Cutting Free Of David Carradine

—–Original Message—–
From: David Hakala [mailto:zencueist@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 1:16 PM
To: <many>

Subject: David Carradine is dead

Age 72. Hanged himself in a Thai hotel during a movie shoot.

I am Attached to David, as if my sleeve was caught in a car’s door. I feel myself being dragged through gravel and broken glass, my arm ripping off, as he pulls away from the curb.

A few words of David’s, in memoriam:

• “I’m not regretful about dropping acid, but I could have stopped it a little sooner.”
• “If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.”
• “There’s an alternative. There’s always a third way, and it’s not a combination of the other two ways. It’s a different way.”
• “Why would you be afraid of death? It would be an inconvenience. I have a lot of undone things and it’s bound to get in the way. But, no, it doesn’t scare me at all.”
• ”You know, I’ve never actually really believed that death is inevitable. I just think it’s a rumor.”

David Hakala
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

—–Original Message—–

From: David Hakala [mailto:zencueist@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, June 05, 2009 5:25 AM
To: <many>

Subject: RE: David Carradine is dead: epilogue

A couple of hours after I broadcast my grief to you (and many others), I finally reached my pocketknife and cut myself loose from David.

I walked a mile, tears spotting my wake, to a shop called Shangri-La Tibet near Colfax and Marion. There, in the soothing air of sitar music and incense, I found many lovely things to delight my still-living Loved Ones.

I called several of them to inquire about sizes and colors. They laughed fondly at my excitement and protested, “You don’t have to do that!”

But I did, to free myself from David by re-focusing my Attention upon Attachments to the living.

I had store credit from some returned items (Angels grow wings to fly away), so I limited my severing to that lest I cut off my arm with my David-caught sleeve. (I think I’ll close my checking account. It’s so much easier to spend money when it’s already in the cash register!

Mohan, the shop clerk, laughed and nodded as we haggled good-naturedly. He gives me little gifts, like a trio of I Ching coins, in appreciation of the Life I bring to sterile commerce. After negotiating the best price he would give on the whole shebang I cried,

“Don’t forget my senior discount!”

I’ve had a ball with that since I turned 55 last November. I get 10% off at Wendy’s; a free small drink at Taco Bell; $35 bus pass instead of $60 from RTD. Even my spiritual advisor, Karen Fox, gave me half price on a clairvoyant/clairaudient reading for my birthday.

The tears had evaporated completely when I retraced my path Home.

David Hakala
“Profitable Prose Delivered Early”
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dhakala
If you’re alive, say something. If not, just hit “Reply” & “Send”
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Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. – The Buddha.

Detachment

“Just think of the trees: they let the birds perch and fly, with no intention to call them when they come and no longing for their return when they fly away. If people’s hearts can be like the trees, they will not be off the Way.”

“He who wherever he goes is attached to no person and to no place by ties of flesh; who accepts good and evil alike, neither welcoming the one nor shrinking from the other — take it that such a one has attained Perfection.” – Bhagavad-Gita

Do these words mean that one should go through life not caring about other people or having any ambition? No.

Your full Attention and mightiest effort should be devoted to whatever is before you in the present instant. Be fully aware of and engaged in what you are doing right here and right now. Only in the present instant can you take effective Action, make a difference in the world.

Most people waste the vast majority of their Attention and effort on things that do not exist. They regret the past and worry about the future. But the past is gone; its karma is here and now, but the consequences of past actions are not the actions themselves. Any future that you can fearfully or hopefully imagine does not exist here and now, and none can say that it will. Acting upon the past or future is Action born of Delusion, and it will always be inappropriate to one’s present circumstances. Forget the past and disregard the future.

“Seize from every moment its unique novelty and do not prepare your joys.” – Andre Gide

The Koan of “The Giving Tree”

"Once there was a tree ... and she loved a little boy."

The Giving Tree, written by Shel Silverstein and first published in 1964, is one of the best-loved children’s books of all time. It certainly was the most-read book in my household!

I read The Giving Tree to my Beloved Son, Tony, every single night that we spent together, from the day he came home until he was well into his third year.

I read "The Giving Tree" to Tony every night of his first three years. Then he read it to me.

On one of the proudest nights of my life, as we snuggled in bed, Tony took the book from my hands and said,

“Let me read it to you, Da-Da.”

And he did, word for word. Thereafter, he read everything from cereal boxes to my geeky tech journalism voraciously.

We have never discussed the book’s moral or lesson. We just know it!

The Giving Tree is a Zen koan:  a question, or a story that poses a question, which cannot be answered rationally. Try to puzzle out the meaning of a koan by logical thought and your thoughts will grind to a halt, stuck with nowhere to go. That is the purpose of a koan:  to exhaust the intellect, leaving the mind no alternative but to simply experience the koan without interpreting it, without obscuring it with labels of, “Well, it is like…” other things. No thing is like another thing; it is itself. A koan forces one to contemplate a thing all on its own, without muddying thoughts. Only when words fail can true knowing come.

Amazon.com’s editorial review summarizes the koan nicely:

To say that this particular apple tree is a “giving tree” is an understatement. In Shel Silverstein’s popular tale of few words and simple line drawings, a tree starts out as a leafy playground, shade provider, and apple bearer for a rambunctious little boy. Making the boy happy makes the tree happy, but with time it becomes more challenging for the generous tree to meet his needs. When he asks for money, she suggests that he sell her apples. When he asks for a house, she offers her branches for lumber. When the boy is old, too old and sad to play in the tree, he asks the tree for a boat. She suggests that he cut her down to a stump so he can craft a boat out of her trunk. He unthinkingly does it. At this point in the story, the double-page spread shows a pathetic solitary stump, poignantly cut down to the heart the boy once carved into the tree as a child that said “M.E. + T.” “And then the tree was happy… but not really.” When there’s nothing left of her, the boy returns again as an old man, needing a quiet place to sit and rest. The stump offers up her services, and he sits on it. “And the tree was happy.” While the message of this book is unclear (Take and take and take? Give and give and give? Complete self-sacrifice is good? Complete self-sacrifice is infinitely sad?), Silverstein has perhaps deliberately left the book open to interpretation.

No, Silverstein did not leave the book open to “interpretation”! Interpretation only causes trouble, as I learned the second time I read The Giving Tree to a child.

Only Alex, middle, stuck with me through "The Giving Tree"

Above are Angel Charity’s three cherubim:  sleepy Ellie, age 1; devilish Alex, 4; and pensive Blake, 3. After our first frolic, I could hardly wait to read to them. Naturally, I chose The Giving Tree for our next meeting.

Ellie took a nap and Blake wandered off somewhere, leaving Alex on my lap and the book on his. He was overflowing with comments and questions, but we got through the book eventually. Then, I made the mistake that I did not make with my own son. I asked Alex,

“What did you learn from this story?”

“Ummm… I don’t know?” he ventured.

“That you shouldn’t keep asking for things!” interjected Alex’s mother, shocking me.

“No! That is not the lesson!” I cried, persisting in my error of interpretation. “Alex, the tree kept giving and giving until she was almost out of everything — except what?”

“Stump?”

“Can you ever run out of Love?”

“No… Ohhh, I get it!”

“The more you love, the more Love you have. You can’t use it up, and you can’t run out of it. So don’t ever, ever be afraid to love. OK?”

“OK. Wanna teach me to read now?”

Of course I did!

But I was left wondering if I’d taught Alex the right lesson, or the whole lesson, or the only lesson of The Giving Tree. Did the tree give too much? Well no, because at the story’s end there was still enough left of the tree to make the boy and her happy. Did the boy take too much? Well no, because his taking made the tree happy. But on the other hand,… And yet… But still…

My thoughts got stuck. I could not resolve the story’s moral. The koan got me. And yet, I knew again, and just in time.

I find myself in the position of the tree now. Tony, my only child (to the best of my knowledge), is now 18 and struggling as many are in this recession. He needs a car, he says. His roommate lost both of her jobs and has to move out, turning Tony’s cash flow in the wrong direction. He came to me, saying what he needed but not quite asking for it.

I’ve given Tony my leaves and my apples. Now he needs my branches.

Should I give them to him, as the tree gave hers to the boy she loved?

Should I ask that question, or just know?

I’m asking you, there; please help me experience this koan.

Breathing Money Properly

I ran across a Reader’s Digest article linked on Jade Walker’s blog recently. Many will feel it’s an admirable exercise in frugality. It is a horror story, in my opinion. This guy coerced his family into spending no money for a month. They did things like steal the neighbor’s newspaper early in the morning, read it, and put it back. I’m glad he persuaded his therapist to provide free sessions in exchange for errand-running, because the fellow definitely needs professional help.

Now, don’t get me wrong:  I do not advocate profligate consumption. I study the weekly grocery specials and buy only what’s on sale. I recently sold my car and bought a bus pass, making sure I got the senior discount. I manufacture cigarettes for 97 cents a pack from bulk tobacco and paper tubes. But I do not save money for the sake of saving money. Instead, I follow the sage advice of Lao Tze:

“Because I am frugal, therefore I can be generous.” – Tao Teh Ching, chapter 67

Money is just like air, omnipresent and abundant. But if you hold your breath you cannot take in fresh air and soon you will die. Money must be allowed to enter and leave one’s life freely.

Yoga teaches us how to breathe properly: take in all the air you can comfortably hold; savor it and extract its life-giving oxygen; and then fully expel the spent air to make room for more fresh. When one breathes properly, health and happiness follow. The same is true for making and spending money!

I keep my living expenses minimal. Consequently, I need to spend only 15-20 minutes a day earning my rent, food, electric, and phone money. I try to work another 3-4 hours a day so I will have money to spend in ways that improve my health and make me happy.

Three days ago, I was walking downtown behind two suits. An old lady in a wheelchair hit them up for spare change. One of the suits bent down to give her a dollar and whisper some presumably encouraging words. The other suit kept walking, then turned and said loudly to his friend,

“Sucker!”

“What?” asked the benefactor.

“You’re a sucker!”

We three came abreast at a red light. I turned to the benefactor and said,

“You’re going to live longer because you gave that dollar. Don’t listen to this guy.”

He brightened immediately, shrugging off his chagrin over his friend’s unkind words. We chatted about the health benefits of kindness as we waited for the light to turn green. Eventually, even his sneering friend allowed that,

“It’s OK to carry one dollar a day for somebody who might really need it.”

It’s OK to do just one push-up a day, too, but it’s not going to do you any good. Kindness is not a whimsical altruistic ideal that one cannot afford in hard economic times. Kindness, just like exercise, is essential to one’s well being.

But the real reason I engage in Kindness is best explained by Ann Rice in the novel, “Servant Of The Bones”. In it, a sorcerer is explaining to a demon he has raised how to be truly human; this is one of the three cardinal lessons:

“Always, if you have a choice, be kind. Remember the poor, the hungry, and the miserable. Always remember the suffering, and those who need. The greatest creative power you have on Earth, whether you are an angel, a spirit, or a man or a woman or a child is to help others… the poor, the hungry, the oppressed. To ease pain and give joy are your finest powers. Kindness is a human miracle, so to speak. It’s unique to us humans, and our more developed angels or spirits, to be kind.”

Keeping Newspapers Alive

One of the longest and most sobering treatises on why to save journalism is Paul Starr’s 9,000 word essay, Goodbye to the Age of Newspapers (Hello to a New Era of Corruption) in the March 4, 2009, issue of The New Republic. “Why American politics and society are about to be changed for the worse,” forebodes the lede.

About the author:  “Paul Starr is Stuart professor of communications and public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and the author most recently of Freedom’s Power: The True Force of Liberalism.”

I highly recommend Starr’s article for its defense of newspapers’ role in democratic societies. I gained a lot of new respect for the foot soldiers who doggedly ferret out and battle corruption in powerful institutions, i. e., government, corporations, religions. They are the champions of the People. I also commend Starr’s examination of how private newspapers have managed to fund the public necessity of news-gathering all these years, and why that trick won’t work any more.

Unfortunately, Starr doesn’t reach a replacement business model that will enable newspapers to continue. Here is my own harebrained idea for doing that, based on how newspapers currently make the money that supports news-gathering. But first, I will grind my pet axe:

Stop The Presses!

Quit printing news on paper. There is no excuse for killing a decades-old living tree – even one “raised for that purpose” (who are you to decree Life’s purpose?) – to make a product that lasts only one day and has abundant, readily available, non-violent substitutes. It’s as disgusting and reprehensible as leaving one’s dog’s droppings on a playground when there’s a box full of free plastic bags hanging from a nearby fence. I gave up writing for printed publications over a year ago when it became possible to do so and survive. I don’t buy or read unnecessary corpses, either. Stop it, publishers!

Starr makes three salient points about newspapers:

1. News is a public good. Public goods benefit the public at large but cannot be sold for profit sufficient to attract private producers. Parks, roads, and bridges are other classic examples of public goods. The public good produced by the news-gathering organizations that deliver newspapers is vigilance. Reporters, at their best, keep the powerful in check and hold the corrupt up for public accountability. That is the core competency of newspaper publishers. That is their unique selling proposition, the thing that nobody does better.
2. Advertising pays for news-gathering. The market value of newspaper advertising is plummeting and will not much longer support news-gathering. News-gathering organizations must find replacements for advertising’s revenue or die.
3. News keeps democracy alive. If news-gathering organizations die, the big bad guys will win. We, the People, won’t learn what they’re up to until it’s too late. Liberty over.
   

No, Joe Blogger can’t fill the shoes of newspaper reporters. News is unprofitable and effective, actionable news takes too much work to be a widespread hobby.

Many harebrained ideas have been proposed to substitute for advertising in the news business. They fall into two categories:

1. Charge readers: doesn’t work for public service news, the only thing about newspapers that needs saving. Only four types of news can be sold profitably: things that make people money (Wall Street Journal); things that save people money (Consumer Reports); things that make people laugh (“This Is True”); and sex (go get your own).
2. Beg: individual donations, government subsidies, and philanthropic support are all scarce, unreliable, and undermine the press’ independence. Forget it.

We’re back to advertising. “Not enough money left in advertising,” moan news-gatherers. OK, let’s increase the value of advertising!

I write for a company that publishes news. What I write is bait designed to get the reader to provide his contact information to the company along with some idea of what he wants to buy. The company has a department full of people – far more people than the editorial department – who do the following:

1. Sort the idle shoppers from the serious buyers
2. Help the serious buyers define what they want to buy
3. Show appropriate advertisers’ offerings to the serious and now well informed buyers
4. Ask the serious, well informed buyers, “Would you like to hear from these advertisers?”

The lovely, ripe buyers are then sold to the advertisers at what appears to be enormous profit, based upon what I am paid for my bait and how quickly the checks arrive after I send an invoice.

That’s the kind of advertising program that will pay for public service news. Increase what is done to help advertisers make money, and they will pay you more. Make yourself more useful to your customers and you will make more money. Forget about begging and charging readers for things that depress them. Might as well try to run a mortuary like a strip club.

The traditional antipathy between “editorial” and “sales” stands in the way of saving public service news. The legendary “wall” between the departments is high and topped with razor wire. It must come down.

Sales people should know what reporters are working on so they can cultivate appropriate advertisers for future issues. Reporters should pay attention to what advertisers want because reporters are paid to produce  buyers that sales people can sell to advertisers. (Reporters’ compensation for exposing corruption in high places is that proud, noble feeling and maybe a press association award.)

Champions eat breakfast before riding out to slay dragons, or are so weak they get eaten. A news-gathering organization is a selling business first, an altruistic democratic institution second. The opposing viewpoint is why newspapers are dying and refusing to save themselves.

Get over yourselves, journalists, or you will soon be blogging for food.

Sell more than empty space, sellers, or you will soon be peddling soap powder in people’s living rooms.

Recipe for Pork Loin Angel Food

Here is my recipe for the dinner I cooked for Angels Charity and Ashley:

Pork Loin Angel Food

• 3-4 pounds pork loin, whole
• 6-8 oz. favorite marinade
• 1/2 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• Italian bread crumbs

Inject marinade into many parts of the pork loin.

Blend mayo and mustard, slather all over pork loin.

Coat pork loin with bread crumbs.

Roast on wire rack over foil-covered baking sheet until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees. Lower temp is better. 250 degrees will take 2.5 to 3 hours, 325 2 to 2.5 hours.

(Cooking is science, not divination. If you don’t have a digital  remote probe thermometer, get one. It beeps when food hits a pre-set temp, freeing you to entertain, and costs less than $15. Comes with a timer, too. A marinade injector saves lots of expensive spices and liquers that would otherwise go down the drain.)

I served sauteed aspsaragus with mine, followed by dessert of brownies and vanilla bean ice cream sprinkled with freshly ground cinnamon.

This is the real Angel food! They loved it, and me.

Rest For The Wicked

I haven’t been blogging lately because I am buried under a great, steaming heap of profitable work. But now I am coming up for air.

Kevin Savetz, an acquaintance from the Internet Press Guild, has started a new venture called Tiplet.com. Basically, his blog entries are billboards upon which Google ads hang, and he makes money when people click on the ads. He wants to erect lots of billboards quickly, and that’s where I and three other IPGers come in.

I have written 17 articles of 400 to 500 words each in the past 72 hours. That’s a lot of words and each article requires a bit of research, testing of techniques, and editing of screenshots. Still, I can knock one out in about half an hour. At that rate, I’m making over $140,000 a year. Kevin pays via Paypal and picks up the transaction fees so I get the full amount. He even pays on Monday and Friday. I told him that allows me to fit two work weeks into every 7 days.

“If I pay you daily, does that mean you can do 7 times as much work?” he asked facetiously. “I don’t get the math.”

“Try it and see,” I dared him. “It’s a Zen thing, not subject to causation or explanation in words.”

I am going to write another 15 articles for Kevin before Monday, his next payday. Today is Friday. It may seem that I am a workaholic, slaving away through the precious weekend when others are out enjoying life. But that is far from the case.

“I do not cut my life up into days but my days into lives, each day, each hour, an entire life.” – Juan Ramon Jimenez

I do not cut my life up into work weeks and weekends. I do not have “business hours” and other hours. I am as likely to be working at 3:00 a.m. on Sunday as at any other time. I am as likely to be playing at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday as at any other time. This patternless pattern of my life is also Zen.

“When you are tired, sleep. When you are hungry, eat.”

When I am industrious, I work. When I am not industrious, I play. Thus, I am always doing what I am supposed to be doing, always in harmony with the flow of Life. I am highly productive when at work because I am not suffering the unfulfilled Desire to play. Likewise, when I play I get and give more pleasure because I am not feeling guilty about not working. I do everything Mindfully, with devotion of my full Attention to it. That is the key to living fully every moment.

The result of my seemingly “undisciplined work ethic” is that I have contributed 40% of the articles Kevin has published so far, nearly twice my “fair share” out of four writers. Kevin said he was a bit worried that Tiplet.com might “become the Hakala show.” I offered to use several noms de plume to provide the illusion of variety. But Kevin wants authentic variety, so I am helping him get it.

Yesterday, I referred another writer to Kevin. That’s unusual in the highly competitive world of free lance writing. But there is more work to be done per month than even I can do, and the writer needs money quickly. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,” as my dear Minister of Doing Well by Doing Good, Randy Cassingham, is fond of saying.

Also, I plan to take a short vacation from Tiplet.com to let Kevin’s content editor catch up on the backlog of my unpublished work and let my contribution ratio shrink a bit. Another client who has been in a months-long “reorganization” is re-opening the floodgates of new writing assignments today. I will be equally busy with work of a different nature and pay scale for the next week or so.

It is not time to work while work is in transition today, so I am going to play with Special Angel Brooklyn. She will pick me up at noon. We will lunch at the Buckhorn Exchange, Colorado’s oldest restaurant founded in 1893. Colorado liquor license number “1″ hangs upon its wall. Then we will go to Brook’s favorite head shop, Smoke Signals, to buy me a smoking pipe and perhaps some other “tobacco” accesssories.

I am going to take up the smoking of marijuana to replace the prescription meds I take for bipolar disorder. I want to eliminate my dependence upon doctors for relief from its symptoms, and I want a more natural remedy for depression and hypomania. This ought to prove amusing at first.

I have smoked weed once in the past 15 years, back in August. One hit and I was literally staggering sideways, giggling uncontrollably. Basement geneticists have made great strides since I was in high school.

Brook is simply beside herself at the thought of getting me high. “We will have my kind of Adventure! I will show you my own Zen!’ she swore. I asked her for a price on some “medium-quality” weed but she replied, “I only smoke high-quality. Quality over quantity, except when it comes to sex and then I want both.” That’s my Special Angel!

I am looking forward to sharing Brook’s daily religious sacrament for the first time as eagerly as I might anticipate our wedding night. My greatest pleasure is getting to know her more intimately, and weed is a major component of Brook’s philosophy. This will be like great sex without the mess or noise.

Brook and I have not seen each other in 24 days, since New Year’s Eve. That’s a bit longer than I had in mind when I wrote, “We meet often enough that the warmth of our meeting burns brightly until the next one. We meet seldom enough that I look forward to each meeting eagerly, like Festivus.” This meeting should be special in several ways.

First, Brook has said that she wants to tell me some things! Ordinarily, she prefers that I learn about her by observing her. But she wants to talk about a “theory” of hers that “isn’t really a theory” and share with me “an important story from my life timeline.” I am really looking forward to being the passive, listening Yin in our Yin Yang communication network for a change.

Second, I have two birthday gifts to give Brook. The first is a belt that had to be returned for resizing; I got her waist size but she wears belts around her hips. The second is a book given to me by a Buddhist leader that is tailor-made for my little snow bunny: Surfing the Himalayas: A Spiritual Adventure. It’s about a Buddhist who seeks Enlightenment by snowboarding the Himalayas!

Third, I hope to obtain a tiny lock of Brook’s hair. I want to tape it to the back of the Lady and the Unicorn pendant I wear in place of Unity’s. Unity is the purest Dancer I have ever met, but she is not the Unicorn’s Lady. Brook is, and her hair belongs over my heart always. Brook is reluctant to cut her hair even for me, but I think I can coax this Loving Act out of her.

I don’t know how long this afternoon’s frolicking will last. I don’t want it to end, but I do want to get to Shotgun Willie’s before 7:00 p.m. to see Charity, a Dancer new to my life who has Angel potential. She texted me this morning that she hopes I can come in because she has something “awesome” to tell me.

Now it is time to prepare for Brook’s arrival. I will update this post tomorrow with details of how my Desires came to be fulfilled or how I suffered their unfulfillment.

Update: Jan. 27

OK, I didn’t get around to updating this post “tomorrow”. But here we go:

Brooklyn didn’t set her alarm and so ran a little late. It didn’t matter, I just called the Buckhorn and moved up our reservation half an hour.

Brook looked sweetly hot, as usual, in a thin but cozily fuzzy zippered hoody and jeans. I loved her shoes, white with lime green accents. Her hair smelled of shampoo as I held her close and long out on the fire escape that leads to my back door. It was so good to see and touch her again!

She loved the book and was happy to get the belt back. I showed her the collage of her photos that I made to serve as my laptop’s wallpaper:

This collage serves as my laptop's wallpaper.

I then took Brook to the living room and showed her Unity’s lock of hair, which was taped to the base of my Unicorn Horn. I lifted a pair of scissors from Artemis’ altar and said, “Such a tiny thing is all I ask of you.”

Couldn’t close the deal right then and there, but Brook said she’s getting her hair cut soon and I can have some of the trimmings. That will be perfect! I hope she brings me enough to stuff a teddy bear.

We fired up Brook’s pipe on the way to the Buckhorn and I took one cautious hit. Special Angel inhaled the rest of the bowl. By the time we reached the restaurant ten minutes later, I was unsteady on my feet.

“Is this it?” she asked as we pulled up to 10th and Osage. “I used to see this restaurant when I rode the light rail down to school, and I’ve always wanted to go here!”

I love it when I make dreams come true.

Our table wasn’t ready so I took Brook on a tour of this historic landmark. She marveled serenely at the animal trophies, ancient firearms, chaps, spurs, photographs of hunting parties and famous people, and other mementos that blanket the walls. I spent most of my time gazing rapturously at the face of The Goddess in Brook, which wore no makeup that day.

She looked different from her usual heavily made-up appearance that the dim light in the Penthouse Club requires. She looked much younger, barely 15; plainer, more human, more approachable and humble. I am glad I got to see this aspect of Brook because I Desire to know every aspect of her.

Our table still wasn’t ready so we stepped outside for cigarettes. There, Brook told me her important story.

When her father died seven years ago, Brook was devastated by depression and anxiety. She was prescribed several medications including 200 mg/day of Zoloft, a pretty high dose. The meds left her a zombie who didn’t disturb anyone but barely functioned. She gave that up soon and took up weed in place of manufactured drugs. It’s working for her. I accept that, although I don’t think Brook realizes that she’s addicted to weed and will remain so until she lays her father to rest.

I asked Brook what made her want to be a doctor, guessing that her father’s death had something to do with it, and her answer surprised me. She likes blood and the circulatory system! She watches avidly as the needle slips into her arm when she gives blood or needs a test. Special Angel is a bit vampiric, it seems. Which gives me a crazy idea for a future adventure.

We will go get blood tests and buy a marriage license at City Hall. Two copies, I hope. We won’t actually use the license, of course. But they will look great hanging on our walls. If Tyler, Brook’s boyfriend, gets out of line she can just point to the license and say, “Watch it, or I’m off with Dave!”

When we were seated, Brook ordered the hearty “GRAMMA FANNY’S POT ROAST SANDWICH, The specialty of the Buckhorn since 1893. The finest Colorado beef brisket, slow cooked, thick sliced and served with pan gravy on pumpernickel bread.” She said she hadn’t eaten all morning in anticipation of this meal. I chose one of the day’s specials:  lamb chops on polenta. We each ordered soft drinks and settled down to talk.

We talked of Brook’s school plans, which are on hold right now. We talked of the Dancing business, which is in the doldrums thanks to a sour economy. (Three of my Dancer friends have been evicted since October. It tears my heart up.) Brook said she has a lead on a job as an eye doctor’s assistant, paying $15/hour plus benefits. It would be “not too big a pay cut” and steady pay to boot. I’m sure she’ll get it, although I have no idea what the qualifications are.

We talked of Tyler and my Desire to “be him” – to be the man Brook loves most and most often. I don’t envy Tyler, for one can only envy what another posssesses and nobody possesses Brook. Likewise, I am not jealous of Brook because one can only be jealous of what one possesses. It’s just an unfulfillable Desire that I must release somehow or continue suffering. I feel the “how” is by paying full Attention to who I am and the special relationship I have with Brook, not who I wish I was and the relationship I wish we had.

Nearly two hours passed in quiet conversation, as I occasionally stroked Brook’s arm and face or played with her fingers. I asked her if I “get too mushy at times” and she reluctantly admitted I do. It’s good to know even that fact about my Special Angel’s feelings towards me.

Around 3:00 p.m. we headed for Smoke Signals, and I learned some more about Special Angel:

1. She has a very specific giggle that means, “How do I tell Dave not to do that without hurting his feelings?”
2. She doesn’t appreciate public displays of affection in general, not just from me. I promised to do my PDA privately from now on, and that is cool with Brook.
3. Brook said she has felt a “special connection” to me since we first met. I’ve felt it too. That’s wonderful but not surprising. We have known each other since at least 557 BCE, when she was a priestess at Delphi and I was Delphyne, the dead serpent who evoked her prophetic trances. Brook’s not too sure about that, but she has no other explanation for this feeling of instant intimacy.

At Smoke Signals, I got a lesson in glass pipes. After much discussion of my infantile tolerance, price, and features such as initial coloration and probable color-changing, we settled on this $20 number:

I like the rose-gold color and translucence of this pipe, and its compact shape. Brook says it will turn prettier as it is smoked.

Brook took quite some time choosing a larger bud grinder for herself. I asked newbie questions that made Brook and the clerk laugh, like, “Why can’t I just use a cheese grater or a spice mill?” Well, $50 seemed a bit excessive for such a simple device. I learned much more about the features, feeding, and care of grinders later. Like everything else that people Desire, they make a really Big Deal out of grinding buds.

Brook got a phone call as we drove away from Smoke Signals. I heard her say, “Yeah, I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

“No!” I exclaimed, but then bit my tongue. My weed was not the only delivery that Brook had to make that day. But I was Desiring to spend time with her at my Home, smoking weed and hearing her speak some more. It was not to be.

We pulled up outside of my Home and swapped cash for weed. “Give me the biggest bud.” “Of course!” Then Brook emptied her smaller bud grinder and gave it to me. It works great for the tiny quantities I require!

I hugged, kissed, and caressed Brook’s Angelic face one more time, saying “I love you” as I opened the car door.

“I love you, too,” she replied, and I froze with one foot out of the car.

“Do you realize that’s the first time you’ve said that?” I asked.

“Is it?” she smiled.

“I’d love to hear it again. Goodbye, Special Angel.” And I went on my way.

Last night, I got another indication that Brook is feeling more comfortable sharing her feelings with me. I mentioned in a text message that I proposed a crazy date on MySpace (see marriage license above). She replied,

“I would prefer that you not use ‘date’ because it isn’t. I have a serious boyfriend I date. We hang out.”

I was nonplussed because to me a date is when you get together with a woman and go have fun, while guys “hang out” together. But I texted back,

“‘It doesn’t really matter,’ as you like to say. We will have appt not date. Same number of letters.”

“Hahahaha, ok,” she responded.

After thinking about it for a while I texted Brook again:

“Light bulb ON!! Dating is what people do shortly before they fuck. Gotcha.”

“:)” was all she replied. I get the feeling I missed something that Brook doesn’t think is worth explaining to me. She’s probably right.

But I definitely have a date with Charity today!

We have been star-crossed since our first meeting ten days ago. I went to Shotgun Willie’s last Monday, Tuesday, and again Monday when she was supposed to work. Monday she had some sort of “accident” and didn’t come in. Tuesday, her elder son had a high fever and needed a doctor (walking “ammonia”). Yesterday, she could not get a babysitter. I wasn’t frustrated but I was bemused. What did these impediments mean?

Turns out they meant that I am supposed to visit Charity at her Home, not work. She invited me over and sent her address in Arvada. I could not make it that afternoon but we agreed on 10:30 a.m. today. The plan is to watch “Judge Judy” and “The People’s Court” together. Very romantic, if done properly.

I the proper ingredients. First, I have our astrological compatibility reports, which indicate we will have communication problems but we will be good for each other. Second, I have a romantic brunch:  bagels, lox, cream cheese, and champagne. Mixing that with astrology and court TV should be interesting!

I look forward to meeting this Angel and her little cherubim. More when it’s happened.

Loving Kindness, or Kindly Love

In this chapter we will explore the relationship between Kindness and Love. We will pay a lot of Attention to misconceptions about Love and how to correct them so we can have more Love in our lives.

In What Purpose Does Kindness Serve? I noted some characteristics of Kindness:

• Helpfulness towards others, whether they need help or not
• Intimate one-to-one Act; giving to organizations that help others is charity
• Performed without expectation of return
• Payoff in good feeling none the less

Kindness is also indiscriminate. One does not discriminate between bums when giving a dollar kindly, judging one worthy and another unworthy. To do so is to expect the return that a bum will fulfill your Desire, i. e., not spend the dollar on drugs, be clean, express gratitude, etc. True Kindness is giving a dollar to every bum one encounters, if one has  a dollar to spare. (“Always, if you have a choice, be kind.”)

Kindness is an impulsive Act that involves no rational decision about the person to whom one is kind (although there may be much rationalizing about, “Can I afford to be kind right now?”). An Act of Kindness flows directly from feeling, without intervening thought.

I defined Loving as follows:

• Loving is an Act arising from a decision that another’s welfare is more important than one’s own.

Similarities Of Love And Kindness

The first similarity between Kindness and Love is that both are Actions. People suffer a great deal by treating Love as an object, as a noun instead of a verb. They Desire to be “in love”, which is as impossible as being “in kindness”. Therefore they experience unfulfilled Desire, the cause of all suffering. Love; do not pursue love.

Love and Kindness are indirectly caused by feelings, a. k. a. emotions. The same feelings that cause Acts of Love and Kindness also cause thoughts about the Acts, but those thoughts are insignificant. One need not spend a lot of thought on whether to Love or be Kind, but many people do because they mistakenly trust rational thought more than irrational feeling.

Special Angel Brooklyn once said to me, “I have a hard time convincing myself that what I feel may be more correct than what I think.” I replied,

Homo Sapiens – “thinking man” – has been around for maybe 50,000 years. Before then, perhaps millions of years before, man and his ancestors got by just fine on feelings alone. When you felt hungry, you ate and all was good. When you felt horny, you fucked and all was even better. But nowadays people are miserable all the time, and spend billions on therapists, because they think they’re too fat, think they aren’t getting as much sex as they should, etc.

Which is more trustworthy:  millions of years of feelings and the good results they invariably brought, or a few thousand years of thinking that often turns out to be wrong?

Think only about what you have felt first. Everything else is a waste of brain power. You feel you are meant to be a doctor, so you think about that a lot. That’s the way to be!

Trust your feelings before your thoughts, your heart before your head. That is your lesson to be mastered in this lifetime, or repeated in yet another one.

Love, like Kindness, is an intimate one-on-one Act. “I love people” is inaccurate hyperbole like, “I love ice cream”. One does not put ice cream’s welfare ahead of one’s own. A very few persons – saints, or Bodhisattvas - are kind to and love all other people, but they do so one person at a time.

“Love is blind.” Like Kindness, Love is an Act performed without regard for what one gets in return.

Love and Kindness have the same payoff at the biological level:  a rush of chemicals that induces feelings of well-being and beneficial physical effects. This fact, observed in many scientific experiments, suggests the hypothesis that the behaviors of “loving” and “being kind” evolved from the same process of natural selection.

Being kind – helping other members of one’s species – increases the survival rate of the individual helped and the species as a whole (to the extent that every member is kind to every other member). Loving – Acting as if another’s welfare is more important than one’s own – results in kindness towards that other.

Love and Kindness are identical in their origin, their feedback mechanism, and the altruistic behavior they entail. Then why do we have two different words for “love” and “kindness”? What distinction do we make between them? It’s an unusually fine distinction; the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary even contains the amalgam, “loving-kindness.”

Difference: Origin In Thought Vs. Feeling

A critical difference between Love and Kindness is that Kindness arises directly from feeling, while Love arises from feeling but is frequently corrupted by thought. Being Kind is an impulsive Act performed thought-lessly (with respect to Kindness’ object). Loving too often results directly from a decision - a thought process – that another’s welfare is more important than one’s own. The direct cause of Kindness is always feeling. The direct cause of Love is often thought.

This distinction matters because thought is less likely than feeling to yield correct Action, as I explained to Brooklyn. Incorrect thinking leads to incorrect intention. Incorrect intention yields incorrect Action even if the cause of both intention and Action is correct. In other words, you may feel, correctly, that another’s welfare is more important than your own, but what you think you should do about that feeling may lead to incorrect Action. Here is an example from my own life:

Brooklyn knows I am addicted to strip clubs. She discourages me from coming to see her at work and showering her with money. She puts my financial welfare ahead of her own. Brook loves me to a very meaningful degree. But one day, when I told her I was going to Shotgun Willie’s (another club), she said,

“I don’t think I should see you again until you quit going to clubs.”

Brook’s feeling for me caused her to Desire to discourage me from frequenting clubs. But her thoughts about how to do it led her to an incorrect intention to punish me. I quickly set her straight.

“It is your loving, supportive presence that helps me stay out of clubs for as long as I do. If you punish me by taking that away, it will be harder to fight my addiction. Please don’t do that.”

Often, we see people who claim to love each other but do not Act lovingly towards each other. He beats her, she scolds him. They argue all the time. They go on separate vacations, live separate lives. In despair of loving and being loved, they ignore each other – the very opposite of loving and the worst thing you can do to a human being.

And there’s nothing cold as ashes after the fire is gone
After The Fire Is Gone, written by L. E. White

Yet most of these people think and frequently say, “But I love him/her anyhow” meaning, “despite the obvious fact that we are not loving each other!” They are Deluded, believing something that is manifestly not true. Delusion is a cause of suffering because it leads us to Desire what does not exist, so our Desire can never be fulfilled.

Thoughts always give rise to Delusion because thoughts are composed of words. Words’ sole use is to make distinctions between things. All distinctions are Delusions, for all things are One and not distinct from each other. Words give rise to false duality, the Delusion that subject (what observes) and object (what is observed) are separate entities. “I love you,” where “I” is the subject and “you” is the object of the verb “love”. In truth, there is only the Act of Love, with no lover and no loved one. This is an example of the Buddhist concept of nondualism.

Feelings, being word-less, are capable of being correct causes, producing correct intentions, and yielding correct Actions. This does not mean that Acting upon feelings always produces correct intention and Action. But correct Action is possible if it arises directly from feeling, and impossible if it arises directly from thought.

Clearly, it is wise to always Act upon feeling, especially when the intention and Action inspired by feeling are different from those inspired by thought. When heart and mind conflict, go with heart.

You gotta sing, like you don’t need the money
Love, like you’ll never get hurt
You gotta Dance, like nobody’s watchin’
It’s gotta come from the heart if you want it to work

Come From The Heart, written by Susanna Clark and Richard Leigh

Many tragedies and sad poems have been written about unrequited Love, few about unrequited Kindness. Kindness, originating directly from feeling without polluting thought, is immune from Delusion. If you feel like being Kind, you are correct every time. Don’t hesitate, be kind. You will gain good karma no matter what the result of your Kindness.

Difference:  Love Is Delusionally Made A “Big Deal”

Also in the “Festivus chapter“, I wrote,

“One reason there’s too little love in the world is that people make love this Big Commitment, an all-or-nothing, till-death-do-us-part thing. It’s not.”

People treat Kindness frivolously. That’s not a bad thing at all because it leads to more Kindness in the world. A buck to a bum is nothing. Holding a door open for a little old lady is nothing. Even an all-day Kindness like serving meals to the homeless on Thanksgiving is shrugged off modestly with, “It was nothing.” Not so Love with a capital “L”.

You would think that people could run out of Love, they are so worried about “giving it away for nothing”. I have a friend who won’t even go on a first date with a woman until he has researched her background online and verified that everything she told him about herself is true. Naturally, he doesn’t believe in love. He likes to quote H. L. Mencken:

Love is the mistaken belief that one woman differs from another.

Mencken was wrong about Love but right about women – and humanity in general. All are One, there are no real distinctions. Every person is as capable of being Loved as any other.

You are part of the One too, so every time you Love what appears to be another person, you are Loving yourself. What’s the danger in Loving yourself?

People Desire to avoid the suffering of being Disappointed by Love, that’s what. They have a Desire with respect to Love that may go unfulfilled, causing suffering. That makes another difference between Love and Kindness.

Difference: Love Is Made A Transaction

Most people have the Desire to be Loved not just by anyone, or even by themselves, but by the person whom they Love. But being Loved in return is not a condition necessary for Loving to exist. Loving arises from your decision that another’s welfare is more important than one’s own. The other need not Love you in order for you to Love him or her.

Yet all the time, people insist on getting Loved in return for Loving, even when it is manifestly obvious that they are not getting Loved in return. A hallowed example is the Love of a parent for a “troubled” teenager.

The teen says straight up, “I hate you!” and truly means it at the time. But the parent says, “No you don’t. Deep down inside, you love me. And (therefore) I always love you, even when you act this way.”

That is the parent’s Delusion speaking! The parent Desires to Love the teen but insists that the teen Love the parent in return, even when the teen obviously does not Love the parent.

It is OK to stop Loving someone because that person stopped Loving you. You can always start Loving again later, if the person resumes Loving you in return. It’s no “Big Deal”. It is better is to Love all the time whether you are Loved in return or not; then you get a constant flow of feel-good chemicals. But if not being Loved in return causes you suffering, then stop Loving. Reverse your decision that another’s welfare is more important than your own.

Love Is Not “Always And Forever”

“But that makes Love impermanent, unreal!” you protest. True. Nothing that depends for its existence upon ever-changing other conditions – like feelings and thoughts – is permanent or has independent reality. That means every thing, including Love (and Kindness, which cannot exist unless you can afford it). But don’t discount Love because it is impermanent. Impermanence makes Loving even more Desirable and easier, as I explain below.

One cannot be Disappointed as a result of being Kind, for Kindness has no expectation of Kindness in return. One can be terribly Disappointed as a result of Loving if one Desires to be Loved in return. How can we avoid the Disappointment of unrequited Love? Jesus told us the secret:

And (Jesus) said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:2-4

Little children have no regard for their own welfare; they do not know what that is. (All toddlers have to be rescued from imminent, obvious danger.) Therefore, everything’s welfare comes ahead of their own. They Love everything indiscriminately; my Beloved Son went around literally hugging trees when he was two! Little children exist in “the kingdom of heaven”, which may well be a perpetual state of Loving and being Loved.

If you would avoid the suffering of Disappointment with respect to Love, you must “be converted” back to that childish state of Loving everything, of having no regard for your own welfare when you Love. “You gotta Love, like you’ll never get hurt.” Have no Desire to be Loved in return. Do not place that condition upon the Act of Love.  Then you will not suffer the Disappointment of unrequited Love.

What prevents us from being like little children? We think about Love too much and too powerfully, bloating it with too much importance, making it a life-or-death matter. Angel Jo provides a dramatic example. (She’s an artist; drama comes with the territory.)

Jo “loves” a guy who seldom has time for her. He often breaks promises to come see Jo, who suffers enormously from these Disappointments. One night she said to me, in words very similar to these:

“I can’t stop loving him, but it hurts too bad. If I suffer one more Disappointment because I love, then I am going to kill myself!”

Jo Acted upon that thought. I decided to betray Jo’s trust to save her life and spare her daughter, Zen, the suffering of losing her mother. I called 911, breaking Jo’s confidence of her suicidal intention, and she was taken to a hospital. Jo has refused to see me ever since, and barely speaks to me via text messages.

What I did was an Act of Love, for I knew that Jo would stop loving me as a result of my betrayal. I put Jo’s welfare and Zen’s ahead of my own. I decided to endure the suffering of losing Jo’s love… for a time.

My decision to call 911 was made easier by my belief that Jo’s harsh feeling towards me will change because all things change constantly. Believing in the impermanence of Love and its absence made it easier for me to Love Jo by saving her life, not harder or less Desirable.

Love as freely and often as you spend spare change, with as little regard for what you receive in return. Do not be afraid of running out of Love. You were born with the ability to Love infinitely, and that ability is still there. Just loosen the valve of constricting thoughts that keep Love from flowing freely. Love as if Loving is the same as being Kind. It is.

Council Of Ministers

I have four friends who serve as my High Council of Ministers. They are people I have known for more than a decade, professionally and personally. We are scattered all over the country:  Denver and Ridgway, Colorado (300 miles apart); Manhattan; and Florida. We go many years without seeing each other in the flesh or even speaking by phone. But we love each other often.

We swap email almost daily. Some of it is informal and one-to-one. “Hey, look at this…  How you doing today?” But frequently I convene a formal audience with all of my Ministers, calling upon them for advice, material aid, or just attention.

It’s not all take and no give. I have shown Kindness to each of my Ministers over the years, and they return it to me unstintingly. We don’t keep track of who’s done what for whom lately.

We do business, too. My Ministers and I contribute to each other’s material success and that of our mutual client:  humanity.

Ministers’ Biographies

Paul Ellenbogen’s domain is the Kindness Of Others. He is a “rain maker”, a consultant who helps non-profit philanthropic organizations maximize donations. I built the Web site of his Florida-based firm, Resource Development Group. I have also done some behind-the-scenes data manipulation for his clients. Paul and I met in 1988, when I did career counseling and he was at a crossroads in his Path. I helped him make the turn he Desired, and we became friends. Soon, he returned to the Path he still follows.

Paul gives me laughter and wonder with his forwarded Internet jokes, videos, news items, and Powerpoint presentations. He inspires me to refresh my memories of elementary computer tricks, for he is a hopeless numpty with respect to technology. He shares sympathy and insight into the mysteries of women. He quickened my interest in altruism and feeds it. He is my Minister of Loving Kindness.

Shoshi’s domain is Endeavor Tempered By Prudence. (She prefers a “low profile” so I do not give her last name or contact info.) Currently, she earns her living by helping people connect with other people who can help them achieve material success. That’s as specific as I should get. She does likewise informally without pecuniary compensation, introducing people to people and other resources that further career and spiritual pursuits. Shoshi is a match-maker in the industrious, Jewish aunt tradition. We met at the 1993 ONE BBS CON, the first national convention of dial-up bulletin board system operators. Our first meeting, one of only two, was Dyonisian.

Shoshi and I sometimes quarrel over the relative cultural merits of Denver and Manhattan. Actually, we quarrel over a lot of things weekly and vituperatively, but we always return to loving each other. Shoshi is my stern, Saturnian Minister representing boundaries, limits, and discipline. She keeps me anchored to the ground when I would soar like Icarus to my destruction. She is chief among my Erinyes, the Furies of “mythology”. From Wikipedia:

“The Erinyes often stood for the rightness of things within the standard order; for example, Heraclitus declared that if Helios decided to change the course of the Sun through the sky, they would prevent him from doing so. Predominantly, they were understood as the persecutors of mortal men and women who broke natural laws.”

Shoshi is my Minister of “Don’t Be Such A Schmuck”.

Randy Cassingham’s domain is Insight Delivered By Humor. He became in 1994 the first person, in my expert knowledge, to earn all of his livelihood by online publishing. He started with This Is True, a subscription-supported email newsletter summarizing and discussing humorous or outrageous news. Randy has expanded his domain to include funny/weird news submitted by his readers to Groxx; reader-submitted Jumbo Jokes; The True Stella Awards concerning outrageous lawsuits; Bonzer Web Sites, the most useful, charming, and entertaining on the Internet; tragically amusing or amusingly tragic consumer issues posted by Cranky Customers; the Monopoly parody Get Out Of Hell Free product line; and the deadly earnest Spam Primer. Randy is a busy boy, making many people worldwide think while they laugh.

Randy lives with his Minister wife, Kit, high in the mountains above Ridgway, Colorado. They are the only people I know who have a yurt in their back yard. Both are trained Emergency Medical Technicians who volunteer their time at the sound of a siren and risk their lives to help the injured.

I first met Randy on November 20, 1995, at 11:00 a.m., according to his miraculously preserved appointment book. Randy and This Is True were featured in  Boardwatch magazine, of which I was “Editor at Fault”. I have enjoyed the hospitality of his Home but he has never been to one of mine. He visited me in hospital when I was stricken with life-threatening diverticulitis in 1998, bringing me a laptop with which to maintain my vital connection to my natural habitat, cyberspace. Always, Randy knows what I need and gives it freely. He is my Minister of Doing Well By Doing Good.

Kit Cassingham’s domain is Stewardship Of The Whole Earth. Her Powers include hospitality, preservation, and fecundity. She is Randy’s wife and soul mate;  I met her through him in the summer of 1998. Kit’s fundamental business is Sage Blossom Consulting, through which she is “greening the hospitality industry” one B&B and international hotel chain at a time. She publishes a directory of eco-friendly hotels from two sites:  Environmentally Friendly Hotels and The Best Green Hotels.  Kit also created a myriad of anonymous Web sites devoted to themes tied together by “stewardship”. I have written for her short treatises on global warming and how to buy energy-saving window shades; hand-powered emergency radios and the recycling of old mattresses. I have learned much from the work that Kit has given me that brings me nearer to the secret that I pursue. She is my Minister of Mother Earth.

The High Council’s Secret

Karen Fox, a wise woman of clairvoyant/clairaudient talents, was given a vision of my Minister friends during the first two minutes of our initial consultation. I had not said a word about my life except to confirm that the number “eleven” was indeed significant to me.  I had just moved to an apartment on Denver’s 11th Avenue a week earlier, the first Home I had known in 17 months. But Karen then said, apparently out of nowhere,

“I see you are a member of a High Council, a group of five Beings who make important differences in the world.”

Karen nailed it cold, even the number of the Council. Each of my Ministers, and I, makes signficant differences in the lives of many thousands of people, and to the well-being of the Earth herself.

Karen went on to say that all of us are “not of this Earth”. My Ministers and I came to this planet long ago, in the golden age of Atlantis, to accomplish a great work:  bringing Peace to humanity. The work failed at that time, and my Ministers returned whence we came. I chose to remain in the world of Man to pursue the secret of our mission’s success. They have returned to Nirvana, while I have chosen the Path of the Bodhisattva. My Ministers remain in contact with me channeled via my friends, loyally supporting my quest while gently urging me to give it up and rejoin them in the peaceful place where we are disembodied energy Beings, free of fleshly suffering.

My friends accept this “crazy” part of me and love me anyhow. It is not necessary for them to recognize themselves as extra-terrestrial Beings. They continue their work of bringing loving kindness to the world, and I continue my quest for the secret of Peace.

Stewart’s Holiday Gifts

I just received the email below from my best friend and favorite critic of reincarnation, Stewart Vardaman. I highly recommend this form of Kindness to you for several “selfish” reasons:

• It will make you feel good, for hard-nosed scientific reasons.
• It will bring you good karma and closer to the end of suffering.
• It will support organizations that you or your loved ones might well need some day.
• It is in keeping with the spirit of Festivus:  loving, simple compared to shopping, non-commercial, ungreedy… kind. “It is unique to us humans, and to our more developed angels and spirits, to be kind“.

Stewart’s Email:

No gifts from me this year, again.  I’m CC:ing a few friends….FYI, I give what I would have spent on Xmas gifts to causes, an idea my sister Sally came up with a few years ago.  Hopefully the people receiving this email will want to help out these causes with a small donation.

I followed up on last year and sent a few bucks to Cory Maye, a fellow I’m certain is innocent of any crime.  Since last year, we exchanged a few letters, and he’s better.  Now has a private cell, his appeal (seven lawyers offered free service and worked on it) is a nice piece of legal work, and I think this coming Spring the MS Appeals Court will likely cut him loose.  Cory’s daughter made cheerleader this year.

http://www.theagitator.com/2007/12/15/how-to-help-out-cory-maye/

His address is now Unit 29 – B, differs from link.

Next, a few bucks to help Ryan Frederick of Chesapeake, VA with his legal defense:

http://www.myspace.com/ryan_frederick

Frederick will go on trial next month for murdering a police officer.  Much like the Cory Maye case, police did a raid of his house, Frederick says he did not hear them announce that they were cops (he was asleep), and opened fire on what he thought were criminals invading his home.  Once he realized they were police, he gave up immediately.

The case against Frederick has fallen apart.  The police raided because they thought he was growing marijuana.  How did they know that?  A confidential informant working for the police broke into his house three days before, and saw grow lights and plants.  But the plants weren’t weed — they were Japanese maples that look like weed.  The guy was merely an avid gardener, and wasn’t growing dope at all (he did have a 1/3 ounce of weed, though – a misdemeanor).  He’s a quiet, passive, timid, easily startled guy, just 5 foot 7, 120lbs, and justifiably feared for his life the night the police burst into his house (which had been burgled just three days before).  As the facts have come out, there looks to be some serious police misconduct (illegal search warrant, for starters) in the case:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/128723.html

In both cases, it’s the tactics police use.  I personally believe drugs should be legal, but even if you don’t, in cases like these with non-violent, no criminal history people, if you think they possess drugs (in Maye’s case, he merely lived in the other side of a duplex of the actual target of the warrant), you walk up to them as they are getting into their car on the way to work, not burst into their house with a no-knock warrant in the middle of the night when they are asleep.  It’s just crazy to think that either one of these guys is a hardened cop killer.  The sad thing is, I could easily find many other people who have suffered similar fates.  And two police officers, both with families and children, are dead.

Next up, the Innocence Project:

http://www.innocenceproject.org/
The project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

And lastly, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

http://www.leap.cc/
Founded on March 16, 2002, LEAP is made up of current and former members of law enforcement who believe the existing drug policies have failed in their intended goals of addressing the problems of crime, drug abuse, addiction, juvenile drug use, stopping the flow of illegal drugs into this country and the internal sale and use of illegal drugs. By fighting a war on drugs the government has increased the problems of society and made them far worse. A system of regulation rather than prohibition is a less harmful, more ethical and a more effective public policy.

The mission of LEAP is to reduce the multitude of unintended harmful consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction by ultimately ending drug prohibition.

LEAP’s goals are:

1. To educate the public, the media, and policy makers, to the failure of current drug policy by presenting a true picture of the history, causes and effects of drug abuse and the crimes related to drug prohibition and
2. To restore the public’s respect for law enforcement, which has been greatly diminished by its involvement in imposing drug prohibition.

LEAP’s main strategy for accomplishing these goals is to create a constantly enlarging speakers bureau staffed with knowledgeable and articulate former drug-warriors who describe the impact of current drug policies on: police/community relations; the safety of law enforcement officers and suspects; police corruption and misconduct; and the financial and human costs associated with current drug policies.

Have a great holiday season, and a happy new year!

Stewart