"the creative common denominator"

the unreligious, non-family-oriented literary and art magazine

editor: janet kuypers

september 1998

volume 103

assorted nonsense... What's the difference between a boyfriend and a husband? 45 minutes Life sucks, I lent a guy ten grand to get plastic surgery, and now I don't know what he looks like. A truck carrying copies of Roget's Thesaurus over-turned on the highway. The local newspaper reported that the onlookers were "stunned, overwhelmed, astonished, bewildered, and dumfounded." A midget sidles up to a tall blonde and says, "Hey, what do you say to a little fuck?" She says, "Hello, you little fuck." Did you hear about the new blonde paint? It's not real bright, but it's cheap, and spreads easy. How can you tell if your wife is dead? The sex is the same but the dishes pile up. How can you tell if your husband is dead? The sex is the same but you get the remote. What's the difference between Pee-wee Herman and O.J.? It only took 12 jerks to get O.J. off. I saw a bumper sticker on a pickup truck the other day that read, "Jesus is my best friend." Boy, the guy's dog must be pissed. What happened to the Polish rocket ship? At 500 feet it ran out of coal. What does a Polish woman do after she sucks a cock? Spits out the feathers. THINGS WE CAN LEARN FROM A DOG... Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy. When loved ones come home, always run to greet them. When it's in your best interest, practice obedience. Let others know when they've invaded your territory. Take naps and stretch before rising. Run, romp and play daily. Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Be loyal. Never pretend to be something you're not. If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it. When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently. Thrive on attention and let people touch you. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do. On hot days, drink lots of water and lay under a shady tree. When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body. No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout...run right back and make friends. Bond with your pack. Delight in the simple joy of a long walk. info you can use THE BARNARD/COLUMBIA WOMEN'S HANDBOOK 1992 RAPE * A man and a women go on a date. He pays for everything. They go to his apartment or dorm room afterwards. He keeps pressuring her to have sex. She says no but doesn't stop him; she feels like "she owes him." They have sexual intercourse. She has been raped. * A man and a woman meet up at a bar. They end up fooling around at her place. She doesn't feel ready to have sex with him, but she doesn't want to make a scene or accuse him of trying to force her. Besides, she thinks she might want to see him again. She tries to voice her concerns, but he ignores her and proceeds to penetrate her. She has been raped. * A man and a woman have been drinking at a party. He approaches her, knowing that she is drunk. He brings her back to his place. They have sexual intercourse. She has been raped. * A couple has been sleeping together for a year. She doesn't feel like having sex one night. Her partner says, "Come on, I really want to make love to you." She protests. Her partner doesn't listen. They have sexual intercourse. She has been raped. Rape is non-consentual forced penile penetration of the vagina, anus or mouth. Rape is the act of sexual intercourse without consent which occurs (a) by force and/or (b) by incapability to consent. Force may consist of any one or more of the following: the use of verbal coercion, physical restraint, physical violence, and/or intimidation and threats (verbal and/or physical). The issue of consent is central to the definition and understanding of rape and sexual assault. According to New York State law "if a woman is incapable of consent, any sexual activity with her is legally classified as rape." [Sanday, "Fraternity Gang Rape"] Lack of consent can be due to: the victim being unconscious or asleep, unable to communicate, the victim saying nothing, temporarily incapable of giving consent owing to the influence of alcohol or other drugs, and/or where the victim is physically helpless. [For more information about the law, call the Campus Rape Crisis Center.] MYTHS ABOUT RAPE Myth: Rape is sex. Fact: Rape is a life threatening act of violence. The rapist is not expressing a sexual desire, but rather a need to feel powerful, to dominate and control in a sexual context. Myth: Most rapes occur on the street, by strangers, or by a few crazy men. Fact: Over 50% of reported rapes occur in the home. 80% of sexual assaults reported by college age women and adult women were perpetrated by close friends or family members. There is no common profile of a rapist. Rapes are committed by people from all economic levels, all races, all occupations. A rapist can be your doctor, your boss, your clergyman, your superintendent, your partner, your lover, your friend or your date. Myth: Women secretly enjoy being raped. Fact: No woman/ man/ child enjoys being raped. It is a brutal intrusion on the mind, body and spirit that can have lasting trauma. Myth: If a survivor doesn't "fight back" she/he wasn't really raped. Fact: Rape is potentially life-threatening. Whatever a person does to survive the assault is the appropriate action. Myth: Women "ask for it" by their dress or actions. Fact: Rapists look for victims they perceive as vulnerable, not women who dress in a particular way. Assuming that women provoke attacks by where they are or the way they dress is victim- blaming. No person, whatever their behavior, "deserves" to be raped. Myth: Women "cry" rape. Fact: Only two percent of reported rape and related sex offenses are false (which is approximately the same rate of false reports for other crimes). Although many cases are dropped because of insufficient evidence for conviction, this should not be confused with false reporting. Myth: Women who are drunk are willing to engage in any kind of sexual activity. Fact: The fact that a woman has been drinking does not imply consent. Alcohol and drugs can render a woman incapable of consent. One of the most difficult parts of understanding the nature of sexual violence is understanding how the same acts (intercourse, oral sex, anal sex) which we may consent to and enjoy in one context become violating and offensive in a non-consentual context. An element which runs through acts of sexual violence-whether or not there is non- sexual physical violence involved-is loss of control. This loss of control can manifest itself in feelings of powerlessness, entrapment, and betrayal. One may feel powerless to say "no," trapped into appearing to participate, and betrayed by the disregard for one's needs. These are the aspects of sexual assault which do not appear in New York State law or in text books. Defining sexual violence by how it makes us feel is more useful, especially for the healing process. WHAT ARE ACQUAINTANCE RAPE AND STRANGER RAPE? Stranger rape is forced oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse perpetrated by someone unknown to the victim. Stranger rape constitutes 15% of reported rape. Acquaintance rape is the act of forced oral, anal or vaginal intercourse perpetrated by someone known to the victim. Acquaintance rape constitutes 85% of reported rape. 50% of acquaintance rapes occur on dates or between individuals in a relationship. Acquaintance and stranger rape are both violent crimes. Due to the fact that acquaintance rape occurs between people who know one another, the perspective of the survivor may become obscured. She may no longer trust her own judgement because she feels that she chose to be with this person who subsequently violated her, and/or because she had sexual relations with this person previously that were consentual. She may have been a willing participant up to a point and thinks that precluded her from saying "no" to further sexual acts. She may still care for the person and cannot equate the criminal act which was done with the person who did it, and have difficulty with the conflicting emotions. Her friends may think well of the perpetrator, making it that much more difficult for the survivor to disclose and get their support. "I never wanted to call it rape. Yes, I was scared of the meaning of the word and the act of using it. But for me, there was something else, too. I was old enough to have many friends who had survived sexual assault. Some of them were brutally and viciously attacked. They would never forget what happened to them. They were raped. But I thought my experience was different. I didn't break out in a cold sweat like my friend A. did whenever she heard the word. I didn't wake up screaming from vivid nightmares about being attacked like S. did...l was different. My fear was that somehow I would deny the severity of what they had been through if I said, "I was raped, too." I didn't want to claim that I had experienced what they had. But a point came when I knew that this was a lie. I had been through my own experience, one which involved violence, force, and fear. One which made me feel out of control and used. I had seen the look in a man's eyes change to an unfamiliar determination which I could not escape. I felt like nothing and I felt like it was my fault. No, I haven't been through what some of my friends have been through. Each woman's experience with vio- lence is different. I will never know what happened to them. But on some level, I know how they felt because I was raped." IF I'VE NEVER BEEN ASSAULTED, WHAT DOES SEXUAL VIOLENCE MEAN TO ME? When discussing their experiences of being sexually harassed, many women recall feelings of powerlessness, anger, guilt, loss of control, shame, and self-blame. These feelings are similarly expressed by women who have been sexually assaulted, raped and incested. Once we begin to examine the pervasiveness of sexual violence, (recognizing that one in three women will be raped) it becomes clear that sexual violence is not only about individual experiences of sexual harassment, assault, or rape, but also about the fear of being raped all women experience throughout their lifetimes. WHY DO PEOPLE SOMETIMES SAY RAPE VICTIM AND SOMETIMES SAY RAPE SURVIVOR? Survival is about a process; victimization, or re-victimization, is about event(s) that are imposed on one. Yet they are not mutually exclusive terms; women may call themselves one or the other depending on their feelings. People may refer to others as survivors to acknowledge their process of healing, to acknowledge their strength and their pain. peta news Eye Irritancy Tests: Blinding for Beauty The Draize eye irritancy test has been used since 1944. Liquid, flake, granule, and powdered substances are placed into the eyes of rabbits, and then the eyes' progressive deterioration is recorded. The Draize test is responsible for the suffering and death of thousands of rabbits each year in the United States but does not prevent or help cure human injury. How it is Administered During the test, 100 milligrams of a concentrated solution are dripped into the eyes of six to nine conscious albino rabbits, who may be immobilized in stocks from which only their heads protrude. Their eyes often are held open with clips at the lid, and rabbits can break their necks or backs struggling to escape. The damage to the rabbits' eyes is recorded at specific intervals over an average period of 72 hours, with the test sometimes lasting 7-18 days. Reactions to the irritants can include swelling of the eyelid, inflammation of the iris, ulceration, hemorrhaging (bleeding), and blindness. Pain-relieving drugs usually are not administered because experimenters claim their use would interfere with test results. If anesthesia is given, the relief is only temporary. Not Required by Law The federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act does not require cosmetics manufacturers to test their products for safety, and does not require animal tests. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends, however, that companies substantiate the safety of their products, or else attach a warning label to potentially hazardous products. Many companies therefore continue to perform the Draize test mainly because they are in the habit of using the test, and because their legal departments and insurance companies suggest they do the tests to cover themselves when they are sued. The fact that animal tests have been conducted does not mean the product has then been altered to make it less harmful if misused, so the term "safety testing" is a misnomer. What Professionals Say Noted toxicologists and health professionals agree that the Draize test is crude and imprecise because it is strictly observational. No treatment is ever administered nor are any antidotes ever sought.The opinion of most health professionals is reflected by ophthalmologist Stephen Kaufman, M.D., of New York University Medical Center: "I have no use for Draize test data because the rabbit eye differs from the human eye ... I know of no case in which an ophthalmologist used Draize data to assist in the care of a patient."(1) Much criticism of the test comes from within the product industry itself. An industry-funded study conducted in 1971 by Weil and Scala of the Mellon Institute of Pittsburgh and the Medical Research Division of Esso showed that the Draize test is not reliable. Conducted in 25 laboratories, the study revealed extreme variations in the way the laboratories evaluated the rabbits' reactions, and concluded, "the procedure should not be recommended as the standard for any new regulations." In February 1986, the industry-funded Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing stated, "The Draize test does not adequately reflect the degree of irritancy in humans." There Are Alternatives Animal tests protect companies, not consumers. Knowing that a rabbit goes blind 72 hours after being dosed with dandruff shampoo doesn't help us. We already know not to pour caustic substances into our eyes and leave them there; the pain tells us that. We also already know how dangerous various ingredients are, and we can run computer assays of mixtures of these ingredients to predict irritation levels. Human volunteers are already used by some companies to test for skin irritation; these tests provide much more accurate information than animal-based tests. To treat accidental poisoning victims, physicians can use data collected by hospitals from previous poisoning cases-data that are readily applicable to treating human injury. In response to pressure from many animal protection groups, the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association (CTFA) has contributed $5 million since 1981 toward research into alternatives to Draize testing-a figure that pales in comparison to the annual advertising budget of even one of CTFA's member companies. There is no reason to wait for their research results-many alternative techniques already are available to reduce and replace animal testing. They include the use of cell cultures, human and animal corneas from eye banks, corneal tissue cultures, frozen corneas supplied by hospitals, and the Eytex test. What You Can Do Consumers can help prevent the suffering of millions of animals by purchasing "cruelty-free" products that are not tested on animals. Many of these products also do not contain animal ingredients. Cruelty-free products can be made entirely from plant extracts, herbs, flowers, and the many other ingredients proven to be safe.To become a compassionate consumer, please ask for our free list of companies that test on animals. It will take active and prolonged pressure from consumers to bring about changes in companies' testing practices. Write and tell companies why you no longer purchase their products. Get our list of cruelty-free companies and use it as your shopping guide. But most of all, share what you know with your family, friends, and neighbors and encourage them to "go cruelty-free," too. References 1.Boston Globe, June 13, 1987. From People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Testing Without Torture Before the end of this century, cosmetics testing laboratories might be hanging signs outside their doors saying, "No admittance to rats and rabbits." Alternatives to animal tests are efficient and reliable, both for cosmetics and household product tests and for "medical research." In most cases, non-animal methods take less time to complete, cost only a fraction of what the animal experiments they replace costs, and are not plagued with species differences that make extrapolation difficult or impossible. Products Without Pain Avon Products, Inc., which until June of 1989 killed about 24,000 animals a year to test its products, now uses many non-animal tests, including the Eytex method. Eytex, developed by InVitro International in Irvine, Calif., assesses irritancy with a protein alteration system. A vegetable protein from the jack bean mimics the cornea's reaction when exposed to foreign matter. The greater the irritation, the more opaque the solution becomes. The Skintex formula, also developed by InVitro International, is made from the yellowish meat of the pumpkin rind; it mimics the reaction of human skin to foreign substances. Both Eytex and Skintex can be used to determine the toxicity of more than 5,000 different materials. In the Neutral Red Bioassay, a product of Clonetics Corporation in San Diego, Calif., a water-soluble dye is added to normal human skin cells in a tissue culture plate with 96 "wells." A computer measures the degree to which the dye is absorbed by the cells, indicating relative toxicity and eliminating the observer bias, one of the factors that limits the effectiveness of tests on animals. EpiPack, also made by Clonetics, is the first commercial product to contain live, normal cloned human cells, which are exposed to test substances in various dilutions. Tissue and cell cultures can be grown in the laboratory from single cells from human or animal tissues. Three companies have developed artificial "human" skin which can be used in skin grafts for burn victims and other patients and can replace animals in product tests. (1) Marrow-Tech, headquartered in LaJolla, Calif., makes NeoDerm, which begins with the injection of skin cells into a sterile plastic bag containing a biodegradable mesh. The cells attach to the mesh and grow around it, like a vine on a garden lattice. After the segment of skin is sewn onto the patient, the mesh gradually dissolves. Biosurface Technology, of Cambridge, Mass., uses the patient's own cells to grow a skin to replace the epidermis (the top layer). Organogenesis Inc., also of Cambridge, has found customers for its Testskin in Avon, Amway, Estee Lauder, and other leading cosmetics companies. The CAM Test uses fertilized chicken eggs to assess eye irritancy by showing the reaction of the chorioallantoic membrane to test substances. Because this membrane has no nerve fibers, the test causes no discomfort or pain. This test is intended for use by cosmetics and household product manufacturers, but egg membranes have also been used to culture viruses and vaccines. (Although we should strive to use no animals or animal byproducts in experiments, egg membranes are preferable to sentient animals.) Medical Applications In medicine, perhaps the most informative research takes place not in test tubes, but in hospitals and clinics and the offices of statisticians and epidemiologists. Clinical surveys, using human volunteers, case studies, autopsy reports, and statistical analyses, permit far more accurate observation and use of actual environmental factors related to human disease than is possible with animals confined in laboratories, who contract diseases in conditions vastly different from the situations that confront humans. Long before the famous smoking beagle experiments began, statisticians and epidemiologists knew that cigarette smoking causes cancer in humans, yet programs to warn people about the hazards of smoking were delayed while more animal tests were carried out to the satisfaction of the tobacco industries, and proved "inconclusive." Mathematical and computer models, based on physical and chemical structures and properties of a substance, can be used to make predictions about the toxicity of a substance. TOPKAT, a software package distributed by Health Designs Inc., predicts oral toxicity and skin and eye irritation. It is "intended to be used as a personal tool by toxicologists, pharmacologists, synthetic and medicinal chemists, regulators, and industrial hygienists, among others," according to HDI. (2) It is used by the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Army. The Ames test involves mixing the test chemical with a bacterial culture of Salmonella typhimurium and adding activating enzymes to the mixture. It was able to detect 156 out of 174 (90 percent) animal carcinogens and 96 out of 108 (88 percent) non-carcinogens. (3) The Agarose Diffusion Method was designed in the early 1960s to determine the toxicity of plastics and other synthetic materials used in medical devices such as heart valves, intravenous lines, and artificial joints. In this test, human cells and a small amount of test material are placed in a flask, separated by a thin layer of agarose, a derivative of the seaweed agar. If the test material is an irritant, a zone of killed cells appears around the substance. Time and Money Non-animal tests are generally faster and less expensive than the animal tests they replace and improve upon. Eytex testing kits can test three concentrations of a chemical for $99.50; a Draize test of comparable range would cost more than $1,000. (4) In cancer studies, animal tests of a single substance may take four to eight years and cost $400,000 or more, whereas short-term non-animal studies like the Ames test cost only $200-4,000 and can be completed in one to four days. The dangers of waiting years for results of animal tests are apparent: in 1985, the Environmental Protection Agency determined that three animal tests had not shown a sufficient degree of danger in the pesticide Alar, and it called on the manufacturer to conduct still more cancer studies on animals. Now, years later, these studies are still incomplete. Although the EPA has pulled Alar from the market, non-animal tests would have taken a matter of days or months, not years, and could have meant that fewer consumers would have come into contact with Alar-treated products. For scientific, health, ethical, and economic reasons, researchers must switch their focus to non-animal tests, and the large number of animal experiments that are conducted more out of "curiosity" or habit, rather than out of a real need for information, should be eliminated at once. References 1.Fisher, Lawrence M., "3 Companies Speed Artificial Skin," The New York Times, Sept. 12, 1990. 2."Computer Model for Toxicity," PCRM Update, July-Aug. 1988, p. 2. 3."Animal Tests for Cancer-Causing Chemicals," PCRM Update, Nov.-Dec. 1988, p. 4. 4.Feder, Barnaby J., "Beyond White Rats and Rabbits," The New York Times, Feb. 28, 1988. From People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Military Testing: The Unseen War When news reports tally the casualties of war, or when monuments are erected to honor soldiers, the other-than-human victims of war-the animals whose bodies are shot, burned, poisoned, and otherwise tortured in tests to create even more ways to kill people-are never recognized, nor is their suffering well known. The 1987 movie "Project X" offered only a glimpse of the kind of experiments that go on far from public view but at taxpayer expense. Uncounted Casualties The U.S. military inflicts the pains of war on hundreds of thousands of animals each year in experiments. The Department of Defense (DOD) and the Veterans Administration (VA) together are the federal government's second largest user of animals (after the National Institutes of Health). They account for nearly half the estimated minimum of 1.6 million dogs, cats, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, primates, rats, mice, and "wild animals" used, as reported to Congress in 1983, the last year for which government figures are available.(1) Because these figures don't include experiments that were contracted out to non-governmental laboratories, or the many sheep, goats, and pigs often shot in wound experiments, the actual total of animal victims is probably much higher. The House Armed Services Committee voiced its concern "about the use of animals in medical and other defense-related research" in its report on the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1995.(2) At committee hearings, DOD revealed that its use of animals in experiments has increased 36% in the past decade, but that it spent $180 million on research using 553,000 animals in the last fiscal year.(3) Top Secret Military testing is classified "Top Secret," and it is very hard to get current information. From published research, we know that armed forces facilities all over the United States test all manner of weaponry on animals, from Soviet AK-47 rifles to biological and chemical warfare agents to nuclear blasts. Military experiments can be acutely painful, repetitive, costly, and unreliable, and they are particularly wasteful because most of the effects they study can be, or have already been, observed in humans, or the results cannot be extrapolated to human experience. Sample Experiments Burns and Blasts: In 1946, near the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific, 4,000 sheep, goats, and other animals loaded onto a boat and set adrift were killed or severely burned by an atomic blast detonated above them. The military nicknamed the experiment "The Atomic Ark."(4) At the Army's Fort Sam Houston, live rats were immersed in boiling water for 10 seconds, and a group of them were then infected on parts of their burned bodies.(5) In 1987, at the Naval Medical Institute in Maryland, rats' backs were shaved, covered with ethanol, and then "flamed" for 10 seconds.(6) In 1988, at Kirkland Air Force Base in New Mexico, sheep were placed in a loose net sling against a reflecting plate, and an explosive device was detonated 19 meters away. In two of the experiments, 48 sheep were blasted: the first group to test the value of a vest worn during the blast, and the second to see if chemical markers aided in the diagnosis of blast injury (they did not).(7) Radiation: At the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Maryland, nine rhesus monkeys were strapped in chairs and exposed to total-body irradiation. Within two hours, six of the nine were vomiting, hypersalivating, and chewing.(8) In another experiment, 17 beagles were exposed to total-body irradiation, studied for one to seven days, and then killed. The experimenter concluded that radiation affects the gallbladder.(9) At Brooks Air Force Base in Texas, rhesus monkeys were strapped to a B52 flight simulator (the "Primate Equilibrium Platform"). After being prodded with painful electric shocks to learn to "fly" the device, the monkeys were irradiated with gamma rays to see if they could hold out "for the 10 hours it would take to bomb an imaginary Moscow." Those hit with the heaviest doses vomited violently and became extremely lethargic before being killed.(10) Diseases: To evaluate the effect of temperature on the transmission of the Dengue 2 virus, a mosquito-transmitted disease that causes fever, muscle pain, and rash, experiments conducted by the U.S. Army at Fort Detrick, Md., involved shaving the stomachs of adult rhesus monkeys and then attaching cartons of mosquitoes to their bodies to allow the mosquitoes to feed.(11) Experimenters at Fort Detrick have also invented a rabbit restraining device that consists of a small cage that pins the rabbits down with steel rods while mosquitoes feast on their bodies.(12) Wound Labs: The Department of Defense has operated "wound labs" since 1957. At these sites, conscious or semiconscious animals are suspended from slings and shot with high-powered weapons to inflict battlelike injuries for military surgical practice. In 1983, in response to public pressure, Congress limited the use of dogs in these labs, but countless goats, pigs, and sheep are still being shot, and at least one laboratory continues to shoot cats. At the Army's Fort Sam Houston "Goat Lab," goats are hung upside down and shot in their hind legs. After physicians practice excising the wounds, any goat who survives is killed.(13) Other forms of military experiments include subjecting animals to decompression sickness, weightlessness, drugs and alcohol, smoke inhalation, and pure oxygen inhalation. Animal Intelligence The Armed Forces conscript various animals into intelligence and combat service, sending them on "missions" that endanger their lives and well-being. The Marine Corps teaches dogs "mauling, snarling, sniffing, and other suitable skills" needed to search for bombs and drugs.(14) Thousands of animals also fall victim to military operations and even military fashion. A series of Navy tests of underwater explosives in the Chesapeake Bay in 1987 killed more than 3,000 fish(15), and habitats for hundreds of species have been destroyed by nuclear tests in the South Pacific and the American Southwest. And as if weapons tests didn't kill enough animals, the Air Force recently awarded a New Jersey company $5.2 million to manufacture 53,000 leather flight jackets, in an effort to "enhance esprit" among its pilots. At 3-1/2 goat skins per jacket, the result will be that 185,500 African goats will lose their lives so that U.S. pilots can sport a World War II "look."(16) References 1."Alternatives to Animal Use in Research, Testing, and Education," U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1986, pp. 50-51. 2.Krizmanic, Judy, "Military Increases Animal Experiments," Vegetarian Times, August 1994. 3.Ibid. 4.Tom Regan, "We Are All Noah," 1985. 5.Burleson, "Flow Cytometric Measurement of Rat Lymphocite Subpopulations After Burn Injury and Injury With Infection," Archives of Surgery, 122:216. 6.Wretland, et al., "Role of Exotoxin A and Elastase in the Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Strain PAO Experimental Mouse Burn Infection," Microbial Pathogenesis, 2:397, 1987. 7.Phillips, et al., "Cloth Ballistic Vest Alters Response to Blast," Journal of Trauma, Jan. 28, 1988. 8.Dubas, et al., "Effect of Ionizing Radiation on Prostaglandins and Gastric Secretion in Rhesus Monkeys," Radiation Research, 110:289, 1987. 9.Durakovic, "Hepatobiliary Kinetics After Whole Body Irradiation," Military Medicine, 151(9):487. 10."Obscure Office Drafts World War III Script," Washington Post, May 27, 1984. 11.Watts, et al., "Effect of Temperature on the Vector Efficiency of Aedes Aegypti for Dengue 2 Virus," American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 36(1):143, 1987. 12.Dobson, et al., "A Device for Restraining Rabbits While Bloodfeeding Mosquitoes," Laboratory Animal Science, 37(3):364, 1987. 13."Goats Shot to Teach Army Doctors Skills," Williamsport Sun-Gazette, March 5, 1986. 14."Uncle Sam Wants You, Too, Fido," Time, June 18, 1984, p. 33. 15."Fish Deaths Cancel Navy Blast Tests," Washington Post, October 1, 1987. 16."Air Force Needs a Few Goat Jackets," San Francisco Chronicle, April 8, 1988. From People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Veganism and the Issue of Protein Can the vegan (strict vegetarian) diet provide protein adequate for sound human health? This question continues to be asked despite the fact that a "yes" answer was given some three decades ago in a study reported by Hardinge and Stare.(1) The question stays with us largely because animal products (meat, milk, cheese, and eggs) have been promoted (usually by the industries that produce and sell them) as the best source of protein. This dietary assumption is wrong and can even be harmful, as a quick study of the facts about vegetable protein and nutrition shows. The Importance of Protein Protein is essential to human health. In fact, our bodies-hair, muscles, fingernails, and so on-are made up mostly of protein. As suggested by the differences between our muscles and our fingernails, not all proteins are alike. This is because differing combinations of any number of 22 known amino acids may constitute a protein. (In much the same way that the 26 letters of our alphabet serve to form different words, the 22 amino acids serve to form different proteins.)(2) Amino acids are a fundamental part of our diet. While most of the 22 can be manufactured in one way or another by the human body, eight (or, for some people, 10) cannot. These "essential amino acids" can easily be provided by a balanced vegan diet. How Much Protein? Non-animal foods can easily provide us with the necessary protein. Despite the claims of the meat and dairy industries, only 2.5-10 percent of the total calories consumed by the average human being needs to be in the form of protein. The rule of thumb used by the National Academy of Sciences Food and Nutrition Board is .57 grams of protein for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of body weight. People under special circumstances (such as pregnant women) are advised to get a little more. Vegans should not worry about getting enough protein; if you eat a reasonably varied diet and ingest sufficient calories, you will undoubtedly get enough protein.(3) Eating too much protein can result in osteoporosis and kidney stones. Meat and dairy products raise the acid level in human blood, causing calcium to be excreted from the bones to restore the body's natural pH balance. This calcium depletion results in osteoporosis, or weakening of the bones. The excreted calcium ends up in the kidneys, where it often forms painful stones. Kidney disease is far more common in meat-eaters than in vegans, and excessive protein consumption has also been linked to cancer of the colon, breast, prostate, and pancreas.(4) By replacing animal protein with vegetable protein, you can improve your health while enjoying a wide variety of delicious foods. Protein Sources While just about every vegetarian food contains some protein, the soybean deserves special mention, for it contains all eight essential amino acids and surpasses all other food plants in the amount of protein it can deliver to the human system. In this regard it is nearly equal to meat. The human body uses about 70 percent of the protein found in meat and 60 to 65 percent of that found in soybeans. The many different and delicious soy products (tempeh, soy "hot dogs," "burgers," Tofutti brand "ice cream," and tofu) available in health and grocery stores suggest that the soybean, in its many forms, can accommodate a wide range of tastes. Other rich sources of non-animal protein include legumes, nuts, seeds, food yeasts and freshwater algae. Although food yeasts ("nutritional yeast" and "brewer's yeast") do not lend themselves to forming the center of one's diet, they are extremely nutritious additions to most menus (in soups, gravies, breads, casseroles, and dips). Most yeasts are 50 percent protein (while most meats are only 25 percent). Freshwater algae contains a phenomenal percentage of protein. One type is the deep green spirulina, a food that is 70 percent protein. It is available in tablets, powders, and even candy bars. Protein deficiency need not be a concern for vegans. If we ate nothing but wheat, oatmeal, or potatoes, we would easily have more than enough protein. Eating nothing but cabbage would provide more than twice as much protein as anyone would need!(5) Of course, an actual vegan would never want to be limited to just one food. The vegan diet can (and should) be full of a wide variety of delicious foods. Write to PETA for some recipes and cooking tips to get you and your family started. References 1.Hardinge, M.G. and F.J. Stare, "Nutritional Studies of Vegetarians. I. Nutritional, Physical, and Laboratory Studies," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2:73, 1954. 2.Davis, A., Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit, p. 34. 3.Robbins, John, Diet for a New America, 1987, pp. 174, 185. 4.Ibid, pp. 189-201. 5.Ibid., p. 176. From People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals Keeping a Healthy Heart Every day, 4,000 Americans suffer from heart attacks. Those who don't die often suffer another heart attack later. Because we now know what causes heart attacks, we can prevent them. Studies show that people who have heart attacks often have high cholesterol levels; many also smoke or have high blood pressure. When these causes are controlled, heart attacks become rare. Cholesterol and Your Heart In many studies, researchers have found that higher levels of cholesterol are linked to greater risk of heart attacks. For every one percent increase in the amount of cholesterol in your blood, there is a two percent increase in your risk of having a heart attack; every one percent reduction in your cholesterol level reduces your risk by two percent.(1) Elevated cholesterol-anything above 150-promotes atherosclerosis, the buildup of cholesterol, fat, and cells in the arteries that feed the heart muscle. When these arteries become clogged, a section of this muscle loses its blood supply. The result is a heart attack. Fortunately, this process can be reversed without drugs and their side effects. Dr. Dean Ornish demonstrated this fact in his 1990 study of patients with advanced heart disease. Dr. Ornish put a group of patients on a completely vegetarian diet, which was less than 10 percent fat. They were also asked to begin a moderate exercise program, walking a half hour every day, and were taught relaxation techniques. Patients in this group found that their chest pain disappeared and their cholesterol levels dropped at a rate comparable to that of cholesterol-lowering drugs, without the side effects. Because the patients felt so much better, they were motivated to stick with this program. The plaques that had been growing in their hearts for decades actually started to dissolve within one year.(2) A vegan (pure vegetarian) diet is the best for reducing cholesterol levels. Plant foods contain no cholesterol, whereas meats, eggs, and dairy products contain large amounts of cholesterol, saturated fats, and concentrated protein, all harmful substances. Also, the high fiber content of a vegetarian diet helps "wash away" excess cholesterol in your digestive tract. Reducing Your Cholesterol Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the meat, dairy, and egg industries, many Americans still believe that animal products are necessary for good health.(3) In fact, America's meat habit is causing a tremendous, and unnecessary, health crisis. According to The Journal of the American Medical Association, a vegetarian diet can prevent 97 percent of coronary occlusions.(4) One of the largest studies of lifestyle and health found the heart disease mortality rates for lacto-ovo vegetarians to be only one-third that of meat-eaters; for vegans, the figure was one-tenth.(5) Don't settle for halfway measures; you'll only be half as healthy as you could be. It's never too late to change your habits and improve your health. For breakfast, forget bacon and eggs and enjoy flavored oatmeal, cereals, bagels, or fresh fruit. For lunch, try salads, vegetable-stock soups, or tofu "burgers" and "hot dogs." For dinner, make spaghetti with marinara sauce instead of meat sauce, fix bean burritos instead of beef tacos, or try vegetable lasagna, using soft tofu instead of ricotta cheese. Virtually any meat-based dish can be made with vegetables or with soy substitutes that mimic meat flavor. Try cool Tofutti for dessert. Eating out? Chinese and Indian restaurants offer many vegetable dishes. At American restaurants, ask for a vegetable plate with a baked potato or rice, or try the salad bar (watch the high-fat dressings). Order pizza with lots of vegetables but no cheese; you'll be surprised at how many more flavors you'll taste. Be creative! Meatless meals can be as tasty as they are healthful. Preventing Heart Attacks * Become a botanical gourmet. Choose beans, grains, vegetables, and fruits. Avoid meats, fish, and cheese. * Include high-fiber foods in your diet. Whole-wheat bread, brown rice, oats, and vegetables supply fiber, which helps lower cholesterol. * Avoid dairy products; they contain cholesterol and saturated fats. Calcium can be obtained from vegetables, nuts, and beans. * Avoid tobacco, too. Smoking promotes atherosclerosis and robs your body of oxygen. * Have your blood pressure and cholesterol level checked regularly. Avoid excessive salt; read labels for sodium content. * Exercise regularly. Walking, running, tennis, and any other activity that increases the heart rate is helpful. * Write to PETA for delicious, eggless, non-dairy, vegetarian recipes. References 1.Barnard, Neal, M.D., Food for Life, 1993, p. 34. 2.Ornish, Dean, Dr., S.E. Brown, L.W. Scherwitz, et al., "Can Lifestyle Changes Reverse Coronary Heart Disease?", Lancet, 1990, no. 336, pp. 129-33. 3.Robbins, John, Diet for a New America, 1987, pp. 215-247. 4."Diet and Stress in Vascular Disease," Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 176, No. 9, June 3, 1961, p. 806. 5.Robbins, p. 215. From People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals poetry YOUTH cheryl townsend Kim was dubbed Blondie and Teresa Twiggy by the men of their hours both being 14 and in alternative school for fighting Twiggy sliced up some girl at the mall cuz she had thrown rocks at her house hitting Twiggy's little brother Blondie did it just to get out of school SNAPSHOTS Paul Weinman This one squirrel would squirt from his tunnelings in the snow just shoot out about to its shoulders small snapshots between its orange incisors. It'd drop them there just let them airwobble to the white. I watched with binoculars. When grety came, I'd go out in boots collect the pictures ... set them to album. The few I recognized were dead (a cemetery adjoined that lot) The others, I reproduced as 3-fold pamphlets distributed them in local grocery stores service stations and churches. warren stories janet kuypers i heard this story about this fat woman who sat naked on a pork chop bone once and didn't notice when it lodged itself among her folds of fat. years later, when she felt a sharp pain, and the doctors couldn't figure out what it was, opened her up and found the pork chop, and realized that her skin just eventually grew over it. the rain comes ray heinrich ray@vais.net some tiny drops i cannot call them tears i cannot call them anything the rain comes one day it leaves the next we are all like that living from one sun to the next < the scent of breakfast > the open window first morning sun up listening to feet on the gravel path outside our gate knowing another day the scent of breakfast and you Ray Heinrich ray@vais.net the men at the construction site janet kuypers a woman told me that scientists did an experiment where a woman first walked past a construction site with her head down no one bothered her, no one noticed her everyone at the site left her alone then, later in the day, she walked past again in the same outfit, with the same stride but this time she walked with her head up, more confidently and that's when she got the calls, the whistles from the men at the construction site and you tell me it's not deliberate and you tell me it's not an effort to keep women in their place Tombstone By Peter Scott They were fitting friends To the very end But now let their souls rest Beneath this hollow sound Tears dripping silently Forever lain to rest. The Solace of Success By Peter Scott Standing on a vacant stairwell Staring at the dust Sitting in the corner A home so desolate And destitute How I long to sit with the dust While standing on the next flight Content with the notion It will never be all right A single passerby cometh Echoes in the night A fluorescent silhouette Drawn from unnatural lights Longing for that corner of dust Instead my desires are tormented Taunted Teased with a commanding walk Down the stairs. the glass keeps me from touching you ray heinrich ray@vais.net the glass keeps me from touching you i am the only one thinking this about you so why is it so hard to hold you in my arms a million million arms hold a million million us you and me so why is it so hard to the left and right they fall so easily like leaves over and over greeting the start and end The Voices-of-The-Harlequin Hall deckard kinder newman@ntr.net someone unknown whispers of escape from this sweet place this romantic landscape clouded by a million gathering crows elsewhere a switchblade touches tender flesh selected poems read in darkness on a stage with but one dim light for love for money for the shear joy of words what I don't hear you overhear on your way to my past matching me move for move excepting retreat nobody cuts through this humanely elegant lady everybody simply saves themselves [everybody] voices from those who were exonerate exempt excuse no one there is so much history to collect you can smell it everywhere [are you ready for this?] like crematorium smoke there is so much history to create exquisite moment by excruciating moment voices from those who were in a hall full of hushed whispers repeating sermons in latin [greek to me] I lay back in the cheap seats not worried about any of it sweetness persons unknown reconnoiter the past like dead friends in crumpled faded photos now decayed beyond recognition grasping for the brass ring pernicious bastards eager to eat their own regardless of the consequences sanctimonious suckers on a mission from god all mighty nattering about the neon flesh yard as if somehow immune to this soft sensuous seduction carnal cannibals resplendent in the rapture innocence blown all to hell evil motherfuckers sweet church lady all dressed up in their sunday best nothing to lose but their sins devoted beyond all reason whipped up to a mouth foaming fury hungry for absolution at your expense I lay back in the cheap seats solid citizen like peering through the pews at you elusive as a politician's promise rabid for a small piece of the action singing hymns like all bejeezuz tell me sweet thing how in the name of all thatÕs holy did we end up here? eventually everyone does [so you say] eventually everyone does [repeated like a mantra] persons unknown escape the neon night flying like lucky fucking lindbergh to safety someone unknown eventually ends up somewhere else giggling like a junkie scoring grandiose hits of motherload shit after the rehearsal flesh skin body games in the dark then retreat to exhausted sleep retreat to the safety of what is known however the hell you do it eventually everyone does [repeated like a prayer on sunday] eventually everyone does [hollow as a movie star kiss] eventually everyone does [and who are we to fight kismet] repeated ad nauseum ad infinitum ad hoc stuttering in the dark like know nothing lowlives approaching the edge longing for final release real words > ray heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com the real words seem to be stocked in piles in this shed or that smelling of pine in the sun just waiting for young faces to peek out of the current dream or old faces in this mirror when i turn my head < words as rocks > ray heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com my children turn against me in dreams i see them come with words as rocks punishing a difference that fades as i wake but with sleep again becomes my children < words mean too much >968 ray heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com but good writers can often correct this TROJAN MAN Allison Jenks Last night I was touched by an aged, black-eyed Trojan from the back woods. He made me fall like a bold faced Ballet dancer with unclear eyes. We lit through a sensuous, agonizing fever- With the optimal balance of the Big Dipper. He broke the nauseating script, Waking my neglected comedy with October secrets. Combing through the morning bonfire with tribal concord. Wind-chill bit at his semen. Through the breathy encore I accepted his release Knowing the cold injection would rapture me Swelling my prolific doubt. < they're turning poetry into cheeseburgers > ray heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com or actually i am i know it looks like ronald reagan on the outside but on the inside it's me working the meat grinder while nancy feeds the stuff in she starts with words but it always ends up being my dick < sweet passage > Ray Heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com it was waiting undiscovered waiting for me to find a bright door a sweet passage to you < the night > Ray Heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com our temple well hardly a temple but it gives us shade and the desert and the sun and the day are what you'd expect but the night... poetry Whore By Jordana Abraham Partygrrl@aol.com you call me a loose woman because I like to have fun you say I'm a vixen because I let my hair down you refer to me as a hooker because I want to be fulfilled you claim me to be a slut because I am promiscuous you label me as a whore because I do what a man does you regard me as a tramp because I tell the truth so what? what the hell do I care what you think anyway. Vanishing Point Caron Andregg caron@ktb.net I said I'd had a mid-life crisis and now I had to pay for it. He, without skipping a beat, said, "How many cylinders?" There are only so many sports cars between me and the inevitable. He knows he could have been one the cure for crisis, or maybe the cause it's hard to tell one from the other out on the frontier where the white line smears solid; where the speedometer pegs its spindle and admits it doesn't know. He has what candles have that makes moths want to die in them. We breathe the exhaust of that combustable love terminal and incandescent that consumes as it ignites with the flint and tinder of a bad green break. Things look different at speed looming larger as the approach diminishing as they receed to their vanishing point. Timelessness doesn't necessarily endure. The peals of wheels on asphalt like the pants of orgasm only happen in transition; the explosion soon contracts the pure flame spends a passionate accelerant exquisite and abrupt a mere extension of oblivion a sleek and beautiful abutment against which to crash and burn. Wishing Well By Jordana Abraham partygrrl@aol.com I reached down into my pocket and pulled out a tarnished penny, This was the last thing I owned in the world I began to cry as I threw that penny into the wishing well I prayed to a g-d which I was unsure of, and for a life that I shall never obtain All I had left on this earth was that dirty penny, which I had just thrown away on things that shall never be mine I walked away from that well, and now I must live with the unbearable nothingness You'd have made a good Crusader Knight (for Tony M.) caron andregg Or a Samurai, perhaps, with that iron heart discipline of yours, that determination, the steady striving for perfection, your purity and consistency like a lighthouse beacon in the darkest of nights. Your lifelong dedication to the martial arts is awe-inspiring, more a devotion to, a consecration of the martial arts really and not merely an enhancing efficiency at punching, there's more to it than that, your art is more vital than that. But alas my friend it is difficult for me to capture in words and words are all I have for I have studied words as you have studied the generation of power, the control of force. How shall I say it: you are, you have become, your martial arts, it is you and you are it, molded together inseparable as one, an astounding enthalpy of inherent power, effectual, primal, beautiful. There's a sanctification about you, I can feel the edge of your being like an etching in the air, in the space around me, not taking-up space but etching it. I recognize, too, that you have not chosen this "obsession," that it has chosen you and inhabits you like a rapacious creature and perhaps that's what is so impressive about it: an intangibility assonant with Mozart's genius or Patton's or Dante's, a true talent a living thing that takes you over and uses you for the attainment of its own designs. Oh I don't know, I'm merely casting about searching as ever for the answers to questions I can't even formulate. All I do know, my old friend, is that you have it and it felt good being close to it again like in the old days, good to see that some things do not diminish with the passing of time, but instead ripen. MORNING STROLL Richard Fein bardbyte@chelsea.ios.com Each morning, except for Sunday mass Miss O'Reilly takes tea, clam chowder, and biscuits at Nathans. (open all year except for Yom-Kippur) Then she goes: to the boardwalk by the beach and watches joggers kick sand up while avoiding children's sand castles, and she listens to always the sea, even at ebbtide roaring; to the pier where men all around her pull up crab traps, full, inside joint legged claws, faceless eyes peering out of the wire mesh, their shells soon to be broken, meat within plucked, eaten, and other men reel in fish, gills drying up, smothering in the air, so near the sea; to the boardwalk's end where she can say to anyone she can trap into listening, thirty years ago her man proposed, right there by this now broken park bench but then married an uglier girl, didn't even tell her face to face, did tell her mom, and mom said that she was still a little pixy, and as virginal as Mary. Now in the summer, when a half-naked bikini clad girl passes her by she snarls, "Harlot, bitch, Satan's your john, Satan's your trick"; home to watch daily soap operas on TV. poems by pete lee: Riddle I am so empty, I cannot even fall to pieces. A sheet of milk, paper- thin, separates me from the world. I am not death or snow. Eskimos have no word for me. Only hands can hear me. I call them to feed on a distant touch. Light travels through me on its way to murder the dark. I have no need. I am what I am. I am a blue-black bag under the moon's eye. ************************************ rolling flock the pinyon jays' raucous calls interrupt the leaden clouds' sermon, shatter the stained glass of the air. secretary bird tall, white, gangly, wild black headdress bobbing, black knickers showing, wings clasped firmly behind his back, he paces like Beethoven, head down, studying the ground, intense and hungry, his tracks notes of music in the dust. *********************************************** skin the reason we don't become each other when we embrace *********************************************** skin II every 36 days we shed a layer of skin that's why it's important to dust it's important to vacuum this dirty little house on the prairie otherwise we inhale ourselves like the sky welcoming back the rain we has met the dust and it is us a snow fence in summer it's gotten so skinny since february you can see its ribs not that it mightn't still topple under its own weight teeth going bad here & there it runs insanely across the fields like a man estranged from work & woman - or from a pure ideal ********************* space Kafka carried a pocket mirror (Dave P. at Job Club today asking if we knew of any openings for astro- nauts) around with him and would look into it (un- employed now for going on 2 years) now and then just to make sure ("I'm taking up space and I wanna get paid for it") he still existed riverbank the woodpecker taps out its Morse on the dead tree whose limbs cross and uncross in a strong wind signalling in Chinese to incoming crows which then land and begin tamping an elaborate reply in the sand the fog could be battlefield smoke that dove could be carrying a message the red glare of the leaping trout could almost be immortalized in song the wind blows sand over the crows' tracks and sets the tree to signalling furiously ************************************ Salad Lover From out of the brown sacks I produced my purchases, spread them out on the rubber sheet, and set to work: First I chose a peach for its just-spanked blush, its subtle cleavage, the tiny mud-colored plug; set it just so atop two long celery stalks stood A-frame style, lacking only a welcome mat; a small slit in the pale pink peach produced juice; next, a cherry tomato torso, taut but squeezable, over which I hung a pair of sloppy-ripe apples; my Venus rejected all arms, so that left only the head - voila, my Ms. Potato, sporting a lettuce wig! My mute! My vegetable! The Sandwich Shop I am standing inside a sandwich shop, near a window, eating at a narrow counter that runs along the wall. I see a man walk by on the street outside the window. In one hand he is holding a photograph of my face. In his other hand he is gripping a large-caliber pistol. He stops outside the window and studies the photograph, then looks up and appears to search the faces on the street. I become nothing but a sandwich and a pair of eyeballs... In his distracted searching he careens into another man who is carrying a pistol and a photograph of my face. I see their lips move as they swear at each other; then they go their separate ways, still looking down at my photograph, then up at the passing faces. Several good-looking women walk by in a group. Each of them carries a pistol and a photograph of my face. Soon there is no one left on the busy street who is not carrying a pistol and my photograph. I peer over my sandwich at the photographs as they pass by in the hands of all the searching people. All of the photographs depict the same image - strange that I did not see it more clearly before: I am shown peering over the top of a large sandwich, eyes bulging. Now several men and women stop outside and are looking into the window of the sandwich shop, searching... A man is standing behind them with a camera. He points the camera at me, and shoots. The image on the photographs changes before my eyes, now depicting my body lying face-down on the floor of a sandwich shop; there is blood everywhere, my head indistinguishable from the contents of a large half-eaten sandwich lying nearby. I tear myself away from the horrible image, my attention drawn to a sudden presence behind me.... A Perspective As seen from below, the moralist: The higher he goes, the smaller he gets. ************************************* the pessimist dots his i's with rainclouds; crosses his t's with falling stars. ************************************* The Pete Lee Watch Practicing to be a star on the face of a wristwatch I allow my arms to go limp and begin swinging them around like twin elephant trunks or twin windmills tracing Ferris wheels in the air trying to speed up time trying to catch up to my stardom creating a wind that sends the papers on my desk flying like pages from a movie calendar in fact the current of air I create begins pushing the sun and moon and clouds around the earth faster and faster the sky lights up and then darkens again every few seconds it rains the snow falls there is a thaw the sun shines and the flowers grow only to wither moments later and all at once it happens I find myself stretched out in a glass case at exactly 9:15 and boy, are my arms tired. point taken as your side of the discussion grows more heated I notice your hands trace popcorn arcs through the air your chin goes buttery and melts down your neck while your tongue flitters about frightened parakeet in the burning cage of your mouth and your eyes spit like hot dogs ********************** population exploding population exploding into the backcountry no tree left untouched theme park with cougar i head back into town no virgins there either ********************** potbellied veteran salutes the flag - old glory indeed processing the mail the joker from Tecopa answers the race question, "Other: Human" and I laugh days later, inputting his application, wondering who this joker thinks he is as I hit 6 for "race unknown" ***************** promised land I bought a gun I've been practicing on Campbell's soup cans I want my 15 minutes pulling away i am letting you go a little at a time a fist of clouds to the west slowly opens spreads its purple fingers come off and pull away like chariots or chevrolets ricketing east thru rush hour skies as do the flesh and bones of the palm breaking up. soon it'll be nice out west and you won't be there and i won't be there Pencil and Cursor Wr writes the word talk and crosses it out could about the furniture if you like writes talk between could and about without wr adds bringing up the future or the fact that you exist in light and I in wood, scratching and cursing. Deleted doesn't happen, like they say. Changes in to out and hands to hand the more they same, who never crosses out over. Let's not bring up the future changes to change. Crosses out us as is, in out up downiture. Crosses crosses, you I deletes not like! Or the weather from my naked window, adds one hand to the first hand and makes time. After over, inserts again. You exist the future is real, wr must discuss. Crosses out future. The weather is real. Deletes inserts, leaving naked untouched. **************************************** the perfect couple while she's smothering hers in sugar and cream to camouflage the bitterness, he takes his black with something in it to bring it out the perfect couple II she's in the bedroom drugged-out sounds thru the wall like she's yelling "turn down the valium" he ingests a little more tv but gets so nervous he throws it right back up ***************************** the perfect couple III she makes a snow angel. he watches the steam rise from his name. ***************************** the perfect couple IV she pulled in the reins, gentled him. he taught her the value of a buck. ravens are the smartest birds in the world so says somebody who says so-and-so says so I think of Heckle and Jeckle when they plunge from low heights like suddenly becalmed black kites with a har-har-har toward their pals on the ground then adjust their wing flaps just in time but when I see a lone raven pursued by a squadron of stupid sparrows with nests of offspring to protect I think of Socrates and Galileo ******************************* Ray his last name gone from me but never his last words I learned not to talk about Vietnam with him after the 2nd or 3rd time he doubled over clawing at his stomach the ulcers finally got him as they say it took 20 years for him to die in action in the ICU I asked him if he needed anything dumb luck really that I was there when he died since we weren't that close all he said was "what I could use right now is an asbestos suit" reading the signs tv aerial lying in the road here a house molted rutting season is officially over no longer will the snowfields echo with the clashing of antenna racks it is spring everyone has cable *********************** the red ball nothing matters not even a bunch of dog tracks in the sand surrounding a chewed-up red ball with dried saliva on it. they see independently janet kuypers Perhaps more than men, women acknowledge the person, because they see persons independently of various ideological or political systems in their greatness and limitations they try to go out to them and help them Letter to Women, Message of His Holiness POPE JOHN PAUL II, July 10 do they see independently from reason, too? do they see people devoid of ideas, ideolgies? do they help their own murderer? do they help the people who won't help themselves? do they not judge a person then? do they not value one person differently from another? what then is love, respect, if it is not earned? what good are these women really doing if their help is expected and not earned? this is my dilemma janet kuypers should I go to you this is my dilemma should I just not care anymore should I just act the part should I just not care anymore should I just let you fuck me should I just not care anymore should I just kiss you who cares suck me in take me in who cares throw me around it's okay I've been thrown around before I'm used to this I'm used to this routine: back and forth, and then forgetting forgetting the feelings forgetting your name do it to me, if you want go ahead enjoy feel free I've felt it before I've lived it before I've known it before I've lived it before and no emotion is new to me anymore so should I this is my dilemma < simple gesture > Ray Heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com so the end of day takes us some of us gray clouds and such laid out before us we eat the fingers of children too naive to know and later we exchange a look a letter oh we know how to make this into entertainment as our poor flesh drops all our sorrows and questions we caught the unknown the unexpected while we tried to talk to someone next to us to find our answer in a simple gesture of flesh < the roach and the tampon > Ray Heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com you don't EVER want to hear this story MIND GAMES Richard Fein bardbyte@chelsea.ios.com Chess is unforgiving, no bluffing, no blundering. Everything is so above board. Scrabble's more human, even blunderers like me can score. What's even sweeter, I can bluff, or seem to. Ai, rad, col, jonquil, even qaid, are real, but fruitquixcel and yesteryam? I can awe anyone the first time and some more than once. But not her. She unfortunately has seen them all before, and some I haven't seen. Under the light she's sucking on her finger, and hasn't turned her blue eyes to me once. Well, there's always the luck of the draw; not likely, she's a hundred points ahead. My move: lust would block her bingo, but she's holding the remaining s and t. My mind has drawn the figurative blank. I'm hemmed in; the three minute timer has almost run. I'm a gamesman tired of games. I could play to the open u, use my seven to spell Iloveyou. But she'd challenge, using three words violates the rules. THE WHEEL OF FATE By Paul L.Glaze T H E WHEEL OF FATE ROLLS SLOWLY. IT SEEMS IT NEVER ROLLS AT ALL. B U T WHEN ITS JOURNEY ENDS. NOTHING ESCAPES IT'S CALL !! Two Minutes With Ayn Rand janet kuypers I don't believe in things that aren't proven, that we have no evidence of, but sometimes, sometimes, I still think about what I would do if I had two minutes to talk to you when someone asked me what I'd say I said I'd rather hear you speak I'm sure the words you would part unto me would mean infinitely more than what I could say to you and if I could talk to you I wouldn't know what to say But I know I'd have to tell you like so many of your fans in the past that I thank you for showing me that there are logical people in the world that man can live by reason that reason is a virtue that selfishness is a virtue that I have a right to what I earn to what I create to what I know to be true I would have been still searching blindly for philosophical answers to the meaning of life if you never told me that I am worth something that I am my own end and it's nice to know that even when I'm surrounded by these unthinking masses that there are people who hold their minds as the highest value out there somewhere in the world and the fact that they exist helps me through my days but you knew that you wrote about these heroes over the years and how could you manage to write gripping, thousand-page novels about heros that a rational mind can't help but love and did you really find that hero in real life? because I'm still looking. You've created these heroes but are they just created does anyone else understand these values as I do? Yes, thank you for giving me the answers I've been looking for, but tell me that someone else out there found the answers too so maybe, if those who posed this unreasonable illogical ethical question in the first place, if they could give me another two minutes so you could do some talking maybe then you could explain to me how to get through the days when no one understands you how to accept less than perfection when you've seen the purity and the clarity of the thinking mind < too much about faces > Ray Heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com too much about faces too much you keep saying you never meant to pour the hot coffee on me and my skin is red like sunburn in galveston the gulf coast and texas in your eyes and each of us can touch the scars we made or maybe slap it all depends on how we feel that day and why we'd ever want do this well too much about faces SWITHERING Allison Jenks Not even the Judo-thrill of your penis Dissolves this sexual amnesia Untied and tense in a scarf of dread, Cruel-headed. Killed by the craving faces of women As you exploited and Roared on them. How much more do you grant me? Which of your serpents did I get Or did I make them myself? I want to assault them, learn them- Train them, Just to predict a rage. I won't let you scream me. Raw dirt Erodes on me Unsaturated, like Garden worm skin Isolated under Mangrove trees. Sucking your violent sensations Into my limp stomach, Inhabiting masculinity, Cranking the hoodlum into my emptiness. What ferocity outweighs my Chimera mechanisms? Is it that scream inside me Ravished by cowardliness, Like the print of Dead Sea Scrolls? Is that scream a soul-span of chills That paints Paris greens in Vienna? The Soy of China's lakes, The Soy of it all- Danish pastries, Russian dressing, Arctic Autums sliding Breast-down frozen slopes of lake? Orgasmically circular- A Milano carousel Circulating catalystic blood for A mangled world of lies. < the words i want > ray heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com sometimes you have something in your head sometimes you don't but most times (and this is one of them) it's in-between there are all these words to choose from there are all these people i could say them to there is all this time that must be accounted for so here i am far from you far from the last hints to the life i should have lived here i am far from the words i want you to say to me tell me you are like this too or tell me that you're not but how with just a little movement left or right the world would change those are the words i want SYCOPHANCY deckard kinder newman@ntr.net the distance between us grew overwhelming somehow you survived [a few bruises maybe but none-the-worse for wear] careful planning has its virtues rules of thumb their vices I didn't fare so well fads and fashion always had their way with me in time I became a whore for them cruising the strut like a pro exploring parts of me better left unknown tearing away at myself like an old junkie or simply wasting away day by day and on the street? suckers marks johns pimps pushers players insatiable bastards feeding feeding feeding relentless interminable tenacious no-account motherfuckers on the make the distance between us exploded overnight nobody knew of course except for those who saw me drunk or stoned which could have been anybody not that I cared I was someone else at the time synthetic when possible foraging whatever zen I could find like a bag lady behind Kroger all bone shivers the distance between us was yours the distance between us was mine everlastingly fragile as our love regardless of my excesses you remained strong wrenching joy from misery glancing from side to side dancing like a wooden katheryn murray ruthlessly in rhythm little traces of blood on your teeth ergonomically perfect museum pure overcome by a guilt I never knew every move a masterpiece yet not quite right the distance between us grew slowly groping for closure [or exposure] slowly enveloping all we were slowly evaporating our fragile little fantasy duplicating nothing so much as soap opera tragedy on the sleazy side extravagant melodrama played to the cheap seats overpriced oversold overstated kept at arms length despite your longings yielding to nothing I offered deferred erased discontinued romantic mumbo jumbo cast aside seductively erotically savagely [grand exit: stage left] year one: everyone was excited animated eager year two: most died hell filled up and froze over the distance between us no longer mattered exquisite plaything followed exquisite plaything when the world closed in everyone moved out the distance between us was no longer an issue when the world around us tested our will to believe year three: everyone who still lived hid year four: escape became impossible year five: all I did was look for you even as others looked for me sabotage and sacrilege marked calendars damage control nonexistent hearts on hold souls temporarily discontinued devastation wherever I looked [even within] year six: tender angels swept through even though only as tourists regardless: it was a sign or a symbol drifters no longer came to the door romance appeared imminent drenched in sweat gullible guiltless grotesque nobody said word one the distance between us evaporated due to powers beyond our control rites of spring rituals from hell extinction threatened in every breeze suggestions clues signals from your heart the distance between us crumbled disintegrated nothing to do but pray extraneous acts held onto like treasure sequestered nursing wounds that would not heal lying in the face of redemption removing this shortcut or that the distance between us eviscerated me selective naivete discriminating guile laboriously applied eagerly denied the distance between us didn't make a difference you lived as always subtle sophisticated sensuous every breath a ballet despite a shambled past looking back proved irresistible nothing you said deterred me there was no stopping me selective amnesia elective obsessions subliminal addictions exposed nerves surreptitious isms tarnished silver linings too much history to make up for evolution without redemption and you [always in me] suggesting an elegant escape relegating distance to a dark corner no worthy lover ever deserved more you revel in my heart < writing > Ray Heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com Doing it a lot makes it easier to say what you're saying but of course you still need a what and when you begin to get those working you start feeling you have to say it to someone and then more than one and if you do all that you're not happy with it anyway and you end up dying at about the same time so it's probably better to go feed the dog and not get bitten but if you were that sensible you wouldn't have started in the first place and besides it doesn't take that much time to feed the dog. < your words > ray heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com your words pour your words rain your words wash over me rivers of your words and lakes of them and always they end up in my sea < a few more words > ray heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com i gotta stop off at the seven-eleven for a few more words i'm just staring just looking around with my mouth open but nothing comes out i need a re-fill one of those two-liter bottles even diet would do just so it's big and i can gulp it let it slop out my mouth until it runs down my neck and soaks my shirt with meaning THE NEXT DAY Ray Heinrich you slipped and i found you the next day but don't think if you are reading this that i found you dead it's just that there are different you's and if you and you get mixed up what am i to do but go on because it's always necessary to go on in a movie and those of us who must make our lives into movies will recognize this right away and become the first you and the others both luckier and smarter will take their places as the second you as the we which includes both you's and the not as eternal as we had first assumed must continue with finding the first you the next day on the beach with your clothes removed by the surf and your skin reddened by the sand rubbing where i'd always wanted to but now you were composed like an angel and could not be touched as i crept away always the hermit crab always in someone else's shell and you slipped and i found you the next day Uncle Leo Visits From the Grave By Tina L. Jens tina_jen@para-net.com There's a dead man sleeping on my front porch swing I'd say he was a zombie, but there's no flesh falling off his bones I think it might be Uncle Leo When he was playing with the nieces and nephews earlier Swinging them way up high He kinda grinned like Uncle Leo used to do It'll be time for Sunday dinner soon Mom will come home from church and tell me to set the table Then all the relatives will start to arrive It'd be rude not to invite Uncle Leo in But he'd scare the grown-ups Maybe he can sit at the kids' table. < doing my part > Ray Heinrich ray@scribbledyne.com i chainsaw republicans into thin strips that when dried make excellent jerky treats for my dog Truth is Not Melodious By Peter Scott Alone Distant Vacant It's a place We all visit sometime I fain from your thought That I am original I'm not writing my soul For your pleasure This isn't a game I play Pain sits in the cracks Of my brain Planting seeds I don't Everything My existence is for your Sympathy I expose the hurt Juggle plain words So you won't believe I'm happy anymore I'm not Happy with life Could care less about death What I want We all want Love People The friends I don't have Comfort me !Damn you Lying distant on the floor In retched convulsions Listening to the beat Of my failing body I just want acceptance Tell me I'm good enough For you I need to know Or I won't ask much longer Some will be surprised I don't care Why should I feel for hate!?! Rhythm has taken hold I fall to its shoulders Take strength in the knowledge I'm by my self Settling I once again suppress who I am To live the dream I'm suppose to grant I don't want to I can't live your way Biology is whispering my true path In the ear of despair Last night I was questioning When love told me to leave I left Like a proper gent I left my body Abandoned my soul For she abandoned me She was a part of that life The girl lives and settles for What they tell her I'm sorry my dear Sorry am I For your denial of an identity Go date George I'm not following You'll see me in the far future I'll be making love To myself For no one will help They won't be my friend You won't be my lover We are all trapped in ignorance Let us live together Let us drink from the same spout Let me hurt Let us make love If you want The music plays from my pen Words traveling One hundred miles an hour Tearing paper For I have to speak have to point out my disappointment In you I thought you were with me Assumed we were indestructible Unlike before Yes I'm happy We smile different smiles But my lips are curled Hear the laughter Smell reunification Enter my soul I see why I am grinning It doesn't have a happy ending So what! I gaze to an ending All the same The power of God The power of us Power over this corpse Who asks simple questions The answer is that I don't Want answers The queries are already filled I just want you to tell me What I want to feel Its not that I question his existence I only question God's decision Feel it Feel the love I want Say you care! Damn those petty games I condemn them and Could not care less for their demise True they give spice I don't want spice !?Can't you see?! I want I need the bread Before I can butter it Leave that experience behind Or so will you leave my soul! Accept me Love me Tell me so and don't condition me For what you think is horrible This world isn't vile Only my soul sits that way The melody dies And so do I Watch this spirit Move Streak Vibrant then dead You care for me I do not Not so long As I care for you Play these words again Through my head Observe the noise generated As you tell me I am Shit Hit me My arms are open There's a grin On my face That is true If I can't love life Why can't I have fun Playing the game with death? "Why won't you end already?" I hear you scream I can't I want love And as long as I hold your spirit You are close enough to me Problems don't start They evolve It was born without knowledge Then I was shot Now that I have taken The final arrow Notice my perverse grin Oh You didn't notice I had suddenly lost originality And hope Like I said Until you prove to me That you care I won't even resemble a man You once knew Or was it the boy You never saw But heard Creating joyous sounds Behind the corner Of what once was Gaze at the man who never should have come Entered this land Read these words Let them permeate your soul My gift To you from me A portrait of sudden torment. Thermodynamic Companion By Peter Scott I dump the clothes On the floor Leave the dishes Don't bother the dust rag Quietly resting in its place Forget to shave Won't eat but pasta and cheese Then again Only after the cake Choosing not to live In a state of constant fear Worry of the unknown Instead I rest in bed And turn my head Noticing there are eyes on me Startled at first Her outcropping of blonde hair reminds me of another However I see That she loves me All is right again I put my arms around her Kiss her tightly Content to never digress Give her my best Cherishing her in this moment of life. The Truth of All Desire By Peter Scott Cool Cold Clear And crisp The icy chills of realization hit You hear the music I feel your scent We dance a subtle game To quiet music Neither understand Virgin lips I promised to touch You watched Once before As I strayed from the quest Written in the book of love Your signature rests still Ever present Corrupting all chance For I love you Passions settled Mind rational The choice seems clear Amongst field noise And forced detachment I should have taken the chance Asked you then Smiled in our devotion Instead we wait some more Bleeding silently for each other Wrongly do I act in haste Planting seeds At a time I could have received splendorous reality Correcting an injustice of long ago Using three drugs did it take to prove Absolute certainty you were the one Although now I sit silently Bedazzled why This mystery did not come undone Long before Your parents cared You kept all your dreams in me Now I ask Truth in my voice Will you marry me? Say yes For we are strong And this game will end for me You will be happy And I will be complete Totally yours And free Free as the birds In a land all yours Where I love you passionately Able to give Without lust to receive As you are perfect in every way In these comments I do not jest For long ago you spoke to me In no light Do we not match My reverence is eternal For I grew wise with you And would like to die with you My love. Tomorrow's Request By Peter Scott Disciple to the stars Another test behind More Far more Their double Environment of change All shall them attribute ! Reactionary be that scorned Dropping from infinite skies I must break a leg before I break my fall Lying there I found no reason to ascend A reason not to build To be crushed again Nor to have crush Far distant remained so Then I was hit Smashed into a thousand pieces Ground to a fine pulp Granted my wish Rather do I no longer crave With silence Resonance of those my kin Eternal damnation cometh Sensations of their loss Five prostrated to one... A cloud settles Overcome by hope Rising do I ache The marks now indentations Glanced over with eyes of a rhinoceros Wearily I start anew Taking note of my trial Its consequences Preparing for tomorrow's. the measuring scale janet kuypers Here's an addition for your degrading terminology of women list. In the construction field they (men) have devised another form of measurement. When something is being lowered or fitted into place they will often refer to an inch or so as: up or down about a cunt hair. They have gone so far as to determine that blonde pubic hair is the smallest increment and at the other end of the measuring scale is black pubic hair. Pam, via the internet why don't you dissect me, take every single part of me and equate it with power tools, sports and violence? bang me, screw me, nail me, hammer me, bag me, pump me. shoot it in me. maybe you can even score. if we're talking about measuring scales, what about the scale that defines the way you treat us: on one end is the minor stuff, calling us "baby" and "sugar," whistling as we walk by, but then move along the scale, get to the blonde jokes, yes, they're so funny, then how about a pinch in the rear at the office, well, that's harmless enough and while you're at it, porn movies and magazines, what harm do they do, and hey, women have always worked at home, so you should have all the jobs and get the better pay anyway and since we're just your pro- perty, fuck us whenever you want, i mean, hey, you're doing it already in every other aspect of our repressed, oppressed lives so rape us, smack us around knock us down a flight of stairs that's what we're here for god, i don't even know how to measure these things any more the secret of life Ray Heinrich ray@vais.net today we discovered the secret of life but still can't decide what's for dinner the red heart and the silver heart ray heinrich ray@vais.net the red heart and the silver heart the first filled with blood the second with the lightness of clouds the red heart a sharp knife swings at your finger never mind who (maybe your other hand) but the steel inside you stops the knife with the skin split and the blood waits and the two sides of flesh are translucent and the bone at the bottom is white and gray and then the blood comes to relieve this paleness to give it life flowing easily warmly thickly brightly but later it is almost black the red heart filled with blood the silver as thin as breath watch a tree throw itself against the sky the silver heart believes the tree is the forked tongue of some creature buried beneath the earth licking the air getting a taste of the sun and the red sees only blood the red heart and the silver heart on quiet nights hear each other beating between their own beats hearing the voice of the other hearing the voice of blood hearing the voice of air and between the beats of both hear the continents miles down rubbing rock against rock singing with their heat miles and miles down the red heart and the silver heart keep slivers of consciousness magic like the rocks are magic living in the weather that comes from the sun and at night the red goes on the heart filled with blood filled with the brilliant blood goes on but the silver heart must rest from writing down the story from whole pages of hands needing eyes and much is missed but the silver heart must rest the red heart swells again with blood again with temples and sacrifice of black obsidian blades striking down to stone with only a million ribs between the red heart fills and empties many times and drinks it all as food and still is hungry while the silver sleeps the red heart and the silver heart read the list of names and they are always finding more engraved in walls printed in books and the names they roll roll from the silver roll into the red and all the names yours too the red devours THE SHARING OF THOUGHTS Bob Ludden robert@essex1.com http://www.essex1.com/people/robert/ In leisure, memories of parted hours Appear in sweeping frames to grace my consciousness With moments of delight and melancholy. I see then joy approximates its heights Comparing vistas symbolizing quests for truth- In retrospect, as in those times when others Join my efforts bent to analyze and synthesize The base and noble thoughts of those Whome we consider most profound. This use of past occurences Transcends the vain desires of discontent. And, that which we deemed happenstance Assumes the new accoutrement. That which in growth we sought to modify Now seems to flourish in the present light. Yet, inspiration, founded well on shared ideas Seems to count for nought When resource, insufficient to create One vernal, innovative, fruitful thought... Then, shared again can turn a man Now desolate, to join the steadfast clan of those whose mission drums relentless as the heart. Conviction forms as one inquires of mystery And mystics, darkness, doubt, and trial, and tears! This is the stuff of life, the triumph of the years! We cannot summon paradise, or truth sublime, Or even measure it,or chart its place in time. Only forgotten self in contemplation Can then discover God in adoration. THE HIGHER SELF Bob Ludden robert@essex1.com http://www.essex1.com/people/robert/ We live beneath a blowing stream To which our consciousness pays tribute Now and then, and sings a rhapsody Which always trails off To some oblivion, self-made perhaps, Recovered in a dream, or Scrawled on tissue, and Performed again by weak-eyed songsters, apathetic to the vision mothering its birth. Yet, there are times that melody Will sing itself, and bound around This drama of our sojourn here, To fit the niche carved out by forces scarce defined By you or me, or God, for all we know. The song is truly ours, A cosmic bank account, Backed by credits we could never store. Ours alone to use, (Not always when we will). But we can cock our heads and listen more. To sense the riches there!! An endless rush it is, without incipience -Aligned toward some unknown cynosure. And I would breathe a prayer of thanks For high adventure, nothing less, And celebrate this spirit hurricane With shouts of jubilance....and awe. Just so, another mystery is ours, And mystics we become as by default. Would we be gods? No better course there is for any man than standing by in conscious readiness to feel upon his face this wind... This personal resource no other man can sense Or ever understand... This mighty Breath of God. THRENODY Bob Ludden robert@essex1.com http://www.essex1.com/people/robert/ No platitudes for you, my son. Your eyes were cameras, seeing through Our makeup and our emperor's clothes, Reflecting images too filled with warts and pretense (and this too, makes you smile)-noting them, And loving us....more strongly than we knew. There was a thing you couldn't do And had our vision been so sharp as yours We might have found a way To help you love yourself--One blind spot lurked as such spots will, and thus ignored collected its profane reward, and left us destitute. To see our tears would bring some sympathy, But not much patience (Yours were always secret, And, I'm sure, more frequent than we knew.) You'd want us to have done with them, And get on with the matter of loving And you'd be watching some place, and pulling for us. Oh, about those tears, Mark.... Why won't they stop? this poem was written 2 days after Mr. Ludden learned of hisson's suicide Transcendance Bob Ludden robert@essex1.com http://www.essex1.com/people/robert/ The concept clear to rationality- Stimulus-response, The matrix of life-that's all there is, and if we speak, to gain, or score or cast away a care what better course? We feed on carrion-nothing more- and fly on wings of wax to heaven's loft and cry with all the saints Salve Regina!, Kyrie Eleison! Then we may stop our ears lest answers come that we would never hear upon millenia of time But if we hold for but a breach of that continuum, no fire can ravage soul, no judgement fall upon our heads- nor fury, nor dismay. Completion lies beyond all mortal resolution, and our wholeness scribed on cosmic pages shrouded in the mists of vanity-or worse, our self-styled passage rites. There is a respite from the battle lines of fear and trust... There is a zephyr set to dissipate the clouds of certainty which choke us still through noxious fumes of hate and condemnation. Not far away is spread a paradise of peace defined by eyes of pioneers who never saw its harbinger....that far beyond.... that plain of dreams....that mountaintop.... that shining vision of the soul which sees in priceless doubt and faith alone. TIT FOR TAT Paul Weinman The erratic plit plat of melting snow beats on the bodies of older patients - some still twisting naked in complaint . They're set out somewhat at random times but that's more related to their kids - each child reacts differently each has her or his level of tolerance that edge beyond which revenge reigns. My own inadequacies in sensitivities ... because I'd rarely been hugged ... hadn't been able to do it myself ... ask my kids if you don't believe me. The Second Night By Peter Scott They told her to love the world Proved why society was just The sinking feeling lingered Still Creating ripples of painful lust In the lust were contradictions From the contradictions sprang revelations Realization that the brew was mixed Laced with herbs dark as sky Stretched over her round sphere Covering plans made Hopes decimated First she must love herself Which she could not There was no purpose from it all Reason so minor to move an eye Yet she did just that Peered across attempts at happiness Gazed at that picture Near all the others each With their meaningful asterisk None before were like that photograph Her heart wept for the embrace His lips So distinct And memories yet taken Always he promised to be there Help in times of need Remembering that Moon vacant Lifeless in every extremity Save one The melody played on While she danced with the silent partner On the wall Lulling softly Her feet shuffled slowly In tune to the mind Drifting through the land where They were finally alone Together with the sequoias Their place when the lights went cold. THE WORLD IS AWASH WITH HAPPINESS I.B. Rad I B Radeck@aol.com Touted on TV by AT&T a farmer in a remote Asian village dials his first transpacific call to a daughter in America while, huddled round the telephone, awed friends and relatives are awash with happiness. Then, one advertisement later, a manic guy in a business suit dances ecstatically about a Honda sedan emanating pure joy of possession; while, for marketing's closing ploy, a ravenous family pigs out on Pringles potato chips - all life's smiles and happiness. Likewise, in the littered, decaying alley of an inner city ghetto a couple of junkies shoot up, facial tensions dissolving to glazed smiles, as once again, the world is awash with happiness. ROYAL BASTARD OF THE TWILIGHT c ra mcguirt i'm for life, but i'm not against death. how do you like your brown-eyed boy, mister in-between? "This Is How I Live" D. Michael McNamara RFDD36C@prodigy.com As of now I float on the surface, thrown about by the same sea which has made me a victim. A victim of the man at the bottom of this sea who was me before I drowned. SUCKER c ra mcguirt she came to me with her lips. i put her away from me. she came to me with her lips again. i'm keeping her or being kept. SCORPIO LOVE c ra mcguirt for a while, we often slept & came awake together. she was married, but in truth, i was never even close to being a fatal attraction, although my pride sometimes suggests i was more than a minor distraction, & inflicted a flesh wound at best. SALAMANDERS c ra mcguirt her long neck has the same delicate strength. the warrior waif breezes by, dress brushing my hand enough at one time to light incandescently hopeless desire, but i don't burn tonight, having learned from her to live in fire. SANCTUARY c ra mcguirt your door was always open, but the cold never seemed to come in. Undervalued Reflections By Peter Scott A national holiday Seems absurd Yet I know That you deserve Treatments everyday The best I could give Try me not! The flood gates lay open Another reason to sorrow Spite your work For your work Colors flicker off your life Whispering the disease to me Reminder of an abuse Only an answer does not rise Left with nothing Silently I live Displays, a mean left open Resisting... Slivered in the sprouting seed Shadows of the trees Less noticed than their fractions Shall it remain tall Or will the bark chip Too deep in pain? Now the crane cometh A basket Dinosaurs near the end Always a keeper Instilling the memories The vitality to create The cure to his own pain Will it release the hurt? Tomorrow the quest will resume How may it be found Always two steps ahead Pitiful in my approach Only the core may be touched Only one may touch it Dislodge my belief Move my arm Carrying out my life From the first command My worst Fear control Running so hard Small dreams Passing the torch onto Myself in the mirror Might I falter Jagged marks form The sand is perfect You did not slip. hier zit ik hier zit ik ik zit alleen apart soleerd weg van mijn enige liefde mijn obsessie ik neem een vulpen ik kijk naar de lijnen de omtrekken van zijn gezicht afbakent de omvang de kin de zachtheid lippen ik vergelijk teken sketch ik omlijn zijn beeltenis ik staar ik glunder ik onthou ieder detail maar hij keek nooit om daarom wil ik tekenen tot mijn vulpen droog loopt (there i sit) translated by Jean Hellemans de martelaar en de heilige Ze gaven hun dochter de naam van de patroon van de televisie en de televisie was iets dat ze altijd haatte bij hem of was het dat drinken dat hij nodig had meer dan hij haar nodig had de zaken gingen slecht ik ben een mislukkeling ik ben geen man hij zei haar te respecteren dan belde hij haar voor twintig dollar gewonnen in Vegas en de moeder wou het kind, de heilige, de echte engel hield haar oor in de hoop iets te kunnen opvangen (the martyr and the saint) translated by Jean Hellemans Twice Meant To Be By Peter Scott Fighting for the most precious part of himself, this poem was written in determination. Determination to retain his love...to prove it was meant to be. Cold the world has grown Whilst I sit alone High above Transcending all that was before The night chill bothers not Temperature worthless It is my soul which has fled Left me to fend alone Alone forever For the present Tears stream as the drizzle slaps with undertow How could all of reality Collapse in a single second? Tempted to the last I never dared to meddle with dominoes Like the ones now falling Pressing one another Forming a pattern one Of love Words sound worthless Yet love remains Worried I was Its absence Or so it seemed Bothering me when life was right With reality shaken Colored letters emerged They formed many words Foretold many stories Above them all They spelled "love" Chained in a cellar For many years I sat on those letters Until now When life threatens again Giving in Long ago I never forgave My grave mistake... Now the chance parades in a return Similar cases With a different outcome For what I gave up then I will fight for now Fight for your love The future I am denied Oh God How I love you. SANITY c ra mcguirt the tv mental illness public service message said: 'you wouldn't make fun of cancer.' i laugh because i can. OCCUPATION: SELF-EMPLOYED WRITER c ra mcguirt today on a wednesday about 2:45 in the afternoon, the landlord walked by my window. the blinds were high, & i could have been smoking dope jerking off fucking or something even worse in the narrow eyes of his mind, but i was sitting at my desk not even drinking a beer trying to be what i claimed to be in my rental application. i waved, & he waved back, convinced that i was working. it felt good to fool the bastard. now if i can only fool the rest of them.... THE RIDDLE OF STEEL c ra mcguirt we are poets, & it is not our place to judge: our job is only to execute the inevitable. so keep your edges sharp, & keep pity from your souls, or else, your heads will roll amongst the rest. TURN OFF THE MIC & GO HOME c ra mcguirt ice-cube-assed old maid academic masturbation lights-&-music masquerade performance-artist howling giddy gush & wounded whine at the birth & death of love, & fashionably-drunken failure-puking are common at the microphone, but they aren't really poetry. the poetry slam revolution pits apples against oranges, & the tastes of 2 or 3 declare one fruit the finest. a tinfoil title belt bestowed for verbal shadowboxing means something about someone, but not too much about poetry. words on war & homelessness are admirable, & also usually predictable, regardless of sincerity. find a brand new way to say bad isn't good, or otherwise it's a letter to the editor, it isn't really poetry. the president (if not always) is usually an asshole. it does no harm to tell us, but i'd hardly call it poetry. displaying your public affection for jesus christ, or any other brand-name avatar is fine. you may be right, or no more wrong than the rest of us, but preaching, especially to the choir, is rarely really poetry. can i get an amen, somebody? amen. my conclusion: so many examples of failure... clearly, as of yet, no one has written a single poem, & if they did, it wasn't really poetry. the Truth is always safe from words: you didn't hear it from me. "Twins" D. Michael McNamara RFDD36C@prodigy.com Within a steel womb I held you: concave we curved fetal, fitting like Yin and Yang, our gravity pulling each into the other. We were but spotted Siamese twins not yet born and sharing a heart. Uninvited Phone Calls... Robert Michael O'Hearn RMOHRN@AOL.COM I'm not a real Atheist. I only play one at end of the telephone receiver, when dumping some sales geek pestering me for want of a dogmatic God. Tips On Power Trips Robert Michael O'Hearn RMOHRN@AOL.COM Knowledge may be power.. but so's sticking your finger in a live lamp socket. If you don't respect yourself enough to ask "Why do I need to know this?" and be more discriminating with wiring then-n-n.. then there's also limits even to "knowing theyself" and going too far might result in being like another Icarus, plunging into an ocean of knowledge that was never so hot to begin with! Knowledge may be power.. and knowing thyself may be caution but lately it's been electricity and connectivity, not love that presently seems to make the world go around and around in increasing states of vertigo. And sticking your finger out to test the wind's direction never settled what's really what. The Janitor Gets Arrested. religion THE DARK BIBLE v1.5 Selections from the King James Version of the Bible (1611) The information from this text file came from the HyperCard program called The Dark Bible. (See end of text.) WARNING! Literal belief in the Bible may endanger your mental health .and life and those of others FOREWORD Despite the fact that the Bible represents the best selling book of all time and serves as the sacred script for the Judeo-Christian faiths, it also stands as a book, by the majority, believed from ignorance. Strangely, in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church forbade the reading of the Bible by its congregation for fear that the people would misinterpret the texts. Many priests knew of the problematic and dark verses in the Bible. Too much questioning could result in a loss of faith, or so they thought. As a result, only the Church fathers had the right to make interpretations for its people. This gave the early Church power over its people and, at the same time, prevented its populace from ever becoming educated. One would think that with today's practice of freedom of religion, education, free press and the availability of the Bible to anyone, that the Bible and its history would result in common knowledge. Nothing could stand further from the truth. Most Church fathers today concentrate only on the "good" phrases of the Bible. This of course represents an admirable approach as it serves to teach, stabilize and give meaning and morals to people in a society. However, Christians and Jews rarely hear about the dark side of the Scriptures from their religious leaders. Although most Christians own a Bible, few of them spend the time to actually read and understand what it actually represents. Many Christians find it shocking, even blasphemous for someone to point out that the Bible contains, not only errors, but atrocities that no Christian in good conscious would ever think of acting out. For example, how many Christians and Jews today would feel happy to bash a child's head against the rocks? Any secular question of this nature, of course, would result in revulsion, yet just such phrases occur in the Bible as well obscenities, filth and many horrendous phrases. It will, perhaps, come from "good" Christians who will object most strongly to what I have put in and left out from the Dark Bible. However you may judge it, I have edited this stack in this way for several reasons: Firstly, I wanted to share with people that the Bible does not represent only "high morality" or a means to better one's life; that most of the Bible, in fact, concerns itself with conquest, war, killings, and curses, many times coming from directly from Yahweh (God). By today's standards, many of these Biblical stories describe despicable atrocities. Secondly, there exists a minority of faithful fundamentalists who take the Bible literally and act out or condone the atrocities in the Bible. People, groups and governments, for centuries, have instigated wars, pogroms, racism, hatred, anti-Semitism, terrorism, and the inferiority of women based on their religious beliefs. I wanted to point out some of the Biblical verses that people of faith have used as justification for their atrocities and also to help people become aware, and beware of the dangers that can result from belief in the Bible. Thirdly, to make this knowledge available, I had to edit out the admirable phrases of the Bible to keep this stack within size limits. Most people know about these "good" verses, and I should not have to point them out (there exists a plethora of books about the admirable works). I also had to leave out most of the dark phrases of the Bible for if I had included them all, it would literally involve more information, along with the comments, than the Bible itself. I tried to keep this stack close to 100 pages (cards). As a result, this stack only represents a small sampling. I encourage the reader to investigate the history of the Bible and why it contains the stories that it does. From the sampling of the dark passages of the Bible presented in this stack, it should become self evident that if one wishes to defend the concept of a "good" and "loving" God, the Bible should serve as the last source to use for supporting evidence. Moreover, if we wish to know ourselves, it may well serve us to learn the limitations of our language system, the written form has existed for only six thousand years; only a brief instant of time relative to our millions of years of evolution. The Bible represents the beliefs of men at the birth of writing. As in most evolutionary trends, mistakes get made, sometimes fatally. Indeed, our species has become even more violent in relation to strengths of faith in written Scripture. Unfortunately faith relies on hope and ignorance. Only education and critical thinking can allow us the means to correct our mistakes. With technology advancing every year, our weapons have the capability to destroy whole cities, countries, if not every person on the earth. If people continue to base their actions on ancient Biblical reasoning, any small minority who gains access to the destructive technology may very well carry out holocaust-like proportions on innocent men, women and children. It has happened before and it can easily happen again. Today we still see the destructive acts carried out around the world which originate from deep cultural roots based on religious Scripture. Even though our belief-systems give us a means to establish culture, it can also produce life threatening situations to our existence on earth. Understanding our belief-systems and to de-emphasize the sacredness of the Bible may well help to prevent our own destruction. The majority of verses in this Stack come from the King James Version (1611) of the Bible (various alternate verses come from other Bible versions with a caption as to its source.). It will help to use this stack along with the reading of each verse with the complete chapter from the Bible so as to gain a better understanding of its context. Most all of the comments come paraphrased from established scholarly published work. I'd like to thank the honorable Dr. Jerome Miller and Sara Brown, from the University of Miami, for helping with the editing and error corrections. HISTORY The stories of the Bible evolved slowly over centuries before there were formed orthodox religions. There were many belief cults that spread stories and myths probably handed down by oral tradition from generation to generation before they were written down. Many of the stories originally came from Egyptian and Sumerian cults. Most of these cults were polytheistic in nature as practiced by the early Hebrews. Some of the oldest records of the stories of the Old Testament came from excavations in Mesopotamia where small cylinder seals depicting creation stories were found. These early artworks (dated at about 2500 B.C.E.) were the origin for the story of the Garden of Eden. Virtually all human societies, before the advent of the northern invaders, practiced female goddess worship. It has been archaeologically confirmed that the earliest law, government, medicine, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy, wheeled vehicles, ceramics, textiles and written language were initially developed in societies that worshipped the Goddess. Later the goddesses became more war-like with the influence of the invaders who slowly replaced the goddesses with their mountain male war gods. So why doesn't the Bible mention anything about the Goddess? In fact it does, but in disguise from converting the name of the goddesses to masculine terms. Many times "Gods" in the Bible refers to goddesses; Ashtoreth, or Asherah, named of masculine gender, for example, actually refers to Astarte- the Great Goddess. The Old Testament doesn't even have a word for "Goddess." The goddesses are sometimes referred to as Elohim (masculine plural form) which was later mistranslated into the singular "God." The Bible authors converted the ancient goddess symbols into icons of evil. As such, the snake, serpents, tree of knowledge, horns (of the bull), became associated with Satan. The end result gave women the status of inferiority, a result which we still see to this day. The Old Testament consists of a body of literature spread over a period from approximately 1200 B.C.E. to 200 B.C.E. There exist no original writings of the Old Testament. However, there are hundreds of copies of fragments from copies that became the old testament that have been found in the form of Cuneiform tablets, papyrus paper, leather etchings and the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. The literature of the old testament was written in classical Hebrew except some brief portions which are in Aramaic. The traditional text was originally written in consonants, but the Rabbis later added vowels so that the words could be pronounced. Of course the Rabbis did their best in choosing the vowels that they thought gave the words their proper pronunciation. In the second century C.E., or even earlier, the Rabbis compiled a text from manuscripts as had survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and on this basis was established the traditional or massoretic text, so called from the Hebrew word massorah. This text incorporated the mistakes of generations of copyists, and in spite of the care bestowed on it, many errors of later copyists also found their way into it. The earliest surviving manuscripts of this text date from the ninth to eleventh centuries C.E. It is this text which has been used for the present translations. The New Testament has even fewer surviving texts and it is believed that it wasn't until about 60 or 70 years after Jesus' death that the Gospels were beginning to be written. There is no evidence that the New Testament was ever written by the original apostles themselves or anyone else that had seen Jesus. Although the oldest surviving Christian texts are believed to have been written by Paul, he had never seen the earthly Jesus. But there is nothing in Paul's letters that either hints at the existence of the Gospels or that even talks of a need for such memoirs of Jesus Christ. It is more probable that the Gospels were written by scribes that followed the apostles after Jesus' death. The oldest fragment of the New Testament yet known is a tiny snippet of a Gospel of John. The little flake of papyrus was dated by the style of its handwriting to about 130 C.E. Most of the new testament was originally written in old Greek. There have been over a hundred different versions of the Bible, written in most of the languages of the time; Greek, Latin, German, etc. Some versions left out certain biblical stories and others contained added stories. The complete compiled version of the old and new testament was probably finished at around 200-300 C.E. It wasn't until 1611 C.E. that the King James version of the Bible was completed. It's interesting that there were many competing Christian cults in the early years after Jesus's death. Some sects saw the universe in dualisms of goodness and sin, of light and darkness, God and the Devil. Other Christian sects performed odd rituals, some of which involved the swallowing of semen, thought to be a sacred substance. Many other Christians were also writing mystical stories and by the second century there were more than a dozen Gospels circulating, along with a whole library of other texts. These include letters of Jesus to foreign kings, letters of Paul to Aristotle, and histories of the disciples. In one of these secret Gospels, it describes Jesus taking naked young men off to secret initiation rites in the Garden of Gethsemene. There were Christian Gnostics (knowers) who believed that the church itself was a device of the Devil to keep man from God and from realizing his true nature. In those first centuries of Christianity there was no such thing as orthodoxy and when an organized orthodox church finally came, it was defined, almost inadvertently, in argument against many of the Gnostic sects. So the idea of the Bible as a single, sacred unalterable corpus of texts began in heresy but was then extended and used by churchmen in their efforts to define orthodoxy. One of the Bible's most influential editors was Irenaeus of Lyon who decided that there should only be four Gospels like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures - the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, and the eagle of John. In a single stroke, he had delineated the sacred book of the Christian church and left out the other Gospels. Irenaeus also wrote what Christianity was not, and in this way Christianity became an orthodox faith. A work of Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, became the starting point for later inquisitions. The salvation doctrines of Christianity survived and flourished because they afforded the priesthood considerable power. The priests alone held the keys to salvation and could threaten the unbelievers with eternal punishment. Hence, in the evolution of Christianity in the last two thousand years with priests preying on human fears, the religion has demonstrated extraordinary powers of survival. Even without the priests, the various versions of the Bible have had more influence on the history of the world, in the minds of men than any other literature. Unfortunately, the beliefs in Scripture has been the trigger for the most violent actions against man in the history of humanity. The burning of competing Christian cults (called heretics) by early Christian churches were the seeds of violent atrocities against man. There later followed the destruction of Rome by the Christian Goths, and the secret pagan sacrifices consented by the Pope, the Vandals that had the Bible with them as they destroyed imperial North Africa, the crusades in the eleventh century fighting in the lands around the eastern Mediterranean, Palestine and Syria, capturing Jerusalem and setting kingdoms from Anatolia to the Egyptian border. In 1204 the Fourth Crusade plundered Constantinople the most holy city at that time, with Christians fighting Christians. And the slaughters continued. According to Romer, "More heretics and scholars were burned in the Middle Ages than were ever killed in Carolingian times. For at this time the Inquisition came into its own, and torture, largely unused as an instrument of government since Roman days, was reintroduced." In the early 1500's the German heretic, Martin Luther, almost single handedly caused the split from the Roman Catholic church and created the beginnings of the Protestant church. This split is still influencing violence up to this day. Luther also helped spread the seeds of anti-Semitism with his preaching and books such as his "The Jews and their lies." It must be remembered that Hitler's holocaust could not have occurred if it weren't for German Christian beliefs and their support. There is little reason to think that violence inspired by religion, will ever stop. One only has to look at the religious wars around the world to see belief's everlasting destructive potential. One only has to look at the Protestant-Catholic uprising in Ireland, the conflicts in the middle east with Jews fighting Moslems & Christians, the Iran-Iraq war, Sudan's civil war between Christians and Islamics. The desperate acts of fanatical individuals proclaiming to have killed in the name of Jesus, Mohammed, God or Satan would create a death list far longer than any crimes in history. The Holy Bible supports the notion that war and destruction is not only necessary, but moral. If we wish to become a peaceful species, it may well serve us to understand the forces involved that keep us in continual conflict. The Biblical view of women The God of the Bible decrees that woman must submit to the dominance of man. The social and legal position of an Israelite wife was inferior to the position a wife occupied in the great countries round about... all the texts show that Israelites wanted mainly sons to perpetuate the family line and fortune, and to preserve the ancestral inheritance... A husband could divorce his wife; women on the other hand could not ask for divorce... the wife called her husband Ba'al or master; she also called him adon or lord; she addressed him, in fact, as a slave addressed his master or subject, his king. The Decalogue includes a man's wife among his possessions... all her life she remains a minor. The wife does not inherit from her husband, nor daughters from their father, except when there is no male heir. A vow made by a girl or married woman needs, to be valid, the consent of the father or husband and if this consent is withheld, the vow is null and void. A man had a right to sell his daughter. Women were excluded from the succession. -Roland de Vaux, archaeologist and priest THE VERSES Gods creation In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Genesis 1:1 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness... Genesis 1:26 Comment: The Bible has a problem from the very beginning in that the English term 'God' came from the Hebrew term 'Elohim.' The problem, here, lies in the fact that Elohim represents the plural form of 'El.' And since 'El' means 'god,' then Elohim should mean 'gods.' (More accurately, "goddesses.") The idea of Genesis and the Creation did not come originally from the Hebrews, but rather from various cultures in the area. For example, excavations in Mesopotamia uncovered small cylinder seals depicting the creation stories. Of course these early people believed in many gods and goddesses, just as the first Hebrew people did. Although as the Hebrew belief system grew, and the word Elohim came to mean the singular God, the fact still remains: The original meaning meant the plural form. Any honest translation of Elohim, therefore should reflect this plurality. In the name of honesty, we should ask why our Church fathers would allow the dishonest singular forms of the word God in the Bible. Note, when anyone questioned this plurality, Christian priests tried to resolve this sticky problem by using the concept of the Trinity (Father, Son and the Holy Ghost) to explain the plurality. The problem here comes that if they truly believed this, then why not use the proper plural translation in the first place? Creation paradox And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that is was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness... Genesis 1:25-26 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air... Genesis 2:18-19 Comment: Man was made before the beasts and after the beasts. Only a person who exercised warped logic or blind faith could justify this outright contradiction. Yet to the fundamentalist reader, the many hundreds of contradictions and discrepancies in the Bible go by unseen, regardless of how many honest scholars and theologians have discovered otherwise. Even the belief among non-fundamentalists, that the Bible has kept its original form despite minor changes, has led many theologians to think otherwise. One of the most highly respected theologians, Bruce Metzger, has written extensively on the errors in the Bible. For example, in his book "The text of the New Testament- Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration," Metzger asserts errors due to: Errors arising from faulty eyesight, Errors arising from faulty hearing, Errors of the mind, Errors of judgment, Difficulties historical and geographical, Alterations from doctrinal considerations, Addition of miscellaneous details. Many times whole belief systems and vast changes to a society can change from a simple mistranslation of a single word. (See "virgin" in Isaiah 7:14) Creation paradox 2 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Genesis 1:27 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. Genesis 2:21-22 Comment: In the first account, God created a man and female, simultaneously. In the second account Adam got created from out of the dust, and then later, a woman came from one of his ribs. There occur many other contradictions in the Bible that would require an extensive amount of disk space to record and explain. For those who feel impressed by the number of instances, and for further edification, consult "The Bible Handbook for Free-Thinkers and Inquiring Christians," edited by G. W. Foote and W. P. Ball (Pioneer Press, London) Incestuous relations And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Genesis 2:23 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. And she again bare his brother Abel. and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. Genesis 4:1-2 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch... Genesis 4:17 Comment: Since Eve came from Adam and due to God's edict to "be fruitful and multiply," this describes the first incestual relationship. In 4:17 one must infer incest for Cain would have had to have sex with either his own mother, Eve, or an unnamed sister. For other examples of Biblical incest see Gen. 20:12 where Abraham married his half-sister Sarah; Gen. 19:30-38 where Lot's daughters had intercourse with him; Gen. 38:16 where Tamar had sex with her father-in-law Judah. People should become aware that many of today's incestuous abuses occur in Christian families and many use Biblical scripture for its justification. Women's sorrow Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Genesis 3:16 Comment: Not only does Woman get blamed for the Fall, but God decides to multiply her sorrow, plus, she must submit to her husband like a slave. To this day, Christians and Jews place women lower then men. Before the advent of male dominated religions, cultures around the world respected women and worshipped goddesses. The Old Testament records the brutal slaughter of surrounding cultures and slowly throughout the centuries, the goddess religions faded away in place of the belief-system of a jealous male war god. Cain's wife? And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. Genesis 4:17 Comment: What wife? At that time only Adam & Eve, Can and Abel existed on the Earth. The only possibility comes from, either a grave omission from the Bible, or his mother Eve served as his wife. The second possibility would mean incest. After Cain killed his brother, God protected him by setting "a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him." (verse 14). Considering the earth supposedly had only Adam's family, who should kill him? And what kind of mark could have protected Cain? From the absurdity of this story, it should not surprise why anyone would read into it what they wanted. Certain inane beliefs resulted such as the common belief that the "mark of Cain" meant the dark skin of the "Negro" race. Shed the blood And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made the man. Genesis 9:5-6 Comment Some anti-abortionists have used these words to justify the killing of abortionists. As such, these words helped inspire Michael Griffin to kill Doctor David Gunn on March 10, 1993. Consider that little of the Bible even mentions abortion, much the less the condemnation of it. On the contrary, God himself has condoned, not only miscarriages, but has personally called for the killing of suckling infants and the bashing of children against the rocks. (See Numbers 5:26-27, I Samuel 15:2-3, and Psalm 137:9) Fatal Orgasm And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also. Genesis 38:7-10 Comment The term "onanism," from the name Onan, has come to stand for masturbation which has suffered a fate similar to sodomy in the sense that it has evolved to have a meaning far different from its original usage. Dictionaries define onanism as "male masturbation" or "Uncompleted coitus." According to interpretations of the Bible, Onan removed his penis from his partner's vagina before he ejaculated so that his seed fell onto the ground. This displeased God so much that he killed him! Onanism has also received a another definition of "self pollution" which has caused misery throughout the centuries. God killed Onan because, rather than to impregnate his brother's wife - thus extending his line, Onan chose to interrupt his coitus before he could impregnate Tamar. Onan had a logical reason for doing so, one that involved Jewish law of those ancient days. During Biblical times, any child born to the wife of the eldest son died without heirs - and if his wife had no children sired by a relative of her dead spouse - then the dominance would pass to the second son. Onan stood to lose a great deal if he complied with his father's order. Had he been asked to marry his brother's wife, thus transferring her to his possession, he no doubt would have completed the act. Then the resultant child would have been his, legally as well as physically. Some time during the centuries, the character of the sinful act was changed. Instead of being recognized as a seldom performed interrupting of coitus, it became accepted as any form of self-stimulation that resulted in orgasm. And the entire character of the deed became altered, and Onanism came to mean a sinful act of masturbation! God's threat to kill And Moses said, Thus saith the LORD, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt: And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts. Exodus 11:4-5 Comment: After reading such verses, it would become apparent, even to a child, that this does not describe the actions of a loving Being. Anyone who reconciles the killing of innocent children with an intelligent and loving Creator can only come from great ignorance and stupidity under the addiction of blind faith. "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind." - Thomas Paine God kills the firstborns! And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead. Exodus 12:29-30 Comment: If we believe every word in the Bible as coming from God, then it stands to reason that the violent actions from the God described in Exodus cannot give us a moral comparison to live our lives in a peaceful world. If one wishes to believe that God possess love for His creations, then the killing of innocent children cannot possibly come from God, and therefore, these verses from the Bible must have come elsewhere. But note that if one takes the Bible's words as truth, then not only did God smote the firstborn children, but all firstborn regardless of age. This means children of all ages, teenagers, men, women, and the aged. No matter how much love or goodness they may have imparted to the world, if they were unlucky to have first passed through their mothers vagina, they were to be killed by God. God- man of war The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name. Exodus 15:3 Comment: Note that many fundamentalists who consider every word of the Bible as fact must also concede that God, not only consists of a man, but also a man of war; a killer man of men. With such a belief, how could a Christian people ever divorce war from their lives? The Midrash Rabbah gives an explanation of The Man God: "His lower half was 'man', but his upper half was as God. [Only the lower half of his body, the seat of the sexual and secretory organs, belonged to the earthly within him, but his head and heart, given over entirely to holiness, were as divine.]" More than one God Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them. Exodus 18:11 Comment: Here we have the Bible alluding to the existence of more than one god. Note that it does not say "the Lord is the ONLY god" but rather that he "is greater than all gods." History records that the ancient people in the area of the Middle East, including the Hebrews, believed in many goddesses and gods. Yahweh served only as their god, a god among many others. "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." - Thomas Jefferson The "gods" Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3 Comment: Note this does not mean "I am the only god," but rather, that one shall not believe in other gods above the God of the Chosen People. Scholars and archeologists know that the early Hebrews practiced polytheism. Not only does the Bible describe the polytheism of the Hebrews but digs from archeological sites give evidence that these early people believed in many gods, or more accurately, goddesses. They have found many statuette goddesses among their living dwellings. Monotheism appears later in the Bible. Historically, monotheism got taught by many Greek philosophers. Judaism later separated itself from the Hellenistic world with its belief in only one supreme deity. God accepts slavery And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever. Exodus 21:5-6 Comment: The Bible bears witness to the fact that God accepts not only slavery but violence against such slaves (in this case a awl driven through the ear) for the innocent statement of love for their master, wife and children. It came from precisely these verses that justified, in many peoples minds, the tortures inflicted on African slaves when they tried to leave their cruel masters in the American colonies. "Good" Christians of the day would drive nails and spikes through the ears of defenseless slaves whose only offense came from the will to no longer serve as slaves. Not until after the Civil War did federal laws become enacted to protect African Americans from gross physical abuse. Even today, the KKK and "the Aryan Race" use the Bible as justification for their attacks against "Negroes." Kill the witches! Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Whoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death. He that sacrificeth unto any god, save to the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed. Exodus 22:18-20 Comment: These verses attest to the power of belief as they led to the slaughter of thousands of defenseless people throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Understand that these verses not only authorize the executions but they explicitly command them. Verse 18 justified the burning of women in Europe judged as witches. In early America, the Salem witch trials resulted in the deaths of women and men. Verse 19 refers to bestiality, a sin considered worthy of death. Christians used verse 20 to justify religious wars, Crusades and the slaughter of unbelievers throughout Europe. And the condemnation of heretics still goes on. Human sacrifice Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me. Exodus 22:29 Comment: This verse refers to human sacrifice which many primitive cultures practiced. In the Canaanite world the Molech cult practiced human sacrifice and many scholars equate Yahweh with the Molech god. Explicit references to Molech appear in Lev. 18:21, 20:2-5; Jer. 32:35 and II Kings 23:10. Fortunately, few people believe in sacrificing humans to gods these days. (See also Gen. 22:1-19 for Abraham's will to sacrifice his son Isaac, and Judges 11) The Back Parts of God And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend... Exodus 33:11 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts; but my face shall not be seen. Exodus 33:20-23 Comment: In verse 11 we read that God spoke to Moses, face-to-face. Yet in seeming contradiction, we have later God telling Moses that he cannot see His face. Instead, God decides to show Moses his back parts! God 'the Jealous' For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters so a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods. Exodus 34:14-16 Comment: Verse 14 (among other verses of the Bible) makes it abundantly clear that the God not only feels jealous but the Bible names him Jealous. Why an all powerful God should feel jealous of his creations simply because they believed in other gods remains unclear. Could it mean that other gods exist as well as the Hebrew god? It appears that many Christians fail to heed this explicit command in verse 16 to not make molten gods. Many Christians use plastic Jesus' or molten statuettes of Christ tortured and nailed to a Cross (Jesus, supposedly God in human form). Fire from the Lord AND Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. Leviticus 10:1-2 Comment: In Sunday school, many children learn that Satan lives within and uses fire, yet here we have fire coming out of God to devour two young men to death. Their only crime came from offering before God a "strange fire." Although no one knows what the term "strange fire" means, it seems improbable that it could deserve a cruel death. Female births get penalty Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean. Leviticus 12:2 But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days. Leviticus 12:5 Comment: A woman who gives birth to a child must undergo a purification ritual lest her "uncleanness" contaminate others. This not only entails her isolation, but also payments to priests for the ritual acts. Thus the male dominators had even made birth dirty. Notice here that if a woman bears a female child, her isolation must last twice as long as that if she gives birth to a male child! (See also Psalms 51:3-5) "The Bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of woman's emancipation." -Elizabeth Cady Stanton Death to adulterers And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:10-11 Comment: Few Christians today consider death as a punishment for adultery; no doubt because so many Christians, themselves, practice sexual liaisons with other people's spouses. Note, however, that a growing number of heterosexual fundamentalists have begun to call for the death penalty for homosexuals simply because Leviticus 20:13 calls for the death of a man who lies with mankind (homosexuality). Burn the daughter! And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire. Leviticus 21:9 Comment: A priest's daughter, if found to have lost her virginity without marriage, can receive the death penalty, but in the form of incineration. How many fundamentalist priests who so easily condemn others would carry out the burning of their daughters if they found them "whoring"? (See also Genesis 38:24) God's OK on abortion And when he hath made her drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. Numbers 5:27-28 Comment: This nonsensical ritual, prescribed by God, to a woman suspected of infidelity, must undergo the drinking of a vile concoction made of bitter water and dust from the floor of a tabernacle. A priest calls a curse upon the woman's head to insure that if she has acted in adultery the drinking of the liquid will cause her to have a miscarriage. If she comes out clean, then she shall conceive. Regardless of how ridiculous this procedure appears, any person who believes every word of the Bible must come to terms with the realization that the quoted God here sometimes authorizes abortion. (also read Num. 5:1-25) Curse the children And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise. Numbers 14:33-34 Comment: This cruel curse on children attributed to God, for the sins of their parents, bears the typical harsh vengeful evil spirit that permeates the Old Testament. How can one not conclude that these verses give the greatest insult to a loving God? God buries them alive And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation. And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also. And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense. Numbers 16:32-35 Comment: Moses relays a sadistic threat that asks us to believe that God punishes members of families, including innocent infants. And again we have the Satanic fire coming from God burning his creations. God's fiery serpents And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Numbers 21:5-6 Comment: The Israelites began to complain against God about their miserable condition in the wilderness. So what did their loving God do? Their Jealous god sent fiery serpents to cause even more misery and death! Serpents, usually regarded as the Devil, appears to have come from the direct will of God here. Do God and Satan work together as a team? Let us hope not! Actually, in ancient cultures the snake represented a symbol of the Goddess. Many times a priestess of a Goddess temple would use snakes in their rituals. Sometimes a snake bite could cause hallucinations, or by their beliefs- 'prophetic visions.' Much of the Old Testament describes the Israelites overtaking the goddess cultures and destroying their cities. They thoroughly eliminated the goddess religions and replaced them with their male god religion; they even turned the Scripture words of the goddess into masculine terms. Nowhere does the word 'goddess' appear in the Old Testament, yet many times, when you see the word 'gods,' it actually refers to goddesses. Sending fear into the hearts of the Israelites concerning the goddess, gave power to their own male god. Thus, Numbers 21:8-9 describes Moses control of the goddess symbol by making a fiery serpent; anyone who gets bitten when he sees it, lives. The deaths due to the fiery serpents and then Moses' command from the Lord to save their lives when bitten, must have given their male god a powerful image. The talking donkey And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff. And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, "What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?" And Balaam said unto the ass, "Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee." And the ass said unto Balaam, "Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee?" And he said, "Nay." Numbers 22:27-30 Comment: Here we have, as absurd as it may seem, a talking donkey. If we came across a talking animal, would we not feel amazed? Yet, oddly, Balaam here seems not the least bit concerned and converses with the ass as if nothing unusual had happened! Given that millions of fundamentalists believe every world in the Bible, they would have us also believe that the Bible has its own version of Mr. Ed. Notice that Balaam's cruel behavior to the donkey seems to have mimicked God's jealous behavior towards His people. Yet God responds to Balaam: "thy way is perverse before me." (Num. 22:32) "If the bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it." - William Jennings Bryan Decapitate them! And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. And the LORD said unto Moses, "Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel." Numbers 25:3-4 Comment: Those who worshipped other gods must die, and even more horribly, their heads displayed publicly. Either God never said anything so cruel, or we truly live in a cursed universe, ruled by a maniac Supreme Being. Millions of people, today, switch their religions. If God had any interest in this ongoing process, there appears no evidence of this. Moses' mass murder Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. Numbers 31:16-18 Comment: Moses commands the murder of approximately 100,000 young males and, roughly, 68,000 helpless women. Consider women and children of your own family: No matter how sick they may lay, or how they may go against a religion, how would you feel if a man named Moses, claiming to speak for God, sent men into your house and hacked to pieces the women and male children? Also, how would you react if they spotted a female child, dragged her off with them to do as they please with her? Note that these innocent virgins served for their own sexual pleasures. Midian, the land of the Midianites, did not reside in an area regarded as a natural enemy of Israel for centuries, and in fact lay hundreds of miles away from the Israelite encampment. Moses, himself, had lived in Midian as fugitive after committing his first murder. In short, Midian presented no threat to God's Chosen People. Slaughter of innocents And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain. Deuteronomy 2:34 And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Hesbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city. But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities we took for a prey to ourselves. Deuteronomy 3:6-7 Comment: Such words helped give justification to mediaeval Crusaders who slaughtered men, women and children along their way and stole the spoils of the cities. Even today, many Christian military men use Scripture to justify their actions. Even George Bush, with Billy Graham beside him, proclaimed the Gulf War as "moral." (See also Deuteronomy 20:16-17 and Joshua 6:2) Utter destruction Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. Deuteronomy 12:2-3 Comment: The Lord, here commands the destruction of all the places where people worship other gods. There appears not a shred of religious tolerance here! "I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism." - Albert Einstein Kill all unbelievers And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God... Deuteronomy 13: 5 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Deuteronomy 13: 6 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. Deuteronomy 13:8-9 Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. Deuteronomy 13:15 Comment: These severe laws commanded the members of the Hebrew religion to murder even their own children if they did not worship Yahweh (God). These Bible words can justify, to a fanatical fundamentalist believer, the killing of friends or family simply because they may fail to change their beliefs. Why anyone today would accept these words, much less allow them to exist in a sacred book goes against the nature of any tolerant and loving people. Stone the woman! If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Deuteronomy 22:22 Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you. Deuteronomy 22:24 Comment: (Read also Deut. 22:13-21) The discovery of a bride lying with another man can yield disastrous results. If the wife's parents can produce tokens of the damsel's virginity and spread the cloth before the elders of the city, the husband has to pay the bride's father one hundred silver shekels and he may not send his wife back to her parents as long as she lives. But if the bride's virginity does not satisfy the requirements, the husband can get rid of her by letting the men of the city stone her to death. From a practical level, these designed laws regulating women's virginity protected economic transactions between men rather than for the sake of morality. Virgin's worth If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silvers, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. Deuteronomy 22:28-29 Comment: The impression we get about the law leads us to believe that it represented a great advancement in morality. However, if we look at this law in the social and economic context, it becomes evident that it did not come from any moral ground, but rather to protect men's property rights of their wives and daughters. This law says that since an unmarried girl, a non-virgin, no longer serves as an economically valuable asset, her father must receive compensation. As for the legal requirement of the man that caused the economic problem, his marriage in that society gave him practically unlimited power over their wives. Such forced marriage can hardly serve as a concern for the poor girl's welfare. The sacred penis He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD. A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD. Deuteronomy 23:1-2 Comment: Consider the religious man who happens to accidentally receive an injury that results in the loss of his penis. According to the Bible, and regardless of his righteousness or goodwill toward men, mind you, but just because he lacks a penis, he should never enter a Church or Temple again. Also pity a poor man born of a mother who, for whatever reason, including rape, may have born him out of wedlock. He too should, according to the Bible, never enter the Lord's congregation. Fecal disposal And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee: For the LORD thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall they camp be holy: that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee. Deuteronomy 23:13-14 Comment: These verses ask us to believe that God has concern for fecal waste disposal outside a military camp because God personally wishes to walk within the camp. Now really! Cut off her hand! When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her. Deuteronomy 25:11-12 Comment: A wife would naturally wish to come to the aid of her husband in any way she could if he desperately struggled with an opponent, but the Hebrew law specifically forbade a wife to help her husband in distress if that support consisted of her grabbing the enemy's genitals in an effort to stifle his onslaught. The penalty? Amputation of the hand that fondled the genitals! Only in an overly obsessive male dominated culture could men create such atrocious laws. As such, the penis ranked sacrosanct in the minds of men (as it still stands today). If a male lost his penis for any reason, he would lose the right to enter a congregation of God. (See Deuteronomy 23:1) God-given hemorrhoids The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. Deuteronomy 28:27 CommentS: When Israel felt rebellious against God's plan, He threatened them with type of plague: "emerods" or by today's terminology, "hemorrhoids." God also sent hemorrhoids as a plague to the enemies. "...he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods..." and "... Lord was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts." (See I Samuel 5:6-12) Eat your children And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD they God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straightness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee: -Deuteronomy 28:53 And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates. Deuteronomy 28:57 Comment: Here we have the horrific calling for cannibalism. It comes even more barbaric considering it calls for the devouring of their own sons and daughters. Hardly anyone today accepts cannibalism, yet many fundamentalist Christians would have us believe that cannibalism will result if we choose not to believe in God or to choose another god.(See also II Kings 6:28-29) God rejoices your death And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. Deuteronomy 28:63 Comment: If the religious mind believes that God represents a loving God, then one must wonder about God, as described in the Bible, who would rejoice to destroy some of his creations. Should we hold honor to an insane God? The Bible assures us that God possess an evil spirit with hate, and full of wrath, and here he rejoices in destruction! God appears completely devoid of any wit or humor; a mental state that psychologists have observed in many schizophrenics. Utter destruction And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. Joshua 6:21 Comment: These "God inspired" words give not a hint of mercy to innocent slaughtered women, children or the old. After Moses and Aaron died, Joshua assumed command and the Israelites entered Jericho. Note that in the same siege, "all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord: they shall come into the treasury of the Lord" (Josh. 6:19) In the battle of Ai, the Bible tells that twelve thousand, the whole population of Ai, got slaughtered. (Josh. 8:25) Note that many invaders throughout history have used such words as justification for wars and looting. (See also Deuteronomy 3:6-7) God casts stones And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. Joshua 10:11 Comment: Another typical slaughter described in the Bible. Here we have God, personally throwing great stones on the people for the sole purpose of killing them. "The Christian religion has been and still is the principle enemy of moral progress in the world."- Bertrand Russell The sun stands still Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. Joshua 10:12-13 Comment: These verses imply that the sun moves around the earth. If the Bible actually represents the words or inspired words of God, then why didn't the Great Creator inspire them to tell the truth about the universe and our solar system? Also, the Bible asks us to believe that a supposedly loving God made the sun stand still for the sole purpose of helping the Israelites slaughter the Amorites. How can one not see that these verses would insult the intelligence of any person who believes God possess wisdom, knowledge and love? Nail his head! Then Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died. Judges 4:21 Comment: In verse 16 the Israelites surprise Sisera's army and that "there was not a man left," except Sisera who deserts his army and flees, a deed punishable by court martial today. Sisera then goes to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber. Jael takes him in, hides him under a blanket, gives him milk to quench his thirst, and promises to stand guard at the door while he sleeps. Then Jael kills Sisera! We see no telling of the slightest shame, but rather, Jael proudly flaunts her kill. The author of this piece of Scripture makes it clear that the passage represents a deed, not only as grand and heroic but also consistent with the will of God (see Judges 4:23). Gideon slaughters And Gideon said, Therefore when the Lord hath delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into mine hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers Judges 8:7 Now Zebah and Zalmunna were Karkor, and their hosts with them, about fifteen thousand men, all that were left of all the hosts of the children of the east: for there fell an hundred and twenty thousand men that drew sword. Judges 8:10 Comment: The Gideon Society places Bibles into motels and hotels across America. One would assume Gideon lived as a person of exemplary character and great worth to have a worldwide society named after him. Below describes some of Gideon's accomplishments: + Gideon slaughtered thousands in battle by plotting with the "Lord" to use Treachery. + Gideon murdered thousands more for worshipping "false Gods." + Gideon tortured and killed still more for daring to taunt him. + Gideon plundered the bodies of his victims (to fashion a jeweled priestly vestment). + Gideon fathered an offspring who killed 69 of his stepbrothers. Read the story of Gideon in Judges, chapters 6-9. The tale of Gideon describes just one of the many horror stories in the Bible, a book that glorifies behavior abysmal to modern society. The clergy and leaders have hoodwinked millions of people about the stories in the Bible. Don't let others decide for yourself. Rape my daughter Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go. Judges 19:24-25 Comment: Judges 19 describe a father who offers his virgin daughter to a drunken mob. When the father says "unto this man do not so vile a thing," he makes clear that sexual abuse should never befall a man (meaning him), yet a woman, even his own flesh and blood, or a concubine belonging to a perfect stranger, can receive punishment from men to do what they wish. This attitude against women still persists to this day and we have the Bible, in large part, to thank for this attitude against women. Verse 25 describes the hours long gang rape of the poor concubine. The Bible gives not one hint of passion or concern for the raped girl. Considering that many people believe that every word in the Bible comes from God, it should not surprise anyone why people still use these verses to justify such atrocities. Godly mass murder And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter. I Samuel 6:19 Comment: Here we have just one more instance of God performing mass murder, a sadistic killer far worse than Hitler, Attila the Hun or Pol Pot. These verses should insult the intelligence of any person who thinks that God possesses a loving nature. One should not dismiss the Old Testament's repeated demand for the vilest atrocities as something peculiar to the early Hebrews. Even today, our most atrocious wars, terrorism and hate crimes occur around the world based on ancient religious beliefs, many of them coming directly from verses in the Old and New Testament. Kill man, woman, infant Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. I Samuel 15:2-3 Comment: No matter how one can justify possible crimes from adults, suckling infants have no means of acting out crimes. And what evil against God could the animals have possibly performed? Only an evil entity could kill innocent infants and animals, no matter what their parents and owners may have done. The evil spirit of God And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. I Samuel 16:23 Comment: Here it specifically describes an evil spirit from God! What religious killer could not also view this passage as justification for his evil nature? Note that many murderers and serial killers have attributed the Biblical God to the reason for their slaughters. If the Religious Right feels so adamant about eliminating violence and pornography from secular literature, then why have they not seen that the Bible has influenced more deaths and atrocities than any other literature in the history of mankind?(See also I Samuel 19:9) Evil spirit of the Lord And the evil spirit from the LORD was upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his javelin in his hand: and David played with his hand. I Samuel 19:9 Comment: Consider that many modern Judeo-Christians consider God the opposite of evil, yet here we have, again, the clear Biblical wording of evil coming from the LORD. In early Christian history, several Gnostic cults believed that the orthodox Church as well as the Old Testament, came from Satan. The Church, of course, labeled these Gnostics as heretics and burned their books as well as the heretics themselves. Reading the Old Testament appears to affirm the observation that God and Satan, if not one in the same, at least work as a team.(See also I Samuel 16:23) David uncovers himself And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart. II Samuel 6:14-16 Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel today, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself! II Samuel 6:20 Comment: Imagine King David dancing and leaping with all his might while uncovering himself to the crowd. David's wife, in effect, says "Well, you certainly made an ass of yourself at the temple today leaping and dancing about like an idiot and exposing yourself." An "ephod" describes of an embroidered robe that looks similar to a woman's dress. God orders adultery This said the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. II Samuel 12:11 Comment: Here describes God, not only condoning adultery, but literally causes it to happen! Note also, the strange assertion that God raises up evil, supposedly an act reserved for Satan. King David's holocaust And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under the axes of iron, and made them pass through the brickkiln: and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. So David and all the people returned unto Jerusalem. II Samuel 12:31 Comment: From the sacred scripts from the Bible we learn that the great King David carried out atrocities that rivaled the cruel acts from the holocaust of World War II. If we condemn the Nazi's for their atrocities, why should we not do the same for David's bloodthirsty actions? Cut off that penis! therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jerobo'am, and will cut off from Jerobo'am him that pisseth against the wall... I Kings 14:10 Comment: If God brings evil upon a house, then what makes Him different from Satan? Although the unsanitary practice of urinating on walls might have caused serious erosion of the mud walls, this appears too steep a punishment. Considering that God would cut off the penis of a man for simply urinating against a wall lends no will to believe this God as loving. (See also I Kings 16:8-11, I Kings 21:21, and II Kings 9:8-10) Pisseth against walls And it came to pass, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends. I Kings 16:11 Comment: Consider that many Christians tell us to believe all of the Bible, must we also include this vulgar language as the inspiration of God? (See also I Kings 14:10, 21:21; II Kings 9:8) Eating dung and son And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver. II Kings 6:25 And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son II Kings 6:28-29 Comment: According to the Bible, a horrible famine took place in Samaria where in desperation, the people ate feces of doves, (strangely worth more than a donkey's head). The same chapter describes an incident of cannibalism- a son boiled alive by his mother to provide food. Eating dung and drinking piss But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? II Kings 18:27 Comment: Whatever moral lesson an adult might gain from such vulgar verses, one can only wonder. How many parents realize that their children, who might come across such filthy passages, could get the wrong message? Any mention of drinking of feces and urine in any secular writing would get considered obscene and sick by any righteous minded Christian. Then why should it not receive the same consideration if found in a bible? Note the word "piss" stands as one of the vulgar words that does not get allowed on television programming. If Christians wish to censor such language from secular sources, then it behooves them to give themselves as an example and thus censor the obscene verses from their own Bible.(See also Isaiah 36:12) Fire of God Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. I Kings 18:38 Comment: We get told that Satan involves himself with the eternal consuming fire, yet the Bible makes it abundantly clear that hell fire comes directly from God. Note that fire does not consume stones, otherwise ovens and kilns could not work. David slaughters them And he brought out the people that were in it, and cut them with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes... I Chronicles 20:3 Comment: Chapter 17-19 tell us that David killed 22,000 Syrians and that Abishai killed 18,000 Edomites. No one expresses shame at such slaughters. Here in 20:3, we have David, counted as a great leader of the Israelites, slaughtering captives after the cessation of hostilities. From what high moral ground should we admire this action? God & Satan the same? AND Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. I Chronicles 21:1 AND again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. II Samuel 24:1 Comment: Here we have either a contradiction, a grave Biblical error, God and Satan working together, or the unmistakable interpretation that God and Satan "are" one and the same! Given that fundamentalists believe the Bible contains no errors or contradictions, then that leaves only the last two possibilities Note that the capitalized word "AND" appears at the beginning of each verse and the message appears at the beginning of each chapter. Note also that the name Lucifer (another name for Satan) means light bearer, or morning star: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer to the ground..." - Isaiah 14:12 The last page of the Bible reveals Jesus: "I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star." -Rev. 22:16 It should now become clear to the reader why some Satanist cults use the same Bible as the Christians.(See also evil and good from God: Lamentations 3: 38-39) God sends pestilence Either three years' famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the LORD, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel... I Chronicles 21:12 So the LORD sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. I Chronicles 21:14 Comment: David made an offense against God in taking a census of the people, so God gave David a choice. Oddly enough, David ignores God and never actually gets around to making a choice; so the Lord makes the decision for him and sends pestilence upon Israel. It appears unclear as to why David committed a crime, but why shouldn't God have punished individual offenders instead of killing an army of innocent bystanders? Atrocities such as this appear outrageous enough when perpetrated by Attila the Hun, Hitler or Pol Pot, but when it comes from a, supposedly, loving God, it should make one wonder if this represents a Devil instead of a God. God slaughters blacks Zerah, the Ethiopian came up against them with an army of a million and three hundred chariots... II Chronicles 14:9 Then the LORD struck down the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah so that the Ethiopians fled. II Chronicles 14:12 Comment: It appears doubtful that Black Christian Bible studies programs concentrate on these verses. These Bibles verses say that the Lord God slaughtered over a million blacks. The Klu Klux Klan have used such verses as evidence to justify their beliefs. God's bowel diseases Behold with a great plague will the LORD smite thy people and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day. II Chronicles 21:14-15 And after all this the LORD smote him in his bowels with an incurable disease. And it came to pass, that in process of time, after the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of sickness: so he died of sore diseases. And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers. II Chronicles 18:19 Comment: Another among many instances in the Bible where the Lord smites, not only men, but all the people including women and children. Why God would concern himself with giving an incurable cruel bowel disease where the person's guts spill out of the abdomen, goes beyond human decency and comprehension. The wrathful God Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. Psalm 18:7-11 Comment: Consider that these verses describe an angry (wroth) being, spouting smoke and fire, whose secret place consisted of darkness. This devilish entity, sounds like a description of Satan, but believe it or not, actually comes from the Bible as describing God. Washing feet in blood The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. Psalm 58:10 Comment: How many "good" Christians realize that such words appear in the Bible? Of course most preachers keep these immoral words away from their congregations, and the few Christians who do come across these verses, re-interpret them for their own purposes, not realizing the impact these words can have on some. Unfortunately, the few that take these verses literally can justify atrocities against anyone who they wish to define as "wicked." Godly head wounds But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such a one as goeth on still in his trespasses. The Lord said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea: That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same. Psalm 68:21-23 Comment: If anyone believes these sadistic words come from God, then it might serve prudence to stay away from such people. For anyone who holds to such beliefs may very well do the same to others. Happy to kill children Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. Psalm 137:9 (KJV) [Happy the man who shall seize and smash your little ones against the rock!] Psalm 137:9 (New American Bible) [a blessing on anyone who seizes your babies and shatters them against a rock!] Psalm 137:9 (Jerusalem Bible) Comment: Ask a Christian friend whether he or she should feel happy to dash a child against the rocks. Your friend will most likely stare at you in horror, much less believe this idea exists in their sacred Bible. Many Churches have found this verse as quite embarrassing. It gives no wonder then why priests, Jews, and Christians alike, have quoted from Psalm 137, but always leaving out this last verse. (See also Isaiah 13:16) Hate them! Surely thou will slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. Psalm 139:19-22 Comment: A message of hate from the, supposed, inspired words of God against anyone who takes God's name in vain or who goes against God. Faith in one's belief produces a barrier to further investigation. As such, societies that differ in beliefs from other societies cannot see past their own barriers. When hate enters into the prison of their beliefs, the seeds for violence to act out against other societies come to full bloom. Burn them! Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man; who have purposed to overthrow my goings. Psalm 140:4 Let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again. Psalm 140:10 Comment: Such wicked words can justify to the religious person any atrocity including holocausts. Ironically in verse 4, the words "Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked" calls in verse 10 for horrible acts against their enemies; hardly a message of love of thine enemies. Drugs and aphrodisiacs Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves. The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved. Song of Solomon 7:11-13 Comment: The poetry of the Songs of Solomon give Scriptural testimony for love, sex and the beauty of the female body, a rare and usually ignored portion of the Bible by many fundamentalist Christians. The mandrakes mentioned here describe a Mediterranean herb of the nightshade family of plants. To this day in the Middle East, people believe it overcomes impotence in men and acts as a powerful aphrodisiac. Even the roots have a decidedly phallic appearance. Ancient physician, Galen, wrote that pomegranate possessed antifertility properties. Many women in ancient days used pomegranate, (as well as other plants) for birth control, with little interference from religious or political authorities. Studies in the 1930s showed that pomegranate reduced fertility in laboratory animals, much as modern contraceptive pills do. [Archaeology, March/April 1994] (See also Genesis 30:14) "Virgin" mistranslation Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 Comment: Perhaps the most famous mistranslation of the Bible, the word virgin here comes from a mistranslated Greek word for virgin. However, the original Hebrew version uses the word "almah" which means "young woman" which may or may not refer to a virgin. Of course the context of the original Hebrew Isaiah does not refer to a virgin at all, as scholars the world over agree. Later, the author of Matthew 1:22-23, quoted from the mistranslated Isaiah version, and thus the error turned into a world-wide belief. Today a few of the modern bibles such as the Revised Standard Version, have corrected this mistranslation and have replaced the word virgin with "young woman." Apparently either God makes errors or the Bible does not come all from god, but rather from fallible men. Raping and killing Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword. Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished Isaiah 13:15-16 Comment: These verses foretold the deaths of the people of Babylon. Fortunately not everyone in Babylon (now modern Iraq) fell by the sword or had their children dashed to pieces or their wives raped (just another instance of errors in the Bible). How some people who believe in an infallible Bible can accept these verses as God inspired, or morally uplifting can only give evidence to the blinding nature of belief. Passing wind Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab, and mine inward parts for Kirharesh. Isaiah 16:11 Comment: This passage refers to the flatulent passing of gas in musical fashion from the bowels of a prophet. Could this represent a rare instance of humor in the Bible? Prophesy in the nude At the same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy lions, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. Isaiah 20:2-4 Comment: Although Saul acted on his own, God gave Isaiah a direct injunction to prophesy in the nude, and it should continue for three years. God seems not the least offended by nudity when it comes to prophesying, yet he imbues his followers with shame over nudity associated with sex, especially when it involves pagan sex worship. (See also Micah 1:8) Babylon is fallen And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground. Isaiah 21:9 Comment: Many soldiers have used Bible verses to justify horrific destruction against their enemy. Such beliefs can comfort the minds of men to do virtually any kind of atrocity against men, women, and children of the enemy. The Crusaders of the 12th century, slaughtered or tortured anyone who stood in their way. The Bible's words gave them their justification. Even today, our government, military and religious leaders judge wars as "moral" based on Biblical reasoning. Fighting men feel, not only comforted, but glorious in their actions against the destruction of fellow human beings. In the Gulf War, for example, an F-16 fighter/bomber had "Isaiah 21:9" written on his bomb. God creates evil and peace I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Isaiah 45:7 Comment: Here it explicitly states that God creates evil as well as makes peace. Considering that since the invention of man-made religions there has always existed war, it appears that God likes war more than peace. (see also Lam. 3:38, II Samuel 12:11 & I Kings 14:10 "I will bring evil upon...") Evil from God Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good? Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Lamentations 3: 38-39 Comment: Here we have the little known verse that plainly asserts that evil as well as good comes from the mouth of God. At the same time, men who possess God given evil must endure punishment for God's cruel gift. (see also II Samuel 12:11 and I Kings 14:10 "I will bring evil upon...") Eat human feces! And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight. And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them. Ezekiel 4:12-13 Comment: How many good Christians today realize that their God has coprophilic tendencies? One wonders what value, nutritional or moral, it would serve the people to eat human feces with their bread, as God ordered. Note, God here has also ordered, the voyeuristic-like observation of the feces coming out man. Slay old and young And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and woman: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house. Ezekiel 9:5-6 Comment: These words, commanded by God, orders the slaying of not only women and the old, but of little children. These accounts of cold-blooded massacres occurred simply because people refused to accept Yahweh. These phrases should give warning to anyone who knows a person who believes every word in the Bible. For what sense of moral reasoning should we allow ourselves to admire such Biblical verses? Biblical pornography Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. Ezekiel 23: 20-21 [and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions.] Ezekiel 23: 21 (NRSV) Comment: The story of the sister whores, Aholah and Aholibah gives a moral lesson against the sins of the flesh. But why does God have to describe their adventures in such pornographic detail? As any adult should know, such descriptions might bring temptation for anyone reading these verses. For what moral lessen can this could this possibly serve? What parent would want their children reading verse 21 about comparing the size of men's penises to donkey genitals and the sperm flow to that of horse issues? Rip up pregnant women Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. Hosea 13:16 Comment: Throughout the Bible, God smites those who do not believe in him or those who do not follow his commands. Here we have the grotesque description of infants dashed to pieces and pregnant women ripped up. Whatever rebellious nature an infant's father or mother may have had, it bears no justice to an innocent child or to an unborn fetus who could not possibly have rebelled against God, much less understood him. Anyone who claims to love such a God, must accept infanticide as one of God's ugly revenges. (See also Psalm 137:9) Make weapons Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Joel 3:9-10 Comment: Peace loving Jews and Christians love to quote the biblical passage about beating swords into ploughshares and spears into pruninghooks, (Micah 4:3) but here we have just the opposite. Howl and strip naked Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls. Micah 1:8 Comment: The minor prophets felt influenced from Isaiah and these words of Micah indicate that he would imitate Isaiah's nudist actions as an adjunct to his prophesying. Picture in your mind a religious man of today stripping and running around totally nude and prophesying in public, wailing and hooting at the top of his lungs. No doubt the police would snatch him up in a second while citizens stare in embarrassment. It just goes to show how far we have demeaned ourselves and our bodies as shameful.(See also Isaiah 20:2-4) Expose her breasts! Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make the vile, and will set thee as gazingstock. Nahum 3:5-6 [Look, I am against you!- declares Yahweh Saboath- I shall lift your skirts as high as your face and show your nakedness to the nations, your shame to the kingdoms. I shall pelt you with filth.] Nahum 3:6 (The New Jerusalem Bible) Comment: Some think these verses describe a genius of a poet. If judged as such, it can only come from its sharpness and vividness. But it also describes vulgarity and hatred, even if it aims against the harlotry of the city of Nineveh. Few scholars today believe that these verses come as a direct quote from God. But a fundamentalist who believes every word of the Bible, must also accept these words as Godly. If so, then how can one not see God in a cruel vulgar light? "Filth" here refers to dung. (See also Malachi 2:2-3 where God says "I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces...") God's fecal fetish If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it. Malachi 2:2-3 Comment: Amazingly God appears to have a fecal fetish. This commandment to the priests told by the Lord gives example of the Satanic threats of curses He seems to enjoy. What should one think of a God that would smear feces upon the faces of his creations? Such vulgarity can hardly give good example to high morality. Curse the earth For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. Malachi 4:1 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts. Malachi 4:3 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Malachi 4:5-6 Comment: This last chapter of Malachi ends the book of the Old Testament. One would think it might end with a flourish of enlightenment. Instead we get fear of burning to death and can only look forward to the dreadful day of the Lord. With all the horrors recorded in the Bible, perhaps it should not surprise anyone to see the Old Testament end with the word "curse." The wicked woman Give me any plague, but the plague of the heart: and any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman. Eccles. 25:13 Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die. Eccles. 25:22 If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her off from thy flesh, and give her a bill of divorce, and let her go. Eccles. 25: 26 The whoredom of a woman may be known in her haughty looks and eyelids. If thy daughter be shameless, keep her in straitly, lest she abuse herself through overmuch liberty. Eccles. 26:9-10 A silent and loving woman is a gift of the Lord: and there is nothing so much worth as a mind well instructed. A shamefaced and faithful woman is a double grace, and her continent mind cannot be valued. Eccles. 26:14-15 A shameless woman shall be counted as a dog; but she that is shamefaced will fear the Lord. Eccles.26:25 For from garments cometh a moth, and from women wickedness. Better is the churlishness of a man than a courteous woman, a woman, I say, which bringeth shame and reproach. Eccles. 42:13-14 Comment: Ecclesiasticus of the Apocrypha does not appear in most Bibles. However, in Catholic Bibles, in inferiority of woman still appears in the verses of Ecclesiasticus. These are only a sample of verses which attempts to lower the status of women. Turn thy cheek This nonviolent principle does not originate with Jesus. Lao-tse and the Buddha taught this five or six hundred years before Jesus. Ironically, few Christians hold to this principle. In fact, the Religious Right preach just the opposite as Christians throughout the centuries have violently attacked anyone who dared threaten them. Comment: This nonviolent principle does not originate with Jesus. Lao-tse and the Buddha taught this five or six hundred years before Jesus. Ironically, few Christians hold to this principle. In fact, the Religious Right preach just the opposite as Christians throughout the centuries have violently attacked anyone who dared threaten them. Be wise as serpents Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. Matthew 10:16 This verse instructs the apostles to act "wise as serpents." Since Christians hold that the serpent in the Bible represents Satan, one might wonder about this. Note also that some Bibles use the term "subtle" in place of "wise" which alludes to the serpent in Genesis 3:1, "the serpent was more subtil than any beast..." Early Gnostic heretics believed that Jesus "was" Satan and they used Biblical verses such as this to support their belief. It seems odd that Jesus would resort to the metaphorical "sheep" instead of pet dogs or some other loyal animal. The awkward fact remains that men raise sheep for two reasons: to rob them of their coats and to kill and eat them. Note also that doves actually act just the opposite of "harmless." Doves act viciously against other birds. I came not to send peace Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to SET A MAN AT VARIANCE AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND THE DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND THE DAUGHTER IN LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER IN LAW. And a MAN'S FOES SHALL BE THEY OF HIS OWN HOUSEHOLD. Matthew 10:34-37 Comment: These words of Jesus confirm the unbelievable notion that Jesus did not come to establish peace, but rather to send the sword and to put man against his family. So much for family values. (See also Luke 12: 51-53, Luke 12:49 and Luke 14:26 ) Jesus not entirely good And behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. Matthew 19:16-17 Comment: Most Christians believe that Jesus, not only lived as the Son of God but God in the flesh. Consider that Jesus here calls "none good but one, that is, God," pointing to an entity separate from himself (also see Matt. 5:48, 6:9) Also note that because of the belief that none other than God "is" good suggests that Jesus must not have behaved in an entirely good manner himself. Some early Gnostic cults ( judged as heretics by the orthodox church) believed that Jesus was Satan in the flesh and these verses suggests that He was the opposite of good- Evil in the disguise of God. Serpent Jews Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Matthew 23:33 Comment: Chapter 23 describes the famous diatribe of Jesus against the Jewish leaders. Such biblical words has, for centuries, given believers justification for Jewish hatred. This verse, spoken by Jesus himself, compares the unbelieving Jews with the serpent devil. Wars must be And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows. Mark 13:7-8 Comment: Belief in these words can justify any war and atrocity against nations. Yet Jesus here tells us that we should not feel troubled by it as long as we have belief in Him. When Jesus prophesies about the future, he gives the message that we have no control over our lives other than to choose or not choose a belief in the Lord. With such a message, it should not surprise anyone why the Religious Right does little to strive against war. I come to send fire I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? Luke 12:49 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. Luke 12:51-53 Comment: Jesus did not come to send peace, but rather fire and division among the family. So much for the idea of a pacifist Jesus and the modern concept of "family values." (See also Luke 14:26 ) Hate your family! If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26 Comment: This remarkable statement of hate by Jesus directly contradicts the idea of a loving Christ. If one must hate their father, mother, wife, children, brethren and sisters and even themselves, in order to become a disciple of Jesus, one must question Christ's idea of the family. (See also Luke 12:51-53, Matthew 11:34-37) The brethren of Jesus After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days. John 2:12 Comment: This verse describes Jesus and his brethren. Jesus Christ's blood-related siblings directly contradicts the Catholic concept of the life-long virginity of the mother Mary. Some Christians have attempted to defend this contradiction by pointing out that brethren has two meanings: it could mean brothers, from the same parents, or it could mean colleagues or friends. Note, however, that the use of the word "disciples" suggests that brothers and disciples constitute two separate groups. Therefore, brethren must mean brothers in this context. Note also that Mark 6:3 mentions brothers and sisters that can only mean blood siblings. Also, nowhere in the Gospel of John or Mark does it mention Jesus' birth or Mary as a virgin. Considering that a virgin birth of the Son of God would seem of utmost importance, it appears rather odd that these Gospels do not mention it. Christ's temper And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, "Take these things hence; make not my Father's house a house of merchandise." John 2:14-16 Comment: Here we have Jesus' temper and violence showing. It must have taken considerable fortitude to drive all the moneychangers out and then have the nerve to pour their money out and turn over their tables. Consider what would happen today if a man entered a Church bake sale and threw everyone out and violently turned over the tables. No doubt the police would come and throw him in the slammer. "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of humankind has preserved- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" - John Adams Female inferiority But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. I Corinthians 11:3 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9 Comment: The Bible's decree of male supremacy has kept woman inferior to men for centuries. For the religious, it comes as a sad fact that a human must have a penis to receive any respect or power within the Church. All woman should realize that such phrases in the Bible has justified for many Christian men, not only their supremacy but a reason to sexually abuse women. (See also I Cor. 14:34-36, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19) Women shall not speak Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. I Corinthians 14:34-35 Comment: If one ever wishes to find an explanation of woman's inferiority to men, one only has to look in the Bible. Paul makes clear and delineates the importance of woman recognizing her place, "ad nauseam." (See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19) "The bible teaches that women brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire... Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton Wives, submit yourselves! Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:22-24 Comment: These words of Paul describe another instance for the calling of the submission of women to their husbands. (See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Cor. 14:34-36, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Col. 3:18-19) Silence the woman! Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. I Timothy 2:11-14 Comment: Another case where the Bible makes it quite clear that women live for man and must submit to them. "Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; and since man exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially fortunate that this authority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being. For the Jews, Mohammedans and Christians among others, man is master by divine right; the fear of God will therefore repress any impulse towards revolt in the downtrodden female." -Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex 1949 (See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Cor. 14:34-36, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19) Synagogues of Satan But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate. Revelation 2-6 I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Revelation 2-9 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which the thing I hate. Revelation 2-15 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. -Revelation 3-9 Comment: These verses by Jesus has fueled the engine of anti-Semitism throughout Europe and the rest of the world for centuries. Unfortunately many believers today still justify their hatred of Jews based on Scripture. Note that we have here in Rev 2:6 the words of Jesus admitting to hate, contrary to the belief by many Christians that Jesus holds only to the principle of love. Jesus will kill children Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. Revelation 2-22-23 Comment: If anyone thinks Jesus represents only a peaceful loving soul, then think again. For an act of adultery, Jesus would kill innocent children for the adultery of others; hardly fair justice, love, or the concern for human beings. "It's interesting to speculate how it developed that in two of the most anti-feminist institutions, the church and the law court, the men are wearing the dresses." - Flo Kennedy Beasts in heaven And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, WHICH WAS, AND IS , AND IS TO COME. Revelation 4: 6-8 Comment: Here we have a rare description of heaven where it appears frightening with strange beasts. One cannot help to think that it seems more a description of Hell than a heaven. (See also Rev. 5) Christ with horns And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. Revelations 5:6 Comment: Biblical scholars agree that "a Lamb" refers to the crucified Christ. Strangely, Jesus here appears to look devilish with horns and multiple eyes. How can this description of heaven inspire an image of a peaceful afterlife with all these ghastly beasts and spirits about? (See also Rev. 4) It should come to no surprise where some early Gnostic cults got the idea that, not only the Church, but Jesus represented Satan and the embodiment of Evil. And who do the literalists claim as the "seven Spirits of God"? The survivors Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. Revelation 7:3-4 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. Revelations 9:3-4 Comment: Here we have the great future destruction where millions of people will die. Only 144,000 Jews with a protective mark on their heads will survive. How many believers realize that this means the death of everyone on earth but a few Jews? And this includes the destruction of ALL Christians! Please give this text to friends, relatives, church leaders and other BBSs. If you have questions, comments, or corrections, please address them to: The Dark Bible, P.O. Box 661133 , Miami Springs, FL 33266-1133. Note, if you send $20 (cash only) and your address, I'll send you a floppy disk full of religious and freethought texts. Indicate what format you'd like (Mac or DOS). If you use a Macintosh, you will receive the latest version of a HyperCard stack version of the Dark Bible along with other interesting files. I give my warmest appreciation and thanks to the people who have supported my efforts with donations and letters. Because of you, I will continue to present educational material for freethinkers. TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE I.B. Rad Conquered in the Cold War, invading Russian emigres are homesteading Brooklyn, and usurping the "wealthy" natives. So why is it I only want to do the opposite and flee to that former mythic Eden, to that Christian-Atheist country where ostensibly the most important thing about being human was being human, where ideally everyone contributed according to their abilities and received according to their needs? Venal nations die easy, old values die hard! What Happened? Ben OIhmart Findline@aol.com burning wood to make the end set for marking x to kill, o is us going in, this square is the compound hate us all, all standing in the grime of the entrance a woman had the baby in case you want a mom-daughter act those of us who have them are given consideration we've got to get through, every morning. takes time they don't have them. but paper cups w/o even the 1 piece to jingle i don't make enough. i'm sorry. and i forget the 1st rule i make eye contact. he's seen my face. i explain that i'm sorry maybe he let's me pass through, maybe i have to fight with rocks i win. always. i'm healthy, he's always tired, whoever he is this time each morning the gamplan changes, gets better because we've got to be smarter they're more of them. each day there is 1 more laid off. less of us Tyler Ben OIhmart Findline@aol.com i offer tea to your naked breast for the times you have shaken me the waking you possessed, the smiling arms to say i have a home, a flesh for posting sleep The Regressive Reflection of Insanity By Peter Scott I can not take His violent stare Gazing back When I need care Fingers Like slender blobs Figures Blurred beyond recall Little hope Let me rest still Somewhere Anyplace at all Away from those eyes Knowing our movement Watching my thoughts Reality has shattered For without my spectacles Permanent haze will settle Yet I will choose that fate To escape those eyes Reflective eyes Eyes of my soul. prose Prose The Electronic Windmill exerpts from the novel By Pete McKinley Aunt Hester was still slightly shaken but she said firmly, "I know that Cole is in love with you; maybe being so fond of him myself and so taken with his many charms I assume that whomever he loves would naturally love him in return." "Oh, and I'm sure that's so," Pilar hurried to agree, "but Cole doesn't love me, Aunt Hester, that's where you're mistaken." She must be just as firm; but then she asked again, "Why do you think he loves me? Did he tell you so?" Aunt Hester hesitated for a moment in thought and then seemed to decide to reveal everything. "I know many things about Cole without him telling me," she said in a confidential voice. "When his parents were suddenly taken and he came to live with me, I had no understanding of little boys - never having had any children of my own. I loved him so, but was worried that I wouldn't be able to help him because of this lack of understanding. I tried not to over-indulge him but I suppose I did. Then in his eighth year his boyishness seemed to become more mysterious to me and I needed to know him better to understand him more, if I were ever to be of any value or help to him." Pilar listened to all this with much interest and decided that the explanation was coming so she didn't interrupt. "When Coleridge was nine, as one of his birthday gifts, I bought him a rather expensive leather-bound diary. There were spaces to make entries for each day of the year and extra pages to be inserted if necessary. The diary could be locked and of course I gave Coleridge a key. I was very happy when I found that he immediately started to use it - writing out his activities of the day." She released Pilar's hand and relaxed visibly before continuing. "About a month went by before he began describing his thoughts. From that time on we seemed to have a greater understanding and I was able to help unobtrusively as well as not to interfere with his growing up. Boys are rather complicated," she stated with some authority, "much more so than girls, even though we try to make out the opposite." Then she went on: "Each year I have always given him an annual diary on his birthday and he has a special shelf in his room where he keeps them. He doesn't always fill in every date now but when he's here he writes things down more fully and sometimes leaves bits of paper between the leaves with notes and jottings on them." Pilar had to break in, "But how did his keeping a diary help you to understand him more?" "I read them," she said calmly, "but of course he doesn't know and we must never let him know." "But I thought you said you gave him the key?" Pilar was stunned. "No, no, dear. I said I gave him 'a' key. There were two master keys that will open any volume and I kept one. So you see I always knew what he had been up to and could anticipate his changing moods and sometimes figure out what he planned to do next without bothering him with a lot of questions." Aunt Hester seemed relieved that she'd finally told her secret and happily began expanding on it. "One of the most interesting aspects in reading them were the subtle changes that became apparent as Coleridge grew from a mischievous boy to a fairly thoughtful young man. You wouldn't believe some of the things he wrote." Pilar couldn't hold back the giggle. "But didn't he ever suspect? You must have let slip things that you couldn't possibly have known except by peeking at his diary - and didn't he ever notice that they had been handled or moved around on the shelf?" "Oh no, I'm always very careful to place them back exactly as they were before. The shelf never looks different, not even as though it had been dusted. In fact, unless he looks at the earlier volumes and brushes them, they are covered with cobwebs as well as thick dust." "But if you read them wouldn't the dust and the cobwebs be disturbed?" "Oh yes, but after they once got dusty and full of cobwebs I never touched them until I found a way to replace the dust and webs. When my husband was alive, he invested in several theatrical productions and we became acquainted with a very nice man who produced effects for the stage. He furnished me with a little bellows that has a spout and when you press it, it sprays dust. He also had a compact machine that creates cobwebs when you turn a crank something like the way cotton candy's made. With these two gadgets I always keep Coleridge's diary shelf dusty and cobwebby so when he takes a volume down and brushes it off he feels secure in the knowledge that his secret thoughts are locked inside. I'm a firm believer that this security of their own private thoughts is very necessary to male growth and maturation." With this twisted bit of rationalized psychology Aunt Hester rose suddenly from the couch and said,"But, come my dear, let me show you Coleridge's rooms - and then there's something I'd like you to read." They left the parlor and crossed the foyer that contained an ancient walnut stand with a mirrored back that Pilar hadn't noticed before. There was a slippery combination of scatter rugs on the polished floor and an elephant's leg cut-off and hollowed-out that was being used as an umbrella stand. Beyond a broad staircase was a hall leading to Cole's quarters. Aunt Hester opened a solid-looking door and motioned Pilar to enter. The room and all that was in it was immaculately clean as Pilar had expected and the book shelves mounting the far wall were packed with cared-for volumes. But as they approached, and even though she had been warned, the single shelf almost filled with leather bound diaries covered with dust and cobwebs was a shock. Aunt Hester removed the end volume from the untidy shelf, carried it gingerly to a desk placed under a high window and drew the drapes all the way back. Selecting several paper tissues from the top drawer she wiped the leather clean. From a locket suspended on a chain around her neck she shook out a small gold key and unlocked the flap that held the volume secure. She opened it to where a single sheet of paper was inserted between the pages. Extracting it, she laid it face down on the desktop and handed the diary to Pilar indicating where she should start reading. "Aunt Hester, I don't know...are you sure we should read this?" Pilar hesitated, but with hope in her voice. "Yes, of course we should, child. We're reading this not for our own benefit but so that we can better anticipate Coleridge's needs and help him even though he's unwilling to ask our help." Pilar didn't bother to examine this overly solicitous logic but with no more encouragement turned the diary to the light and read: "After leaving the ship I became increasingly nervous and anxious to get to the RCS&J Building, telling myself it was because of the stockholder's meeting and not wanting to be late. But I knew what was wrong. I wasn't hurrying to the meeting at all - I was hurrying to see her and she had been with me more than she had ever been. I've got to sort out my thoughts and the best way is to set them down. As soon as I have a moment to think deeply I'll write out how it first came to me on the beach in Mexico and then I'll forget it. This is like nothing else - this could be total involvement and that I don't need. Anyway, no one will ever guess the way it is - especially her. There were no further entries in the book. "What does it mean?" Pilar asked, laying the diary down and looking at Aunt Hester. "And he doesn't even say who he's writing about. Why are you so sure of what he means?" Aunt Hester picked up the pieces of paper that she'd placed face down on the desk top and handed it to Pilar. Pilar accepted it with a little less hesitation and began reading again: TO PILAR We were together I was alone. When we were apart and Time was slow and quiet I wasn't alone; You were there too. The Sun shone on us and In a soft and fragrant dawn you smiled. There were green forests Craggy snow mountains in the mist and White crested waves hissing on a bleached beach. A stallion raced the sand From surf's edge to golden grass. Suddenly the sky turned black, Thunder rolled and jagged lightning Cracked a thousand fiery fingers. The vision turned inward and There was us and a storm. Rain pelted hair, Dripped from dark lashes and Iridescent drops clung. Our lips touched. My eyes spilled tears And I cried Before I died And was banished to earth and reality; But you were there too. She read it again more slowly this time while Aunt Hester looked on. Then, picking up the open diary, she carefully placed the writing between the pages, closed it and snapped the lock. Neither of them spoke and Pilar caressed the soft leather before returning the volume to its place on the shelf. She wasn't sure she should have done it but was very glad she had and while she searched her conscience Aunt Hester produced a small round box with a spout that operated like a bellows and replaced the thin film of dust that had been wiped away. Then she examined the shelf, the desk and the room meticulously, straightening here and there, before leading Pilar back to the old-fashioned parlor where Millie Peterson was already bustling about. They ate crisp warm orange cookies that melted almost without chewing, drank redolent pink tea from the Far East, and then stuffed themselves on lemon nut bread with sweet butter as they planned the future. Chapter XV Cole opened his eyes wide and lay motionless, staring at the phone by his bed. As he wondered why he had bothered to waken at this particular moment, the phone rang again and then he remembered that it had rung once or twice before way off somewhere in the distance. He picked up the receiver and curved it from ear to mouth, paused before answering and, trying to sound wide awake, croaked, "Hello.'' It was Aunt Hester and she was talking about cleaning his rooms and about seeing Pilar. Damn! If he wasn't dreaming about her he was reminded of her the moment he wakened. It probably didn't matter though, he would have thought of her in a minute anyway. He told Aunt Hester he would see her sometime around the middle of the week and burst out laughing at something she said just before she hung up. He replaced the receiver and rolled over with the vague thought of going to sleep again but almost immediately decided sleep was impossible, which was just as well because the phone rang again. It was Kang. "Did I wake you up?" Kang wanted to know. "No, you didn't wake me up." Why the hell did everybody worry about waking him up, it was already ten o'clock. "What's on your mind?" Then he remembered about the girl and asked, "Did you get anything worthwhile from the girl?" "Yeah," Kang said. "I think so. But she's a strange one." "So is her sister. But you wouldn't want all girls to be alike." "No, true," Kang said. "Still..." "You didn't learn anything," Cole broke in. "Yes, I did," Kang said. "It's the strongest kind of confirmation that the ship's being used to smuggle dope. The things she doesn't know are just exactly who's doing it and who picks it up here in San Francisco." "Does she know how they get it off the ship?" "She couldn't tell me anything about that." "This is no information at all, Kang, if that's all she could tell you." "I think it is. You haven't been able to come up with anything but suspicions so far and if you didn't get something tangible soon, everyone was going to forget about the ship. But this information has got to be authentic. You didn't ask for it and they only suspected that you wanted it. If it weren't the truth how could they ever dream you'd be interested in the first place?" "Wait a minute, wait a minute... you're right," Cole said. "I got a conflicting report last night that it was flown in from tamale-land but I see how it could fit together now." "You do! How does bringing it in by ship and flying it in fit together?" "Thanks a million, Kang. I really appreciate what you've done. I'll explain it all to you later." "Why not now?" "Later, Kang. But wait a minute... did it rain last night, or was there a low fog?" "It didn't rain where the ship was," Kang said. "There was some high fog." Cole didn't ask why he was so specific - 'didn't rain where the ship was.' "But nothing low, right?" "What's that got to do with anything?" Kang asked. "Kang I'll call you later, and thanks again." After a few minutes of staring at the high ceiling, his mind racing, Cole got up and went to the three-oriented bathroom, selecting the middle stool. He showed no favoritism, keeping the use of the three stools fairly even. If his conscious mind intruded and he wasn't sure which toilet he had last used he invariably gave his custom to the one on the left; it being farthest from the door, probably giving him the mistaken impression of its being neglected. Contemplating it now, allowing his subconscious mind to rove other thoughts, he felt reasonably sure that he followed the same pattern with the washbasins and showers. Henceforward he would remember - when in doubt, select either the middle or the right hand facility and give the left one a rest. When he finished he showered to the right and shaved before the mirror over the middle basin, all this time thinking of what he would divulge to Lew, or rather to Hal Bronte of the Narcotics Bureau, and whether or not he should ask Thad Bocana of the FBI to sit in. He speculated as to how these two proud agencies might work together but since the two men knew each other maybe their personal relationship would smooth any official hitches. Unplugging the electric razor he placed it in the left drawer, hesitated only a moment before removing it and dropped it in the middle one to serve as a marker for the washbasin last used. Back in the bedroom, still in deep thought, he opened a drawer and reached out a pair of light blue wool socks, pulling them on while standing. He stepped into a pair of shorts as he moved towards a closet where he selected blue slacks and a dark red pullover sweater. He shoved his feet into cordovan loafers and then, still with a frown of concentration, moved into the living room and stared at the phone. He picked up an indexed pad, flipped to the B's, found Bocana's number and dialed. A click interrupted the intermittent buzz and a child's voice came through, "Hello - do you want to talk to my daddy or to my mom?" "Hi," Cole said, "I'd like to talk to your dad. Can you get him for me?" "Sure, he's right outside." While he waited Cole continued to work on the best way to explain his hunch, or rather the reasoned facts that had brought him to his bizarre conclusions. Thad Bocana's brusque voice short-circuited his thoughts. "Hello, this is Bocana." And the way he said it demanded return identification. "Hi, Thad, this is Cole Rain. Sorry to bother you on your day of rest." "Cole, how are you?" He seemed relieved. "This is no day of rest business as usual - I'm just not doing it at the office." "Do you have time to listen to a problem of mine?" "I didn't know you ever had problems," and Bocana sounded happy to learn that others did. "I'm not sure it's in the province of the FBI," Cole ignored the jibe, "but I need to talk to someone who can suggest the right procedure to follow." "Sure, go ahead," Bocana said. "It's unofficial for the time being. I'll be glad to help if I can." "Right. First - do you know Hal Bronte of the Federal Narcotics Bureau?" "Yes, I know Hal. He's a good man." Cole decided to describe Bronte, or Lew, to make positive they were talking about the same man. The identification accomplished to both their satisfactions, he quickly explained the problem of the SS Crescent Moon, his part in the investigation, and the accidental meeting with Bronte the night before, or rather, that morning. After Bocana stopped laughing, he summarized: "Now you're telling me you have a theory based mostly on hunch, that the dope is brought ashore from the Crescent Moon, past customs, through the surveillance of the Narcotics Bureau - and the local authorities - and it's all really a very simple procedure. Is that right?" "That's what I believe," Cole said firmly, "and if I'm right, tonight's the only time they'll have during this stay to work their gimmick. I'd like to explain my theory and set it up, so that if I am right, the one link missing in this chain of heroin flow will hook-up with the known links." "Well," Bocana mused, "you say the ship has been searched repeatedly and no sign of narcotics has ever been found?" "Right," Cole admitted. "But getting the stuff on the ship in Mexico and bringing it to the pier in San Francisco is easy to do without detection. It would take the complete dismantling of the damn ship to find all the various hiding places. But again, if my reasoning is right," he refused to call it a hunch, "the SS Crescent Moon is still the top suspect." Bocana continued to listen. "The one place where it comes to an end is the transference from ship to shore, and I think I've got that solved. But I need help to prove it." "All right," Bocana finally decided. "I've got to go to the office anyway. Why don't you phone Bronte and the two of you meet me there in forty-five minutes." "Sure it won't interfere with what you're doing?" "No, my problem," Bocana said, "shouldn't affect this area too much. In fact, it'll probably end with some of our citizens crossing that Mexican border the other way. I'll see you in forty-five minutes," he concluded. "Thanks, Thad." Cole hung up and in the same motion reached for the phone directory. Finding Bronte Harold W., he checked the address with the one Bronte had mentioned earlier that morning and dialed, waiting through eight rings. When Bronte finally answered he sounded hurried. "Hello." "Morning, Hal - just checking your temperature." "Yeah, thanks. It's normal. A few bruises here and there and my jaw's a little stiff - other than that I'm O.K. How are you?" "Fine. A couple of band-aids are keeping my head together but I guess you could say I'm holding my own." Then he quickly gave the narcotics agent a rundown on his conversation with Bocana, not mentioning that the FBI man had been hugely amused at their life-and-death struggle. Bronte tried to pump him on the details of his theory but Cole would only reiterate that he was reasonably sure he knew how the stuff got ashore and would save the details until they met at Bocana's office. There was plenty of parking space in front of the Federal Building and after Cole bumped the curb gently he saw Bronte heading for the front entrance. As Bronte opened the door he turned and waited for Cole and they entered the building together and took the elevator to Bocana's office. They were ushered directly into Bocana by a crew-cut boy who looked too young to have been in the Bureau for two years. Leaning back in his chair, Bocana had just finished talking and was now listening to the transceiver resting on his desk. He motioned for them to sit down and continued to listen absorbedly to the report emanating from the open speaker. "...The number five and the least probable assumption is that the suspects will make their way into the Bay Area by car. The weapon and ammunition taken from the Nevada Proving Grounds are readily concealable as normal pieces of luggage or packaged civilian goods and - " Suddenly, Bocana seemingly just becoming aware of their presence and the permeating voiced report, reached forward and picked up the receiver, cutting off the sound. He leaned back again, placed the receiver to his ear, and continued to listen just as intently. Cole examined the room, noting its efficient appearance of sterility. After three or four minutes Bocana returned the receiver to the desk phone, jotted a couple of notes and looked up at his visitors. "I expected to see more bandages," he said. "Sorry I missed the main event." Bronte smiled weakly. "I knew you'd consider it all a big joke but can we get on with Mr. Rain's theory?" "By all means," Bocana grinned. "I imagine you're both anxious to get it over with." "This is my vacation and I'm supposed to take the family skiing for a week," Bronte explained stiffly. Cole broke in quickly. "I appreciate everyone taking the time to listen to what I have to say." And with no further preparation he launched into his explanation, interspersing it with a couple of drawings on a chalkboard. He developed his theory expertly. When he had completed the detailed account Bocana shook his head in amusement and looked at Bronte. "If you're right," Bronte said, "why isn't the dope already off the ship?" "Because the ship has been in Alameda for repairs. She was berthed last night and only the unloaders were there all night. The crew and Mike Crowder will go aboard tonight." "Well, I don't know....I suppose it's possible," Bocana said. "What do you think, Hal?" "My report is made," Bronte said. "Rain has worked out a wild hunch but I don't think there's any way possible to smuggle dope or anything else from that particular ship. That's why I'm taking a week off," he concluded. "If your report is final and you're positive it's correct, why did you bother to follow me last night?" "That was an accident. I was picking up some clothes I'd left on the ship and I just happened to see you and your friend cruising along the Embarcadero. Maybe this business I'm in makes you overly suspicious; anyway, I followed. Then when you parked in the dark spot on Michigan I had to see what you were up to. As it turned out it was all a mistake." "A hell of a mistake but I still think I'm right and I can check it out myself," Cole said independently. "Tonight has to be the night for them to move during this particular docking." He stood up, thanked them both for listening to his story and started to leave. "Wait a minute. What do you intend to do?" Bocana wanted to know with some concern. "Nothing that will cause any trouble," Cole grinned. "And whatever I find out I'll call it into you." Bocana looked a little doubtful. "I'm sorry I don't have anybody I can release to give you an assist," he hesitated. "But I'll be close to a phone either here or at home." Then he abruptly got up from behind his desk and reached across to shake hands with Cole and Bronte. Even before they left the office he was back on the phone. As they dropped to street level, Bronte seemed anxious to justify his vacation by yammering at Cole that investigating the ship further was a waste of time and that if he felt any slight possibility he was wrong he'd postpone his vacation to help. Anyway, until his report was final, there would be agents checking this last unloading. Cole thanked him. "If I am right," he said, "I'll get the proof myself and then Bocana can handle it with the local authorities." Outside the building they shook hands warily and turned in opposite directions. As Cole twisted the key in the ignition, he was thinking hard about what to do next. Chapter XVI At the first cross street he turned left and headed for Spike Swensen's house. Spike was general manager of Swensen's Trucking Corporation whose primary business was moving freight to and from the docks. The last time he had seen Spike and Lenore Swensen was at the Borgias' wedding reception and he remembered that Lenore had shoved Spike through the front of the building out the large plate glass window. He switched his thoughts to the problem at hand and five minutes later parked in front of the Swensen home. He should have called ahead, he thought, but remembered he hadn't seen any phones along the way. He walked to the front door and pushed a button. It seemed to be in working order because he heard a lilting chime come from inside. The door opened almost immediately. "Cole, darling, come in - how nice to see you," Lenore Swensen gushed in apparent happy surprise. She was partially covered with a filmy negligee, opened and unbelted, showing an even more filmy nightgown with only Lenore inside. He was acutely conscious of the lightly-covered spiky nipples and lower down, the tantalizingly protruding dark vee. Cole stood outside and thought of the contrast between her platinum hair and the dark spot. "Come on in," Lenore demanded. "It's getting cold in here." When he stepped inside she closed the door and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him on the lips and pressing her body as close as she could get it. Cole was too startled to react quickly but finally got her arms from around his neck and sort of held her off while he looked about the hallway and into the rooms beyond. "Where's Spike?" he asked with some concern. "You don't need to worry about him, he took off for the office an hour ago." Cole licked his lips and tasted coffee and brandy. "We had a tee-off time at the club for eleven o'clock but it's like this every weekend and even on holidays and I'm getting damn tired of it," she complained. "Come on in and sit down - I'm just having coffee." She held his hand and guided him through two mussed-up rooms into a breakfast area where a table was set for two and an electric coffee pot was bubbling. Cole followed cautiously and when he saw the table set-up he asked rather inanely, "Were you expecting someone?" "Just you, darling. That's why I sent Spike off to the office," and she moved in a little closer. Cole backed off. "I wanted to see Spike," he said. "I should have called but since I was in the neighborhood...." He paused..."I'll just go on down to his office now," he said, backing away a little farther. "No you won't. You'll sit down and have a cup of coffee with me," she said determinedly, pulling out a chair for him. "A half hour won't make any difference and you can call Spike from here and tell him you're on the way." "O.K.," Cole relented at the prospect of talking to Spike. He moved forward to the table, pulling out a chair and holding it for Lenore in turn. With a curtsying swoop reminiscent of a bunny, she accepted the seat reaching for the coffee and cups while Cole returned to his chair. "God, do you remember the night we spent on the beach wrapped in one blanket?" she giggled. Cole was a little surprised at her reference to that night since it had never been spoken of before. "Yeah," he said. "I do. But that was a long time ago. Before you were married," he added. "That's right," she said with some asperity. "And nothing as exciting has happened to me since." Cole took a sip of coffee. "Maybe I'd better call Spike and tell him I'm on my way." "You've only been here five minutes." She looked disgusted. "Don't worry about him. He won't be home until one or two o'clock - he never comes back before that time when we have a golf date. What did you want to see him about?" "I need a truck for about twenty-four hours. I thought maybe he might rent one." "He doesn't rent trucks but there are plenty of them down there. I'm sure he'll give you one to use." She took a deep swallow and set the cup down carefully before she asked, "Are you moving?" "No, as I say, I just need it for a little while - in my business." Then, seeing a phone on a desk in the corner of the room, he jumped up. "I'd better call him and let him know I'll be down." "Tell him you'll be there in about an hour. I've been dying to talk over old times with you." Leaving the table on her way to the kitchen she brushed past him, trailing a faint fragrance that he liked, and her body touching his gave off an electric shock. "I'll tell you what," he said quickly. "I don't think there's any need to call him. I'll just go on down there."" Hurriedly he replaced the receiver and started for the front door. He had it open and was already sliding out when Lenore grabbed his arm. "Damn you, Cole Rain. Don't you dare leave without having a cup of coffee and chatting with me." "I'm sorry, Lenore," he said. "But this is really important and we can do all that some other time. Thanks for everything and goodbye for now." The last he heard was, "Goodbye forever, you bastard." He trotted to the car, jumped in, and left the Swensen home for the Swensen' Trucking Corporation's offices and yard. As he drove he couldn't help thinking about the night on the beach. When some of the details really began pressing in on him he decided he better stop thinking about it and concentrate on the plan he wanted to follow. Spike's car was parked beside a one-story stucco building in the space reserved for the general manager. Cole circled in alongside, slid out and started for the front door when he heard Spike yell: "If you're looking for me, I'm over here." He looked back and saw Spike leaning against a truck talking with two men. Spike waved and called, "I'll be right there - go on in and have a chair." Cole signaled and went on into the office. The small lobby was furnished with a lounge and a couple of leather-like plastic-covered chairs. He dropped in one, picked up a magazine, stared at it and continued thinking about what he was going to do. Five minutes later Spike came through the door. "Hi, Cole, where you been? Lenore was just asking the other day if I'd run into you recently." "I just saw Lenore," Cole said easily. "I stopped by the house - should have called first, but I was in the neighborhood and took a chance you'd be there. She's looking great," he said. Pausing for only a moment, he went on hurriedly, "But you better get home - she's anxious to go play golf." "I know it, damnit. Something always comes up just when we've got a game planned, but I've got to wait around here for about a half hour. We can still go, though. Why don't you make it a threesome?" "Can't," Cole said shortly. "I'm like you, always working." "Yeah," Spike said and took the other chair. "What can I do for you? What did you want to see me about?" "I'd like to rent one of your trucks, or maybe just one of those big vans that you leave sitting around down at the docks." "You want a tractor and a semi?" Spike asked. "Well, I've got a problem. I need to go down on the Embarcadero and be able to see what's going on and still be inconspicuous - you know, as though I belonged there. I've noticed that sometimes you leave your - what do you call them - semis? just parked on the dock." Spike nodded. "Right, sometimes they're loaded and sometimes they're waiting to be unloaded. We just drop the landing gear until we're ready to move them again. But you'd still be conspicuous if you were just loafing around one of those things." "I was wondering if there was someway I could be inside and still see out." "They don't have any windows or holes in them. How long would you want to be on the dock?" "I'm not sure - maybe all night." And there was a flash-back to the all-night he and Lenore had spent on the beach. "Why don't you drive a tractor down and park it? We've got some cab-over engines with a sleeper in back and if anyone saw you they'd just think you were waiting to pick up a load." "That would be great, Spike," getting back to business. "Do you think that would do it?" "The only thing is, you don't look like a truck driver. You'd have to change your clothes." Spike didn't question, knowing that Cole sometimes did crazy things in his business, whatever his business was. He went on: "We've got a shower room out back. There's always plenty of old clothes hanging around. You could change and look exactly like a big rough truck driver," he grinned. Thirty minutes later a cab-over engine diesel tractor looking overburdened with huge rubber-tired wheels rolled slowly out of Swensen's yard, rhythmically puffing black smoke from an exhaust stack pointing straight up. The man at the controls was wearing boots, baggy pants, an old leather jacket trimmed with brass rivets and a peaked cap that had a round metal button pinned on the side marked STC 23. The rig was unusual in its bigness but was common enough moving towards the dock. The driver, in his shower-room clothes, had lost his identity. Cole had been surprised that it had taken less than fifteen minutes to learn to operate the tractor and he had driven cars that weren't as easy to handle. The dizzying height above the pavement was the most unique sensation. In back of the seat was a bunk with a couple of blankets and best of all, the cab was equipped with a radio phone. Spike had checked him on procedures in calling the special operator to connect directly with any telephone in the country - or out of the country, for that matter. His first thought had been not to chance the wharf until late afternoon but when he checked the mirror and hardly recognized himself and found the tractor easy to operate and loaded with bed and phone, he decided to drive immediately to China Basin Street. Bumping along the Embarcadero, looking down on everything, he saw a one-man sandwich shop with an 'Open' sign in the window reminding him he was hungry. Cutting across the imbedded rails in the road he tried to bring the big rig carefully to the curb by pressing the air brakes gently, but the tractor snapped to a stop forcing him against the steering wheel. As he eased on the brakes slightly it coasted in, touching the curb and sat panting like an overgrown puppy. He switched off the engine and climbed down a narrow ladder to the street. The sandwich man had been watching through the dirty window and when Cole came in he said, "I can give you eggs any style with ham, bacon, or sausage and a hot stack if you can wait a few minutes." "All I want is a couple of sandwiches to go," Cole explained. "Burger, cheeseburger, ham and cheese, egg - what'll you have?" "Make it one cheeseburger and one ham and cheese grilled. And can I get a coke and a couple of beers to go?" "No beer. Can't afford a license for a small place like this," the sandwich man said, opening the refrigerator to get burger patties, sliced cheese, and thin ham. "There's a liquor store down near Fisherman's Wharf if you're going that way." "I was going the other direction but while you're fixing those I might run back down to the Wharf." "O.K. They'll be ready when you get back." Cole wasn't sure if trucks were allowed on Fisherman's Wharf and when he found the liquor store there was no place to park. He doubled in back of a convertible with the top down and since convertibles are a little unusual for San Francisco, especially on a foggy day, he climbed down and checked it. There were a couple of tennis rackets and three cans of balls lying carelessly in back of the bucket seats. It was Larry's car and Cole assumed Larry was in one of the Wharf restaurants. He went into the liquor store and took a six-pack from the cooler. He placed the beer near the cash register and waited his turn to pay. Coming out of the store carrying the beer, he saw Larry and Kang in the open car. Kang was making a point by drawing a figure in the dust on top of the dash. Larry was shaking his head in disagreement. They both glanced up when he started between the cars to get to the tractor. "Is that your truck?" Kang asked in a loud voice. "Yeah," Cole said hoarsely trying to disguise the sound as he climbed on up. "You're only breaking the law three ways," Larry shouted up disgustedly. "That truck's illegal here, you're double parked, and you can't drink beer in a motor vehicle." They must be in a hurry to get to the courts, Cole thought. "Screw you," he said shortly, starting the big diesel and moving it on down the street. In the rear view mirror he saw them both scrambling for the convertible and as he turned the corner he stuck out his left hand with middle finger pointed toward the sky. He wasn't sure if they'd come after him or not. It was too bad they couldn't help but what he had to do was better done alone. The sandwiches and coke were ready in a bag and, placing them on the seat beside him, he opened the diesel up to fifty miles an hour on the deserted Embarcadero. When he reached the basin the Crescent Moon was still being unloaded. She was higher in the water and her prow loomed above the street. He slowed to watch the trucks move on and off the pier and to see the guard at the gate exchange slips of paper with the drivers. The high-boarded storage area with the barbed wire on top was directly across the street, reminding him of the cut hand which still hurt from the barbs ripping it the night before. About fifty feet from the driveway leading to the gate in the fence was a row of parked cargo containers with their landing gear down. He wheeled the tractor in front of them and carefully backed in alongside, and was surprised at how visible everything was from his high perch in the glassed-in cab. He was just as visible, but the meeting with Kang and Larry had given him confidence in his camouflage. If anybody noticed him, they paid no attention, considering the tractor and its operator a natural phenomenon. He selected the still-hot cheeseburger from the sack, opened the coke and set it on the lip of the dash. He took a man-sized bite from the combination bun, meat, cheese, onion and tomato and then a gurgle of coke, relishing it all, and then settled back in the comfortable seat for the long wait. Nothing seemed to change about the routine truck movement in front of him and the minutes and hours dragged. The fog lifted some as one, two, and then three o'clock checked off, but there wasn't a break as he watched and waited. Once a lighter spot in the sky portended a thinning of the overcast but the fog quickly moved in to blot it out. The trucks continued to roll and the guards and drivers continued to pass pieces of paper back and forth. He even wondered idly if there could be heroin concealed in the papers, but seeing them flutter slightly as they were handed about, decided they were clean. He felt sure the paper-passers were clean too. Until Bronte's report was accepted; clearing the SS crescent Moon, undercover agents were watching the dry clay being sucked up and blown from the holds of the ship into the trucks, and other agents were watching the unloading at the McWhorter Brown plant. And he knew that it didn't matter a damn. After this last surveillance, with Bronte's report in, they'd give up. The method for getting dope off the ship was foolproof in its simplicity but if he was right, after the transfer was made this time, the amateurs who had planned it would be trapped in the China Basin Street. Again he went over in his mind the possibilities for moving the stuff out of the area. There were railroads for sure but there were only two exits and if he went overland or even decided on one of the these normal exits he'd be awfully conspicuous and easy to aprehend. Practically the only movement in the basin was motor vehicles of one kind or another. If smuggling was going on, and now he was sure, there was no way to accomplish it other than the method he'd deduced. And yet, some small doubts persisted. He finally decided that thinking on it any more was a waste of time. Now was a time for quiet observation and action when the opportunity came. Suddenly he wished he had bought more coke instead of so much beer. The beer made him sleepy, but then it also made him climb down once in a while to relieve himself between the tractor and the parked semis, breaking the monotony. There had been maybe three cars all afternoon cruise slowly by and he assumed their drivers were either lost or taking a Sunday sightseeing trip along the wharf and somehow had stumbled into the Basin. He had just climbed into the cab from his third relief trip and the sky was beginning to darken a little when he saw a panel truck approaching from the left. Leaning back to be less noticeable, he watched it come toward him at a moderate speed. It was a fairly new blue panel truck and he assumed it would go on by, but the driver braked and turned into the gravel drive leading to the fenced storage area. It rolled on up a little way and the lights were switched on. The driver got out and walked to the gate. Sorting through a ring of keys, he inserted one in the bottom of the heavy padlock, took it off the hasp and pushed the gates inward. It was hard to believe, but on the side of the panel truck in large letters 'JOLLO ALLEYS' was advertised. It was so damned blatant Cole began to doubt his reasoning again. Either they were stupid or so over-confident of their ingenious plan that they felt no need to conceal the identity of the truck. The driver drove the panel through, stopped again just inside the enclosure, got out to close the gates and bolted them tight. Cole felt better; there had to be a subconscious reason for making the gates that secure since they wouldn't keep the fog out. It was the only suspicious thing the driver had done and it was so trivial that it would generally go unnoticed. Cole picked up the radio phone and gave the special operator both the numbers Bocana had given him, but Bocana was in the office and answered on the first ring. Bocana sounded more relaxed, as though the pressure were off, but Cole still asked if he should call back with his report. "You sound as though you've got something," Bocana said. "Go ahead." While Cole was describing the situation a long black car came into the street from the opposite direction from which the panel had come and pulled up alongside the guard house. Cole's attention was divided between the telephone conversation and what was happening across the street. Since the trucks were still moving on and off the pier the passengers from the black car were unloading right where they parked. Three couples got out and the men started removing luggage. there was the usual conglomerate of bags and then there were the long narrow gun cases and two square boxes probably containing special shells for the hunting. If anyone in the party could shoot, the Mexican ducks were in for trouble. Cole reported to Bocana that he could see Mike Crowder and his wife and thought he recognized one of the other couples but couldn't recall their names; he was sure he had never seen the third couple. Mike Crowder had gone on to the pier and now he came back with one of the longshoreman who was pushing a low-wheeled cart. First they placed the two boxes of shells on the cart and then the guns in their cases and finally what luggage it would hold. Leaving the rest of the bags sitting by the car, they followed the longshoreman with the loaded cart and passed out of sight around the corner of the covered pier. Cole recounted all of this and then went back to the panel truck and told what he knew about Jollo's dope connection and his apparent break-away from the syndicate. Then he asked Bocana if he thought the panel truck with 'JOLLO ALLEYS' printed on the side was too obvious. "Hell no, Cole, it only seems stupid. It's so obvious it throws you off. I'll probably owe you an apology. There's got to be a reason for what's going on and you've got the only logical explanation." "Glad you're beginning to think so. That's the way I figured it, but I butted in on you when you're busy with other things." "Don't make excuses for me, Cole. What do you want us to do? I'll alert the local narcotics people and you'll have all the help you need in thirty minutes." "Not yet," Cole said hurriedly. "If I'm right, the transfer hasn't been made and won't be until tonight. Everything should stay exactly as it is here in the Basin. Later I'll need people ready to intercept the truck at either end of the street. There's an intersection of China Basin Street by Mission Rock on the north and by Illinois Street on the South. I believe they're keeping it very simple. Only one man came in the panel and he's going to go out that way. But just in case he decides to walk out we should have some people posted on Michigan Street." "Maybe someone should be in the tractor with you," Bocana suggested. "No, don't do that. I don't need anybody. I'm not trying to do this all by myself but if anything else unusual moves along this street, it could cause them to change their plans. Oh, and also, whoever is on the intercept should be posted as inconspicuously and naturally as possible." Bocana laughed, "Right, Chief." Cole caught himself before he went on, "Hell, I should try to tell you your business." But Bocana was sincere, "Keep in touch," he said. "I'll be here until the super-heist breaks, which might be a week from now." Then he added, "And good luck." Thanking him for the promised help Cole replaced the transceiver and switched off. Across the street he saw the big black limousine still there, but the rest of the bags were gone. And now the unloading operation seemed to be winding down, he remembered only two trucks rolling out in the last five minutes and none going in. Peering out the side window at the fenced storage area, all he could see beyond the bolted gate was a dim light that must be coming from the shack in the farthest corner of the lot. He settled down and prepared to wait some more. It was almost dark now and he imagined Kang and Larry finished with tennis, showered down and sitting in Borgia's. He decided to drink another beer. Right after he had drained the last drop and tucked the empty back in the carton, he had to relieve himself again. Climbing down he let go but before he was half finished the whole area around him was bathed in sudden blinding light. It was so unexpected that he jerked back too soon and felt the continuing wet flow trickling down his leg. Looking up disgustedly he saw that he was directly under a high bright arc light. To hell with it. Hauling out he tried to start up again but finally decided he was finished for now and climbed back up in the cab and then noticed he was still unzipped. Correcting that, he cursed himself for not having seen the light before parking under it. While he was debating if the tractor should be moved he realized that inside the cab itself there was complete shadow - the light sprayed down on the outside. He decided he was more invisible in this location than he would be if he were parked on either side of the light allowing it to shine through the windows at an angle. Then speculating on whether, if he had seen the light first, would he have been smart enough to pick this very spot directly under it, he finally decided he would have been. It was hard to believe time was passing so slowly. Nothing was stirring, lights were off in the guard's shack and the big gates to the open pier were closed and chain-locked. Perhaps the guard had moved inside the covered pier because there was now a light coming from a window of the building and shining faintly through the cracks of a door beside it. He assumed anyone coming from or going to the ship would have to go through the building past the guard, but all this idle speculation was getting pretty boring. He rolled down both windows to allow the cold damp air to blow through and bent forward to look up at the fog that had now descended to a point where the top of the ship's stack was no longer visible. There was nothing to see and, hoping he wouldn't relax too much, he climbed over the back of the seat and swiveled into the bunk, pulling one of the blankets around him. The cold air would keep him awake and any noise from the outside coming through the open windows would be an alert. If he was correct there wasn't actually going to be anything to do. It was just a matter of waiting, but there was always the off chance that the smuggler's plans might be altered in some way, and staying close to the scene of action he could hope that any change would be visible or audible from his outpost. The night stood still and he didn't know how long it was, but the fog finally enshrouded the floodlight overhead and there were wisps of it filtering down almost even with the top of the cab and now the light was dispersed and ghostly. But under the mist he could still see both closed gates; the one to the storage area from the side window and through the windshield to the chained gate closing off the pier. The black limousine was just an outline in front of the covered pier and there was only a faint glow marking the shack at the back of the storage area. After this last check he glanced at his watch and was again surprised to see that the luminous indicators had moved so little. The comfortable bunk made him uncomfortable and rolling back into the seat he picked up the transceiver from the radio phone, got the special operator and called Bocana. Bocana was at the office sounding tired but maybe mostly bored. "China Basin is sealed off," he told Cole. "I got a report forty-five minutes after I talked with you that everything you suggested was covered." "Thanks," Cole said softly. "I wish to hell something would happen. This rig I'm boxed in is getting a little cramped." "This business is ninety percent patience and ten percent action. Try to relax." "That's one of my problems. I'm getting too damned relaxed." "Well, hell, you've got a phone - call your friends. I'm going to be here the rest of the night; keep calling me if you don't know any girls." After he had hung up Cole decided that Bocana's suggestion wasn't too bad so he got the operator back and gave her Pilar's number and listened to it ring eight times before giving up. Then he began wondering if she might have a date with Virgent Eddington, that stupid bastard. He didn't try to call anyone else, just let the night stay fixed. The fog never got any lower while he watched and sometime during the night, as he rested his chin on the steering wheel he must have dozed off. Chapter XVII Suddenly, with the first shock of wakefulness from impending disaster, Cole became aware that the scene in front of him was changed. The ship at the dock was distinct in every detail and the fog had lifted and must be two hundred feet above where he sat. Concentrating his gaze on the ship's bow, he had the feeling that the truck was moving backwards. He watched intently and it came to him that the ship was moving; she was backing out of her berth into the bay and doing it so quietly he hadn't heard. With some panic he turned to look toward the storage area. The shack was dark but in the first light of day he could just barely see the top of the panel truck. Slight relief trickled through but then he realized that it wouldn't have made any difference if the truck had got out without him seeing it since there was no way for it to leave the Basin unmolested. Either the transfer of the dope had been made or it hadn't. The ship was sailing and the waiting was over and also he needed to piss again but decided to hold off to watch the ship back slowly into the harbor. She was beginning to turn, showing the length of her, triggering him to reach for the radio phone to call Bocana. Just as he got the operator he heard an engine start somewhere in back of him. In the storage area, the top of the panel truck was no longer visible. He gave the operator the office number and again Bocana answered and this time his voice was tired and full of sleep. Cole explained what was happening. "Good. We're not going to pick him up." Bocana was wide awake now. "The intercept people have orders only to follow. You may be right about who's responsible for all this but we need evidence. We've alerted a police traffic helicopter to hover by. He's already up and has reported that the fog is lifting enough for him to operate." While they were going over all the possibilities, Cole watched the gates from the storage area open and the truck slide through. The driver stopped on the outside, got out but didn't relock the gates, merely closed them. Getting back into the truck he drove to the street and turned left. Cole was giving a running account of this and he could hear Bocana relay it to someone else who in turn was in contact with the intercept people. Cole was feeling good and confident and a little less tense although he had never doubted that he was right. Then he thought of Bocana's double ordeal and his all night vigil and was considerate enough to ask if the major problem Bocana had been working on was resolved. "No, nothing has turned up," he said wearily. "Several false starts in other areas, but nothing at all here." And then evidently feeling the need to talk to someone, he continued: "Hell, we've got airlines, railroads, bus stations, charter plane services, even automobile traffic being checked and that's the toughest." While Cole listened he could see the SS Crescent Moon out in the harbor picking up speed and heading for the Golden Gate. He let Bocana unwind and then asked: "What about the ship? She's headed for the Gate and the open sea." "A Coast Guard cutter is trailing along right now," Bocana explained. "We don't need to stop her yet. We'll see what happens here and we can board her later if we have to, even beyond the Gate. I'm requesting..." Cole's thoughts had shifted again and he broke in excitedly, "What was it that was stolen?" Bocana was a little slow, "You mean on the case here?" "Yes, something damned funny just occurred to me. Can you tell me what it was?" "It's not funny. I can only tell you it's a top secret weapon." "But it must be pretty important with all the hell it's causing. Is it a nuclear weapon?" "I would presume so," Bocana said cautiously. "I understand part of the missing items came from the Atomic Energy Proving Grounds in Nevada and part from a defense laboratory here in California. Sorry, I couldn't tell you more about it even if I knew." "Are these items small enough so that they could be carried by one person?" Cole insisted. "I suppose so, at least by a couple of people," Bocana admitted. "Now that you think you've got your problem solved do you want to solve ours too?" he asked with only slight amusement. "Listen, Thad, believe it or not, maybe I can help. This is the damnedest thing and it all ties together." He hesitated, trying to think how to put it. "You mean the dope smuggling and the theft of top secret weapons is somehow connected?" Bocana asked. "That's exactly what I mean." "Let me have it if you've got something," and Bocana's voice conveyed his new respect for Cole. Cole's explanation was fast but complete and from the beginning. He told about Pilar Jones and the fact that she was working on the design model of a small nuclear weapon and then of her status with Rain, Carver, Shu-li and Jones. He explained how her services had been requested by a young scientist whom she had known in college. And as things began to fall in place Cole became even more convinced of what he was suggesting. Then the name he'd been seeking popped out. "Glass did some kind of work or performed a service for McWhorter Brown," he said. "And I think he took a vacation on the Crescent Moon one time, or at least what was ostensibly a vacation. That's the name....Cecil Glass." Then he reverted to Pilar's work for McWhorter Brown and the fact that she and Glass had become reacquainted there. Glass had asked her to do some design work on a nuclear weapon that was top secret. After her clearance, probably by the FBI, she had accepted the assignment and as far as he knew was still working on it. In fact, he was sure she was still devoting part of her time to it. "And you think the weapon they're working on is the one that was stolen?" Bocana asked. "I don't know," Cole said. "But there's a hell of a lot going on that suggests it could be." "Well, assuming that it is," Bocana said logically, "how does that help us find out where it is and who took it? Are you suggesting that one of your partners was in on the heist?" "No, I'm not," Cole said confidently, and then remembered he'd been unable to reach Pilar by phone. "I'm sure Pilar Jones has nothing to do with it. But I told you about the people that came in the black limousine last night and the luggage they unloaded and took on board. The gun cases and what I assumed were shotgun shells in boxes...." Bocana broke in a little impatiently, "Hell, Cole, you said they were going hunting. Why wouldn't they have guns and shells?" "But that's the point. The ship's a perfect way out of the country. It's always leaving with passengers going hunting and loaded down with guns and shells. Anybody seeing them go aboard with a small arms arsenal wouldn't suspect a damn thing." "O.K., Cole, why so you suspect anything?" The crackle had gone out of Bocana's voice and he sounded weary again. "It just came to me who one of the other couples were getting on the ship with the Crowders last night, that I didn't recognize," Cole said slowly. "Who were they?" Bocana asked. "Cecil Glass and his wife. I only met them once at the entrance of Borgias. I know now that they'd been having dinner with the Crowders. They had forgotten their theatre tickets and were going home to get them. Later I met the Crowders inside the restaurant and they told me they were going to the theatre with some people who had forgotten the tickets and had just left to pick them up. It all ties in. There's too much to be coincidental." "You might have something." Bocana was short and crisp again, going up and down like a yo-yo. "Let me call Pilar," Cole said hastily. "She sees Glass almost every day. I want to find out if she knows he's taking a vacation." He was also praying that the call would find her home in bed. "That should help pin it. I'll get things moving here. Call me right back," Bocana said and hung up. Cole switched off and then on again and began signalling the special operator. She was there on the second signal and he gave Pilar's number and then sat tensely waiting through the faint rings. It rang five times before he heard Pilar's low voice. "Hello." "Pilar?" "Yes." She paused. "Is this Cole?" "This isn't a social call," he said. "Although I wish to hell it were." "You mean we're doing business before breakfast?" she asked. He asked his own question. "Are you still working on the aiming mechanism for the nuclear weapon?" She was evidently getting her thoughts together. "The design work's over. We've got a test model and it should be demonstrated either today or tomorrow. Is that really why you called to ask me that?" Again he ignored her question. "Will Cecil Glass be there?" "Yes, he's setting up the demonstration." "Thanks, Pilar. Go back to sleep." Pilar took the receiver from her ear and brought it around and rested it on the pillow where she could look at it. A minute later she replaced it, closed her eyes, but couldn't go to sleep. In the cab of the tractor Cole was reporting to Bocana what he'd learned from Pilar. When he finished, Bocana asked, "How well do you know these people?" "I think I know Crowder pretty well. As I said, I met Glass only once but have heard about him off and on from Pilar." "Hold it a minute," Bocana said. "We've already asked the Coast Guard to pick up the ship and talk to her." Cole could hear voices in the background and Bocana saying something and then he was back on the radiophone. "It's pretty well confirmed," he said matter-of-factly. "We have a report from the Coast Guard that they signalled the ship. The ship told them to standoff, denying their request. The Coast Guard made a second demand that they haulto. This also was refused and they told the Coast Guard to stay clear or suffer the consequences. We've given an order that they're to stay clear but keep her in radar range." "But hell, isn't there some way you can stop her?" "Not if you're right. Not without endangering the lives of everybody aboard, not to mention the possible destruction of the Coast Guard cutter. I understand there are innocent people on the ship - probably most of the crew and the harbor pilot hasn't been taken off yet." Then he added, "If you're wrong there's no need to stop her." Cole ignored this last comment. "Can you get in radio contact with her from your office?" "We're trying, but no luck so far. The Coast Guard communicated by radio so we're assuming the operator aboard must either be part of the group or under their control." "I'd like to talk with Mike Crowder," Cole said. "For what reason?" "I don't know exactly but all this doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense and he seems like a reasonable guy. Maybe something would come out of talking with him." "You couldn't do it very well from where you are. Unless we get counterorders we're going to let her go. Wait a second." Three minutes later Bocana came back. "We don't seem to have any alternatives. Do you really want to try talking to Crowder?" "Sure. It can't do any harm." "Are you still in the Basin?" "Yes." "How long would it take you to get to the heliport at the Ferry Building?" "With this rig....between five and ten minutes." "Get there and we'll have a traffic control helicopter pick you up. It's loaded with communication equipment." Before Cole could answer, Bocana cut him off. For a minute he forgot how to start the diesel and then he saw the keys still in the ignition. He fired the engine, got her rolling and raced down China Basin Street. Coming into the Embarcadero he pressed the throttle to the floor. Traffic was light and the only thing he passed was a black and white police car coming from the opposite direction. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, he saw it wheel around in back of him. His only reaction was to try to push the throttle through the floor. As the Ferry Building loomed ahead he could hear the siren and see the red flashes almost directly behind his high perch. At the last moment he jammed on the airbrakes and braced himself as the tractor skidded to a halt in front of the building. The police car swerved and blurred past the window wildly weaving a hundred yards beyond before it shuddered to a screeching halt. Cole was already on the ground running for the heliport and as he sprinted past the last corner the chopper was gently settling down in the marked-off landing space. The rotors continued to turn slowly and the door opened when Cole ran up to scramble in. The pilot didn't comment, just reached across and locked the door as he manipulated the lift-off. Looking down Cole could see two heavy-set cops trot into view gesticulating with hands moving palms downward, signalling that the chopper should land again. The young police pilot grinned at Cole. "You might have some explaining to do when we get back." "I'm glad you said 'when'." Cole grinned too. Michael G. Spitz mook@suba.com The Cockroach As Critic I'm lonely. My alienation from people has reached the point where I consider such isolation a necessary prerequisite to live the life I have chosen to live, to live the life of a writer. To give oneself completely to a goal, to a mission, is to accept no compromises. Writing is an exacting science, is a craft that demands total commitment of all my resources. That I remain unable to consummate a healthy, satisfying relationship with another human being is a small price to pay for realizing myself in all my capacity and all my unsung glory as a creative, dynamic individual. I am an artist. That no one understands me or my struggle is to be expected. In a world consumed by the quest for physical pleasure, material gain and other such banal desires, the writer is given no recourse but to work alone, the sole company of the thoughts, dreams and symbolic expressions of genius justification enough for persisting through all the pain and sense of separation. But, I'm lonely. How can I devote all of my being, all of my energy to a task whose meaning is continually being undercut by a depression caused by the circumstances required to fulfill my literary destiny? How can I maintain enthusiasm in a personal void, how can I create in an environment crowded with the petty and otherwise superfluous interests and needs of my fellows? Distracted in company, yet useless in isolation, how can I write about the world in its absence, how can I hold fast to my identity as artist while surrounded by the unreflective herd? "Loser." What was that? I look about, the four dusty corners of this room that is both artist's studio and criminal's cell- Yes, I am alone. Yes, I remain lonely. Has my self-imposed banishment finally led to delusion? Am I hearing voices? Has the boundary between genius and madness been crossed? "Oh, get a life, will ya?" Although solipsism remains my most productive vantage point, my loneliness compels me to consider the universe outside myself. I localize the voice as originating from beneath my tattered bed. I approach, and listen. Silence. "Come out!" I yell, "show yourself, intruder!" "Intruder? This place is as much mine as it is yours. Besides, you're so fucked-up and miserable, why don't you just leave? You really know how to bring me down." With a boldness that surprises even myself, I fling the folding cot away, revealing- Nothing. Nothing but a tattered, dusty copy of a novel lost long ago, pornographic magazines, and the remains of an order of cheese fries. Disgusted, not even considering the possibility of a sentient, English speaking order of cheese fries, I reach for the soiled bag, only to withdraw in even greater revulsion, as a large, animated, and now truculent cockroach sticks his head out from the rotting, greasy mush. "Fuck off. Why don't you just pace around, whack off, pace around again, write some bullshit on a piece of paper, then whack off some more like you usually do, and let me eat my dinner." "You can't be speaking!" I say, justifying alarmed. "You're just a cockroach!" "Yeah? I can say the same goddamned thing about you, since you're just a writer." "This is monstrous!" I insist. "If my loneliness wouldn't be enough to deal with, now I have to argue with a cockroach?" "Hey, I'm not arguing. All I said was fuck off. You think you got it bad? Here I was, swimming blissfully, asshole-over-antennas in green cheese and rotting spuds, time of my life, and who comes along to wreck my bliss? You? Three hundred million fucken years of evolution, to produce what? To produce who? You? My brains are the size of a pinhead, yet, I got the common sense to know what's good for me, know my lovely place in the scheme of things. And there you are, towering above, brains a thousand times my body mass, and all you can do is whine, whack off, and create problems for yourself. I'm disgusted, revolted by having to share oxygen with a loathsome creature such as yourself." "Listen, Mr., Mr., listen, you, you roach! You're nothing! You know that? You sleep, eat, root, and now talk in the shit that I throw away. You subsist off my garbage, you crawl around in the dark, you don't even have a religious or aesthetic sensibility, you know that?" "Are you kidding me? Spirituality, art? What the fuck for? I'm hungry, I chow. I'm horny, I go fuck the roach next door. I'm sleepy, I pass out underneath the kitchen tiles or hanging off the ceiling- I'm 3-D baby, and don't you forget it- Most importantly, I lead a contended-assed life. You humans could have it all, but you spend too much time thinking about crap that doesn't mean dick. You're a writer, so you especially should realize how meaningless your whole fucken life has become. Consider Franz Kafka-" "I don't believe this," I can't help but say out loud, "I have a cockroach that's lecturing me about Franz Kafka!" "Now listen, and listen good: That asshole got it all backwards. For him, god and the meaning of life were always inaccessible, unknowable, impenetrable. God was a dead Count, living in a vast Castle overlooking the village; God was a high-ranking judge you could never petition; God had an infinite number of gatekeepers, separating you forever from his Law: Similarly, the writer was a creature of self-torture, hunger, performance art. To write was to separate onself, starve oneself for the sake of creation. What a bunch of fucken bullshit. 'Cause the problem isn't God, transcendent or pantheistic, the problem isn't personal or collective History, arbitrary or teleological- The problem is the compulsion to ask those fucken questions in the first place, is to structure your existence based on some 'idea'. I mean, why bother to find meaning? Why struggle so hard to create or come into contact with holiness? What the fuck is wrong with dust, dirt, dark corners and depravity? That bureaucrat Samsa from the Metamorphosis story should have been happy as hell being transformed into a giant bug. No more getting up early, no more office politics, no more cheap Czech hookers. All the fuck had to do was lie there, scramble around every once a while, eat, snooze, and leave trails of ooze. Who could beat that kinda lifestyle? Instead, he has a "philosophical crisis"- How inaccurate! How stupid!- Bugs don't have philosophical crises, which is the essence of my goddamned point. You know who has philosophical crises?- Writers!- That's right, you fuck. You jerk. You pathetic, miserable, useless hominid! Fulfillment? Progress? This, my friend, is fulfillment, this, is 'progress'"- Whereupon the roach sticks its hideous head back into the bag of rotting cheese fries, scrurries inside and proceeds to make these stomach-curdling slurping sounds. "Mmmmmmmm ..." is all the roach sez. I look down, then approach the animated take-out bag. Without even thinking, my foot comes down upon it. Krrrrrrrruuuuuuuunnnnnnnch!!!!! Silence. Stasis. I'm still lonely, but for some reason, I feel a whole lot better now. philosophy A Guide to the Philosophy of Objectivism David King 58 Spring Valley Drive Milford, WY, 82520 Last modified: December 29, 1995 It is my intention to present an introduction, from the perspective of a scientist, to the ideas of this philosophy, a guide to other sources of these ideas, and some applications of the ideas to important problems. In order to promote the maximum dissemination of these ideas, I have decided to place all my writings into the Public Domain. I grant permission to anyone to use my writings, or any parts of them, in any way that may help to further the spread of reason in our society. All my essays can be obtained from me on computer disk. Send me a 3 1/2 inch floppy, IBM/MS-DOS format, and I will load it up for you. The files are all in straight ASCII text. David King Chapter 7 Last modified: February 9, 1995 Chapter 7 THE ETHICS UNDERLYING SOCIAL STRUCTURE *Some Ethical Concepts Defined *Philosophy Underlies Society *Foundation of Law *Voting *Majority Rule *Stateolatry *Miscellaneous Ethical Topics *Abortion *Honesty vs Dishonesty *Link Between the Individual and the Group *What is a slave? *Profound Ethical Concerns *Coerced Compassion *Effect of Social Complexity on Statism *Dual Ideologies *Hallmark of a Conservative *Compromise *Libertarian Foreign Policy Thoreau might have written only yesterday about our government today. What makes his commentary so timeless in its application is that he saw beneath the superficial manifestations of government to its underlying principles of operation. What is important is to define the state toward which the human community should be advancing. To set the parameters and the goals toward which the men and women of good will should strive; the general relationships that should exist betwen human beings. To produce a schematic for civilized life, a set of instructions. This is the intent of my writings on Ethics. Some Ethical Concepts Defined term: genus: differentia: ethics human behavior interpersonal libertarianism political principle voluntary statism political principle coercive anarchy political structure voluntary government political structure coercive Ethics is the study of interpersonal human behavior. There are several such forms of behavior: sexual, economic, and political, to name a few. In each of these behaviors an interaction occurs between two or more people. In sexual behavior, for example, the interaction involves erotic stimulation. In economic behavior the interaction involves material wealth. And in political behavior the interaction involves human liberty. In each case there are two fundamental manners in which the interaction can transpire: coercively or voluntarily. In sex I would define these as rape vs consensual sex. In economics I would define them as theft vs trade. And in politics I would define them as statism vs libertarianism. Libertarianism is the statement of a political principle. As John Hospers described it: "a philosophy of personal liberty - the liberty of each person to live according to his own choices, provided that he does not attempt to coerce others and thus prevent them from living according to their choices. Libertarians hold this to be an inalienable right of man; thus, libertarianism represents a total commitment to the concept of individual rights." Libertarianism is a political philosophy, concerned with the appropriate use of force. It asks one question: Under what conditions is the use of force justified? And it gives one answer: only in response to the prior use of force. The opposite of libertarianism is statism, the principle that it is proper for the community (or a selected subgroup thereof) to compel the behavior of its individual members. Anarchy is a narrower term, contained within the context of libertarianism, and referring to the social institution by means of which the principle of libertarianism shall be implemented. Government is the social institution by means of which the principle of statism is implemented. In practice throughout history, the fundamental distinguishing characteristic of government has been that it is an institution comprised of the strongest gang of aggressors in a particular area at a particular time. Consider that when people live together in a society, that is, a group in which interactions can take place among all the members, there must be institutionalized a set of ethical standards of behavior designed to inhibit actions which would result in the violation of freedom. This is the ostensible (but NOT actual) purpose of a legal system. A society can have either libertarianism or statism as its standard of behavior. In accordance with the first alternative, the social institution (legal system) for implementing that standard of behavior will be an anarchy. On the other hand, if statism is the standard of behavior then a government will be the implementing institution. An anarchic society is not a Utopia in which the inititation of violence is impossible. Rather, it is a society which does not institutionalize the initiation of force and in which there are means for dealing with aggression justly when it does occur. The absence of government does not mean the absence of violence. It simply means the absence of an official, legal, institutionalized tool for its imposition. A statist society is one in which aggression is institutionalized. Philosophy Underlies Society Philosophical principles are food for the mind in just the same sense as there is food for the body. It is not necessary that you eat poison to be sick - is suffices merely that you fail to eat the proper food. For example, you will suffer if you fail to eat vitamin C. In just the same way, an individual person - or a social organization - will suffer not only if it implements wicked philosophical principles, but also if it simply fails to implement proper philosophical principles. In the case of an individual, that failure can occur when a person takes actions based on his principles. To the extent that the principles do not correspond to reality, the actions he takes will fail to achieve beneficial values. Thus it is that a philosophical failure will have destructive consequences in reality. In the case of a society, the danger arises from the fact that there will always be individuals whose personal beliefs lead them to perform actions which violate rights. Many individuals would use their positions wickedly if they could. However, the institutional arrangments within which people perform their tasks determine whether or not such abuses can be carried out. If social institutions fail to accomodate this fact, the actions of those individuals will be detrimental to the society. Further, the deliberate institutionalization of rights-violating behavior (e.g., government) is akin to the dietary failure of actually eating poison. Thus it is that a philosophical failure will have destructive consequences in social reality. Society doesn't function because government intervenes occasionally to resolve disputes. Rather, the vast majority of people depend on continuing relationships wherein it's customary to keep your word, treat others with respect, and comply with mutually beneficial norms. These privately-developed norms are the glue which holds society together, by and large in spite of the interference of government. Here are examples of two different norms, each of which produces a completely different type of ethical behavior, depending on the acceptance or rejection of government interference in an interpersonal relationship: Consider a man and a woman who have lived together in a state of intimacy for 20 years. At the end of that time, they decide that the best thing for them to do would be to go their separate ways and each live independently of the other. So what happens? Each hires a lawyer, goes to court, and attempts to induce the government to use its coercive power against the other. This sort of divorce occurs so frequently that it is considered a natural process, always to be expected, even inevitable. But in fact there is nothing natural, expectable, or inevitable about this arrangement. It is simply the result of a mistaken cultural norm which is easily corrected by a fundamental alteration in the individuals' perspective on government. Consider a man and a woman who have lived together in a state of intimacy for 20 years. At the end of that time, they decide that the best thing for them to do would be to go their separate ways and each live independently of the other. In this case, it would be unthinkable for them to go through the above described legal process. Why unthinkable? Well, don't you see, they are not husband and wife, but father and daughter (or mother and son). You see, people CAN live peaceful, productive, and cooperative lives - once they cease to regard government as an acceptable arbiter of their interpersonal relationships. The Hutterite sect of Christianity, which has existed for over 400 years, has never experienced an act of murder by one of its members. Many people consider philosophy to be very largely an affair of acquiring and then displaying certain clever techniques of logico-linguistic proficiency. Or they seem to want a philosophy resembling the multiplication table or the periodic table of the elements. They want it to be such that all philosophy is mechanistically determinate. So that whenever faced with an alternative they can simply consult this "look-up" table and thereby be relieved of the necessity of intellectual effort. They want an answer to every question - even before it has been asked. Maybe what they really don't want is the recognition of personal responsibility. They want a philosophy that takes this burden off their shoulders. The perspective of personal moral responsibility for one's actions is being abandoned - it has nearly been culturally lost - and the result is what you see in everyday's newspaper headlines: mayhem and brutality. Foundation of Law A natural law is a necessity imposed on an entity by the entity's nature. It is a cause which mandates an effect: appropriate behavior. This cause is inherent in the entity's specific nature. The law arises from the interaction of the facts of the entity's nature with the other facts of reality. A natural law is practical - it must always "work" - because it relates to things as they really are. While it is generally recognized that man's physical and even his mental nature are subject to the rule of natural law, it is just as generally assumed that the area of ethics is completely outside the scope of natural law. This assumption is held tacitly, rather than being identifed and defended, simply because it CAN'T be rationally defended. It is quite foolish to assert that man is a being with a specific nature and therefore subject to the rule of principles derived from that nature in all areas except his dealings with other men. Do men cease to have a specific nature when they come into relationship with other men? Of course not! Natural law does indeed apply to human relationships, and it is just as objective, universal, and inescapable in this area as in any other. The proof of this is that actions have consequences - in the area of human relations as surely as in the area of human medicine. No matter how cleverly a man schemes, he will suffer if he insists on acting in a manner which contradicts the nature of human existence. The consequences may not be immediate, and they may not be readily apparent, but they are inescapable. The law of supply and demand, and all other market laws, are really natural laws, derived from the nature and needs of man. The fact that market laws are natural laws explains why a free market works and a controlled-market doesn't: natural law is always practical - it always "works." Thus man-made law should be identified rather than invented or decreed, as is the case with government legislation. Law is necessary for the survival and development of individual liberty, but decreed legislation is its nemesis. Arbitrary legislation destroys the very certainty that we seek from natural law: People can never be certain that the legislation in force today will be in force tomorrow. As a result, they are prevented not only from freely deciding how to behave but from foreseeing the legal effects of their daily behavior. Legislation also disrupts established conventions that have hitherto been voluntarily accepted and kept. Even the possibility of nullifying these conventions tends to induce people to fail to rely on any existing conventions or to keep any accepted agreements, no matter how they may have come into existence. Man's only duty is to respect others' rights and man's only right over others is to enforce that duty. A free society exists when people recognize, as a social, collective rule, that individuals have the right to own property and to use their bodies and minds as each sees fit. Their recognition of this right consists in their accepting a duty not to interfere with these free actions of individuals. This social rule has the enormous advantage of being the only collective rule compatible with individual freedom and autonomy. This is the only rational way in which society can cope with the problem posed by nonagreement about "The Good." Every bit of human progress has happened for a single, simple reason: the elevation of the status of the individual. Each time civilization has stumbled into another age that is a little better, a bit more enlightened, than the ones before it, it's because people respected other people as individuals. When they haven't, those have been the times of slipping backward. One of America's greatest shortcomings is that almost everything nowadays is geared against the individual and in favor of the big institutions - big corporations, big unions, big banking, big government. So not only does an individual have trouble getting ahead and staying there, he often has difficulty merely in surviving. And whenever bad things happen - inflation, devaluation, depression, shortages, higher taxes, even wars - it isn't so much the big institutions which get hurt, it's the individual, all the time. More and more, individuals are being deprived of the power of decision, and being allowed only the power of choice among the things government permits. The more you depend on government, the more limited those choices become. What must be reinstated is the opportunity for the individual to make decisions that count. Small wonder that many people in big cities seem so despairing: nothing in view indicates any care for what the individual thinks or desires. Hitler: "The individual must finally come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole... that above all the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual." Voting Here are the best arguments I could find - both for and against voting: Thoreau (Civil Disobedience): "All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked, I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting FOR THE RIGHT is DOING nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but litttle virtue in the actions of masses of men." "It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.... Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence." Voting: You advocated an undertaking you didn't fully understand. You were a participant in an activity you failed to supervise. You did not check the activities of a man whom you knew from experience to be a liar, and you permitted that man to screw around with the most dangerous technology in human history. I'd say you shirked your responsibility. In America, voting is an all-or-nothing proposition: you either win or you lose. If you can get 51% of the vote, you get 100% of the power. No matter whether an office is filled by an 80% voter turnout or by a 15% voter turnout, the new office holder has the full power of his office. If you are on the losing side - the minority - you get nothing. The alternative presented to the voter is absolutely exclusive: the selection of one TOTALLY precludes the other. There is a conflict in voting which is not found in the market. Market choices conflict only in the sense that buying a given good leaves you LESS money (not NO money) to purchase other goods. While you can buy some pretzels and some pizza, you can't vote for some Bush and some Clinton. In a market, the individual is never placed in the position of being a dissenting (and powerless) minority. Voting is just a method of choosing oppressors. Every time you step into a voting booth you license a potential killer or thief. From the perspective of either political party, there is no area of human activity that is outside the sphere of government encroachment. Some advocates of voting, when faced with the accusation that they are perpetrating this evil, will counter with the assertion that your means of control over the situation is to exercise your right to vote, and that if you don't do so, you have no right to complain about the situation ("If you don't vote, don't complain!" is what they say). Consider the nature of the demand they are laying on you: your alternative is either to participate in the wickedness (by voting) or refuse to participate and thus be condemned to submit in silent acquiescence to being victimized by the wickedness. In fact, only those who do NOT vote have a legitimate moral right to complain! They are the only ones who give no sanction or support to their persecutors. Imagine a neighborhood in which two bullies dominate and intimidate everyone. But they're democratic-minded bullies: they allow all (well, almost all) the neighbors to vote every four years in an election to determine which of the bullies will be empowered to possess a big stick and for the next four years to rule the neighborhood, beating and robbing all the residents. Now imagine that one poor persecuted resident complains about being beaten and robbed, and in response is told: "Well, if you don't like bully D then next time express your preference for bully R - but unless you choose one of these bullies, you have no right to complain about being beaten and robbed." Such a demand for willing self-immolation is an act of inexcuseable viciousness - worse even than the beating and robbing! The very act of voting is an attempt on the part of voters to delegate to another person a power that they could not justly possess themselves. Your participation is your concession that there should indeed BE elected officials with the power of government coercion. Government is based on coercion, but individuals should not have the authority to coerce others, and therefore they should not put themselves in a position to delegate such authority to third parties, which is the essence of voting. There is plenty of mass-media crowing about the "high voter turnout" (about 55% - that's high?), as an "affirmation of the system," and a "strong endorsement of democracy." Nobody mentions the message of the 45% abstention. It is often said that refusal to vote means that one is left with no voice at all, but that implies that having a voice in the proceedings is proper and desirable. Authoritarian activity is one which forces, directly or indirectly, someone else to do something. But voting in itself does not do this. Only voting for authoritarian candidates (including the lesser of evils, which is still an evil) or for authoritarian policies is authoritarianism. Voting AGAINST tax increases, measures to increase government controls, and voting FOR libertarians truly committed to total liberty cannot be authoritarian. Voting for freedom or against coercion does not delegate power to another; just the opposite. Participation in electoral politics serves to legitimize the whole political process and the existence of government. If people did not vote, the democratic theory of government would lose its legitimacy and politicians would have to justify their rule on the basis of something other than the alleged consent of the governed. This, hopefully, would make the true nature of the State more obvious to the governed. And such a revelation might have the potential to motivate people to challenge, evade, or ignore government interference and coercion. If you consider voting to be acceptable, then you must consider it to be acceptable for the winning candidates to hold power in a coercive government. The ultimate political issue is that of the Individual vs. the State. But the voter, by virtue of his behavior, has already cast his lot with the state. Each candidate would use the State in a different way - but each would use the State. Obviously, this is a game which only the State can win. By playing the game, you demonstrate your conviction that the game is playable. Suppose you are in airplane which gets hijacked and the hijacker says, "I will kill you all unless you vote that you want to be set free." Unfortunately, over 50% of the passengers are anarchists who are opposed to voting, so they refuse to vote, and all the passengers are killed. In this case, by refusing to vote, they indirectly contribute to the death of the minority that would have survived if they had been the majority. Not voting in this case is authoritarian. Not voting constitutes an implicit declaration to the winner that "I don't care what the outcome is." We are all living in a society hijacked by the rulers. If we can vote for less coercion but refuse, we implicitly endorse coercion. The fact is, when we are hijacked, as we are, or under terrorist rule or subject to any authoritarians, we are involved, and a refusal to voice a yea or nay can itself further authoritarian rule. [This is a fundamentally collectivist argument - it assumes that the victim is in some way responsible for the behavior of the criminal.] John Galt (Part3, Chapter8): "It's the attempt of your betters to beat you on YOUR terms that has allowed your kind to get away with it for centuries. Which one of us would succeed, if I were to compete with you for control over your musclemen? .... I'd perish and what you'd win would be what you've always won in the past: a postponement, one more stay of execution, for another year - or month - bought at the price of whatever hope and effort might still be squeezed out of the best of the human remnants left around you, including me." From Ayn Rand's notes for ATLAS SHRUGGED: By accepting his decisions, which she knows to be wrong, then by helping him to carry out bad ideas well, she only helps him to run the railroad badly and thus contradicts and defeats her own purpose, which was to run it well. She postpones the natural consequences of his bad decisions and thus leaves him free and gives him the means to do more damage to the railroad by more bad decisions, and worse ones. A bad thing well done is more dangerous and disastrous than a bad thing badly done. For example: an efficient robbery is worse for the victim than an inefficient one. "Silence implies consent." Consent to what? Just what is it I consent to when I do not vote? To the policies of Bush? To the policies of Clinton? To the policies of Marrou? To the policies of all those whose principled disagreement with the electoral system precludes their participation in it? The process of implication contains a consequential relationship. For one thing to imply another thing, there must be a causal sequence between the two things. People who make the assertion "silence implies consent" never propose any chain of logical connection between the silence and the consent. Precisely how does consent arise from silence? How can dead men be said to consent to anything? If my silence does imply consent, then how far does that implication reach? If I am silent about one side of an argument, and also silent about the other and contradictory side of the argument, then what implication can be drawn concerning my consent to either side? Am I considered to consent to all things about which I am silent? Even those about which I am completely ignorant? To the fact that someone in Calcutta beats his wife? If I must express disapproval of all things to which I do not consent, for fear of reproach resulting from my silence about any of them, there would not be sufficient hours in the day for such a plethora of expressions as would be required to preserve my moral purity. Voting would make ME feel like a swim in the sewer. Majority Rule In America, it is claimed, we have "majority rule." Just what do we have in fact? To find out, let us analyze a recent presidential election. I chose the Johnson-Goldwater election of 1964 because the winner of that election received the greatest plurality of votes of any recent (during the past half-century) election: Johnson received 61% of the votes cast. But was this landslide victory an expression of "majority rule"? I think not. Certainly Johnson can be said to represent a majority of the voters - 61% is, after all, almost two-thirds. But when you consider the total number of eligible voters you discover that Johnson represents only 37% of them (they didn't all choose to vote, you see). So Johnson represents only a bit over one-third of the voting-age population of the country. That can hardly be said to be a majority! But even this is not a fair assessment of the situation. Johnson was, after all, not merely president over those who chose to vote for him. And he was not merely president over those who were qualified to vote. He was president over EVERYBODY! And out of that "everybody" how many actually expressed a choice to have Johnson as their president? 22%. Yeah, only about one person in five chose Johnson. As I said, I deliberately picked this election as an example. Any other recent election shows even more strikingly that this so-called "majority" is a quite small fraction of the population. The notion of "majority rule" is hogwash! Shortly after the 1964 election I realized that the American electoral process contains a fundamental flaw. When you vote, the only choice you have is to vote FOR one candidate or FOR another candidate. There is no way you can vote AGAINST any candidate. There is no "NO" choice on the ballot, only "YES" choices. This realization was one of the things that turned me off to the idea of politics. You have no doubt heard (many times) of a disgruntled voter going to the polls to choose "the lesser of two evils." I realized that the lesser of two evils is still an evil, and to express a preference for that evil is to don the cloak of moral culpability for his subsequent behavior. I observed with interest a peculiar electoral quirk during the 1976 elections. The LP, after the expenditure of an enormous amount of time, energy and money, was able to get "None of the above" placed on the ballot in Nevada. Thus there were three options available to the Nevada electorate when they went into the polling booth to elect their congressman: the Democrat, the Republican, and None of the Above. The outcome of this election was very interesting: the Democrat received 23% of the votes, the Republican received 29%, and NOTA received a whopping 47%. Can you guess what happened? Very simple: the Republican went to Washington as the congressman from Nevada. As of 1990, NOTA is still on the ballot in Nevada, and the winner of every election is that PERSON who gains the greatest number of votes. Votes cast for NOTA are simply wasted. It is intrinsic to the American Constitution that there MUST be a government. The people CANNOT choose "No Government" - that is not provided for in the Constitution. Sure, the Declaration of Independence observes the right of the people to "alter or abolish" their government, but the Declaration of Independence is not a legal document. I found it fascinating to watch the first post-Soviet general elections in Russia. They had an explicit choice on their ballots: Yes or No for any (and all) particular candidates. Such a large number of the Communist candidates (who ran unopposed) received a preponderance of "No" votes that run-off elections were held a couple weeks later. Those "NO" votes were indeed counted - unlike the NOTA votes in Nevada. I found it fascinating also to watch the subsequent Hungarian elections, which were held with the stipulation that unless at least 51% of the voting population did participate, the elections would be invalid. The Hungarian government has at least a more acute sense of "majority" than does the American government. In a recent election for the Fremont County, Wyoming government, only 13% of the population voted, and yet the government selected by that tiny fraction does indeed rule Fremont County. Some "majority rule" that is!! American voter turnout as percent of voting age population, during national off-year elections: 1966 47.9 1970 47.9 1974 38.9 1978 45.9 1982 48.5 1986 46.0 1990 45.0 Since 1972, when 18-year-olds first went to the polls, their election participation has steadily declined. In 1990 less than 19% of the 18 to 20 age group voted. The majority is invariably wrong. Consider the fact that every major breakthrough in man's understanding of the world has always been greeted with indifference or opposition by the majority. When private individuals in 18th century England introduced the "barbaric" practice of innoculating against smallpox, the majority, including virtually the entire medical profession, was appalled. Advances are made by individuals or by small groups of cooperating people who OVERCOME majority opinion or indifference. The fact that the majority is invariably wrong has interesting implications for the concept of democracy - a system which means, in fact, State control of the individual and his property in accordance with the supposed wishes of the majority. In a word, where majority rules, progress stops. The goal of free men should not be majority rule at all but self-rule, a society in which not political action but individual action prevails. Political freedom for the individual has become a charming legend from the early years of the Republic when individual liberty - rather than the will of the majority - was actually considered the core of democracy. Nowadays, acceptance of the legitimacy of individual autonomy is a contradiction wholly intolerable to the democratic ideology. Under a democracy, when a man looks into a mirror he sees one ten-millionth of a tyrant, and one whole slave. Some of the devastating consequences of the Ambiguous Collective fallacy can be observed in the phrase "we are the government," where the useful collective term "we" has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the naked exploitative reality of political life. For if WE truly ARE the government, then ANYTHING a government does to an individual is not only just and not tyrannical; it is also voluntary on the part of the individual concerned. If the government has incurred a huge debt which must be paid by taxing one group on behalf of another, this reality of burden is conveniently obscured by blithely saying that "we owe it to ourselves." But WHO are the "we" and WHO the "ourselves"? These are two distinctly different groups of people. If the government throws a man into jail for dissident opinions, then he is only "doing it to himself" and therefore nothing improper has occurred. And so we must conclude that "we" are NOT the government; the government is NOT "us." The government does not in any accurate sense "represent" the majority of the people. But even if it did, crime is still crime, no matter how many citizens agree to the oppression. There is nothing sacrosanct about the majority; the lynch mob, too, is the majority in its own domain. A black African guerilla, commenting on democracy: "Vote, what is a vote? I don't have a vote in Mozambique. They don't have the vote in Zambia or Zimbabwe or Angola or Tanzania. Nobody has the vote in Africa, except perhaps once in a man's life to elect a president-for-life and a one-party government. Vote? You can't eat a vote. You can't dress in a vote, or ride to work on it. For two thousand rand a month and a full belly you can have my vote." Stateolatry The most firmly held myth is the one that no society can exist without government - and its corollary that every society must have a ruler. The myth of the necessity of the State is as decisive as belief in God was for the people of Medieval Society. This myth is held so firmly and fundamentally by many people that they are entirely unaware even that they hold it. For a good illustration of this syndrome see Heinlein's CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY, pg 180. Here you can see someone to whom government is so invisible that he describes human culture without reference to it. Everyone is so immersed in the context of statism that no one really knows the other alternative. Even though the Polish (or Hungarian, or Romanian... etc., etc.) governments might WANT to establish a free market, they simply do not know what it is. Most people do not realize they could even HAVE any control over their own economic situation. Because everything is so wrapped up in bureaucracy and law no one has any idea that government could be circumvented. So long as people cannot perceive alternatives for comparison they will never even become aware that they are oppressed. They will not only lack any impulse to rebel, they will lack even the power of grasping that the world could be other than what it is. It is as Orwell said it would be: "You will lose the ability to think certain ideas, and then you will be totally incapable of ever trying to act on those ideas." The only way out of this statist situation is for people someday to realize that governments are NOT necessary for civilization - that in fact governments are an impediment to civilization. When the day comes that enough people are disillusioned with government, government will simply cease to exist. It will go the way of Alchemy, Phrenology, the Flat Earth, and other similar errors that were eventually discarded as being useless. This is why I do not think anarchism to be utopian. Today it is only a dream, a dream that will not soon come true, but if the idea is preserved it will be used in the future. Consider this: all government is founded upon Lies. But a lie will not fit a fact. It will only fit another lie made for the purpose. Therefore the life of a lie, and of government, is simply a question of time. Nothing but truth is immortal. Miscellaneous Ethical Topics Abortion One of the major issues of the day is the argument about Abortion. By and large, this is merely a diatribe of emotional invective, containing very little in the way of factual analysis (see the remarks below, by George Bush). I want to engage not in a moral or ethical evaluation but merely in a factual presentation upon which can be based whatever evaluation you choose to draw from your own set of moral principles. Many arguments are based on the contention that a fetus is a human being, and is therefore possessed of the right to life. This is the "Human Rights" argument. There are six points of development at which a fetus can be claimed to acquire the status of "human being." Any argument from this premise must choose and justify one of these points: 1. Fertilization 2. Implantation in the uterine wall 3. Brain-wave activity 4. Quickening (when the woman becomes aware of the fetus' movement) 5. Viability (when the fetus can be withdrawn and survive) 6. Birth Some argue that whether or not the fetus is a human being, it is not a "person" i.e., is not possessed of the complex of psychological characteristics that distinguishes any one human being from all others - in short, that the fetus, although a human being, does not have a soul. Aquinas, rejecting the notion of a fertilized-egg = person equivalence observed that "the body alone is begotten by sexual procreation, and that after the formation of the body the soul is created and infused." Others argue that even if the fetus is a human being, it is a parasite and therefore does not possess human rights. This is the "Parasite" argument: What human has the right to remain, unbidden, as an unwanted parasite within some other human being's body? The fetus does not have any right to be fed and nourished, because such a right would make the woman its slave. The only means of refusing is to expel the fetus. What the woman is doing in an abortion is causing an unwanted parasite within her body to be ejected from it. This argument is countered with the assertion that parasitism is a perfectly natural phenomenon (Mankind is itself a parasite upon the earth) and therefore parasites do indeed have rights - the fetus has as much right inside its mother as does man on mother earth. Both are in their natural habitat. There is also the "Supersession" argument - that the rights of the woman supersede any rights possessed by the fetus: Does not a woman have a primary right to her own life? The right to determine the circumstances of her own body? The "Contractual Obligation" argument: Conception and pregnancy are foreseeable consequences of even careful sex. By willfully causing a fetus to exist, parents implicitly recognize its need for support; it's a package deal. When parents mutually enable their sperm and ova to join, the parents are not enslaved - they have volunteered. And its rebuff, the "Choiceless" argument: If the woman is claimed to have volunteered for a contractual obligation, how is it that the fetus, which is an entity incapable of making choices, can be said to be a participant in that - or any - contract? And there is the "Infanticide" argument - the contention that a live, born child cannot in principle be distinguished from a viable late-term fetus: they both have an unconditional need for material support. Therefore, if abortion is acceptable, so also must be infanticide. (This can be extended to include euthanasia for seriously ill adults and dependent elderly people, as well as all those whose continued existence requires material support provided by other people.) When couples who both carry the mutation for Tay-Sachs disease decide to have children, they typically elect to have prenatal testing. If a fetus has the disease, they usually abort it rather than give birth to a child who would succumb within five years to a horribly slow, painful death. Because it is always so uniformly hideous in its progression, extremely few people believe a child afflicted with Tay-Sachs should be brought into the world. The view of the Religious Right, as expressed by George Bush (LA TIMES, 12/12/88): "Well, it (may) appear to be a double standard to some, but I, that's my position, and it's, we don't have the time to philosophically discuss it here, but... we're going to opt on the side of life, and that is, that is the, that really is the underlying part of this for me. You know, I mentioned, and with, really from the heart, this concept of going across the river to this little church and watching one of our children, adopted kid, be baptized. And that made for me, and it was very emotional for me. It helped me in reaching a very personal view of this question. And I don't know." Also to be considered are the inevitable practical results of anti-abortion laws as under such laws many abortionists become dangerous and disreputable practitioners resorted to by desperate people. As many as 60 million abortions are performed annually, at least 50% of them clandestinely in the 100 or so countries where the procedure is illegal. Unsafe abortions account for between 105 and 168 maternal deaths for every 100K births in the Thirld World countries. This constitutes between 25% and 40% of all maternal mortality. Every year, in six of the Latin American countries where the practice is illegal, about 2.8 million women have abortions and half a million are hospitalized for related complications. A study in Boston and Long Island showed that 66% of women having their first abortions are young, single Catholics opting for abortions rather than sinning repeatedly by using birth control. 70% of those who had a second abortion were Catholic. Honesty vs Dishonesty There are times when a lie is not only ethically justifiable but is actually morally obligatory. "What?! What?!" I hear you croak. "Is this guy out of his mind?" Well, let me explain. Imagine that you set out to go downtown having in your left pocket $10 and in your right pocket $100. As you are trudging along the street a hoodlum snatches you into an alley, claps his revolver (a Quickfire Arms Corp. Saturday Night Special) up gainst the side of your pretty little head and wheezes softly into your ear: "Allright, Cutie, your money or your life!" So you, trembling in fear and terror, reach into the left pocket and produce the ten-spot. "Arrgh!! He gasps, wafting into your nostril the stench of cheap Sicilian wine, "Izzis alla dough ya got, kid?" I maintain that at this point your answer not only COULD morally be "yes," but that it actually SHOULD be "yes" and that if you answer "no" you are behaving in an immoral, self-destructive fashion. Under ordinary circumstances a lie is an attempt to initiate force against someone - that is, an attempt to separate him (without his consent) from some rightfully achieved value. In the context of my little story, the lie is not an initiation of force. Your money is not the hoodlum's rightfully achieved value, and you have NO ethical obligation toward him. Your only moral obligation is to extricate yourself from the situation in the least self-destructive manner possible. Thus we see that a lie can be a perfectly proper act to protect a value against an injustice; not a desire to gain a value by faking reality, but a fully contextual recognition of the relevant facts of reality. Link Between the Individual and the Group Richard Adams, in his book WATERSHIP DOWN, made a profoundly important identification of a connection between the individual and the group - the connection that explains why people will do things in a group context that they would never do when acting as individuals: "The current that flows (among creatures who think of themselves primarily as part of a group and only secondarily, if at all, as individuals) to fuse them together and impel them into action without conscious thought or will." This is the psychological phenomenon that accounts for the clearly distinct difference between the behavior of "individual man" and that of "group man." Branden maintains that the fundamental moral "sin" is the failure to choose to think (see THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SELF-ESTEEM, chapter 4). I would draw a parallel to this contention in the field of ethics and maintain that the fundamental ethical "sin" is the failure to choose to judge. I mean specifically failing to make judgments about the ethical propriety of your own behavior, and instead allowing yourself to become merely an instrument of someone else's will. Rand observed that the most contemptible man is the man without a purpose. But the most evil man is the man who allows his purpose to be determined by others. The most widespread (and most devastating in its effects) manifestation of this failure is the claim that "I was only doing my job." This I call the "Nuremberg Defense" as it was the most common defense offered by the Nazi war criminals during the Nuremberg trials. Whenever you hear this claim what you are hearing is an attempt to justify ethical viciousness on the grounds that the perpetrator has abandoned his own judgment and accepted the propriety of acting according to the judgment of someone else. The Nuremberg Defense tries to divorce choice from action and thus avoid the assignment of guilt. The man who makes the choice tries to absolve himself from guilt by claiming "but I didn't DO anything," and the man who performs the action tries to absolve himself from guilt by claiming "but I didn't make any choice." When each has thus eliminated guilt from his considerations, both together are capable of a completely unlimited scope of wicked behavior. This "default of judgment" phenomenon lies at the base of all government police agencies and all military organizations. This phenomenon made possible the Holocaust, and without it the Holocaust would not have been possible. Without it, the Hitlers of the world would each have to do his own murders personally, and would not be able to act through a social institution comprised of people trained to accept any judgment - any choice - governing their behavior. Any judgment, that is, except their own. The vast majority of the human race are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from infliciting pain, but in a society where viciousness is institutionalized they don't dare to assert themselves. One kind-hearted creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he loyally participates in iniquities which revolt both of them. "In fear of what others might report about you, you stoned the woman although your heart revolted at the act." Hitler: "I understood the infamous spiritual terror which this movement exerts, particularly on the bourgeoisie, which is neither morally nor mentally equal to such attacks; at a given sign it unleashes a veritable barrage of lies and slanders against whatever adversary seems most dangerous, until the nerves of the attacked persons break down. This is a tactic based on precise calculation of all human weaknesses, and its result will lead to success with almost mathematical certainty." But this process works only with "group man." It does not work at all with the individualist. The individualist is the person who has a higher allegiance to his own conscience than to the rules others set down for him. The individualist thinks and judges independently, valuing nothing higher than the sovereignty of his own intellect. He is not the sort of chaff that makes good fodder for the state. What is a slave? I can see two fundamental distinguishing characteristics of a slave: 1. He must do whatever his master commands him to do. 2. He cannot do anything without having permission from his master. Keynes described aggregate demand management as "the one kind of compulsion of which the effect is to enlarge liberty." Edmund Burke wrote, "Liberty too must be limited in order to be possessed." Rousseau, in The Social Contract: "Men must be forced to be free." If libertarianism were politically possible, there would be no need for the LP. The fact that society is constructed in such a manner that an ethics can be implemented through governmental coercion, precludes the implementation of a rational ethics. Contrary to the "gentlemen" quoted above, you cannot coerce people into freedom. Freedom is the absence of coercion. Profound Ethical Concerns I have frequently heard people claim that certain issues are fraught with "profound ethical concerns." Issues such as research using fetal tissue, DNA manipulation, organ transplants, etc. Here is one of the rare instances wherein a proponent of such "profound ethical concerns" actually makes a sensible statement of the concerns he imagines: Gene therapy raises profound ethical concerns. For instance: 1. Should therapy be applied simply to improve one's offspring, not only to prevent an inherited disease? [He implies that the elimination of an evil, "an inherited disease," is perhaps acceptable, but the implementation of a positive good, "to improve one's offspring," is of questionable propriety. Why does he object to a good?] 2. Who would be empowered to decide? [Here he clearly implies that someone is to have the authority of "empowerment." Why must such an authority exist? Who, after all, is "empowered" to decide which people shall be permitted to wear shoes?] 3. Is society willing to risk introducing changes into the gene pool that may ultimately prove detrimental to the species? [In fact, Yes. Not only does the willingness exist, but the perpetuation of such detrimental genes is actually legally compelled by implementation of medical techniques that preserve the existence of severely retarded people.] 4. Do we have the right to tamper with human evolution? [Everyone who ever selects his/her spouse on the basis of "He would make a good father" or "She would make a good mother" is "tampering" with human evolution. Why does he object to this selectivity?] Veterinarians are particularly sensitive to the ethical problems of dealing with animals - love of animals, after all, was what brought most of them into the field. Vets point out that their job is not to prolong life but to reduce the suffering of as many animals as possible. Human medicine, they aver, is in many ways more heartless: "We're allowed to give suffering animals euthanasia, but physicians are required by law to keep their patients alive no matter what the cost." Sooner or later man will be going outside the solar system. Sooner or later we will meet types of intelligent life much higher than our own, yet in forms completely alien. And when that time comes, the treatment man receives from his superiors may well depend upon the way he has behaved toward the other creatures of his own world - including himself! Coerced Compassion Reflect on the vast majority of those who turn to police power to remedy distress. Every one of them will say they act purely because of their concern, their compassion, for those on the lower rung of life's ladder. Can they not trust their own compassion to express itself? Apparently not, for it seems, when they turn to government, they are insisting that they must be forced to do that which they claim they already want to do. An absurdity! People who want to control other people's lives never want to pay for the privilege. What they usually expect is to be paid for the "service" they impose upon their victims. What they never recognize is that the individuals who are forced by government regulation to act against their own interests are the very "public" which is supposed to benefit from the government controls. In any case, if you are going to do good for someone, it really should be THEIR idea of good, not yours. In all cases, it should be the other person who initiates the interaction - by asserting THEIR perception of their own good. Why was it necessary to have laws to FORCE racists to practice racism? After all, the employers, landowners, businessmen, etc., were overwhelmingly from the dominant group and were free to segregate and discriminate on their own. The answer is that the voluntary structure of economic incentives works against this behavior. As long as producers and consumers are free to act spontaneously in the context of a free market, there are economic costs for discriminating against minorities. There are likewise economic incentives to avoid discriminatory practices. Effect of Social Complexity on Statism Socialism must always fail because any society large enough to be economically and technologically civilized is too large and complex to be contained within the minds of any subgroup. The competence of government began to decline precipitously after the First World War as society's technological complexity began to increase exponentially. It will be the final irony of the statist system that, once headless after a catastrophic collapse, it will be unable to save itself. The centralized control of all aspects of the country will prevent people from asking the questions that must be answered before any organized recovery can begin. Dual Ideologies The claim that countries that call themselves capitalist are guilty of misdescription reflects the fact that both those in and out of power use dual ideologies - those that actually guide their actions and those that are used as instruments of deception in waging social conflict. The theory of a political system is almost always its surface ideology, and it may be a deeply, if not necessarily intentionally, deceptive facade. People almost automatically assume that the goal of a political system is to advance the welfare of at least a majority of the population. But this is because some such goal is almost universally propounded in surface ideologies, and, being credulous, they allow themselves to be taken in by the surface ideology and never perceive the real motives that actually guide the behavior of the state. Much of the government's "crime-prevention" behavior can be explained by the idea that the State has forbidden to the individual the practice of wrong doing, not because it desires to abolish wrongdoing, but because the State desires to monopolize it. Hallmark of a Conservative The hallmark of a conservative is the phrase "too much." If you press him until you can get him to identify the core of his social philosophy, you will find that it is founded on a statement containing some variation of the phrase "too much." He is not fundamentally opposed to slavery, just "too much" slavery. He is not fundamentally opposed to government interference in private lives, just "an excessive amount" of interference. He is not fundamentally opposed to tyranny, just a level of tyranny that is "far beyond" what he judges acceptable. An excellent example of this is the following quote from FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton and Rose Friedman (page 61): "Some restrictions on our freedom are necessary to avoid other, still worse, restrictions. However, we have gone far beyond that point." But the distinction between an acceptable level of restriction and an unacceptable level is an arbitrary one, because such a distinction is based on a similarity in quantity rather than a difference in quality. The "point" the Friedmans refer to is an undefinable position. A second characteristic by which a conservative can be recognized is his reliance on religion. Almost all conservatives have religious belief as a major foundation stone of all aspects of their philosophy. A third characteristic by which a conservative can be recognized is that politically, he is an "anti-". If you ask him what his political philosophy is based on, he will usually reply that he is an anti-communist. This is what makes conservatives attractive to philosophically superficial capitalists. Such capitalists (who are themselves opposed to communism) see no deeper than the "anti-communist" label presented by the conservative and conclude that the conservative is their philosophical ally. To be allies, it is not necessary to have a noble aim in commmon. It is necessary only to have a common enemy. If your ally defines himself only as an "anti-" you can use him without fear that he will corrupt your purpose. You have a big advantage: he knows only what he DOESN'T want. You know what you DO want. But the flaw in applying this idea lies in the philosophical superficiality of the capitalists. They do not probe beneath the surface label of the conservative and observe that fundamentally what he is FOR is the imposition of some form of coercive social institution. The conservative thinks he can make some compromise between freedom and slavery, but his belief that there is a happy middle somewhere in between is wrong. That is not how compromise works. Compromise A compromise is an adjustment of conflicting claims by mutual concessions. But this means that both parties agree upon some fundamental principle which serves as a basis for the adjustment. It is only in regard to concretes or particulars implementing a mutually accepted basic principle that compromise can occur. A compromise is a negotiated adjustment of the quantity of some phenomenon, thus the process cannot be applied between two disparate phenomena. There cannot be a compromise between a phenomenon and its negation. For example, between theft and non-theft. If I want to steal $10 from you and I respond to your protest by suggesting that we "compromise" and I will steal only $5 - this is no compromise! It is relinquishment, by you, of your principle of non-theft - and acceptance, again by you, of my principle of theft. Once you have accepted the principle of theft, then we can indeed compromise - on how much theft you will be subjected to. Ben Franklin wrote in 1766 that "if Parliament has the right to take from us one penny in the pound, where is the line drawn that bounds that right, and what shall hinder their calling whenever they please for the other 19 shillings and eleven pence?" Libertarian Foreign Policy Robert Ringer: "I am in favor of complete freedom of trade between companies and people throughout the world, but not under the umbrella of political partnerships between governments." Thus a proper libertarian policy toward trade relations (a foreign policy, as expressed by a free society) should be: We will trade with individual people or with private companies, but we will not engage in any exchange which is subject to the control of a government. Nick DiSpoldo, Small Press Review (on "Children, Churches and Daddies," April 1997) Kuypers is the widely-published poet of particular perspectives and not a little existential rage, but she does not impose her personal or artistic agenda on her magazine. CC+D is a provocative potpourri of news stories, poetry, humor, art and the "dirty underwear" of politics. One piece in this issue is "Crazy," an interview Kuypers conducted with "Madeline," a murderess who was found insane, and is confined to West Virginia's Arronsville Correctional Center. Madeline, whose elevator definitely doesn't go to the top, killed her boyfriend during sex with an ice pick and a chef's knife, far surpassing the butchery of Elena Bobbitt. Madeline, herself covered with blood, sat beside her lover's remains for three days, talking to herself, and that is how the police found her. For effect, Kuypers publishes Madeline's monologue in different-sized type, and the result is something between a sense of Dali's surrealism and Kafka-like craziness. Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer's styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere. Ed Hamilton, writer #85 (of children, churches and daddies) turned out well. I really enjoyed the humor section, especially the test score answers. And, the cup-holder story is hilarious. I'm not a big fan of poetry - since much of it is so hard to decipher - but I was impressed by the work here, which tends toward the straightforward and unpretentious. As for the fiction, the piece by Anderson is quite perceptive: I liked the way the self-deluding situation of the character is gradually, subtly revealed. (Kuypers') story is good too: the way it switches narrative perspective via the letter device is a nice touch. Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself. Write to Scars Publications to submit poetry, prose and artwork to Children, Churches and Daddies literary magazine, or to inquire about having your own chapbook, and maybe a few reviews like these. Jim Maddocks, GLASGOW, via the Internet I'll be totally honest, of the material in Issue (either 83 or 86 of Children, Churches and Daddies) the only ones I really took to were Kuypers'. TRYING was so simple but most truths are, aren't they? what is veganism? A vegan (VEE-gun) is someone who does not consume any animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans don't consume dairy or egg products, as well as animal products in clothing and other sources. why veganism? This cruelty-free lifestyle provides many benefits, to animals, the environment and to ourselves. The meat and dairy industry abuses billions of animals. Animal agriculture takes an enormous toll on the land. Consumtion of animal products has been linked to heart disease, colon and breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and a host of other conditions. so what is vegan action? We can succeed in shifting agriculture away from factory farming, saving millions, or even billions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep turkeys and other animals from cruelty. We can free up land to restore to wilderness, pollute less water and air, reduce topsoil reosion, and prevent desertification. We can improve the health and happiness of millions by preventing numerous occurrences od breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and heart attacks, among other major health problems. A vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle may be the most important step a person can take towards creatin a more just and compassionate society. Contact us for membership information, t-shirt sales or donations. vegan action po box 4353, berkeley, ca 94707-0353 510/704-4444 C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review (on Children, Churches and Daddies) cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist. "I really like ("Writing Your Name"). It's one of those kind of things where your eye isn't exactly pulled along, but falls effortlessly down the poem. I liked "knowledge" for its mix of disgust and acceptance. Janet Kuypers does good little movies, by which I mean her stuff provokes moving imagery for me. Color, no dialogue; the voice of the poem is the narrator over the film. Children, Churches and Daddies no longer distributes free contributor's copies of issues. In order to receive issues of Children, Churches and Daddies, contact Janet Kuypers at the cc&d e-mail addres. Free electronic subscriptions are available via email. All you need to do is email ccandd@aol.com... and ask to be added to the free cc+d electronic subscription mailing list. And you can still see issues every month at the Children, Churches and Daddies website, located at http://scars.tv Also, visit our new web sites: the Art Gallery and the Poetry Page. Mark Blickley, writer The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book. MIT Vegetarian Support Group (VSG) functions: * To show the MIT Food Service that there is a large community of vegetarians at MIT (and other health-conscious people) whom they are alienating with current menus, and to give positive suggestions for change. * To exchange recipes and names of Boston area veg restaurants * To provide a resource to people seeking communal vegetarian cooking * To provide an option for vegetarian freshmen We also have a discussion group for all issues related to vegetarianism, which currently has about 150 members, many of whom are outside the Boston area. The group is focusing more toward outreach and evolving from what it has been in years past. We welcome new members, as well as the opportunity to inform people about the benefits of vegetarianism, to our health, the environment, animal welfare, and a variety of other issues. Gary, Editor, The Road Out of Town (on the Children, Churches and Daddies Web Site) I just checked out the site. It looks great. Dusty Dog Reviews: These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding. John Sweet, writer (on chapbook designs) Visuals were awesome. They've got a nice enigmatic quality to them. Front cover reminds me of the Roman sculptures of angels from way back when. Loved the staggered tire lettering, too. Way cool. (on "Hope Chest in the Attic") Some excellent writing in "Hope Chest in the Attic." I thought "Children, Churches and Daddies" and "The Room of the Rape" were particularly powerful pieces. C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review: cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist. Cheryl Townsend, Editor, Impetus (on Children, Churches and Daddies) The new cc&d looks absolutely amazing. It's a wonderful lay-out, looks really professional - all you need is the glossy pages. Truly impressive AND the calendar, too. Can't wait to actually start reading all the stuff inside.. Wanted to just say, it looks good so far!!! Dusty Dog Reviews: She opens with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, "Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment." Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers' very personal layering of her poem across the page. Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA Indeed, there's a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there's a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship. Mark Blickley, writer The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book. You Have to be Published to be Appreciated. Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book or chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers. We're only an e-mail away. Write to us. Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies') obvious dedication along this line admirable. The Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology The Solar Energy Research & Education Foundation (SEREF), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., established on Earth Day 1993 the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) as its central project. CREST's three principal projects are to provide: * on-site training and education workshops on the sustainable development interconnections of energy, economics and environment; * on-line distance learning/training resources on CREST's SOLSTICE computer, available from 144 countries through email and the Internet; * on-disc training and educational resources through the use of interactive multimedia applications on CD-ROM computer discs - showcasing current achievements and future opportunities in sustainable energy development. The CREST staff also does "on the road" presentations, demonstrations, and workshops showcasing its activities and available resources. For More Information Please Contact: Deborah Anderson dja@crest.org or (202) 289-0061 Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies') obvious dedication along this line admirable. Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA "Hope Chest in the Attic" captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family. "Chain Smoking" depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. "The room of the rape" is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation. want a review like this? contact scars about getting your own book published. Paul Weinman, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) Wonderful new direction (Children, Churches and Daddies has) taken - great articles, etc. (especially those on AIDS). Great stories - all sorts of hot info! The magazine Children Churches and Daddies is Copyright © through Scars Publications and Design. The rights of the individual pieces remain with the authors. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author. Okay, nilla wafer. Listen up and listen good. How to save your life. Submit, or I'll have to kill you. Okay, it's this simple: send me published or unpublished poetry, prose or art work (do not send originals), along with a bio, to us - then sit around and wait... Pretty soon you'll hear from the happy people at cc&d that says (a) Your work sucks, or (b) This is fancy crap, and we're gonna print it. It's that simple! Okay, butt-munch. Tough guy. This is how to win the editors over. Hope Chest in the Attic is a 200 page, perfect-bound book of 13 years of poetry, prose and art by Janet Kuypers. It's a really classy thing, if you know what I mean. We also have a few extra sopies of the book "Rinse and Repeat", which has all the 1999 issues of cc&d crammed into one book. And you can have either one of these things at just five bucks a pop if you just contact us. It's an offer you can't refuse... Carlton Press, New York, NY: HOPE CHEST IN THE ATTIC is a collection of well-fashioned, often elegant poems and short prose that deals in many instances, with the most mysterious and awesome of human experiences: love... Janet Kuypers draws from a vast range of experiences and transforms thoughts into lyrical and succinct verse... Recommended as poetic fare that will titillate the palate in its imagery and imaginative creations. Mark Blickley, writer: The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing the book. You Have to be Published to be Appreciated. Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book and chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers - you can write for yourself or you can write for an audience. It's your call... Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA: "Hope Chest in the Attic" captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family. "Chain Smoking" depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. "The room of the rape" is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation. Dusty Dog Reviews, CA (on knife): These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding. Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself. Dusty Dog Reviews (on Without You): She open with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, "Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment." Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers' very personal layering of her poem across the page. Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself. Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada (on Children, Churches and Daddies): I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer's styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere. Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA: Indeed, there's a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there's a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship. Published since 1993 No racist, sexist or homophobic material is appreciated; we do accept work of almost any genre of poetry, prose or artwork, though we shy away from concrete poetry and rhyme for rhyme's sake. Do not send originals. Any work sent to Scars Publications on Macintosh disks, text format, will be given special attention over smail-mail submissions. There is no limit to how much you may submit at a time; previously published work accepted.