on people breathing and cow farts instead of refractories and deforestation. Our planet was coasting along fine for millenia until we dipped into fossil fuels instead of renewable resources. Perhaps Westinghouse gave grants for the textbooks. I'd like to know if the curriculum slant is die, restore, or emmigrate these days. In the early 70's emmigrate was being supplanted by a wave of restore, banning DDT & flourocarbons, & being concerned about those holes in the ozone from each launch. Youth seem so much more apathetic and fatalistic then they did when I was young. I was aghast when the fishing industry went to finer mesh nets in it's gulf stream sweeps, indicating we were below self-sufficiency, and taking to jeopardizing replenishment and endangering new species. I was further aghast to hear my mom respond "Well, we won't run out of fish in my lifetime." I wonder if our generation is too embarrassed to admit we saw it coming and didn't do enough to prevent it.

I live in an area of LA,CA,US called La Cienega, which means the swamp. I was bicycling home from a job in Beverly Hills and grabbed a document tube next to a recycling bin. It turned out to have a lot of community planning and disastor plotting maps. (I have a tendency to immediately land quality information on any subject I become interested in). Anyhow, I'm right at the epicenter of everything of everything that can go wrong. My intersection is at the middle of all flood plains if any of LA's dams burst. I'm surrounded by radio towers and live near a major power nexus (As has often been the case though I move almost yearly). My step-dad was a metaphysician who worked for the power company which must have rubbed off on me. I call my neighborhood the Bermuda triangle of LA. It is the epicenter of the diagonal boulevards. It's also in the middle of several cultural neighborhoods, so I can choose the days ethnicity by compass.

Every year unless I'm travelling.

* We used to get about three pillow cases full when I was a kid. From what I've seen in the past 20 years, it's pretty slim pick'ins. We were disappointed at the rare house that did not answer their door. We had a haunted house sometimes, and parties at others replete with apple bobbing and such. I had elaborate homemade costumes from ages 5-10.

I got back perhaps more than I gave out. I'd gone to great lengths to get healthy exotic candies, put together a spooky house, help neighbors carve pumpkins, make ouzo-spiced cider for the adults, etc. I wasn't getting any visitors though. To my surprise, when the neighbor kids finally came back, they all dumped lots of candy on me.

We're saying the same thing. I lived your specific example yesterday. I enjoy nothing more than yakking; it took me years to realise that people were sincere when they requested silence during times of discomfort. I added 'in their interest', because some people have crazy notions like 'I am not worthy, punish me'. I have noticed that people tend to get back that karma they expect, but I don't have to be a party to it. I remember when I was living with a sagent artist who was also a con-man and killer. I was having invincible good fortune at the time, practically performing miracles on demand, but their karma negated all my assistance anyhow. If the trailer got a flat, I would instantly find a replacement tire, and a means of replacing it. None-the-less, the other tire would go flat immediately afterwards. It was constantly like that when I stayed with them. Blessed and vexed, and neither being able to affect the other.

"I remember when I was living with a sagent artist who was also a con-man and killer. I was having invincible good fortune at the time, practically performing miracles on demand,..." I'm not sure what a "sagent" is, but I get the point. That's... that's oddest thing I'll ever read.

Thank you. I pray to constantly find myself in cirumstances that outdo the content of the wildest books and movies. For the last couple years here in tinsel town, the block buster releases have been like my diary. Things unfortunately have been slow since I haven't got out much lately.

It's certainly not the oddest experience I've ever had.

Rank: #23

Avg: 53.28%

10 of 28 surveys are active.

Not including one's I may have done as Jasmine, Q-Tip, or Turing.

0 of 2 as turing.

0 of 0 as Q-Tip.

? of 28 as Jasmine. I was checking out my work as her. Guess she had an oversensitive melt-down. Oh yes, I thought I had assimilated her and wanted to avoid maintaining a precedent deceptive multiple log-ins. I'm not so sure it would have been that deceptive in my case. I wrote some poetry in her state here not long ago.

Kristal_Rose replies to romkey

0, that's Greek to me. Perhaps they are being consistent with [None] being at the end of surveys, which I never agred with either. I always felt that options which discluded the others should be at the top to save people reading effort.

53

Please chant:

HARE KRISHNA

HARE KRISHNA

KRISHNA KRISHNA

HARE HARE

HARE RAMA

HARE RAMA

RAMA RAMA

HARE HARE

& Krishna will help you! :)

http://www.iskcon.org

11

Six out of a total of eighteen. I guess I haven't been keeping up my end. There has been so much criticism of the quality of surveys lately, that I'm a little hesitant to create one, unless I think I have a good idea. I'm working on an idea now...

Oh! Is that how it works?

5

Thank's I needed that.

49 active

251 surveys in total

rating: 59.4%

position: 4th

Sir, might I suggest you stay out of the sun?

;-)

;-)

;-)

(I know a good bandwagon when I see one )

;-)

I don't get it.

So much for high genius!

My hypothesis include:

Something on his referred site that I did not visit inspired the joke.

He probably has a shaved head and could get sunburned.

His sanity was in question after the conclusion of his advice and somehow the phrase "doesn' get out much (in the sun)" was distorted as a form of prescription for his condition.

You are all demons and are metaphorically suggesting that he turn from the light.

You presume his chanting to take place indoors, and condone he dedicate all his spare time to chanting.

As North79 has had plenty of opportunity in the past to make jokes and comments generic to Richards status as a Krishna practitioner, the joke must either be based upon the new information "and Krishna will help you", or be tied in with his age, or tied in with another new context existing in combination with other surveys (my first conclusion, quickly dismissed because either everyone else is substantially better informed than I or are laughing just to mindlessly join the bandwagon).

In retrospect, I suppose I had overthought the situation, and my dismissal of the shaved head interpretation was faulty,

that the joke was not in fact based on recent comment material.

My nickname was 'Spock' all through school. My logic discounted the basis of too many jokes. I'm not like that nearly as much these days, but I still avoid getting anything from the comedy section of the video store; I don't find much of it humorous. My best friend, genius and mystic, with a masters in rennaissance literature is the only person who's humor consistently hit deep. Her jokes would have made sense simultaneously at all the levels and contexts I was examining this joke for. Dang, I miss her.

Also, I run in into Krishnas and Buddhists all the time, was raised by one, and was a yogi applying for temple residence, so I don't really associate Krishna's with shaved heads.

Go get 'em Sampson.

You obviously have no idea how out of touch you are. Talk about over analyzation and a need to prove just how smart you are. How annoying!

I wasn't arguing that I was necessarily in touch. I was trying to point out that what get one a high score on an IQ test isn't necessarily what help's one get humor. I don't deny that normal human behavior is my weakest subject. Admittedly, it was childish of me to defend against the attack on my intelligence.

10Q Kristal_Rose!

10 Sephiroth of QBLH, 10-4, Hi-Q, I owe Q, Qoi?, A-ok, 10 Quadzillion, ... The feeling I get here is one of being plugged into a golden sphere of intelligence of celestial proportion. Thanks. :-)

Mysticism is making your physical world a spiritual experience.

Occultism is making your spiritual world a physical experience.

The Magician represents occultism.

Depending upon the context, reversed cards are either the opposite or to a lessor degree, but either way coming from the perspective of that cards subject.

The Magician reversed could either indicate a loss of or the perversion of occult powers. It would certainly make sense that those two go hand in hand. It could also indicate a scattering of resources or the inability to apply will to them, although the latter is better represented by the chariot reversed. I would have to know the adjacent cards, the trends, and the mirror cosms, or better yet, the content/subject of the reading to make a better assessment of it's meaning in context. You can use Gymatria to further understand the card. 10 reduces to 1 just as 777 reduces to 21 reduces to 3. Anything that adds to 10 will help explain the Wheel-of-fortune elevation of the Magician. For instance Priestess plus Justice (directed channelling), Empress plus Chariot (willed creation), Emperor plus Lovers (ordering of creative choices), Heirophant plus Heirophant (hierarchial channeling as above so below). Another great way to learn cards is to do readings on them. Draw cards to represent the objects on the table, the belt, the flowers, the infinite halo, etc. and let the cards explain the card. The cards letter is Beth. It's appearance is an upper striation with a direct descending connection into foundation. Let your mind run wild with B words: Boil, business, beelzebub, brimstone, bigger, bounce, barney, bus, bring, billion, bill gates, bangles. Use your intuition to see how these words may apply to card in it's current context. The hebrew language is really worth learning. You can do complete readings on every word which passes by: avatar = AVTR = Fool-Heirophant-World-Sun; They = Teth-Ayin = Justice-Devil (or strength-devil); Bird = Beth-Resh-Daleth = Magician-Sun-Empress Also examine the other cards employing yellow: the chariot, strength, the sun, and the light yellow of the fool..

Thanks for taking me off subject. I most heartily recommend 'the Rabbi's Tarot' by Daphne Moore, or maybe 'the Tarot' by Paul Foster Case, or 'Introduction to Qaballistic Symbolism vol. 1 & 2' by Gareth Knight if you want to learn the Tarot with this sort of depth.

Besides, my last comment was about 10Q, so it wasn't off topic at all. As to my tarot counselling business, at present I have no active surveys.

I'm using A Complete Guide to the Tarot By Eden Gray. Thanks for your thoughts.. I've been playing around with the cards for a few years, but just occasionally reading for friends at parties.. and always using the book... and now I'm trying to get more serious with it, memorizing the cards and their meanings. I think the best way to do this is to do hundreds of thousands of readings. I have a friend who does readings on one of those 900 lines. Have you ever thought about doing that?

I've done it before. Does she work for Northwest Nevada Telco? If so have her say 'hi' to cathy for me. (she get's paid 20¢ per miute when the co. charges $3.00 ?) Doing thousands of readings is not the easy way. Much better to simply get in the habit of using it as a template for understanding your life. When ever you have an experience, try to figure what card would represent it. One method I used just prior to getting my 900 line job was flipping a card every second in response to watching speeches or concerts on TV. One of those books I recommended helps because it allows you to fully immerse yourself in a card, to know them like you would a personality, to develop an intuitive feel for their realm instead of trying to associate facts like a history exam. Making your own deck is probably the best way to learn. (you can buy blank decks and get a set of pantone markers, or photograph paintings) Painting each card will trigger the associated experience; If you paint 'Strength' just keep a diary of what happens in your life that week. You will learn the cards much like you associate certain songs with events in your life. There are about 335 complete tarot sites besides my own. Many of these have in depth explanations of the cards and methods of learning as well. I've pioneered a few contemporary techniques, for instance I started doing free form readings in which the cards suggested the continuing structure of the reading about 15 years ago. The technique (to a lessor extent) is now popular. After 21 years of study, I'm still learning the cards. They apply to the physical, emotional, conceptual, and spiritual, and even then, as you learn a new plane of existence, the cards too take on higher levels of meaning. They form a history of the growth of society, and ones personal development. To be sure, experience comes with readings. For instance every time I did a reading on a saint, the first card was the Ace of pentacles reversed, which I now take to mean an open door indicator. Just the other night I found that the simplest 3D model of the Qabalistic tree-of-life (in a 9 point configuration (Keter=Malkuth)) is a cube with a pyramid top. The number of possible connecting lines within it is 32, the number of paths of creation. Not surprisingly, the model has always been right in our face, in the form of the draedl (that top jews spin on chanukah).

I started with Eden Grays books when I was 16 (I'm now 37) My favorite deck is the cosmic tarot (which I only have digitally at the moment), though I use the universal edition of the rider-waite or my own deck more often. USGamesInc.com has tons of examples of decks for sale.

Did my description of the Magician help?

t's funny that you mention making my own cards to learn.. because I did start drawing them so that I could be sure to notice every detail within each card. Yes, your description helped, it actually reinforced what the book told me.. but you gave me a different way of looking at it. Right now I have the Universal Waite deck.. It's getting pretty worn and reeks of patchouli.. but I don't think I want to switch decks just yet.

Most of my own deck is published on my site, as well as some sample readings and tons of other stuff, though only a minute fraction of what I want to post. Have you seen it yet? www.ereiam.com . I don't seem to get any visitors yet. I was going to attend a druids circle for samhain tonight, but I discovered a few minutes ago the grove is a county away, & being at night, my carlessness is a prohibitory hindrance.

The 'cosmic tarot' is a lovely romantic pre-rennaissance deck that stays true to rider-waite. I've used other decks and found myself cross-referencing with memories of rider-waite imagery anyhow. Creating your own unique deck forces you to learn, because you have to research all the elements ('the Rabbi's Tarot' has a chapter per card) and translate it all into your personal iconography, color, and texture. One excercise I did was sitting at the outdoor mall of Santa Monica, CA and doing one card readings for everyone who passed. Until the police stopped me. Apparently they have a public gambling and divination statute. Perhaps because they are next to Venice Beach which is lined with readers, and wish to keep up their yuppie imperialist decorum.

My daughter in AK had me describe what she was doing to her. I saw her squishing some round things which she said were balloons. I just came to realise that my telepathic experiences have been proportional to the love I shared. The day I thought my heart was going to explode I was connected internally to everyone. I guess that makes a decent safe guard considering all the people in that survey who thought they would have to kill each other if we became telepathic. That was so disappointing. It seems a fourth of us at SC feel we are on one side or another of a death wish. I would have thought only the occasional person in society felt that way. I guess that explains demand for all the violent movies.

If you do go as far as making your own deck, I recommend photography. Printer ink cartridges actually cost more than photo prints.

I don't think I have seen the site. I'll go check it out. I really don't have the time or money to make my own deck.. that would be pretty far into the future.

Blank deck of 78 cards with blank backing or traditional rider-waite backing sells for about $7. Permanent fine point markers are costly though (you can hand them down to your daughter when they wear though). The time is immense. I made most of cards in an hour a piece, on the other hand some cards took 24 hours. That took years of preparation thogh. 78 paintings in any media is a lot when every element is chosen with care. You can make the labels first, use the deck, and add new artwork or swap cards with newer versions as you go along.

You can go to Sandia.gov and order an entire CYBL reactor on the net. The arms race is under control. 12 years ago a relative of mine was making sattelite cameras that could identify what car had been in a parking lot from the heat that had bounced off the license plate. There may be other reasons not to mine uranium, in a sense, it's another fossil fuel, and it's usage is only further deteriorating our planet.

Put nuclear fusion on the moon and beam it down.

THere is some kind of freaky connection between you and i, kristal rose. My dad works at sandia labs in albuquerque new mexico (website: sandia.gov) where he helps to develop satellites which use spectroscopy to detect which countries are trying to produce nuclear weapons (or to know where cars have been parked in a parking lot due to the temperature of the asphalt.) I went to high school in albuquerque and I knew a girl named Kristal Rose. Read your last comment, and see if you don't agree.

Well, I was a boy named Thor Clemens back then. Are you familiar with HARP & rail cannons & that ilk too. I just came up with a new 3D model of the tree of life, (actually it's been there all along as a superset of the draedl). HARP doesn't require hardware in the hands of a mystic metaphyician. I've opened two simultaneous circuit's of paired particle fountains / vortexes and reversed the magnetic polarity of my living room for months. Terraforming is real fun stuff. JPL umbrellas gold based plants with their own microgravity and does studies on asteroid based nano-propagtion. Fun stuff.

Wow, I thought terraforming was just theory. Sounds very interesting. What is HARP and what is a rail cannon; are these government projects?

HAARP = High Altitude Auroral Research Project = Star Wars = Tesla technology = Array of ground 'antennas' to create an aurora that converges the realms of spectral energy & particle physics. October 1999 we had a public test over Santa Monica,CA Ocean in which zig-zag missle trail was terminated by a cloud of colored luminesence, blasting the missleinto the ether. That week were many reports of earthquakes esp. in 29 palms area and each newscast was accompanied by unrelated stories of sightings of clouds of green light. Green auroras have been sighted at So. Cal airforce bases since early 80's. Fairbanks, AK has a major HAARP center. When I last flew from anchorage to fairbanks I was accompanied much of the flight by a green ball of light (while I read a book about angeleic light forms). That night upon arrival the sky had an aurora from horizon to horizon like a curtain rippled rainbow which first had vertical striations of color, then horizontal an hour later, then became a white tube of light. I expect it was a natural aurora, but you can't tell anymore.

The rail cannon is a coherent beam weapon of the US Navy with enough power to start a nuclear chain reaction. Perhaps enough to trigger the conversion of a planet into a fusion reactor, I don't know.

I have mixed feelings about terraforming. On one hand, it forces us to acknowledge ourselves as soul beings, since phsical reality becomes as plastic as any amorphous cartoon, on the other hand, we've have a wonderful planet here with millenia of personal history until we brought on greenhouse with the recent centuries of industrial age. I think it's absurd to think of converting an 800C ball of ammonia into somothing livable when we have failing faith in life support on a planet of romm temperature breathables replete with water and forests, fish and animals. We need fewer people. After all I haven't met them all yet, have you?

By the way. I'm a varied person with high synchronicity. I have that freaky connection with most people I meet.

Socialized income & benefits with a libertarian selection of mandatory employment.

I don't quite understand your comment. Libertarian selection of mandatory employment... what do you mean?

background: in backwoods, usa most jobs are related to survival; go to a place like LA where the millions reside and you'll find about 4/5 of the jobs are in security, law, entertainment, defense, and other jobs that have nothing to with production of food or shelter. My last architecture teacher told the class "if you plan on this as your career, you better hope for earthquakes". Both parents have to work because employment is not vital these days. Lower gov't employees get paid to play solitaire as 'mouse training'; The army buys $400 hammers; we couldn't survive in our current structure producing durable goods like stereos and cars that can last 30 years. We produce video games that will be obsolete in two years and release viruses that undo everyone's work. We promote people living two hours from work, and don't consider it urgent when major boulevards take 6 months to repair, or a bus strike affects 2 million employees for 32 days. We don't allow agencies to share resources for instance the police do not have any access to all the surveillance systems present in satellites, ATM machines, smoke detectors, etc. Doctors and social agencies generally require a fresh paper duplicate of your case history. The US failed at undoing its 'Rosie the riveter' campaign. (I appreciate the new gender equality, but would still rather see either one of the parents at home). In the 60`s we finally rebelled against living to produce the 32 button blender. But still, employment has shifted towards telemarketing. We sell all sorts of fictitious commodities i.e. 'futures', 'domain names' & 'keywords' To complicate things, what little labor was required is in the hand of international companies now, so not only your factory shoe-lace riveter, but even the person taking your order at the drive-thru burger joint may be overseas where the population density is several fold that of the US. A third of the people trying to sell me a different credit card are from trinidad or grenada. (Ask them where they're from next time, it's a great way to get weather reports too.) Our top presidential consultant on technology has proposed we stop teaching science, because it proposes a security risk (My 13 year old daughter learned about geological specimens with DNA & Proteins, my son's high school creates new life forms). There may be other factors involved such as slowing technology in general or stratifying society.

philosophy: Interests, skills, and aptitude, not economic desire and educational opportunity should be the determining factor in which vocation a person finds them self employed in. Personal pride, commitment to society (peers and global sustainment), and self-improvement should be their motivation to perform well. Employers should have the freedom to hire whom is most effective for their budget. That budget should be determined by how important society deems the project. Distribution of employment hours should be contingent upon supply and demand. A hardworking lawyer is not entitled to better health care or a more intimate access to swimming facilities than a hard working conscientious garbage truck driver, nursery school teacher, burger cook, or clock repairman. Our current course of capitalist competition is at best driving us towards 'brave new world', 'the time machine', and some of P.K. Dicks works in which the lower classes must consume x significant amount of goods weekly, while the leisure class can simply wear out a deck of cards.

proposal: A libertarian pool of contract employees on a fixed income whose hours are determined by the regional supply and demand of their currently chosen profession. In the case of parents or communes these 'labor units' may be divied up collectively. The survival needs of a nation would require less man hours than the economically competitive system, particularly when everyone's position was motivated solely by an interest in their work above what it formerly payed. Because of supply and demand, one's minimal labor units may be fulfilled by 16 hours a week as a librarian, or 4 hours a week as a garbage driver. Free time could become a motive in selecting a vocation. Employers would have a second tier of 'monopoly money' that determines whom they hire and for how long. All employers would be created by state venture capitalists distributing 'monopoly $' as determined by popular vote. If the public voted in favor of more video game production, the vc's would make awards to bidding entrepreneurs. That monopoly budget would in turn go to middle management contractors and out to staff pools. Staff would be chosen from a bidding database that contained complete histories of a person including timeliness, satisfaction of management, satisfaction of peers, and even whether they liked Betty-Boop. There would be much less outdoors types grumbling about their work in a Betty-Boop gift shop while meanwhile a golf caddy spends their breaks sketching pudgy and koko the clown. The history system could calibrate a persons value to a project and affect their monopoly bidding cost. If a project was urgent, you could outbid another employer for the persons services. The bidding, performance, and satisfaction histories however would only affect selection in assignments and their monopoly worth, not affect their physical income which is equal across the board. If the majority of society is content to flip burgers instead of improving their knowledge of astrophysics, then burger-flipping is what they should be doing with a smile on their face. Because of supply and demand labor unit allotment, if their were a shortage of burger chefs, there would be the inducement of shorter work weeks. Education would be simply an extension of this system. It would be treated as another vocation. Independent contractors would again bid on placement in advanced astrophysics classes. If because of a poor performance history, they are not selected, perhaps they can bid to be placed in classes on road repair (classes that appeared in response to popular vote) or may have to fulfill there labor units elsewhere, perhaps even as vocational or psychiatric counselee.

With all the free time generated, people could build their histories with local volunteer work in theater, parks maintenance, or after-school care, although these volunteer efforts would likely become local pop-vote labor-unit distributors. Another way to spend their time is through the popular vote commission. Concentric voting would occur weekly ranging from deciding which plants are selected for your nearby boulevard islands to whether or not to allow cloning in international wildlife refuges, kenya, madagascar, and java. With their 7 hours of monthly vote participation, depending upon their expertise, they could assist in decisions on selection of soap-opera scripts, or distribution of waste-water reclamation research contracts.

With these guidelines society would become far more dynamic and responsive to global self-sustainment needs. No one would have cause to grumble except those whos pride requires having more material worth than others.

Where would Libertarian fall on that spectrum?

Libertarianism, in spite of it's name sounding left-wing, is a far-right or ultra-conservative philosophy. Although in theory many of it's adherents hope it would promote a voluntary social equalisation, it's implementation is far remote from anything of the sort. It's liberal only in that it promotes the freedom of the individual at the implicit exclusion of collective interests.

It takes me a bit of thinking to figure out all the complexities, but as for your philosophy there's one thing that stood out... Personal pride, commitment to society (peers and global sustainment), and self-improvement should be their motivation to perform well. It bothers me, the thought that anyone would establish "shoulds" when it comes to other people's motivations. So, what of the people who wish for more material possessions and/or a more leisurely lifestyle? I think everyone can be just as deserving of the finer things in life, and more power to those who try harder to get it, because they want it more. My philosophy: If everyone has their basic needs met, there's absolutely nothing wrong with some people having extras. The only cause for people to grumble in that scenario is jealousy.

I suppose even self-improvement could be considered a form of lust or greed, but at least it is not a form that infringes on access to the same by others. My system promotes helping others rather than helping one's self, though they both go hand in hand, much as they do now. My primary concern is that people should be doing what they love most, and there should be equal access to leisure and material. We need burger flippers, and we need astro-physicists. It's not trying harder which separates those two professions. It's education and aptitude. I imagine there are many burger flippers who would rather have the wealth and leisure of astro-physicists, and a majority of astro-physicists who would have gone the same route even if all jobs paid the same. As the system stands now, it is discrimination based on ability, opportunity, knowledge, education, aptitude, interest, and simply the good fortune of having whatever combination of those that pays the most at the moment. The jobs that pay the most are professions like my own, computer programming, where every hour I work puts 1200 other man hours out of commission through the software I create. It pays me well, it's obvious why employers pay more for that than burger flipping, but it hasn't served society one iota. It has only served to necessitate a system like I devised before everything including customer service is totally automated. I used to think "well, at least I'll always have a job, designing programmers tools if nothing else, living at the top of the production chain", but now I concentrate on teaching spirituality, something I hope the machines will never replace, though I had big plans to automate even that through software. (My computer is psychic and can add forgotten material to my journal entries and intersperse topics of contemplation). Now I'm shifting towards drawing the Simpson's comic, which will also pay well without harming the social economy. If I had been able to patent and sell all the hundreds of inventions I devised that eventually came out on the market, I would have been a multi-billionaire by now. But that is a delight that comes to me as easy as dreaming, not like the grueling work of flipping burgers which I think, if personal effort were the yardstick, should pay several fold that. I've been in this argument too many times;

You tell me what should be fair determination of a person's wages, and don't give me a reply as meaningless as "hard work". I've invented a hundred fold of what Bill Gates has invented. I make $4/hr and he makes $1,000,000/hr (as was his childhood goal). In spite of the good he has created, I consider his tactics loathsome. He has a knack for "winning the game", which is far different than being motivated to making a social contribution. If it weren't for the fact that the people at the top know their power is dependent upon sustainment of the masses they exploit, their thinking would cause society to crumble. And not everyone in their position is so far thinking. When fish production from netting the gulf streams diminished, they built finer mesh nets. They didn't care that demarcated the diminishing of sustainable production of species. They wanted their money now at the expense of all life 20 years from now, and I'm sure they were paid well. Personally, I think the Amish are the only sane society left on this planet. No one else has a system that assures our survival short of building a DNA library and terra-forming other planets. 2000 years ago effort was proportional to success. We didn't live in a world of fictitious negotiations and commodities whose value might change ten fold overnight. My neighbors often work double shifts as security guards (an occupation I'm disappointed to have exist), and I still hear some mornings where they steal oatmeal from each other's plates. I have plenty of things I want including a fixer-upper house, a car, and flights to see my children, other than that, I can't complain. Except for the kids and my back going out, I suppose I can't complain at all for the moment. I'm hoping I'll pass this test for the Simpson's job and be able to procure those things, but I would blame providence, not hard work for it. I'm sure there are thousands of equally qualified artists who just didn't have a member of the Simsons staff as a next-door neighbor. (though admittedly this is why I moved to Hollywood, and the other 1000's of artists arguably didn't move here to find such opportunities). I wouldn't even be here if spirit hadn't told me where to go, and lined up all the arrangements. By that reasoning, I can't complain about where anyone finds themselves. They all had an equal chance to find God and be shown the way best for them. None the less we still live in a planned society, and I think we should try to make it one that offers equal opportunity and plans for self-sustainment.

Perhaps your experience is different than mine, in the extremely varying professions I have been in (blue collar, white collar, and artistic) and amongst the dozens of close coworkers I spent time with, I have never once seen an example of pay being proportional to effort, though it has coincided a little with knack and performance. To my dismay, it almost always seems proportional to people skills, usually of the ruthless but tactful variety. Those who merely plug away at their work tend to go unnoticed. Some professions, no matter how important (we need to eat, kids need taught) will never offer the same wages as where the market's hot no matter how hard people apply themselves. I see little justice at all at who gets paid well in the big picture of society, though I do see the paying strategies of capitalist employers.

don't think there should be "fairness" in wages. All I see a need for is that everyone gets a livable wage. If someone down the road is willing to pay me $11.00/hr for the same job my neighbor is doing for somone else for $6.00/hour, it's not a wrong that needs to be righted. If everyone is eating, learning well, sleeping in a warm house and whatnot, then where is the injustice?

By some measuruments, 40% of america does not make a living wage. Grade school education has a 20 fold discrepancy observing from the children I've worked with. Would you consistently give one of your children twice the birthday and christmas presents without cause, and not expect them to be confused or jealous? In most respects I have been clever enough to circumvent the system. An incredible number of people are raised with ignorance. In my eyes, the current system is almost identical to the caste system of india, or the caste system in 'brave new world'. I live south of the 10 in LA. Social researchers know full well that it is rare that anyone raised here will make it into the affluence that exists north of the 10. Personally, I would like to see a population a tenth of what is now in which everyone was a prosperous home owner with a decent education. It's possible, but not since the 30's have people made an effort to make that happen. Then it was by building the country, now such a plan would have to be by rebuilding the country, but our physical resources are now limited, and our pioneering determinism has been undermined by three generations of industrialisation, automation, a limited demand for advancement in the physical sciences knowledge & engineering thinking, and a need to even exploit labor. Now that we have basically automated ourselves out of a true need for professional development, we need to evolve a societal belief system to match. I would like to see much more grandeur of life than is likely in a world in which people live in their boxes with a TV and their greatest demands are ordering their groceries on the internet. The injustice is that the evolution of society has deprived the individual of needing to make more than a contribution of attitude.

I would like to see those people south of the ten have the same prospects for purpose and attainment as those north. My highschool english teacher pointed out 20 years ago that the american dream was no longer going to be in reach of the average person (so he suggested we get into real estate) and as a consequence societies attitudes would have to change. It seems to me to have happened in a general loss of reverance for life, education, career, child-raising, life support, criminal rehabilitation, etc. People need a reason to value life, and the future we create for our progenitor is failing now as a viable inspiration. For centuries we felt we were building utopias, now it's more "what's the point" and "I won't be around to see it's demise". My generations gift to the future was virtual reality. I'm sure it's created a bit of that "what's the point" thinking. That, in combination with modern nano-technology leads me to suspect that virtual physicality will be the next generations gift. A reality in which there are no distinctions between the formation of matter and the distribution of thought and perception. We will become the clay and our children will be Adam and Eve who will forget the world is sentient.

Really, I expect my own social-utopia-reconstructionism to be quite obsoleted by recombinant deconstructionism. I bring it up only to promote a brief sense of compassion in the meantime.

Besides, I'm actually thankful that we've created all of our moguls like the Maharajahs, Huntington, Hearst, Hughes, Gates. It's made life interesting. Bill Gates is actually making society tick by allowing us to print money out of nothing, create disposable work efforts, and send the money back to him where he locks it away or spends great amounts on rare art. If he were to actually spend his fortune at the consumer goods level, he would instead be screwing things up royally for the rest of us. Reality always has a tendency to work, to create it's own checks and balances.

When you get down to it, Capitalism is not at all that different from Feudalism. And Fuedalism sucked.

So, what do you think a perfect system would be? Do you think it's possible to have some socialism, with a little capitalism mixed in, so that everyone could have what they need, but some people who wanted to could attain more?

Would there be anything wrong with a system like that?

Excellent point; on the other hand Feudalism was essentially leninism-marxism, and could also be seen as wonderful way of life in which people worked collectively, land plots were rotated, everyone had their personal goat and sheep, a reserve of commodities was present for times of individual or collective strife. The king himself gathereed wealth of no consequence such as gold and jewels, and invested in the arts and sciences. It wasn't until they took to exporting their GNP that true exploitation of the masses occurred. The dark ages weren't as dark as the great thinkers of the rennaissance and age of reformation would have you believe. Rome went to far when it built aqueducts. The plague didn't occur till people travelled widely and made dense urban congregations. If everyone lived off of their own land without industrialization, we wouldn't have global warming now. The notion of mercantilism, that everyone can aspire to great wealth in conjunction with the obliviousness that our planet is in fact a small world with limited resources, is responsible for the stratification of wealth and the draining of resources we now endure.

Why does libertarianism come off as right-wing? I don't feel obligated to help someone else... it's certainly very nice of me, but I've been some terrible pieces of infectious human waste who I wouldn't piss out if they were on fire...

To imply that all people are equally deserving of the same standard of living is ludicrous. I'm not right-wing: I don't think we should use the military as a tool of foreign policy, I'm *very* opposed to drug prohibition, though I think you're an bleedin' idiot if you touch most of that stuff, I don't think we need religion *anywhere* (I'm agnostic), and I'm not even wealthy.

Frankly, socialism gives me the crawling horrors. I shudder at the idea of a society ruled from above For My Own Good. I can't countenance the idea that someone else knows what's best for me and for everyone else, and they'd better take my money and spend it because I'd just waste it in any case.

As a person you save for a rainy day. As a family you might save for your childrens college or rescue your spouse in an emergency. As a collective you acquire housing and transportation. Likewise a nation is a family that handles disputes, apportions savings for disastor relief, builds water resevoirs, makes sure the population doesn't grow up uneducated etc. Even with a populist vote over the internet, you couldn't have the people govern these tasks without representatives, so we elect them instead and anyone is free to become one.

True, there are alternatives. We could go back to stone age agrarian life, or let ungoverned monopolies control everything from phone to police service. Individuals would have to show their monthly police service bill had been paid if they want officers to chase a rapist. Unless you want either of those options, you are a socialist to some extent, and the question becomes to what degree and how it is administrated.

Is the extent to which you wouldn't give a piss proportional to a person's paycheck? If you lost your job would you sacrifice all access to protective services, legal recourse, libraries, freeway & street privelages, toilets, modern medical technology, etc. etc.? We have 40 million people in the LA,CA area. I assure you there isn't the land to have them homestead, and without anti-trust controls, a single petroleum company would be charging quadruple for gas while leaving coasts covered in oil, strippng the landscape, and putting wells wherever it wanted.

You may talk about the terrible consequences of extreme libertarianism, but let's come back to earth for a moment.

Let's see... you haven't responded to a single one of my points! You've just pasted in a canned rant against libertarianism. What about any one of the issues I've raised? Did people really starve and die in the streets before Social Security? (Prior to the Great Depression, that is.) I just can't believe that we need all the government we have.

Sorry if this comes off as flaming. It's just that the only indication you read more than one word of my post was your usage of 'give a piss'.

I have never rants against libertarianism, I composed this myself for your sake. I felt I was addressing your entire rant, because it seemed to be written in the subjective expressing a philosophy about interrelations. I addressed it by countering with my philosophy of interrelationships, and I feel, illustrated my position with a lot more tangible points than the zero concrete examples you provided.

Just after the crash we had the hoovervilles of the great depression, which were alleviated by my favorite policies of F.D.Roosevelt such as establishing the WPA. If that had kept up, we probably would have single income families working half the hours with a great deal of development of local swimming lounges, community theaters, etc. Instead we have created a paranoid competitive capitalist society that fritters it's resources on security guards, video game production, law suits, etc.

I was a libertarian when I was young, though it was anideal to reach, and in the meantime I had no qualms about the taxes I paid to things like Social Security. I'm thankful for that, otherwise I would have been a hypocrite, now that I am dependant upon disability. Also, even before that juncture, I came to realise that what little career I had was the benefit of free libraries and higher education. I have AA's in computer science and studio arts, plus a lot more units, though I was never able to afford attendance at a four year. Libertarianism is total unregulated capitalism; It is like a monopoly game; The rules almost ensure that some people will lose and others will win. When I was a libertarian, I used to think much higher of societies generosity. Now I find that it is quite unlikely that people would fund vital community services like education and fire services by volunteer contributions.

Talk of agnosticism and prohibition seemed a bit off the topic. I just voted for prop 36 since I don't believe in drug criminalisation. I'm a new-age minister. I have no idea what you may be implying about religion in a political context, but I might agree with you.

It came off as flaming before I responded the first time. I doesn't appear to me that you've addressed any points I've made either.

The crux of that would be these questions for you: Do you see families as needing to operate as a collaborative entity? Do you see the community or globe as an extended form of family? Do you believe in equal access to services such as the judicial system or education. Do you believe a libertarian system can provide this.

My expectation of your belief system is that it is 'survival of the fittest' thinking, which I feel would only serve society if we were equally gifted and all equally greedy as the most greedy amongst us. With each consecutive generation a fully competitive system would still fall apart because education and opportunity would be contingent upon the prior success of one's parents.

I believe that the welfare of society is more important than the welfare of the individual. Society should create as best an environment for it's constituents as possible, but it is society, not individuals who will need to prosper through the generations. I believe libertarianism would ultimately lead to company towns escalating into feudal states. Companies would take the most from and give the least to their employees unless we could somehow prevent companies from dominating the market.

I don't think highly of cockroaches. Mommy roaches churn out lots of tykes whom all feast well when things are good, when times are tight mommy eats the fat little ginger kids knowing with her mass she can keep churning them out till times prosper. I think of capitalist employers in much the same vein.

I actually employ a lot of libertarianism in my socialist labor contracting manifesto at the beginning of this survey. Have you read it?

Operating solely for yourself on the fruits of your own labors is only possible out in the wild, not in society. Roads, buildings, delivery of produce all require that all the parties involved were operating for mutual beneefit.

By the way, the most tangible thing you did seem to say involved consenting adults making contracts. What did that have to do with anything. Only in total anarchy or total totalitarianism would that disappear.