Talking about beauty and sadness seem frivolous and trivial. 

It’s easy to make fun of those who express their emotions.  Especially when it doesn’t match up to how you feel at a certain time… such is the nature of the often vitriolic attitudes toward the particularly more emotive.

I usually write “we” as my personifier.  Let me use I here.  I am tired.  I don’t really know who to turn to, and when I do, I feel unfulfilled.  Perhaps I’m stuck in often insatiable moods… I don’t really know.  I’m on the inside looking out, and it’s hard to tell.
I feel like there’s a brooding evil that I have to keep in check constantly… and I’m tired of so much!

And all I can think is… “Another whingey, pointless blog”, but the truth is… it’s what I have, it’s what I do, I like to think that maybe someone reads it occassionally, or perhaps I just like the writing… the transparency… the pointlessness.

First and foremost there is reality, whatever that is. 

Our sensory array detects useful things for our atomic arrangement to keep together. 

Primarily, the being reacts to sensory data in order to not be damaged, and pursue renewal necessities.

Secondarily, the sensory data is stored so that the same mistakes aren’t made over and over, and beneficial things are able to be recognised.

Tertiarily, the being associates multiple packets of sensory data in order to begin predicting outcomes of unknown, but similar scenarios.

Perhaps culture, language and communication are the quaternary part in the sequence.  Like one unit organism, the tribe shares the being’s knowledge around… exomemetic sensory data is shared, with the idea that it will assist others in the tribe in warning against bad scenarios and how to achieve good scenarios. 

How big is a tribe? 

At what point does one being try to hijack the exomemetic data process to insure the being’s survival against other competitors?

Like the sensory data behind scenarios the being knows to avoid, so too does the atmoic structure aim to avoid bad scenarios of make up, and compete in a limited world for replication of the data it knows.

The being is limited when confined to endomemetic data and thus must resort to the primary, secondary and tertiary sensory abilities. 

Control the exomemetic process, and division occurs.  Encourage the process and unity may just begin.

In Lak’ech Ala K’in

We search endlessly for patterns in the chaos.

Without finding these patterns, we would not survive as we have done. 

In fact, the ability for the human brain to find patterns amid the chaos is arguably what makes use different from the animals… what makes us conscious and what has led us to all sorts of discoveries about our Earth and Universe.

But, the pattern finding also seems to lead us in to a lot of trouble.

Our brains don’t seem capable of linking the vast patterns that we have created in our own world today, nor are they capable of computing all the scientific data at once about a myriad of subjects. 

Most people probably aren’t aware that their consciousness is based upon their ability to make connections between sensory information.

I think it is rather important to be aware of this.  And I think it is rather important to further study and research the nature of consciousness, so we can start to get a handle on what it is exactly that makes us tick.  What exactly is this moment?

I have digressed from the point I wish to make though. 

The other side to pattern making… to the grand joining the dots we’re all performing, is the line in the sand.  We can’t define something without having barriers to allow a definition.  Often these barriers are tangible things, like that visible light to the human eye is on a wavelength in a range from about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm.

In this case, the barriers are defined by the physiological qualities of the human eye and the measurable electromagnetic spectrum.

When it comes to the divine, we are left in a world without barriers.

Here in this world, we can set the limits where ever we choose, or where ever we believe.

More often than not, it is the latter that happens, and we take on board someone else’s idea of where the barriers lie.  We trust each other.  It’s the nature of a social creature.  Our minds presume that the other individual has some data we don’t know about, and we should trust it, lest we receive the negative consequence. 

It’s a relatively simple behavioural control mechanism.  

If you’ve ever had a frivolous religious debate with someone, you’re probably more than aware of the shifting line in the sand on many issues.  Every person with religious conviction is different, no matter their ascribed dogma.  It’s probably the reason why many of these debates are frivolous.  There’s nothing to base it on.  Prior experience doesn’t necessarily help one to know what to expect.  There are some common arguments, but often if you pursue an argument, you can create rift and disagreement within the so-called faithful.  This is because the whole picture isn’t there, all the answers don’t exist outside the individual mind’s faith in the idea.

A curious thing I’ve noted about many of the less questioning of religious folk, is their mentality’s similarity to what I remember and define as high schoolesque politics.  These are people of a tribal nature, who have their trusted sources worked out and their social network down pat.  It’s easier for the humabeast to operate when a group can simply laugh off any competing idea, without taking in to account that ideas ability to draw lines in the same sand.

I believe that examples of this are shown through the prevalence of a hope for the never proven, quintessentially dull chain letter and its evolutions.

Let me provide some examples I recently saw on a Facebook group that purports to organise a party for people once they reach the Seventh Day Adventist version of heaven.

“Kiss your hand 10 times. Say your crush 15 times. Post this on 2 events. Look at your hand”

“READ ! This isnt fake. apparently, if u copy and paste this to ten events in the next ten minutes u will have the best day ofurlife tomorrow. u will either get kissed or asked out, if u break this chain u will see a little dead girl in your room tonight. in 53 mins someone will say i love you or im sorry or i wanna go out with”

“Girl : Am I pretty?

Boy : NO.

Girl : Do you want to be with me forever?

Boy : NO.

……Girl : Would you cry if I walked away?

… ……………………………………………………………………………

Boy : NO.

She heard enough, and was hurt. She walked away, tears ran down her face. The boy grabbed her arm.

Boy : Your not pretty, your beautiful. I don’t want to be with you forever, I NEED to be with you forever. And I wouldn’t cry if you walked away, I would DIE.

(Boy whispers) : Please? Stay with me.

(Girl whispers) : I will.

Tonight at midnight your true love will realize they love you. Something good will happen to you between 1-4 pm. Tomorrow it could be anywhere. Get ready for the biggest shock of your life! If you don’t post this to 5 other events. You will have relationship problems for the next 10 years”

You might remember things of this nature from primary school.  And perhaps from your more irritating of social network friends.

I’m sure no one will actually admit to believing these.  People will say things like, “I wanted to test it, just to be sure” and, “Didn’t want to risk it!”

Isn’t it funny how much in common these sorts of little moral stories (with punishment if not adhered to) play out like religious convictions?  Believe in God, OR ELSE!  Pray, and if it comes true, MIRACLE! If not, it is God’s will, etc.. etc…

These scream of emotional immaturity.  The inability for an individual to determine that these don’t have any effect what so ever on real life, other than to plant an idea within your own mind.  Horoscopes often play very similarly, alongside many other things.

Is it possible that an individual’s susceptibility to certain kinds of emotional manipulation determine how likely they are to be religious, and what sort of belief they may have? 

I should note here that I know many questioning and intelligent religious people.  They know the nature of the line in the sand, and probably have a more stable basis for their faith.  They’re also in my experience a lot easier to have rational conversations with.

Just something to ponder on.

Also, if you don’t share this with your entire chosen social network before midnight tonight, tomorrow at five minutes to 7am, you will get a phone call.  On the other end will be the police, informing you that your sibling has been shot dead in some sort of gang-related shooting that got out of hand. 

So share it.  Or else.

It’s important in our current political climate to be able to profile lobby groups, understand what they represent, so when you hear about them commenting in the mass media, or pushing certain legislation, you can have an idea of the parties pushing it and start to make some judgements on why they might be pushing such an agenda.

Below is a PDF of each company, what industry they operate in and some basic information on whether they are publicly or privately owned or listed and Australian owned or not.

This is barely the tip of the iceberg and took me some time to do.  It’d be good to track each and every single CEO, include employment history, salary and know earnings and share holders of each company, but this is beyond my investigative abilities at the moment.

Business Council of Australia analysis

Listen out for the BCA in the news.  They won’t show up in usual mass media news much, more likely in financial sections and political channels and shows on the ABC and Sky.

It’s important to pay attention.  Lobby groups are just one way the political process is being perversed.  People often justify this by saying things like, “But, they do more for more Australians, so they deserve a bigger say!” which you must remember is not an unfamiliar argument.  That same argument has been used to justify not allowing women to vote, and giving land holders more say than non land holders.  If governance is only allowed by those with the most money, we become a plutocracy, if we aren’t already.  We already have perversed democracy.

Pay attention.

In Lak’ech Ala K’in

It’s little wonder that we search for soul’s tranquility,
So often we are caught in a web of interpretation of the past and present,
So often we are caught in the complex explanations we have created for basic survival,
So often do we forget that we are human, we are beast.
We are the fallible animal with the big brain.
We want to build communities and live together, but to how many humans does this desire expand?
What are these notions of trust, love, empathy?
It’s little wonder we search for the tranquil places of our mind…
Hide amongst the imaginings of our stories…
Without finding solace in the emotional landscapes,
The physical world and its laws take over.
Without accepting the solace of another,
The physical world and its laws take over.

Earth your mind.
In Lak’ech Ala K’in

Bluey, you came to us when I was young.  We found you on the street outside Bella’s house and you liked our company.  Perhaps you were spooked from your previous residence by a storm, and perhaps by dodgy owners.

In hindsight, I like to think that a storm brought you to us.

And just as that which gives, must also take… in November 2011, a storm came and took you away.

Bluey, you are a stormdog.  You came with a storm, and went back out with one, leaving behind your finished dog body.

You beautiful darling, one day we will meet when the storm no longer makes sense to me.  Your body is returned to the Earthly soil which created the things which sustained you.

Love to you, doggy-girl.  Sadness will pass, but you can not.

In Lak’ech Ala K’in

The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is an international treaty that aims toward non proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, disarmament by currently armed nations and the right to peacefully use nuclear technology.

India is one of the few nations in the world that is not a signatory to the NNPT and is a nuclear armed nation.  For decades, Australia has refused to sell its uranium to India unless it becomes a signatory to this treaty.  The Indian government has consistently refused to sign the treaty.

India’s next door neighbour, fellow non-signatory and bicker-buddy Pakistan is also nuclear armed.

You can read in to all that in your own time.

I’m merely adding some context, so you understand the reason why using nuclear energy in Australia is being discussed again:

BACKGROUND:

Sydney AUS – 2GB – Ross Greenwood speaking with Ziggy Switkowski

Doctor Ziggy Switkowski – Wikipedia

Ross Greenwood – Wikipedia

Professor Mark Diesendorf – UNSW

In Lak’ech Ala K’in

2. Figure out what will best offend them and say it.

3. …?

4. Profit!!

Steps one and two seem to be the typical methodology of the internet troll.  A creature which intends to evoke response, usually to the negatory.

I guess it’s kind of fun… like irritating a sibling until they cry, or punching a friend in the arm harder and harder until one person wusses out.

Most of the time, the internet troll’s only gratification is the fact that someone responds, or takes them seriously.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a troll is being serious or not, such is the nature of satire where the satirist may not be aware what satire is.  But, most of the time you can pretty much guarantee that they are not making profit.

A lot of people speak of the internet troll as if it is a relatively new concept.  But the cultural troll has always existed, pushing people’s buttons and evoking response where ever they go.

Whether they believe what they’re saying or not is irrelevent.  In fact, a good writer who can write trollishly is to be admired for the ability to evoke response.  Response is a great thing, especially where you divide the population and irritate people’s senisibilities.  It’s a great thing because more people will flock to it, like an accident.  And where there are flocks of people, there is advertising.  (Do you reckon insurance companies would advertise at car craches if they could get away with it?)

The article, from Andrew Bolt’s blog, November 15th 2011:

DOPEY TEAM

“Never heard of the sport until this disgrace:

AUSTRALIA’S national team has been thrown out of the World Cup of kabaddi - a brutal team game of chanting, tackling and held-breath raids on opposition territory – disgraced as the worst doping offenders in a tournament beset by drugs scandals.

After five players failed drug tests and two more fled from testers, Australia was left without enough players to field a team, and Afghanistan was awarded their group match in a walk-over.

Australia has been officially kicked out of the tournament, the first team ever suspended…

The Kabaddi World Cup is being played in the sport’s spiritual homeland, the Punjab in north-western India.

The Australian team may not be as representative of Australia as we might fear from this news, however:

The Australian team: Rajiv Kumar (Captain), Sukhvir Singh, Kuldeep Singh, Gurpreet Singh, Boota Singh, Harjinder Singh Sethi, Kuldeep Singh, Jagjit Singh Dhaliwal, Amritpal Singh, Sukhjinder Singh, Raj Kumar, Harpreet Singh Sidhu, Karnal Singh, Parampal Singh. Manager: Jagjit Singh Gurm. Coach: Baljinder Singh Bassi.

It is not reported yet which of the above players failed the tests, so it’s best for now to presume each individual is innocent.”

Kabaddi is a South-Asian team sport, only in its second year of holding a World Tournament.

It is likely many Australians of anglo-saxon background haven’t yet heard of the sport, due to the mainly anglo-saxon media not mentioning it and due to it being relatively new.  So, it seems pretty obvious that the players would probably be Australians of Indian or Pakistani decent.  As far as my understanding goes, that doesn’t make them any less Australian, considering we all have backgrounds from all sorts of continents on Earth.

Therefore, it seems a pretty low-brow racist swipe to say that a sports team isn’t representative of Australia because there are no Smiths or Williams on the team…

In Lak’ech Ala K’in

This is the date that Occupy Wall Street began.

If you’ve been hiding in a shell, let me up date you.

The American economy has been in turmoil for the past few years.  There are various reasons for this, but the main reason seems to be that over-speculation by powerful multi-national corporations on the economy has led to an economy that is no longer based in reality, but rather based on what could be described as guesswork.  Educated guess work, perhaps.  But primarily, guesswork.

For large corporations, losing a few million here or there doesn’t seem to be a problem.  Their boards and CEOs will be a little upset at the percentage figures that drop on the stock market and try and figure out how to fix it.  But, for those within businesses and the real world, the effects will trickle down and have had vast reaching consequences.

Government in the Western World often runs quite like a business too.  Its aims are to make sure that people are employed and looked after to whatever standards the people decide.  But, the democratic process is hijacked by big business, which always looks after its profit interests first and foremost.  By blackmailing governments with threats of removing jobs from a region, state or country, business can get what it wishes.  By paying elected officials for their campaigns, they can ask for things in return – like policy support.

Contracts for public infrastructure development are also manipulated in much the same way.

This is problematic.

The European economy is undergoing similar problems, coupled with some other mismanagement problems it seems.

The core of the issue, to my understanding is this:

Our economy has no basis in reality.

It is based in speculative territory, the same sort of territory that a gambler traverses every time they sit in front of a pokie machine.
Except, the gambler here is the corporate economic powers, and the pokie machine’s limits are not set, no matter how hard economists try to work them out.

The gambler is not you or I.  Nor is it likely the business you work for, or the boss you answer to.  It is not the media or government.  The gamblers here operate in far-removed circles.

We are disconnected.  Economy is IMPORTANT – It is what allows us to fairly trade that which we do and create.  When it becomes hijacked, your work and our planet is being hijacked.

There is plenty of information spreading across the internet about what the Occupy movement is all about, but integral to the movement is a putting aside of apathy and knee-jerk cynicism, and asking questions, learning things, listening to people with an inquisitive mind.  Key to Occupy is the very idea of Democracy – People talking to people, with some key egalitarian principles at the core.

Today, Friday the 21st of October I worked from 6am – midday. I work in media monitoring, and quickly began seeing stories of the Occupy Melbourne protesters having eviction notices served to them. I followed the OCCUPY MELBOURNE profile on Twitter and many re-tweets by friends (side note – the information and social networking giants of today may become the next enemy if not watched stringently).  And, I headed to the protests as quickly as I could.

My friend and house mate Candice took picture on her phone of the protest as we saw it:

On the evening of Thursday the 20th, the City of Melbourne headed by Lord Mayor Robert Doyle issued an eviction notice to the Occupy Melbourne camp.

At 7am on the 21st the protesters were told they must be out by 9am, or police would remove them.
Victoria Police fenced the site off and surrounded it with hundreds of police, slowly moving in an forcefully removing people.

I wrote an email to Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, condemning the path City of Melbourne thought most appropriate.

“Dear Lord Mayor Robert Doyle,

-Nick “

In the email I carbon copied the Federal MP for Melbourne Adam Bandt, the leader of the Australian Sex Party Fiona Patten, my local ALP Member Kelvin Thomson and Victorian State Premier Ted Baillieu.

I recorded audio from today and placed it on Soundcloud.

And I also placed it on ABC POOL.

I am running out of time to type.  You will find information about Occupy and Occupy Melbourne on all major news websites.  Herald Sun and The Age have been running constant coverage, and TV news teams were spottable all day at the event.  Be careful with their sweeping rhetoric though.

You can silence an individual, ridicule a person, kill a man, imprison a woman. You can censor us and herd us with your weapons.

But an idea… an idea you can not kill.

And the idea is growing, Earth.

SOME SCIENCE ON THE BACKING OF THIS -> New Scientist

Together we are one.

Divide and conquer is a strategy of the archaic, do not give in.

IN LAK’ECH ALA K’IN

www.oursay.org

Questions are asked by you and other members of the public.  You and other members of the public vote for the best question.  The most voted for question is then asked to a panel of, or single expert in the field or politician or celebrity or whatever.

Pretty good concept!  I’m guessing it’s not highly taken up yet, but you can change that.  Bookmark it and regularly check out the issues on there.  This is much more useful than writing a letter to the editor… which people love, but ultimately it akin to an internet argument.

I asked a question in regards to the Australian media landscape, with specific reference to news, issues, curret affairs and other such aspects of programming.

Check the website!  www.oursay.org

In Lak’ech Ala K’in