This is why we are the way we are
This is why we believe what we believe
This is why we act the way we do

For the longest time we've been repressed
by all those who thought that they knew best
Little did they know that we will not lose faith
Now we have returned to claim our place

You can beat us, but you can't beat us down
You can ignore us, but we won't go away
You can mock us, and we might merely frown
at such a sad, sad display

Most of us believe there's more to life
Most of us hold education and tradition dear
Most of us place ethics and family above all

You can beat us, but you can't beat us down
You can ignore us, but we won't go away
You can mock us, and we might merely frown
at such a sad, sad display

So when you ask why we act like we do
Know that we deem true what we believe
We claim the right to freedom just like you

2008-11-07

Over on Mystic Wicks plenty of the people posting seem to sport a poor understanding of the board language, English. Here is a list of APTs (TM) (Awkard Post Titles), with an explanation.

Whats in your Soul?

Oh my gods, can you see all these whats in my soul? Here's a what, there's a what, everywhere a what, what... what to do, what to do?!

Open Circles?

Without reading the post itself, this post title allows for a bunch of interpretations. How to open a circle? Have you seen an open circle? Do open circles exist? Do you sell circle openers? Need an open circle? Buy here! Open circles, closed squares? How to draw the Olympics Logo: use open circles.

Home recipie mask?

How to mask an ugly home recipy, and make it look like ordered out?

Cool Specimens For Sale

The discussion concerns crystal and stone samples. However, it's too easy to imagine a garage sale by the local museum of Natural History, putting its ancient flora and fauna specimens up for grabs...

babysitting

If dwarf tossing is a sport involving big guys hurl little guys along a padded track, imagine the kind of action a sport like baby sitting would involve...

The Hanged Man

Those knowledgable in Tarot recognise this title as one of the cards in the Tarot deck, but it does spark the question whether the current Victorian excuse for ethics in the USA would allow for the less archaic but still grammatically correct title of "The Hung Man"... Imagine a choir of school maidens singing, "How well was the Hanged Man hung?"

Burial Ideas?

Hire a shovel.

How long did you 'study' for before starting to practice?

Because we all know, and don't try and fool us, that you didn't really study at all...

Opposing card study - 2's

Another Tarot related discussion, that immediately raises the question: why would anyone wish to oppose card study 2's? How does one oppose card study 2's, anyway? What's a card study 2 to begin with?

The MALE pin-up thread

Because discussion threads have genders too.

CAT Scan

Poor, poor, cat. (No offense meant to the person posting that thread: I consider her a friend of mine, and wish her all the best in the world.)

Can the King Arthur levitate Heelstone?

If so, I'd like to see it. Because if King Arthur did exist, he's dead now. Sorry to break the news to you this harshly.

How to make oils for dummies

For all those moments when dummies want to procure some oils from you...

subject matter

Does it really?

Cleansing rain

Because uncleansed rain is too dirty...

The Endless Fight

Dragon Ball Z?

Re: Book search, anyone know of it???

Yes, someone probably does know how to search books...

What do you drive?

People. Insane.

What if you woke up beside the user above you game?

Yes, it is.

Growing clover?

Unless it died...

Anyone here do chainmail?

If one responds positively, does one have to expect a visit by the FBI on suspicion of spam distribution? (No... the thread discusses full body harnasses.)

More?

Maybe... later!

For those of you who noticed I currently don't spend my time administrating Mystic Wicks, and want to know why, here it is:

http://www.pantheonline.com/

It's a games site in the making, comparable to Gaia Online and Black & White. The focus will be on education: teach people around the world about all kinds of religions from all over the world, while they're having fun. The game-play will vary from platform games to strategy games, through trivia and dexterity to deep logic.

The site will have chatrooms and forums, and most importantly: it will learn from its participants. You can teach the site a new activity, beit a game or something else, which will be presented to the community for inspection, and implemented upon acception. Think Habbo Hotel, Second Life, and the likes... only less complex and more agile.

We're still in the planning phase, thinking up what we want it to do and what we want it to look like. We, in this case, is my wife Kaylara and myself. She does the creative bit, I do the technical bit.

We'll be needing lots of people: art directors, graphic artists, game developers, modellers, database developers, front-end developers, testers, and lots and lots of players.

It's going to keep us busy for a while. :)

Halstrom, 2008: "The earliest variations of the n word can be traced back to the Spanish/Portuguese word negro meaning black."

It can be traced back further: there is a Latin form that is older. "Nigrum", of which the nom. reads "Niger". Unfortunately, the origin of that word is said to be unknown. Source: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=negro

I see a connection between that Latin word "Niger" and the countries of Niger and Nigeria (that happen to be neighbours), and the river "Niger" after which both countries are named. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Niger_sm03.png

I also see a connection with black slave trade:

http://www.brycchancarey.com/slavery/chrono2.htm:
1441: Start of European slave trading in Africa. The Portuguese captains Antão Gonçalves and Nuno Tristão capture 12 Africans in Cabo Branco (modern Mauritania) and take them to Portugal as slaves.

1444: Lançarote de Freitas, a tax-collector from the Portuguese town of Lagos, forms a company to trade with Africa.
8 August 1444: de Freitas lands 235 kidnapped and enslaved Africans in Lagos, the first large group of African slaves brought to Europe.

Cabo Branco in Mauretania is the west coast... but Lagos is in Nigeria. This connection leads me to posit the hypothesis that the Latin word "Niger" stems from an African language, specifically spoken in or describing the people in the area of the Niger river, introduced into European language in the 15th century by Portugese and Spanish slave trade, from then on slowly taking on the meaning attributed to the slur in use today.

Once upon a time a body existed, containing knowledge, experience, and emotion. Its chaotic contents gradually accumulated, until it encompassed all of time and all of space, and reached a mass so vast, that it collapsed unto itself, forming a single entity. Existing by itself for ages, this single entity studied its inheritence. It studied its knowledge, its experience, and its emotion, and felt increasingly burdened by it all, a burden which sparked an essential, unstoppable urge to create. So it did, and thereby became God.

Why do you live?
Why do you eat what you eat?
Why do you vote?
Why do you care?
Why don't you vote?
Why don't you care?
Why do you breathe?
Why do you wish to stay alive?
Why do you read this?
Why are you trying to answer my questions?
Why are you getting pissed off?
Why are you ignoring me?

No. Not questions.

Though they certainly have the question format, those utterings can not be considered questions unless asked by a 7 year-old. Any adult with a sound mind uses these utterings to manipulate.

Recognise.

Listen up, those of you who haven't visited MW lately, but do store your pictures in the MW Photo Album:

it's going to be replaced.

Yup.

That means your photos and pictures will be lost.



Unless...

unless you move them to somewhere else first. Like the new personal photo album in the MW User CP. And while you're at it: go check out the other new options in the new MW User CP.

It's a surprise, customer!



Oh yeah... we'll inform the community when the photo album will be taken down entirely.

Magiquity - the talent of practical magic deludedly attributed to others, preferably nondescript ancient humans and alsorts of mythical creatures, seen as a desirable talent unfortunately lost in time, usually due to the onslaught of civilisation.

April 20, 2008.

In het Nederlands

Thank you, mr. Geert Wilders, for publishing the movie Fitna, which incites hate and advocates violence against your fellow countrymen.

Thank you, mr. Geert Wilders, for endangering the country you say you want to protect.

Thank you, mr. Geert Wilders, for depicting all Dutch people as short-sighted muslim haters.

Thank you, mr. Geert Wilders, for taking on the role of martyr, for inciting violence against yourself, so you can turn around and say, "I told you so!"

Thank you, mr. Geert Wilders, for inciting hatred between the ethnic and religious groups within the Netherlands.

Thank you, mr. Geert Wilders, for reenacting a certain German politician, who also worked his way up in a union of European nations, with the only purpose of taking it down. I hope you will be stopped in time.

Thank you, mr. Geert Wilders, for inciting the boycot of Dutch export products in some Islamic countries.

Thank you, mr. Geert Wilders, for pretending to want the best for the Netherlands and its inhabitants. Thank you too, for deluding your voters, who thought that the political views of your "Party for Freedom" actually had anything to do with freedom.

Thank you, mr. Geert Wilders, for showing that the Dutch laws on freedom of speech and democratic political representation can be used to hurt the Netherlands as well.

Thank you, mr. Geert Wilders, for destroying the reputation of the Netherlands in the world view and in international politics. Did you know that China recently told us not to chastise them about the problems in Tibet, because they think we wish to prohibit the Islam? That, too, is caused by you.

Thank you, mr. Geert Wilders. Not.

Asked the student: "Wise man, please explain why we say Grace before eating?"

Said the teacher: "To express our appreciation for nature and all the people involved in making that meal."

Claimed the student: "But don't we have to kill in order to eat? We aren't thankful for the ability to kill, are we? Doesn't that contradict an appreciation for nature?"

Asked the teacher: "How is it you think we aren't thankful for the ability to kill?"

Incredulously the student asked: "Yet you taught us to respect nature... to respect life before anything else. How is it that you can sit here and say you are thankful for killing?"

Explained the teacher: "Aren't our bodies fuelled by organic matter? Doesn't that organic matter come from animals and plants? Do they not need to die in order to serve as food?"

Answered the student: "Of course. That's caused by our place in the food chain. How can that be something to be thankful for?"

Said the teacher: "In your next incarnation, you might be that plant. You might be living your life, experiencing what it means to be a plant, and at some point you are sacrificed for some other being to live. Your life cut short, you won't achieve your goal, and you'll have to incarnate yet again to achieve it. I think you'd like it when the person ending your existence would show a bit of appreciation."

Confirmed the student: "That makes sense."

Continued the teacher: "However... having their life ended may be exactly the goal they seek. And because that in turn keeps us alive, we are thankful."

With that, they said Grace, and started their meal.

Asked the student: "Wise man, why do we pray?"

Said the teacher: "We pray for two reasons primarily: to remember those who preceded us, and to raise energy for the needy. Apart from that we observe the beauty and intricacy of Creation, of the natural environment that sustains us."

Asked the student: "But we don't worship our ancestors, do we?"

Answered the teacher: "No, we don't. It is important to remember their names and what they meant to us, to us personally, to those we love, and to our society. But worship would not do these people justice... they won't benefit from such action."

Pondered the student: "Yet some other religions makes their important people into saints, some pray for their good karma, some pray for their rise to heaven, and some consider their ancestors spirits that can be contacted by those in the know. Why wouldn't our ancestors benefit from such worship?"

Said the teacher: "We believe our ancestors have either moved on to their next life, or are still alive. Consider we pray for a reincarnated person's well-being, while they're busy living their new life... our combined energy would affect them and since we don't know what kind of life they're living, that effect could prove disastrous. The intent of cleaning someone's karma may seem to sound altruistic, but imagine wishing longevity to a one-day fly..."

The student thought about this for a moment and then continued: "Then what methods do we employ, wise man? And who is it that I should observe?"

Explained the teacher: "Every person has their own important people to remember. In my own education, my teacher was of great influence, so I will name him once a week. My parents and my spouse also shape my life: I am grateful for their influence and will name them too, once a week. And once a year, we will tell and listen to stories about important people in our history. I'm sure you too know such people."

Said the student: "Yes, I do know such people. Is there anything else I can do?"

Answered the teacher: "Yes there is. Apart from remembering, we also pray for the needy. We direct our thoughts at those who need a boost: a bit of health, prosperity, good fortune, calmth, strength, etcetera."

Asked the student: "Can you teach me how to do that?"

Explained the teacher: "One way is to create a list of people with their need. In a group, we assemble those lists and announce each person with their need. We then concentrate and direct our will, occasionally asking the universe for help, and wish for those needs to be alleviated. We do this once a week. As a matter of fact, today is a good day. Arise and join us in the temple."

Asked the student: "Wise man, why don't we worship our Creator the same way Christians, Jews and Muslims do?"

Retorted the teacher: "Why should we worship our Creator?"

Said the student: "For the same reason the Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship theirs?"

Asked the teacher: "Wouldn't you think our belief about our Creator differs greatly from that of other religions?"

Sumarized the student: "We all believe in a Creator, we all believe them to be present in our current universe."

Pointed out the teacher: "Don't they also believe their Creator is a living being, separate from the universe but a part of it at times, able to react to it, to influence it? And since they believe their Creator created the universe for their benefit, don't they also believe their Creator listens to them and answers their prayer? Apart from that, don't they believe worship will get them a better place in the hereafter?"

Said the student: "Possibly..."

Continued the teacher: "And we don't. To us, the Creator sacrificed their singularity, their own life so to speak, to spawn life in our universe. Divine energy became a part of everything. The universe already knows what we think, because we are part of it and it is part of us. That however doesn't mean we frown upon worship. It can be quite useful."

Asked the student: "How so, wise man? If our Creator doesn't pay attention, who is there to worship?"

Explained the teacher: "The local deities. Those who yield a larger influence than other beings."

Asked the student: "They do pay attention, and can be persuaded to be kind given the right worship?"

Said the teacher: "Personally I like to perform my own duties instead of asking a deity for help. Practice has shown however, that not all in our path feel the same, and some deities do offer a helping hand when asked nicely."

Pursued the student: "Then why is it that you don't like to ask a deity for help?"

Retorted the teacher: "If you were a deity, asked to help someone, wouldn't you want something in return?"

Asked the student: "Wise man, I hear other people talk about seeing ghosts and elves, and about objects and animals being taken over by demons, and I read about angels and dragons. I haven't seen any working in our path directing its energy towards any of them, nor using any of them as an aid. Does our path acknowledge those beings?"

Answered the teacher: "We call them 'ethereal': having energy for substance, necessarily emanating primarily in the mind's eye. We do have some workings pertaining to deflecting demons and other evil influences, but generally see no cause for worship."

Continued the student: "Energy for substance? Then how can we see them? Our senses aren't equipped to detecting energy. What do you mean by 'emanating in the mind's eye'?"

Asked the teacher: "How is it you think we cannot detect energy? Though some animals are better at it, for instance sharks find us in the water by detecting our energy emissions, don't we too sense basic shapes of energy, like electricity, light, sound, and matter?"

Said the student: "Still you made an exception for ethereal beings."

Explained the teacher: "Yes I did. We believe their substance so fleeting, that we have a hard time detecting them with any other sense than our mind. The physical senses will help minutiously, though none of them by themselves will paint the full picture. For that, we need our mind. It's a skill for which most of us will also need training and practice, though some do it naturally."

Asked the student: "So where do those beings come from? Do they procreate like animals and people?"

Answered the teacher: "We don't know. Some might, some might not procreate. We believe that all beings follow a pattern of reincarnation, alternating between soul and bodily existence, and these ethereal beings are merely another form of incarnation."

Continued the student: "And as such they are no more and no less then us, meaning worship isn't necessary. Still we believe they can hurt us and help us, if they choose so or are persuaded."

Said the teacher: "That is correct. Unlike animals and humans, which can be deflected by physical means, if ethereal beings have to be deflected the best means will probably prove non-physical."

Pursued the student: "And by non-physical means, you indicate energy shields and spells and such?"

Retorted the teacher: "You could try ignoring them...", and left the student to ponder.

Asked the student: "Wise man, do ethereal beings really exist? Or are they merely a function of our higher self?"

Retorted the teacher: "What beings do you mean?"

Answered the student: "Angels, fairies, the little people, demons, pixies, dragons and all that. When people see them, what do they see? A real emanation or a figment of imagination?"

Wondered the teacher: "Does it matter? Aren't both equally practical for spiritual workings?"

Continued the student: "I guess so... but I'd like to be certain that when someone claims to have seen an angel, the angel really was there, instead of them imagining it. Is there a way to be certain?"

Said the teacher: "Normally we'd study people's statements. If their descriptions match, we assume their experience matched as well."

Pursued the student: "But descriptions don't sound objective enough. Anectdotal evidence doesn't seem to have a predictive, scientific quality.'

Said the teacher: "Well, we currently know of the magnetic resonance of the brain. An MRI scanner can pick this up. Thus we can see a person's brain pattern. This way, we can study the brain's reaction to certain experiences. We could scan a person while they're sensing an ethereal being, and compare their brain pattern with that of other people sensing the same. If the patterns look alike, the experiences themselves should look alike as well."

Asked the student: "And that means the ethereal being really exists?"

Answered the teacher: "No... but it does mean we can identify the experience objectively, and get an insight into the immediate effects of experience. We may even find that the same brain pattern indicates the same ethereal being. That would add the predictive quality you asked for, which the study needs to count as scientific."

Continued the student: "And could the same indicate whether the experience's cause lies inside or outside ourselves?"

Said the teacher: "Can we ever really tell? After all, our senses are a function of bodies. Everything we perceive, we perceive through those same senses."

Retorted the student: "However, if we were to find similar brain patterns amongst different people when they claim sensing an ethereal being, that would increase the chances of the experience's cause lying outside ourselves."

Sighed the teacher: "Unfortunately, exposure to the strong magnetism employed by the MRI scanner itself might decrease that same chance, because it might obstruct any influence an outside ethereal being supposedly has on us."

Pondered the student: "So we couldn't tell either way... But since we believe those beings exist out of energy just like every other real thing, a scanner sensitive enough should pick them up."

Answered the teacher: "Correct. However I don't know of any scanners sensitive enough. I can imagine it difficult to build, too, since we don't really know what to look for."

Continued the student: "Then do tell, wise man, if we cannot tell whether ethereal beings really exist, then why do we continue to believe they do?"

Retorted the teacher: "Why throw out an explanation that works?"

Exclaimed the student: "But there is no proof they exist!"

Answered the teacher: "Neither did we prove yet, that they don't," and left the student to ponder.

Zoey the Chihuahua
wasn't very bright.
She didn't know up from down,
nor could she tell left from right.

Today right after practice.
my dear wife let her run out,
and while I cleaned the floor inside
I could hear her shout!

Zoey the Chihuahua
was resting, I could see,
in her arms against her chest
with a broken knee!

The poor dog had run up the hill
where's cars and buses, bikes.
One of them had hit her;
she toppled down the dike.

The vet had her sedated:
the dog was doing fine.
The knee just dislocated,
there would be no dying.

Cruel about the whole shabang:
the stitches of her stomach surgery
which kept her from running galore
were just removed the day before...

The computer played the signal. The monk recognised it as a speaking voice; as a distress signal even, for the words sounded rather alarming: according to the speaker, their home was going to blow up in a couple of months and they needed to get out of there, fast. One glance at the navigation monitor taught the monk that the signal was coming from quite nearby.

Now the company didn't like crews deviating from their course. Shipments were to arrive on schedule, especially with the longer travels, otherwise they would risk technology catching up and having faster ships reach their destinations and even making a full round-trip, outdating the cargo of the older ships before they had had a chance to deliver. The monk was chosen for his job because of his proven ability to keep a level head in stress situations. Today, he chose to calculate the delay for the delivery, and ordered the computer to change course.

Straying off course meant risking less wind in the sails, more dust particles poking holes through the flimsy sail material, and getting trapped in uncharted gravity wells. Not something an one-man crew should be doing in the middle of uninhabited space. Had their been any known settlement nearby, the risk would have been much smaller. But then those living in the settlement would have received the distress signal and helped out. Since the signal was still going strong, the monk assumed no-one came to help yet... and his ship was the only moving small object around.

Not knowing what to expect, the monk requested a full view of the area on the main monitor, which covered pretty much the entire front wall inside the ship's helm. Used to the smaller navigation monitors, he took a few moments to adjust to the big picture, greatly helped by the navigation trails the computer offered. Thus he saw the giant black void of space, littered with multi-coloured speckles he knew to be stars, and a couple bigger specks providing much-needed warmth and light to non-existent planets. A series of green and orange trails with solid and traced triangles on quasi regular intervals crossed through a couple of rings, the innermost of which indicated where the ship was headed. The trails widened towards the low sides of the screen, arching up and to the right, growing closer until they met in the center of the smallest circle. Traditional latitude and longitude marks were of little use out here.

Does anyone learn spelling in high school anymore?

Recently someone wrote this in a profile box:

basketball,saxaphone,games,and sprinting,working out, writing storys, and drawing anything I can think of

They're a high-school student, age 17. Now they could be dyslexic; I didn't ask. But if they aren't, and this is how high-school taught them to spell, I fear the worst for the future of their country.

Hmm... maybe they did it on purpose?

The company had chosen him for this job, because he was a monk. The job required patience, lots of it, and solitude. The monk wanted patience, lots of it, and solitude. He wanted to rid himself of temptation, so he could improve on his spirituality. Perfect match.

The job: to travel. The ship's cargo, a library full of books, was due to arrive in Kairo in just under 10 years. Ample time to improve one's spirituality and practice patience.

The monk was the only person in the ship's crew. A crew of one. One who had to keep the ship on course, watch the cargo, repair avery on hull and sails, and take care of any eventualities. Though reading the library books helped prevent him from getting bored, the chores were slightly more cumbersome than might seem.

( Read on... )

Today my dad got hospitalised. He's undergoing surgery as we speak.

Some faint abdomen pain complaints. Very painful. Source unknown. Doctors have no clue, so they decided to go in.

They don't know what to expect, but going in and looking improves his chances.

I don't feel like working anymore.

Someone across the street,
walking towards the busstop,
noticing the shattered glass.

She reached for the back wall,
the shards still hanging on,

and bent down to the floor,
the sharp bits touched and cut...

Fingers in pockets tucked.
Walking along the busstop,
undeciding, stay or leave?

2006-11-27

( See the material omitted )