What are "Simple Questions?"

Things are progressively getting more insane in the Desert. Up is declared to be down, and out is declared to be in. But these declarations cannot change the laws of nature. They may insist that something is here, when it is not. But I cannot see it, and they cannot prove it to me. It's time to ask some simple questions.

Luna Meets New Friends

I'm constantly meeting strange folk in the Desert. They get in my face, they double cross me double quick, finding their own way through the heat. But this time, I met two classy gents who gave me hope that there's a shady tree waitin' for me to get to it. I cross my chest as I wade through this infernal oven.

Off with its Head

Very, very, very difficult to keep my opinions out of Wikipedia. This must be because I hate the Federal Reserve this much ------ oh. You can't see how wide my arms are stretched. They're stretched pretty wide. I look like I'm being racked. Sideways.

The info on the lackeyes at the Fed is extremely long-winded within Wikipedia. I made it about halfway through before I gave up (for now). Check it out if you dare (minor edits) here:

FucktheFederalReserveForeverandEveryIdiotAdvocate

When those who do not wish to expose their finances to fractional reserve banking are not forced to do so at the end of a barrel of a gun, it will be a very good day in the Desert.

Who

What

Where

When

Why

Your Source for A Brand New Day in the Desert

RESEARCH, ORTHODOX CHURCH

What are some examples of traditional and nontraditional research materials?



"Herodotus"
by: himself
Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press 1969-1975
(v. 1, 1975) Loeb Classical Library

Questions for thought after Herodotus, a traditional research source:
Does categorizing human events and places into chronological order help us to better understand our history? Does a nonlinear view of history help to avoid past mistakes in the present?

http://www.mises.org/story/2179
ECONOMIC FREEDOM IS FREEDOM-- An online source
What do we think of the "cult of the common man"?


A link to nontraditional resources such as audio, video:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/congress-iraq-war.html

Twinkle Eats Dried Poop

Another day in the Desert. I watch a child play in her bedroom within an 11-story apartment building. She sits on a colorful rug. She is in-between worlds, not a little kid, not still a toddler. She has blond curls and wears a striped dress in green, white, and sea blue with 6 little fishes crossing the front in a row. The rug fills the large room. Its bright orange and green borders frame two panda bears eating bamboo. The girl answers to the name, "Gretel."

She stands up. "Ow," she says, grabbing her bum. "That hurt." She grabs a tall and pink hard-covered book, then stands it up on top of a flat panda's head on the floor. She begins to grab more books off of the drab and brown bookshelf, standing them up around a pink plastic bucket. The bucket is upside down. It has Easter eggs on it. There's a mouse hole cut through its brim which rests on the carpet.

"Makin' a little house out of my books," she discloses, not stopping in her tracks. She wasn't asked, and her report is delivered with a matter-of-fact voice that seems serious and mature, despite the fact its pitch and tilt betray one so small. She's about 3 and a half feet tall. Gretel has set down small blankets, belonging to one of her dolls, and a wash cloth on 2 square boards, making a sort of "red carpet". They're shelves really, the 2 square pieces of board-- shelves of an old cupboard-- she sets her brown and white curly-haired guinea pig among the hallway of books. The standing books are spread eagle, their ends just touching one another. They remind me of Jan Švankmajer's "Alice"-- the end bit, where the Queen of Hearts card lines up with her henchmen.

"I'm keeping her warm," says Gretel as she covers "Twinkle" with a dolly blanket and the cobalt-colored washcloth. And just as the guinea pig starts nibbling on Gretel's books, she exclaims, "Oh no! That's not dinner for you!" She removes the book with small white hands. Dolls hands-- 8 other books remain. The guinea pig moves on to the next pages. "Oh no!" She then knocks the rest of her hallway of books down. Standing up, she turns toward me see a heart clip holding back her hair. "Is my ponytail in the middle?" Twinkle continues to bounce around the rug, its curly hair looking like it was crimped under crimping irons. "They really like their new home, huh?" Gretel indicates the large cage on the edge of the rug. She puts Twinkle inside. Twinkle spreads her claws and seems to resist. "There, there. Time for bed now soon. . ." she pauses, and then, "I'm so happy for my new family." Gretel brought her new pets home yesterday.

The little girl begins to hum while simultaneously chewing broccoli and noodles, the butter from her bite making her lips shine. She seems to be making up the tune as she waddles backward, her hands on the floor swinging like a gorilla. She steps from book to book like a frog on the surface of a pond, jumping from lily pad to lily pad. She scoops them up, begins to stack them. After only a moment, she stands up and moves toward Twinkle and Sally's cage and begins to arranges the small log within. Then she resumes walking on all fours, her rear end sky high as she stacks and stacks the books. It takes about 5 minutes for her to stack 5 books. She farts, stands up without saying anything or looking embarrassed, and moves the stack toward her bookshelf about 2 feet away. "My hands feel like they're feeling guinea pigs." She turns toward me. I scribble away furiously to record these observations. "It feels weird. Like bologna." Gretel doesn't eat bologna. In fact, I know that her mother has never even bought bologna. She cups a small hand up to her left ear, as though she's listening to the sea inside of a seashell. Then she puts the rest of her books away.

Walking back toward me, finished with the books and about to go to bed, Gretel notices a few bits of poop amongst some strikingly similar food pellets. I indicate that some are poop and some are food. Gretel says, "These are dried poop. And Twinkle and Sally like dried poop, because they just eat dried poop." She scoops the pellets and poop up together with a few squares of toilet paper. "It's squishy," Gretel's voice trails off as she walks down the hall to the bathroom.

We found a little nook, my friend and I. It was hidden up, back, behind, and within the gigantic penile structures made of sand. We settled ourselves on the floor of the little cave, taking off our shoes and digging our feet into the pink dusting there that hadn't been touched since the last load of school kids had been bused in on bright yellow buses. Middle-school-sized footprints ran around the space, light pouring through from a skylight in the rock directly above us. Another small window in the putty-colored rock just next to us revealed the angles of jutting sandstone all around.

We were in there to escape the Desert heat, but mostly we were in there to get stoned. I pulled out a 1/4-inch socket from a socket-wrench set out of my jean cutoffs pocket. The set was part of some crap tool kit I kept for emergencies. My sister, Natalie, had given me that set as a Christmas gift a couple years earlier. The quarter-inch socket was never intact. I always hoped I'd never need it, because the inside of it was coated with resin, and I wasn't ever quite sure how it'd handle removing a bolt on a car tire.

My friend drew out a lighter. The pipe was already loaded. I simultaneously handed it to her and set down my camera. Trish had long red hair, and no red freckles. She was a friend that rarely ever smoked, and my room mate had grown this stuff himself (he'd also made a bong to go with it. He absolutely loved the Home Depot). We'd already hiked Wild Horse Canyon the night before, mumbling "ohms" as we did Yoga along the way-- sounds kind of like hippie esoteric bullshit now, but we were just enjoying ourselves. So the following day, up among the heads of the penile structures and hidden from the goblins and 14-year-old boys, we got thoroughly stoned while comparing scars and bras. Even dumb shit seems to mean more when you're out in the Desert. The days are 30 hours long instead of 24, and you're invested in them from the moment the Sun comes up until you fall asleep underneath the panorama of our galaxy. Within the reach of the Sun in that 30-hour day, time lapse means little. It is all warped and pushed with a thrust into moment after moment, and the buzz and hum-drum of cars and nonsensical commercials are absent in the Desert. So your eyes are wider-- like a Madagascar lemur's eyes. But the memory of white noise leaves one slightly suspicious of even pre-teens. We weren't really camping, this trip though. We'd been sleeping in my car, a Subaru wagon, too lazy to set up our tent (My roomate called that wagon "The Gookaru". Looking back, it seems like it was in poor taste. But at the time, I knew he wasn't a bigot, just too clever with words for his own good).

I peaked out the window next to us. Not much to see--- rock blocking our view. I threw some gum in my mouth and we exited back the way we came, descending down a narrow trail back onto the valley floor of the goblins.

Kids from junior high, probably from some desert suburb an hour or two drive away, giggled and strolled in huddled groups or ran round and round the valley. Their shoes leaving marks looking like moon boots in moon sand. We began to have a game with them, shooting their pictures, darting past the goblin penile sentries. It didn't take too long awhile to realize that the goblin sentries themselves were much more interesting than pubescent astronauts, and that's when we began shooting and cataloging them instead. And then, when we were sick of being stoned and playing games, we left the valley and went away. That day it was easy to get out of the Desert.

Posted by Sea nettle Soup at 4:39 PM

A Great Escape

We found a little nook hidden up, back, behind, and within the gigantic penile sand structures. My friend and I settled ourselves on pink sand that hadn't been touched since the last load of school kids had been bused in on bright yellow buses. Middle-school-sized footprints ran around the space, light pouring through from a skylight in the rock directly above us. Another small window in the putty-colored rock just next to us revealed the angles of jutting sandstone all around.

I pulled out a 1/4-inch socket from a socket-wrench set out of my jean cutoffs pocket. The set was part of some crap tool kit I kept for emergencies. My sister, Natalie, had given me that set as a Christmas gift a couple years earlier. The quarter-inch socket was never intact. I always hoped I'd never need it, because the inside of it was coated with resin, and I wasn't ever quite sure how it'd handle doing the real work of a socket.

My friend drew out a lighter. The pipe was already loaded. I simultaneously handed it to her and set down my camera. She was a friend that rarely ever smoked, and my room mate had grown this stuff himself. We got thoroughly stoned, and then we heard voices from below. I peaked out the window next to us. Not much to see--- rock blocking our view. I threw some gum in my mouth and we exited back the way we came, descending down a narrow trail back onto the valley floor of the goblins.

Kids from junior high, probably from some desert suburb an hour or two drive away supplied the voices we'd heard. They giggled and strolled in huddled groups or ran round and round the valley. Their shoes leaving marks looking like moon boots in moon sand. We began to have a game with them, shooting their pictures, darting past the goblin penile sentries. After awhile we realized that the goblin sentries themselves were much more interesting than pubescent astronauts, and that's when we began shooting and cataloging them instead. And when we were sick of being stoned and playing games, we left the valley and went away. That day it was easy to get out of the Desert.