re enlisting

Hello World

Here we are again

                          First a few minor mentions viz the Gui – will be adopting a new look pretty soon.  I've opened up the comments section so you don't need any special credentials to comment.  I'm fairly liberal in terms of language - probably google will freak before I do - but I might be a little suspicious if you seem to be trolling, or promoting or any of those other goofy things  that people who ought to know better are sometimes tempted to do.

               As always - since the  beginning we specifically
                        A - do no advertising - so If you got here I either gave you the URL or someone of fairly sane nature did. There's certain tricks to gaining promotional status and I know a few and I avoid them. Eg the site that tells you how to do stuff, the site that uses a lot of  high profile search terms and  of course the site that is a conduit to other sites.  Hey, the portals have a hard enough time separating the wheat from the chaff as it is w/o us confusing the matters all up ward.
                          Plus we adhere to the seven degrees of separation doctrine. If the visitors are capable of ascertaining the level we're working on then I want their good graces and approval - if not then it hardly matters now - does it?
                        and B  We do no data collection and never have. I don't even get a thrill out of fan clubs personally. The notion that before you buy a toaster you have to give the company your name and address is sick.    That goes triple for these firms that want your credit card numbers - for reference purposes and etc. That's double sick.  And also, again, I feel for the pressures that firms like google must deal with - eg I wrote in an email something about having quit smoking and find that there's an advert up top the proggie to help me quit.   They assure me that no human has read my email, but that doesn't mean no human will not do so in the future. If they decide to change policy then you are potentially screwed - and it is practically a de facto law that modern corporations are constantly changing policies - and most of the time the change is to the detriment of the user. I point to the recent Apple I-disk  fiasco just as a typical case where anyone who takes any corporation at their word is a  fool. Caveat Emptor.

             And you play with fire when you trust judges.experience teaches they can be got to.

                     The White on black theme of the page is not working at all. I was looking for some sort of impersonal corporate impression, and probably will continue to go in that direction when and if we ever need "such a thing".  You know, you walk down Manhatten Streets and there’s these’s huge buildings with cornerstones chipped with the name of the primary firm, eg the owner. At this point that’s a little presumptuous. When the name of firm and address is sufficiently impressive it’s called a tombstone, incidentally. 

                    This is apart from the Logo. They are something that is meant to convey immortality and at the same time mutable variation. They usually don’t have specific meanings, which is one of the reasons why they are called Logos. The Logos is a religious term meant to convey a symbolic reality.

In advertising for example the products of the human body, excrement, hair, flem, spittle, fingernails, farts, burps and even tears have well known emotive effects – mostly negative, but in mind control, negative and positive stimulus are often the same thing. The standard formula is 2 present negative stimulus, 2 create discomfort,3 present product and 4 terminate negative stimulus.

                       Whether you’re selling toothpaste political candidates, crackpot economic theories or racial genocide the principles of conditioning do not vary. The Logos is one of these living/dead things. “Oh, it’s magic!” and “It’s the Spirit of Adventure!” - It can also be seen as an ambivalent term, which sets a confuision wheel spinning and then that wheel, of dialectic appraisals can then often be seduced into the decision that the conditioner wants.

                          Corporations invest tens of millions on their logos but an amateur can do the same thing, if gifted. Hagen Daas, is an ice cream company but the name of the product means nothing, literally. One could explain that Da is yes in Russian and DaDa a reference to one’s father and so on but the point is the multiplicity of meaning creates the ambivalence of understanding which can decided upon in favor of the corporate masters.

                            In any case I’m gravitiating towards a bluish green. AS I indicated the major computer companies both use blue as their key identifier, but that’s very much a western thing. Blue equals the sky, the sky is where the ThunderGods Live. Asians are fonder of Red and in particular red with Gold lettering. Red is the blood color. I kinda like Maroon. It’s has that medieval feel. In any even the current thing has got to go. It is too hard on the eyes.

Here’s a story about one after noon that changed a person’s life.

Re-enlistment Day

Much has been said of the class war in America and the amusing part is that when it was the rick beating up on the poor it was called competition, but when it’s the other way around it’s called class warfare. There’s other conflicts going on as well. One obvious one is the old against the young – and this can’t be overly simplified the way some would have it. Then there’s one that hardly can be classified a conflict but nevertheless involves conflicting interests. As women enter the workforce they have every right to expect equal pay for equal work, but the males they work with may not see it that way.

Even on the level of street survival there are new alliances coming into play. The white suburbanites have, in the past twenty odd years, increasingly had to rely upon sources in the black community to buy their recreational drugs. I don’t even wanna talk numbers here. The size and scope of the prison system, the amount of gun violence, even the number of people addicted to various drugs are all things that, like so much in our information age, nobody gives a damn about. In the classic lines of Joe Conrad we would “Exterminate them! Exterminate them all!”

I met Carl when I was homeless. It’s not his real name. He was a black man, in his thirties, about six feet, probably good looking if you care to bother, and in the early stages of a heroin addiction that will probably kill him in ten years or so.

Being homeless gives one a great opportunity to share experiences. It’s about the only opportunity one has. I’d talk about the rock and roll craziness and he’d talk about the various scams that he’d pull on the white kids. It didn’t bother me none. I grew up in urban settings and you might say can see things from both sides.

Carl would hang at the Port authority bus terminal on the west and wait for the honkies with the loud tee shirts and baseball caps to get off the buses. These were the boys from the Jersey suburbs – know what I’m saying. Carl knew nine ways to Sunday how to rip you off. You stick the bag down your crotch and holler, cops, then retrieve a different bag. Plus there’s dozens of things that look like dope. Basically you’ve got to understand you’re gonna get burnt sometimes and build a trusting relationship with someone.

Plus there’s other scams, gambling, hot merchandize, forged tickets but these are all basically “rites du passage’” for the urban male and soon people move on to other things.

Carl’s whole life changed in one after noon. He was a veteran also, like so many of the homeless. Actually the veterans are playing a role in the new economy. In the tent cities they are forming what are essentially security services, because they are not afraid of knives and guns. When there’s women and children and a gang man come along, a Crip or Blood say, or even worse a lone wacko and they pull out a weapon there’s not much a woman or child can do. Plus, it might sound strange but by and large, but many veterans, in my experience, view themselves as the good guys – the protectors of the weak and innocent, unlike the masters, who all too often are basically predators.

Then there’s the cops, of course, and at times it’s better to be punished by the system, which will put you in jail, then by an individual, who will possibly harm you, but still, the cops do what they are told and those that tell them what to do are the cause of the problem in the first place so there’s no help there.

So, Carl get’s out of high school in what passes for the black middle class and after a few years of hanging out on street corners he enlists in the army. This was the Clinton years when as much as I dislike the guy, at least we weren’t in a war. The thing was in those the unemployment was around five percent and for black people employment is like the accountant’s phrase – “Last in First out.” Cynic’s such as yours truly could suggest that the apparent economic good times were chimerical, but it’s is of no matter.

And. Like a lot of other things, when they want you to join they are going to offer you a special deal and then once you’re hooked then they can go about changing the terms. What Carl got was the best two years of his life. He gets a tour of duty in Germany where he gets weekends off, where he’s got coupla blonde girlfriends, some of the world’s best hashish and better living conditions then he’s ever known. He’s even on his way to learning a trade. He was learning how to cook for large numbers of people.

He only had one unfortunate incident, with a Sergeant, another black man. They just didn’t like each from the start. One time the Sergeant caught Carl sleeping on sentry duty and they settled things with their fists. No official mention of the incident was made, something for which Carl remained grateful.

Then the fateful day came. It was time to re-enlist. Carl went down to the office and spoke to the man there and said , “No problem, Just give me the same deal as last time and I’m in”

The man behind the desk says, “Well, we’ll do what we can.”

Carl says “Well you have to put that in writing”

The man says “I can only repeat what I say. We can’t promise anything.”

The reality and gravity of the situation began to settle in. As he was relating the tale Carl turned to me and said, “You know the Army’s got it’s own way of doing things and saying things and when they say “We’ll do what we can,” that means “No way in hell” (Actually he said it more colorfully but I’ll spare the sensibilities of the more delicate among our readers.)

Carl knew what “We’ll do what we can,” meant.” It meant “Iraq”

No Booze, no blondes, no fun and summer temperatures around a hundred and twenty in the shade, not only that but there was people there shootin’ bullets at you. Real bullets.

Carl did not have a great dislike of white people. I’m white myself and I didn’t feel threatened by him. Then again I didn’t have anything to steal on me at the time. I don’t know, if I was black, if I’d even be so mellow. Maybe he thought about all those rich boys come off the Jersey buses for the erb. He probably didn’t see too many of them in the army. Long and the short of it was Carl was used to better things then the Iraq war and he turned the offer down.

I try to keep my eyes open. You know what I’m saying? I notice that’s Carls eyes would do that fluttering thing where the eyeball go up in the head that happens when a junkies getting the rush.

And one morning I get up early in the shelter and I sees him going out, so I follow him, casual like, being as I was not exactly pressed for time at the moment. I sees he goes behind some wrecked cars behind a gas station and drives out an automobile. Of course you’re not supposed to have an Auto in the homeless shelter – you’re considered too well off, but I wasn’t gonna rat on him. The car looked like and sounded like it wasn’t long for the world anyway. Probably didn’t have no insurance either.

I hid in the bushes. Always hiding in the bushes nowadays. Always hiding. Always hiding. It’s a war zone everywhere you look.

The funny thing, amusing even, was the car. I don’t recall the make, but it was a beat up compact and the motor went like a wooga wooga and out of the tailpipe come a steady stream of smoke from all the oil it was burning. But the smoke didn’t come straight our, rather it was a squirly-cue like a pigs tail

I thought that was pretty funny, actually, myself.

I got out of that place as soon as I could.

-Tamlin