A friend of a friend of some guy who knows somebody

Said that they might be able to get me a job in the morning, making good money, relatively low stress, with decent benefits, in a building that doesn't smell like mold and rat turds...

I almost asked who they wanted me to kill in return.

I mean seriously, I was at the Dr.'s office yesterday, and was talking about my job with the little east Indian lady who was taking my pulse and she was talking about how much better working conditions were in Thailand and India than they've been in this area recently.  Now granted, she was educated so that means she probably had a family with money when she was living in India and in Thailand, but still, when you think about it, it's kinda sad that the comparison can even be made.


This is what goes through my mind when some wealthy douchbag in a suit that costs more than many of my employees made last month tells me that the folks who are working 60-90 hours per week on rotating shifts, reliably, for years at a time, don't deserve a raise because 'it's not like they're going to work any harder'.

I see pitchforks.

I see torches.

I have no trouble understanding why our police are acting like an occupying force

It is no great mystery to me why the media wants to disarm the public.

Why there have been bills proposed (and in some cases passed) to control the internet.
To control how much food and water a person can store in their home.
To restrict the availability of respirators and body armor.
To increase surveillance.

It doesn't surprise me at all when I see two, count 'em TWO major protest movements in this country in the last eight years, who are currently at odds (can't stand each other) but who are in essence saying the EXACT SAME THING about government corruption and corporate overreach.

Because I understand the mechanics of control.


I know that if people are kept divided, unarmed, mis-informed and unable to effectively communicate with each other, they are easily controlled.

It's not a great leap in logic.

And it's not that hard to do the math and find out just how many of these dire threats that we suddenly need protecting from are being manufactured to create panic.



So, the next time you hear a story citing thousands of incidents of anything in the course of a year, sit down with a calculator and divide that number by 350,000,000 (which is roughly the current population of this country).  Be mindful of the little e that pops up at the end of the number you get, if you don't know what it stands for look it up online.

But do this with any hot button issue, and realize just how small the effected portion of the population is.

Rule number one of social control, the wolf is always at the door.  Keep people afraid and you keep them malleable.

Keep people helpless and you keep them dependent.

And they will always accept, even demand that you take over control of their day to day lives to "keep them safe".



Never forget, safety is an illusion, always.

Hark the distant pounding drum

Thunder laden smoke limned breeze
'cross expanse to vast to ken
beyond all sanguine sense or scheme
portends a bitter reckoning

Not so far through the woods as I thought

So the relative I was concerned about took a turn for the worse on Friday and nearly OD'd on alcohol and pills.

I don't really want to post details here because this is the internet and you never know who is watching (and I don't have specifics yet anyway, just enough to boil another ulcer into my stomach lining)

Stress kills, but what do you do with someone who is unable or unwilling to reduce the amount of stress they're going through?

I mean for me it was easier, I just drank a lot and when the alcoholism destroyed my health I had to sober up and learn not to give a shit.   I will admit, discovering cannabis a couple years ago (decades later than most folks do) helped me through some rocky times.  And even though I've been completely straight edge clean from everything for about half a year now, I know that it had a lot to do with me learning how to better cope with the stress in my life.

But I can't advocate drug abuse, especially not to someone who is already abusing prescription drugs (a game which has killed a couple of people I've cared about over the years, including I believe one short angry young lady who I developed a particular affinity for a couple of years back).  And realistically I think in the case of this particular individual it would just make things worse at this point in time.  I mean I had been stone sober for nearly three years before I made my foray into 'herbal medicine', and I had already spent years learning to control my other addictions.  This person has yet to do that.

So I'm trying to keep a positive mindset.

Trying to be supportive.

And hoping I don't end up in the awkward position of having to tell this person's child about them in the third person someday.


How is it that I keep outliving people?

I wasn't supposed to live this long
didn't expect to have much staying power
I don't take particularly good care of myself
and I'm not a particularly happy, competent or decent person.

I've buried much better people over the years
and mourned their passing.


Guess life's just kinda funny that way.

Duct Tape, Broken Dreams and Fear

Someone was asking the other day what my job entails, and how we keep our company afloat.

I gave them the title of this as the answer and I don't think they believed me.


The sad fact is that I'm in the fear peddling business. 

I make my living from the tragedy of others.

And I'm actually kind of ok with that.


See I've worked for companies that peddled hope, and I've seen how destructive that can be.

And I've worked for companies that peddle fear, and seen the same.


I think it's not really possible to work for an organization that isn't selling one or the other in some small way, it's just that the last few jobs I've had were kind of at extremes on the spectrum.


And I don't know which is worse.


They're both destructive paths, they both do very little good for society or humanity (though society and humanity traditionally demand their presence in spite of this).


So all told, I have no real problem peddling fear for folks that will buy it. 


So I embraced the dark side for a while, so what.

 It keeps a roof over my head, it pays my most of my bills most months (though it doesn't do much more than that), and I rarely have any bones broken on the job.


It is what it is.









You need to know what you are before you can become what you are supposed to be. In order to know what you are now, you must learn what you are going to be.
― S.K.N. Hammerstone ―