Seth Responds

Then send this love along
For my heavy young heart;
Send this hope and power on wings this holy hour.
My legs they weary and the roads are long.

Be sure the white birds they speed
And the bees to whisper this name to me
that I may laugh loud again and heed
the silvery side of leaf flutter the tree.

Let us roll while we wait together
Past a golden field where violets and heather
colour the ground about and scampering squirrels.

Make nature promise a better weather.

Bring this tumbling canopy closer
so there I can see these eyes of God, blue or green;
And hear the secret hymns of a caller
who will tell me more, here about this scene.

So rush this love along
For my heavy young heart.
Speed this hopeful power on mighty wings this hour,
My legs they weary and the roads are long.

And even then, wild Rivergod,
My ears may hear the songs of Vishnu
my lips taste the milk and honey
but what of the child gone by the morning dew?

Even then great fountain and singer of sweet melodies,
What then do we tell our little ones
Who ask and crave to know life's mysteries
when we ourselves seem the guilty ones?

What of them, mighty one?

So send me hope,
And rush this love along
for then my heavy young heart to cope.

AND THE RIVERGOD RESPONDS

Be still good lad, take heart.

You see dear fellow, I too have watched
but for thousands of years and millions of moons,
after some eons you mellow.

Under the shimmering rainbows flow I
to hear the ceaseless wind
and the secrets of the swaying treetops.

Flowing 'neath the misty galaxies find me lie.

I hear the calls which haunt me at midnight.
Calling from beneath my belly.
They are the damned asking again for the right
to participate, crackle with light and end their folly.

For me I roll, roll while I wait do I.

Await the hour when comes the prince
to call for hope and the power,
call to the side and above that hour...
Love is King! Love is King!

The wise voices are few.

Rose petal-bearing winds can obscure.

Count them on hand those true
whose pinkish tongues sing so pure.

But then, see wily nature persevere.

And in all of the white heat and blast
nonetheless or more you may hear
His voice so perfect bringing in the last.

Under the shimmering rainbows flow I;
To hear the ceaseless wind
and the secrets of the swaying treetops.

Flowing 'neath the misty galaxies find me lie.

So you see dear fellow,
I too have watched.

But for thousands of years and millions of moons,
after some eons you mellow.

-excerpts from Paracletus! by YT (Yours truly)

A Curious Grasp

From a mirky wild,
dark and tangled
I am thrust into pulsing forms
held there in a curious grasp.
Looked upon in my blooming
by the mind of a perfect entity
Who emboldens me with a fertility
a fierceness raw and revealing.

Kissed by gods tumbling now in
hallowed skies
and beseeching me to increase
their secret bounty of light...

I rise victorious.

Poets of these horizons
have cast their words in flesh
and now call my names, each
of them glorious.

It is I at last who sinks
into your loose embrace.

My eyes alight as I behold
a countenance so sure
its handiwork
Will make pause the stream
of grace.

Media Pork-Assters Still Calling it Swine Flu

Two days ago it was widely reported around the world that "Swine Flu" was a misnomer and that a new name "H1N1 flu" (Heeny-Flu works for me) would hence be used. Ironic that it was the Sensationalizing Media which reported this World Health Organization switch in labelling and it is those same people, programmers, editors and reporters still using the Swine Flu Nom-de-Boob while that practise they know full well is devastating the pig farmers around the world - because the uninformed still believe one can contract this flu by eating pork. NOT SO.

The Porkers here are particularly the reporters who clearly aren't worth their salt while they ignore how much they are jeopardizing the innocent people invloved in the pork industry trying to sustain their livelihoods and their families while under the gun of these lazy reporters who refuse to change the terminology some idiot invented and they persist in promoting. After all, these 'reporters' by their repetitiousness have created a spectacular brand.

I'll take salted pork over their rot any time.

It's simple: SWINE FLU doesn't exist in the way it has been so irresponsibly misreported.

At Last. To breathe with love.

The words of power are the same every generation which may be spoken by anyone at any ‘time’. It is the Word which was made flesh and ultimately there are few words we need to know, to breathe with love. And be affirmed by nature.


The following is the lead editorial of the first hard copy of The English Bay Banner to be published this summer, and every three months after with a whopping 32 pages plus, supplemented by weekly posts on this site. Go baby go.

LITERACY IS YOUR FREEDOM

You would not be called onto the carpet or shoved into a closet with a dunce’s hat if you were to ask, “Has the whole world gone to hell?” Just check your TV guide.
Is teenage suicide becoming a rational act? Are the hearts of men being inhabited by something insidious? Just watch those video games your son is playing.
War is the way we measure our history.
It appears that even educators have lost interest, except on the picket lines, and eight year term leaders clearly evacuated their moral basis - embarrassingly so to their constituents. Fodder for pope-bashing Jay Leno of the Holy Handshakes but no help to young minds.
Lifestyles of Celebrities are ruling the airwaves with vulgarity and a kind of self-assurance that is repugnant to a decent person. Who would want to be King of this current snakepit?
The “Look-at-Me Industry” is alive and functioning in Vancouver pouring cash into vanity while intellectual life is lost in the anxiety and chaos of banality and competitiveness.
Our society here in this city has been transformed in a bloodless revolution ever since the federal government started selling citizenships to the wealthy, who did not necessarily bring any interest or compassion to our spiritual environment. In our history the newcomers have expressed very little interest.
While our awarenesses fluctuate and hover like bees attending the matters of their existence – nevertheless flying the way they do defying gravity – so indeed may we, across the dimensions of meaning imbued as we are with spirit and in that experience decry the mundane.
Clearly we can’t be flying all the time, our minds constantly exalted, as it is equally important to witness a first step, to take our own and even to experience frustrations and difficulties through which we persevere. Philosophers and avatars throughout the ages have challenged our minds to step up and view the broader horizon where clean winds blow, perhaps to clear the dust accumulating on the soul rendering it again translucent.
The mood of the philosopher is always inculcating him to face the onslaught of time and his selected words may consume or create (or both simultaneously) to reform the context, possibly even to renew the human atmosphere urging each individual to regain their sight of the original, their membership in the living.
Do we need to reexamine the importance we attribute to our memories, to our failed relationships; to witness that original transaction which permitted the festering illusion? Shall we empty this box of mental baggage that we may allow the refilling of our inner sanctum with unadulterated energy, driven by goodness? Maybe.
Can you afford to judge another human being or is the inherent cost of that mental affair your own freedom?
These are the questions which The English Bay Banner will continue to examine every issue. In keeping with the thought of Socrates (see unhappy face), a man who managed to mention before he chose suicide, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

posted by Harry Langen | 6:03 AM | 0 comments

Casting Diamonds

Sweet prince, I ran across the
lakes on the sun,
casting diamonds
into its mirthful sky.
All this time in holy ascension
I prayed your name and danced
in happy apprehension.
Alone I stand
in the pastel shadows now,
Keeping my breath to
a delicate rhythm,
Awaiting the familiar sound
of your footfalls
across the solitary landscape
of my love-pierced heart.
Take my hands, both of them, and
like wet clay press them
to your precious face...
no lonely day then
nor trembling night near, will I
be without a fond reminder
of your tender grace.
Sweet dear darling prince,
these hands unworthy though
Stay here guarded at my side,
Abiding only your sweetest
command, make me obey...
and obey I gladly will
what your love has beckoned.
- r. h. langen

My Brother Comments
The Pressure of Words
All writing, as you know, is a tentative contract of sorts with an imagined reader. Poetry is the toughest contract. The writing itself is the most demanding, absolutely the hardest to do; and finding the reader, who must be extremely discerning, is a great challenge also. Your writing, I have always found, is most effective in the public sphere of rhetorical commentary - at its best, in my experience, in pithy letters to newspaper editors. But there is a poetic background to it - perhaps a spiritual background - which I see operating in what you have shown me. I don't think I've seen poetry from you before.

Here's my brother holding a picture of a war hero, our dad.
I have never imagined myself a poet. I don't think I am one now. But I have of late been feeling the pressure of words. I respect the fact that you are my brother and have been feeling the same pressure also, probably for a lot longer than me.

Thank you for sharing.

April*Bonked and Book*Whirled

On Good Friday after working up some Easter stew with my boyfriend I was knocked down on the sidewalk close to my home and left there bleeding from the crown. By my by-then ex-boyfriend. He was angry, infuriated actually, that he couldn’t stay with me past the curfew of 3:30 pm. imposed by the building management; imposed because of his previous violence against me. Someone escorted me back to my building entrance and the cops and ambulance appeared very soon as I continued bleeding. I deferred going to the hospital for a couple of stitches choosing to go upstairs to bed. I didn’t want Stephen persecuted by the system; but since then he has shown little remorse and made no contact except to ask me to take him out for a beer.

Meanwhile, I was happily contemplating the article about my book to be written by Chris Keam for Alan Twigg, the publisher of B.C. Bookworld, offering 100,000 readers. A measly 1200 words was the assignment but the readership claim was substantial.
Keam, after interviewing me and commenting, “If I can’t write this story I’m not worth my pen” did not read the book, The Dead Sea Revelation, and actually phoned Twigg and pooh-poohed me. Thanks Keam for your sloth. Since when is it correct for a freelance writer to trash a B.C. author to the publisher of B. C. Bookworld? Since, I suppose, the publisher permits such nonsense, being the author of these words: “I have determined he (Keam) is not sufficiently confident that your perspective is as viable as you feel it is, and he is no longer eager to proceed.”
Huh? I am a writer of ideas and use fiction to enchant the reader. The reviews have been entirely favourable (www.deadsearevelation.com) but here we have two ‘professionals’ who don’t even read the text before condemning it. So much for Vancouver’s typical support of writers. Writers are our only hope to justify theater and art. Goodnight to April.

AND TO ALL WRITERS RE THE BOOKSTORE: Hang on. Still checking the numbers re feasability. I am thankful for the thoughtful support shown by so many.

April*Fooled

The following letter went out to major newspapers (of the 'common media' type) after an article appeared in the Vancouver Province edition of April 1st about how the Inukshuk monument was leaking poisonous goop into the soil on the beach by English Bay. The fact that it was Fool's Day escaped this scribe and thus the laugh was on me. Faithful readers of The English Bay Banner will note that I critiqued this pile of rocks before a variation of its form was (mis)chosen as the symbol for the Olympics.

Dear Editor,

Not only is this misplaced pile of rocks a pox on the earth, it's also toxic visually.

Excuse me for sounding politically incorrect, but last I noticed, we are Vancouverites, not Eskimos. On this ground, why not commemorate the courage of Captains Vancouver and Cook, or Francis Drake? These men had guts and their images should be right there on the beach, one of many where they may have strolled. Or why not erect a statue of a defiant Chief Khatsalano who was evicted by whiskey-swilling road builders from his dwelling at Lost Lagoon? His iron countenance windblown, facing his namesake, Kitsilano, as the breaking waves tell his story yet.

Any sculptors out there on time for 2010?

Bullying Clouds

If a morning could be pitch perfect this is one. Cool and sunny and at last the various tree buds are coming back, following the delicate but dependable cherry blossoms by one week. Despite the gloom and doom on the global economic scale and in the various stock markets, on my stroll this billowy morning I didn’t spy anyone leaping out of windows and I could actually detect a spring in the step of some people exhibiting spontaneous optimism under bright blue skies barreled into by whopping cumulus stunners. Trumpets anyone?

WRITERS' OWN BOOKSTORE NEWS

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Dear Angela

I respectfully agree to disagree.

“A bricks and mortar shop” is precisely what readers want.
My reasoning in believing this is simple enough: writers are generally interesting people with interesting ideas and many of whom have visited unmapped dimensions of thought, their experiences similar to adventurers and pioneers. Would-be book buyers want to share in that cerebral exploration somewhat (perhaps having discovered that life is greatly enhanced by a full intellectual experience) and play the role of the author’s sidekick and confidante. How thrilling then for the reader to meet this torch-carrier, the writer of the prose which has been so engaging and the inventor of such characters of intrigue. So quite apart from the social occasion visiting a bookstore – with coffee, tarts, chairs and tables – the reader can legitimately anticipate interacting with powerful minds, even visionaries.


Hiding in front of TV’s, video games and Yes, even computer monitors doesn’t hold a candle to shaking the hand of an Einstein, Hawking, Huxley, Michael Ondaatje or Angela Burns.

Reading text on screens at home alone supposes that the material is so riveting that joy can be elicited from this solitary experience, and the writer so sure of their brilliance at wordcraft that readers will be wholly satisfied with their pristine (sterile?) body of work.


“Websites are cheap,” Yes, and as effective as an ice cube retail stand in the arctic. They tend to glorify the writer meanwhile expecting the potential buyer to be so moved as to write and send a cheque or provide PayPal their credit card number and then pay for the shipping.

Ebooks can work for research and data transfer but isn’t it so much more fun to hold a new, nicely bound text in your hands and crack that spine for leaf after leaf of the stuff of surprises? And even the paper itself may have its own unique feel and story about its creation.

The print-on-demand aspect of the enterprise would be approached with a separate business plan and no commitment made until viability is clearly established, justifying purchase of printer/binder equipment. But imagine the control we would be wresting from the hands of conventional publishers who have been reducing our take(for our life’s work) to 7% and the retailers who fire-sell us in their big box discounts bins. And shipping freight back and forth from publisher to retailer and back again is a total no-win situation for the scribe.

I invite all the writers with whom I am corresponding to join this debate and also make contributions of anything else on their mind by posting to my four year old The English Bay Banner – the forum for Writers’ Own and a platform advocating social justice.

And no matter where you live in British Columbia, a one week window display and intense promotion of your work to the Vancouver market can’t hurt.

Finally, as to costs to writers: 200 members would get the monthly stipend down to $20 for a home-made-artsy-crafty kind of effort. And what fun!


-Harry Langen

Angela Burns Replies

It's an interesting idea, Harry, but I don't think it will fly. A bricks and mortar shop is just not smart these days. Authors and publishers need to look outside the 'box' (sorry for the cliche).

I'd much rather see members create a distributor and ensure that books are placed in independent bookstores around BC. Most books are produced in digital format for printing, so a website offering downloadable versions for a small fee would also be a good idea, and generate some income for authors. Websites are cheap.

It's important that authors have their works available to be read - by any means available. E-books are soon going to replace print copies - simply because they will be more accessible. Google and Amazon are gearing up to flood the market with them. I love books and bookstores, but this is the future. If we don't recognize this, we will all go down together.

Readings by the author or a professional 'voice' can be done through audio files and made available online - thereby opening another market for books, and a way to publicize them. Audio books are a huge market.

I don't live in Vancouver, nor do I visit the Mainland - so a bookstore there would have no value to me, either as an author or a publisher. I certainly could not assist in the front.

Also, setting up a printing business is an expensive, complex proposition. It isn't something that can be done in a 'back room'. Print-on-demand shops, like Printorium in Victoria, have economies of scale and technical expertise. I use them and find their product both very good and affordable - as long as one understands the technical side - which I do.

So, digital media has to be considered seriously - websites, audio, visual - even a virtual shop fronts in Second Life. It would be a lot cheaper and give a bigger bang for the buck. Even a chat room devoted to authors and publishers would be helpful. There is open source software for this. We all need to discuss our trade - and not everyone can attend meetings or events.

If we diversify, we may survive.

Cheers,

Angela Burns
GSG Ltd.
Publisher/Editor/Writer/ etc.

Dear Fellow Author,

I’m shopping an idea around to all the members listed in the Federation of B.C. Writers.

Let’s get some publicity and attractive window display for our book(s) at a retail shop that we own. As a group we can afford to rent a store downtown Vancouver and each author will get one week of window display and chance to read and promote their work intensely throughout that week. Before and after, their work will be on the shelf with posters and such to attract attention of the browsers; and as an incentive to the shoppers the writers will always be welcome to commingle on site with their would-be readers. And hobnobbing with fellow writer/authors, some of whom may be wildly successful, might be fun, huh?

To keep costs down, I propose that, given enough of us, we could each do a 4 – 6 hour cashier shift per fortnight and keep the store open from 8 – 8. Other books can be ordered from our computer access to amazon.com at wholesale rates; but the focus of the store will be to promote local writers.

The readings and access to the authors should generate some public interest and hopefully may cover the monthly cost of running the operation. If enough authors are relying on a print-on-demand process, perhaps we could look into printing and binding our own work in the ‘back room.’

It’s all just germinating now so let me know if this idea appeals to you. And if you are enthused about this and would like to see this idea come to fruition then call me about how I can best allocate a half hour a month of your time.

For more on me, see www.deadsearevelation.com or have a cruise around my e-zine at www.ebaybanner.blogspot.com

Cheers, and hope to hear from you.

- Harry Langen

Back in the Saddle

Horseshit from the Mounties
Armed to the teeth with deadly sidearms, batons, their eight trained fists, handcuffs and the currently dubiously underrated electrifying tasers, four members of the RCMP managed to kill an unintoxicated, frustrated man from Poland whose only crime it appears was that he threw a little temper tantrum when he couldn’t find his mother at the airport. Boy did those fellas in the noble serge teach him not to misbehave in Canada… permanently.

As members of that goon squad attempt to defend their deadly behavior on that occasion explaining why one of them over-tasered the poor man from Poland, Mr Robert Dziekanski with five trigger-pulls, others have already retracted and changed their testimony, obviously laying waste to their original horseshit excuses.

FLASH! The video account of the horrendous incident does not reconcile with the testimony of the trigger-puller! Will he now change his original testimony to keep up with the revolving-door testimony of his brothers-in-arms?

It is hoped by Yours Truly that the government of Poland will recognize all this as pathetic ducking and weaving and exercise its right to charge these morons in uniform with manslaughter. Reports of dozens of cases of abuse including incidents of death during incarceration and glaring omissions (leaving a couple lost in the frigid wilderness at Whistler) are shining a light on soiled uniforms and ugly tactics employed by miscreant members of what once was a truly heroic organization.

This load of recruits which were hired during the disgraced former commissioner Zacarelli’s regime seem to be disproportionately populated by thugs having been hauled out of some redneck sewer to dress up in pretty scarlets and long black boots, eager to swing their batons and deploy their tasers a multitude of times (as opposed to deploying their hand-to-hand combat skills which might require a hint of courage). If it were ever proven that these four at the airport were preordained by attitude toward violence during their encounter with the exhausted victim, Mr. Dziekanski – who was apparently in the surrendering mode just prior to being jolted to death – then let the law be enforced to its fullest extent and have these men charged with murder right here in Canada.

The sunny days of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon are clearly past and in view of the many accounts of RCMP abuses in the last decade outdated and obscenely over-romanticized.

Perhaps it’s time for retailers trading in tourist trinkets to remove all RCMP statuettes, bobbleheads, pictures of them parading around on horseys with spears pointed at each other and any other iconography glorifying their heroic past until they clean up their bloody act once and for all.


Prime Minister Rides in for some Wild West Gang-Bashing

In a recent letter to the editor of what used to be an alternative press newspaper and which has weirdly morphed into a celebrity-worship rag, the writer seriously suggested that the Hells Angels be approached to police the other gangs because after all they know the ropes and the inner workings of gang management.


Duh?

Our Prime Minister who apparently privately yearns to win a Prime Mortician Look-a-Like contest thought he would drop by and pretend to inflict some gang-bashing in an effort to stem the flow of bleeding bodies piling up on our streets. By extending the jail term for murder and drive-by gunplay he seriously expects to inject the fear of God into these stoned dunderheads who really couldn’t give a crap about anything. They’ve watched and played so many dehumanizing videos where killing gains them points that now some concrete-haired politician is the least likely to make any kind of impact on their chosen lifestyle.

Let’s get real. The only way to sink their ship is to blow a hole in their treasury. Follow the money. Every ‘successful’ gang is laundering its ill-gotten profits (selling meth and crack to kids) by establishing businesses with legitimate licenses and renting properties from cooperative landlords and using turn-a-blind-eye lawyers to come out on the other side smelling like roses and doing charity work through their local business councils and such.

There’s a simple counter measure here. Just demand of your local common media that all businesses owned by members of gangs be listed in the paper and a boycott called to prevent them from conducting any more over-the-counter trade.

The downtown eastside of Vancouver is in the state it’s in because the gang there is renting property, calling them hostels and fronting the addicts with crack who do their sidewalk trade. Close those hostels and prevent that gang from ever securing any business license whatsoever, forever.

No amount of gushing over the Olympics with the huge cost overruns being allowed is going to distract from the embarrassing truth that Vancouver’s civilian populace isn’t really acting very civil towards its homeless population and its addicts who are being poisoned daily by these gangs. A fraction of the funds that have been earmarked toward the two week Olympic spectacle could go a long way to establish affordable housing, and debugging of current city-owned housing (which defy the health bylaws) and assaulting the so-called legitimate businesses owned by gang members through media supported boycotts.

With the extinction of this moral malaise in Vancouver, rather than deepening it by our persistent indifference we could actually enjoy the Olympics and take pride in our city as we host tourists from around the world, knowing that we are looking after our own and eliminating the elements of an insidious underworld.

Toughen up, folks. It’s the only way.


Curiouser and Curiouser

While the 12 theories of Creationism are abounding in debate clubs around the civilized (ahem) world, we find a mention in Science magazine that footprints precisely resembling modern man were discovered in sedimentary rock in Kenya and dated to 1.5 million years ago.

I wonder how this ancient prehistoric man amused himself in those way-bygone days? Given the propensity of the native cultures for casino-building one might be apt to guess gambling might have been part of their leisurely way, after all that hunting and gathering or pizza delivering. Who’s to say?

And then there was that bee in amber dating back tens of millions of years ago and with bees, don’t we find honey and where’s there’s honey are there not bears and perchance to dream - bear rugs?


In short, it would appear that the ecological balances to sustain man and beast have been with us for what might be described as time immemorial. Somewhat bolstering my mentor’s rather brave comment I heard when of the tender age of 17 he spoke, “Man has always been man.” And his interesting ‘cousin-comment’: “There is nothing new under the sun.” Which supports my own belief that enlightenment must occur here in this dynamic environment, on this splendid earth, amidst these wondrous elements and under that mysterious personality of the infinite which manifests itself as the radiant sun. No matter how many lifetimes it takes. We need to acknowledge the perfection around us and then allow ourselves to be enjoined with it.

And who knows? Those footprints probably belong to one of our previous manifestations and here we are still fumbling along denying our perfection. Oh blessed day, come hither.


Something Wicked This Way Comes

At 89, James Lovelock, has made a seriously dire prediction about what we as a species can expect in the not-too-distant future. Lovelock, the scientist who originally rang the bell of warning that the earth, being a unified living organism he called Gaia, was at risk from man's bumbling about the delicate balances of the eco-system.

Our great grandchildren will inherit death on a grand, cataclysmic scale with rising sea levels, floods and the creation of new deserts. And this soothsaying he believes is founded in reliable science which affirms to him that this doomsday scenario is too late to avert.

Oh wicked day, get thee thither.




My Mother's Passing

Two days before I knew my mother was gravely ill I wrote the following...
You can kiss the underside of the ground upon which Yahovah walks and persevering with whispering prayers and persistent to the point of annoyance to all, witness Him - at last! - pluck you into divinity.

Such is the bounty of Light.

My mother, Molly Sullivan Langen Pirie, passed away two days later on December 15th, 2008 after a two day ordeal and a second heart attack. She refused to have her hospital room phone hooked up (to prevent I suppose worrying her sons. She said at the time, "I'll wait til I get home.") so I could only pass messages on to her through the nurses. I suspected she was quite ill and so my last message was "You're not alone." She died the next morning at 3 a.m.

It was her good fortune that her parish priest was by the day before on his rounds and noticed her and correctly detected her grave state. He offered her the Last Rites and she accepted happily.

She died in peace in the eyes of her Lord.

As a church elder and member in the Catholic Women's League she was also responsible for the cemetery where many of the Langens are buried - the Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery, at Red Rapids. She had fundraised for its upkeep and the establishing of a bell there to be rung at times of interment. Appropriately, as though by Design, it rang the first time for Molly's.

The following memorial was passed out at her 'viewing' at the funeral home and all 50 copies were taken up gladly by my distant cousins, great uncles and her many friends.

She was born in the year of the Tiger, 1926, according to the Chinese astrological calendar. And this ancient lore informs us that Tiger people are sensitive, given to deep thinking, capable of great sympathy. They can be short-tempered and occasionally impulsive but are courageous and powerful souls. Maybe Molly’s life was indeed written in the Chinese skies because it’s not far off the mark at all.

In the war years, Molly was the eldest of four sisters whose father, Louis, had recently been killed in a roadside accident as he was walking his plow horses home. To help her mother Mary, Molly was picking enough potatoes to fill 80 barrels a day earning 10 cents a barrel, and at week’s end she sure was looking forward to her night of dancing at the old Silver Slipper dance hall. This, she made the point to Mary, was her treat to herself.

She managed to save $12 for a bicycle and began to make personalized Christmas Card sales biking to the old farm homes separated by two or three miles each. She was well received by her neighbours, many of whom began to eventually rely on their charming young saleslady for magazine subscriptions, cosmetics, information and gossip about their little community of Rowena and their Victoria County. Molly had established her sales run and was very pleased to find her innovativeness, courage and perseverance paying off at $50 profit a day! She saw an ad in a slick magazine for a Buick Wildcat and Lord Jesus by God did she ever want that! And a Wildcat just like her, bustin’ out with mischief and life, all revvin’ to get up and go and not so hard on the eyes either.

But she would still be making her sales by bicycle for some time yet remembering fondly from those exhilarating days her first tippling episode, with Mrs Ed Tomlinson who got along famously with Johnny Barley Corn. In that one afternoon Molly managed $62 in profit and a precarious and wobbly ride home. (Good thing they didn’t bring charges in those days against young lasses for operating a bicycle while under the influence.)


At 18, Molly started to teach school at Crombie Settlement with 13 students, from grade one to six. She excelled at teaching, her attentiveness to each pupil, her loving care, her bounty of good human qualities all came to shine in the classroom. She remembers to this day how those students were so “sweet and well behaved, and so willing to learn.”

And they remembered her. Isaac Goodine remembered his teacher, Miss Sullivan, and decades later recom-mended her for the Certificate of Appreciation which was presented to her by Mr Goodine, then the Chair of Human Relations, World Academy of Letters, on October 7th, 2004. It read in part, “She is a most inspirational and caring teacher who guided me through the 6th grade and is still a loving mentor today.”

Her young teaching career included the schools at Foley Brook, New Denmark, and Gladwyn with 52 students from grade one to eight (including two of her sisters); the California Settlement; Medford and South Tilley.

She married the war-ravaged George Langen when he returned from duty on the front line and had three sons by him - Roger, Scott and Ronnie. The family moved to Toronto following so many other maritimers to the big city. George worked with a law firm there playing “wrinkle-fender” every night to get home while she dabbled in real estate sales and waitressing before landing another teaching job, this time for six years at St Philip Neri in Downsview, Ontario. There they bought their first real home for $10,000 on Lorne Bruce Drive in 1955. It was a cold mile in winter to walk to school every day.

All the boys attended St Philip Neri and Molly looked out for each of them, managing to cover their medical expenses and boyhood needs while her brilliant husband George was holding court, dispensing free legal advice to the neighbours bearing beers, and gradually descending into alcoholism. He was often heard lamenting his move from the forests and fishing streams of New Brunswick.

Molly had to make way for more academically qualified teachers coming to St Philip’s. She had served the nuns as chauffeur and gave much of her personal time to that institution but it was time to find another job and she did at the Toronto International Airport as an insurance saleslady. She started at 5 a.m. and after her shift there was over at two p.m. she went to work at Lockhart’s on Jane St. keeping books and once again building a sales network, this time for auto parts.

Seven solid years of work at the airport came to a close when the ladies were let go for younger lasses. Molly had learned by then that injustices were commonplace in the work environment of the modern world, especially for women.

She was building the Lockhart business and soon became a celebrity – “Molly the Muffler Lady” featured in newspapers and on national radio. With the Lockharts, she bought lakefront acreage around Bracebridge, Ontario and built a “hunt lodge” (called such to get around building inspector licensing problems). It turned out as a magnificent many-roomed cottage, and her son Scott and his wife Trudy bought land adjacent to it. Many happy autumns were spent there hunting deer, and in summer with the children of relatives and friends playing in the yard.

She finally returned to New Brunswick in the mid 90’s and made all the applications necessary to return her hospitalized husband there too. George died after two decades of institutional-ized veteran’s care during which Molly never abandoned his personal welfare nor neglected to bring him his smokes and new clothes.

She was courted by the charming Alton Pirie of Tilley, NB, a successful landowner and potato farmer, and father of 11, and she married him when they were both in their 70’s.

She keeps busy visiting her old friends, dancing at the halls, playing cards with her Aunt Bea and writing emails and letters to her family, friends and the politicians she lambastes - and touring in her gutsy new Chevy Impala (having somewhat outgrown her old Buick Wildcat).

Her boys have all met with varying degrees of success: Roger as a teacher and union executive; Scott as a business owner and salesman (both husbands and fathers in Ontario) and Ronnie as a writer and more recently a real estate salesman in Vancouver.

She is the doting grandmother of seven, and stays in touch with each of their lives, always with a kind word and a patient ear.

Her many nephews and nieces, though spread across the continent, all are very dear to her and they regularly swap stories.

Her boys have all inherited Molly’s compassionate nature for people and are proud to know that she is remembered most fondly by not only her many former students, the Dionnes, Goodines, Finnemores, Rattrays, ONeils, Kinneys, Hamiltons and Brooks and countless others but also her old clients, the Bakers, Boones, DeMerchants and so many more.

When any one of them encounter her dropping in on socials in their beloved rural New Brunswick, they respond with warmth and affectionate hugs.

And quite naturally there are many in heaven who still remember the wildcat on the bicycle who brightened their days with her laughter, her stories and her love. Indeed, as such God-given love of humanity is to be remembered and cherished forever.

Green Motors?

While the CEO’s of Ford (Mustang!), Chrysler (LeBaronski!) and GM (Caddilacky!) are presenting hats-in-hand while getting paid millions in bonuses every year for their accumulated losses, may I make a teensy suggestion that might have a very nice compact... impact, impact! Chevy chevy, eh, ya know? Sawee.

Go ahead and take 50 million out of the original 750 million the feds were going to use to bail out the mortgage holders or buy bank shares (or roll dice) and hope the Americans take this rare opportunity to insist on a couple of conditions:

1. No more golden parachutes for exiting executives and keep their salaries and bonuses within a range that doesn’t appear obscene to the rest of those taxpayers whose money they’re pleading for;

2. Pay back this principal amount at bank prime + one (devilishly ironic, bank shares et al);

3. And by far most importantly: insist that these Big Three - whose cars look like each other's and who could not, or refused to see the inevitable consumer trend to smaller, less gas guzzling vehicles of lesser emissions - just go green.

And that’s what this 50 million should be used for: retooling their factories to create electric and crossover, city-friendly vehicles. Then all those zoom-zoomers at every little red/green light in cities, braking hither and thither can finally relax and stop counting their gas-fueled frustrations amidst all their noise.

I always did know: the louder your vehicle the smaller your ... (ahemski). Just ask the Hell's Weenies. "Vroom, vruh, cough, cough, see my big belly and hairy ass hangin' out. WOW am I cool!" I suppose it's too much to ask those morons to just give us all some relief from their means of coping with their shortage in the manly dept.

After all this minor revolution directed by goodness, we can finally and legitimately ask GM to change its name: Green Motors.


BoobToobitis?

The University of Maryland analyzed 34 years of data collected from more than 45,000 participants and found that watching TV might make you feel good in the short term but is more likely to lead to overall unhappiness. - Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

You mean after watching all those gratuitously violent, shamelessly vulgar, intellectually vapid, joyless programmes we might actually not feel so hot after a big dose of viewing?

As if the so-called TV Standards people didn't know this for decades. Now that these programmers, producers and celebrities have created this embarrassingly massive appetite for crap, me-wonders how we get back to genuinely interesting and rewarding television viewing?

NO POPPY FOR ME

My Dad was a war hero. Last one left for dead at Rimini. And then his letters show he was prepared and expecting to return to the front.

After the war he suffered the memories of his dead fellows in the river of blood. As to his command: “The failure taught a useful lesson: not again in Italy in the 11th Brigade was a Company dispatched to take a Battalion objective.”

My Dad suffered and was hospitalized for 24 years as a veteran. After his death, successive federal governments stole his and other veterans’ estates from their families by not allowing them interest on the monies accrued and not permitting their families an inheritance.

My eldest brother has been waiting four years to receive from the Veteran’s Affairs Dept my Dad’s war record. So far nothing.

So much for all this weepy sentimentalism.

Blow somebody else’s horn.

Winning Back Our Earth

This morning as I strolled I noticed a patch of ground, ¼ block perhaps, that had been transformed into an urban garden. I couldn’t make out exactly which vegetables were growing as the gate was locked but it reminded me of my mentor’s comment: “All you need is food, shelter and the company of loved ones.” In this holus bolus part of Vancouver (downtown eastside, Hastings) it is well to bear those words with us day to day.

And why are we so busy as a society exporting crap, importing crap from China and manufacturing jobs that have nothing to do with “the company of loved ones” or eating?

It is time to deindustrialise. Industrialisation was born only 100 or so years ago and born from greed. And now it is consuming our earth in harrowing ways (ask the polar bears).

Deindustrialise now. Make more gardens until the urban area is full of brightly coloured veggies for all. And easy on the eyes.

Of Principles and Fundamental Value…

After watching closely the presidential race for the most powerful position in the world and witnessing the occasional gaffes of both candidates (McCain parading around the TV debate stage was hilariously unpresidential - wound up with too much gravitas maybe), I have concluded that the Americans need the leadership presented in the qualities of Mr Barack Obama.


Qualities of leadership are sometimes hard to define but not really hard to spy. When a man speaks consistently with passion about what he believes and his content returns regularly to the human condition, and he seems to yearn for a better world for all, inclusive even of the disenfranchised, then his integrity may begin to become visible. And that’s who you want to support in any field, associate with and point your children to as an example of successful living – even if that individual has suffered most of his life for his principles, to wit: Nelson Mandela.

We use in our society a kind of rewards system and too often unfortunately short term greed is rewarded with a quick buck, and inevitably a golden handshake and the keys to an escape hatch.

For our society to be more effectively fortified to withstand major upheavals like the current financial collapse, we need to reward more people of principle who demonstrate their will for peace and the intelligence to bring it about and show daily their commitment to goodness, charitableness and the promotion of universal love. This is not, I believe, a namby pamby or pollyanna approach. Quite the contrary: by supporting such individuals and representative organizations we can eventually divine the inherent power of righteousness as it transforms, subtlely but certainly, the moral fabric and colour of our global society from a kind of grey bleakness to that of an astonishingly bright sunrise rife with fresh ideas and the sweeping hues of hope.

It is sad to say that as I work within the Canadian junior mining industry I find very little of this newness and strength of commitment to long-term gains of happiness and joyously righteous business. Where are the leaders who are prepared to stand up and have their company counted now as one of fundamental, long term value? The rather disgusting truth of it is that more 90% of my initial contacts with this group of CEO’s is met with a lie: that voice mail which informs me, “And I’ll get back to you shortly” or some such empty promise. They don’t, which is just rude and reflective of their lack of interest in any decency of humanity and clearly indicative of their single-minded, narrow drive and blind greed. If I were, however, to call and leave a message on their deceptive little machine that I was actively interested in laying out some serious moolah for them to manipulate, methinks I would be graced with a return call.


And now that their shit is hitting the fan, these CEO’s, once all full of promises of heydays, are hiding on tall limbs in high trees somewhere in the general vicinity of their splashy offices, licking their wounds and mapping their escape route.

Is it any wonder then that our global economic circumstance - somewhat billowing out from a Wall Street obscenely populated as it is with clowders of fat alley cats - is in such dire condition? With those lords of the iniquitous at the helm, we can all expect more of this short term desperate lurching and little of the long term success that principled men and women might bring to bear upon our current, rather pathetic situation. The steady-handed and clear-headed can be found among those exasperated people who have been trying to ring the bell of righteous business for their lifetimes. Find among them your leaders.

The voices of these principled gentlefolk are still being muzzled by the recent wailing and breast beating of those former glad-handers and back-slappers of the old regime who chortled shamelessly in dark corners and sneered at the people who abide by “the still small voice.”

Mr Obama, I suspect, wouldn’t last long in that company of patented shit-eating grins, and thank God for that and good luck to him. In this climate of impossible avarice he’s going to need all the luck the sun can muster.

Leadership Credentials?

The following letter was posted to the Vancouver Sun and The Globe and Mail on Sept 26th.

The only way this amateur pundit can imagine the victory of the Liberals is if Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae step up to the plate more aggressively; or if they have, that the general media cover their speeches. Otherwise, ordinary Canadians are being shortchanged as to the qualitiies and benefits of these particular statesmen and the real contribution they can make to all Canadians.


To focus soley on the leaders of the respective parties seems too much inclined to personalities (Harper the Mortician and Dion the fussy professor) and not the principles of those parties. While it seems so cheap for people to hop parties, regardless of principle, I felt I understood Rae's swapping parties. Why not have sway to bring about good change? Not an unusual dilemma I suppose.

Let us not discourage too many worthy potential candidates. Just keep an eye. Keep an eye on the moral compass of your candidates.

To paraphrase the core statement of the Vedic Sciptures re politics as found in the Baghavad Gita: "Politics is the eternal sea of Maya (darkness and confusion, up and down chaos)."

But what choice do we have? Hobson's choice is all. Hope is our ultimate and only choice and intellect is a reasonable guide. Why not sail on with some comfort? -end

So now we can not only see what little role did these two play in the campaign but we can now reasonably presume that by their quietness they were angling for leadership positioning since having allowed the captain of their ship to steer into the fog, and likely political oblivion. I can't imagine worse leadership credentials than the sharpness of your blade and skill at shoving it in from behind.

The No-Vote Smart-Asses

Of eligible voters, 49% were no-shows at the ballot box. So here comes your local news reporter asking if you voted today.

"Nope. I don't vote."

"No. I never have."

"No. I don't understand the politics."

"Sawee." (Vancouver)

Etc etc.

When these nicely dressed smart-ass nobodies find themselves in a foreign jail, maybe they will reconsider the value of the government they might have voted in.

Or during their next defense against being crowded by bad opinion they might appreciate the ultimate social value of democracy.

But methinks they play video games too much (97% of our teens) and us adults watch Disteria Lane (or something). There is a form of intellectual debauchery in which animated corpses might have membership and those no-thinkers are goose-stepping with the best of them.

Discovering the Depth of the Moral Black Holes

Well, well.
How deep the people are now paying where it hurts to have discovered the moral black holes of their communities. They used to be visible at every corner but as they retreated, consolidating their so-called services (charging you to give you your money and colluding among themselves about those fees), we are now witnessing this humongous "bailout" of the banking industry. Those very places which make you cue up in herd-like fashion waiting dumbly for the slaughter. And they make you wait so long that whatever illusion you may have had about seeing your deposits increase goes up in smoke and mirrors but not before golden handshakes of zillions of dollars handed over to those very same people who have caused this economic collapse and the loss of peoples' pensions, investments etc.
And they still (those bankers) have those silly little Charity ads on their counters while you're attempting to conduct your business in some privacy (gooda lucka).
Yeah... it was just the more obviously greedy U.S. bankers who needed the 'bailout' because our Cdn fellows were so much more shrewd... keeping us waiting and upping their fees. And more tightfisted about supporting the entrepreneurs who ultimately make their system tick. The shame belongs easily as much to the Cdn banks as it does to the other world banks being nationalized (good thinking. Nationalize the pharmaceutical industry while you're at it!).

Defying 'Black October'

My message to CEO's first week of 'Black October'

“Keep a level head and see the opportunities that are there.”
–Fred Ketchen, Scotiabank Investment Guru.

This is an extremely tense but exciting time to be involved in mining in Canada and the choices we make today about our Jr Mining Cos or our investments will tell our tale in years to come.

I feel very strongly that recovery is on its way now that the 850 billion dollar bill passed in Congress and banks and governments internationally are cooperating. Hobson’s Choice or Global Economic Collapse. Duh?

Now is the time to pitch to the “cherry-pickers” looking for the hot deals, buying low. Now is the time to show that your enterprise has fundamental value, a sound rationale for valuing its properties, and this moment as an excellent time to jump into the game.

Great opportunities are abounding now especially with those companies which boast promising properties and a management team of unadulterated integrity.

That’s the message I believe you, as CEO, should be getting out now, defying the pessimists and reminding investors everywhere how much you believe in your operations. Besides, panicking doesn’t become the CEO of an important and prestigious corporation.

Call me today and be part of my inaugural issue, Harry Langen’s Mining.NOW. The astute in the industry will be sure not to miss this provocative new magazine. All 40,000 of them.

Harry's New Venture

LEAD EDITORIAL
With the oceans of grief and the prevalence of conflict being sustained by almost all forms of the popular media, it is the intent of Mining.NOW to enjoy and bring a sense of pleasure and relief to an otherwise staid industry.
Mining.NOW will deliver a readership by consistently showcasing the happier side of the business of promoting with which most junior mining CEO’s are pre-occupied. The stories featured in these pages will be forward-looking without being wishy-washy and will include those words of the CEO’s as they elucidate their vision and strategy for success of their companies.

Also though, and as importantly, hilarious anecdotes of their early days as prospectors and their misadventures will be included. The forests of North and South America veil many of these stories and the mists of time will cloud them forever if writers don’t unearth them.

New land leases, junior mining plays, mergers and ore-producing enterprises will be covered in all the heroic or checkered details.

It is commonly the objective of the junior mining executives to secure takeover by the majors and that is their definition of success. It’s the thrill of these deals as they are being constructed that we hope to capture. And to remind us all of the necessity of ethical conduct to guide us through the complicated maze of deal-making, number-crunching and huffing fly-by-nighters we will focus on some of the more derelict deeds of the VSE in its shameful heyday. When playing the shell game you really are supposed to find a peanut eventually.

As for myself, I was recently canned by one publication after I attempted some due diligence and asked to see their distribution credentials and print run docket. I was met with significant (and telling?) hostility. So Mining.NOW will show the print docket for each issue – starting at 20,000 – and will offer a transparent documentation of our distribution strategy.

Our rates are 20% less than that dubious Brand X for which I worked and our credentials will, as mentioned, be made irrevocably clear. To publish means to distribute. No argument there.

Our management will be client-focused as opposed to a kind of arrogant pro-management characterized by mindless bullying; and our commitment to service will be relentless in accommodating the client requirements. Welcome. To the adventure that is Mining.NOW.

Far and Away... Vancouver's Best Menu

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Roulade of Beef: Slow roasted AAA Alberta beef and rosemary red wine jus served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and fresh vegetable of the day. $5.50

Fraser Valley Turkey: Tender juicy medallions of fresh roasted Fraser Valley Turkey Breast, Golden Tarragon white wine sauce served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and fresh vegetable of the day. $5.50

Apple Brandy Pork Loin: Carved pork loin cooked to perfection draped in tangy apple brandy sauce served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and fresh vegetable of the day. $5.50

Dill Chardonnay Salmon: Char broiled filet of salmon coated with creamy fresh dill and white wine sauce served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and fresh vegetable of the day. $5.50

Randie’s $5.50 Café Located at 340 Cambie Street inside Pub 340, Vancouver
Open 10am to 6pm Monday to Friday

Joy

Continuity of pleasure is given through intimacy with the truth.

A Weekend Day, Downtown, Last Day of Summer

I travelled by bus, alongside all the zombie-like passengers looking out at the downpour on a Saturday (that morning the weatherwoman proclaimed gleefully that we were in for a grand day). After having phoned ahead and speaking to the proprietor and making a verbal deal I got skunked anyway at the store on Main by 14th for $10.
On the way out nature called and as soon as I went into a Starbucks to relieve myself my bus had come and gone. A fellow rushed from behind me and managed to catch the bus while I was running after him and missed it. I walked toward Kingsway to give myself the option of more busses at that stop and just before I got to the junction there, the Kingsway bus passed and I was getting soaked while starting to fume. I was tempted to walk the rest of way in the rain but my nice suit jacket was becoming a bit weepy.

The bus finally came and I trudged on and joined the melancholy lot. I got off at Chinatown and wound my way through the milling crowd of Asians oblivious to my presence, so I had to duck and dodge their pointy umbrellas.

When I got to Cordova I observed a blind woman I had seen before walking alone and looking quite disoriented. She finally cried: "Can anyone help me?" I felt compelled to assist her and we walked and chatted three blocks out of my way through crowds of addicts and idiots who made the going rough; worse than Chinatown. But Brenda was a delight. I escorted her to the Carnegie Library where she wanted me to lead her to an outside post where I suppose she was going to meet someone. I felt for her situation. She was in the thick of the downtown eastside with desperate crackheads swarming about and entirely vulnerable. I left her there.

As I crossed Hastings Street I recognized my young friend Sean whose countenance betrayed being crestfallen about something. He informed me that he discovered his half brother yesterday hanging. Sean called the coroner and the police. He was then apprehended by the police and insensitively interrogated for three hours. He said he was all cried out. I gave him a small hug and told him to call me later.

My dearest and most troubled friend called when I got home and I said I could see him in three hours. He showed up an hour later at the door downstairs and while he's not allowed in the building and I could get evicted if I let him in, in his intoxicated state he couldn't give a rat's ass as he was quite insistent about coming up. I resisted him and just left him standing there by the door and I walked away alone. I was getting rather despondent and just walked it off in Gastown where all the moronic tourists gather around that silly steam clock and each snap their little cameras when the thing blows off a teensy puff of vapour. To me this fascination is plainly infantile.

Eventually I returned home and received three calls from my troubled friend who sounded delusional and again insistent about sneaking in. I just turned off the intercom for a while and when I clicked it back on Sean buzzed and I shared dinner with him.

In retrospect, the most pleasant aspect of that Saturday was the stroll through the hordes of maniacs with the brave and delightful Brenda. God keep her safe and may Sean's step-brother rest now in peace.

Almost forgot: I got a rare visit from a neighbour in this building who wanted to pick up a splitter for his TV. He was unusually talkative and he shared his background: from Winnipeg, raised as a polite, well mannered child; was born from an alcoholic so suffered attention deficit; abused at home by a relative; and after arriving in Vancouver as an adult became addicted to heroin which he now declares as his means of getting anything accomplished. Occasionally he spray-paints arenas for employment. With his straggly blonde hair and jerky manner he reminds me of the scarecrow from Oz. This two-time manslaughterer was pleased to inform me that to this day he stands for the elders on busses relinquishing his seat and opens doors for women. Gotcha.

President Hockey Mom?

The first decision of the next Captain of the World...

"Duh?"

Hey Vlad, you ready for her?

Clinton Supporters Going To McCain
What happened to those Hilary Clinton supporters' Democratic Party principles? Their bloody sour grapes can cost the whole globe's welfare. Crippling Obama's election campaign will only deliver another four years of Bush-style creepiness. What cretins.

China Gushing

The Globe and Mail,
The Vancouver Sun

Dear Editors,

All this gushing in the general media about how niftily the powers-that-be in China handled the Olympics and the assorted sentimental ceremonies serves to eliminate or diminish the memory of their brutal management of the students at Tiananmen Square.

How about some real investigative reporting and find out what happened to the lone rebel student who faced down the line of tanks that day (like yesterday) on June 5th, 1989.

His name remains obscured and his fate unknown.

Why not let us all see what became of him and then give the Chinese government their due?

The Rational Act?

Some time more than 10 years ago, I asked in the original editorial of The Nelson Village Voice after fulminating somewhat, "Is suicide a rational act..?" in this day, era. And then after, within this context we describe as time, a friend committed suicide. He was to others a healer. A homeopath. With a Phd in biochemistry.

He left behind a wife and son. Somewhere in that mix was his problem I suspect. He used a gun. And he left a few people bewildered and shaken.

He was my intellectual partner for decades and the man whom I modelled the character of Eric Summerman after in my book. The depth of his anguish is beyond me and I'm sure his son too. But all our prayers now will help him escape the misty grey zone (which he visited while human) and his sense, every wave, of being so lost.

Rest in peace, brother. Your laughter and joyous moments will be remembered and will continue to increase the body of God.

The (unwitnessed) Magnificence of Man

For the first few years after I returned to Vancouver from the Kootenays, I walked and shopped alone. Having been on my own since I was 16 arriving from Toronto at English Bay in 1968 to join the sand mites, I was accustomed to my aloneness and park benches. What I didn’t expect this time in this new millenium was the indifference of everyone I encountered. Perfected indifference. Zip for progress in the spiritual zone.

From my perspective as I strolled by these people who thought they were tuned in, they were just i-puddled, completely under the human climate, almost subterranean in their awareness of their fellow human beings. And they think that’s cool. To me it’s cold. Very. The only time I heard a human voice aside from someone taking my money at a counter was when I heard, “Sawhee,” or something similarly spoken by another disinterested neighbourhood shopper who manages to bump into me with their human lights turned off.

And the house I’ve lived in for years is populated by isolated individuals whose show of politeness borders on seething contempt. And they’re all depressed from what I can gather. So I’m escaping. The property janitor acts like a Lord while he mumbles about the property unintelligibly and the security guards who live here spy at my quiet-as-doormouse visitors imagining that we’re all cooking up crack every night. And they report this slander to the arrogant bully of a property manager who took over control of the house from an 82 year old female owner who sells her long-dead husband's clothes on the sidewalk and keeps the lights indoors turned off to save ten cents. Sometimes, the tenants here have gone without shower services for three days because of this unabashed greed and fear of paying plumbers. Yawn.

It's all in keeping with this 'new age' of unadulterated greed and self-indulgence. People in this mass media age are throwing off words like the sensationalist newscasters they listen to every day. Meaningless, and resulting word by word in the unravelling of any sense of civilization.

Sneermeisters in their super-cars pumping and braking at every little light in the west end (raging?) and urban pet owners with their stretcho-leashes pompously hogging the sidewalks are all wasting their humanity as they overlook that vastness of the individual who walks by, head up, and looks them in the eye, to absolutely no avail. The doggie-freaks preoccupied with being bent over as they are scooping the excrement of their little precious.

In the case of that individual where his charitableness is automatic, he is the one of true wealth, who upon each encounter with another human being will detect beauty, the depth of God’s love and mercy and the magnificence of man. Upon every encounter joy and the full wind of freedom will reach him.

And who would know if the one passing you by was the Righteous Teacher? What do we do? We sweep past them grandly gazing at the sidewalk, pondering, ever pondering. How would you know? Keep staring at the sidewalk listening to your bizarre, self-chilling tunes. Another animated corpse, "...less than a scratch on the surface of the earth."

Considered Master

I ask you not to speak of our father's will. While I continually falter in my own will to serve the deserved, I aspire and believe without doubt even in this wicked, chaotic world honour will be served true. Considered master, your emanicpation merits service... even here in the long, radiant shadow of that unspeakably sublime will.
-Stephen (the swimmer)