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Entries in dignity (10)

Tuesday
Nov202012

Cold Turkey

Yes, it's true, said a free spirit in a free world. You have to break down before you break through.

The difference between the sense of hearing and the skill of listening is attention. Good lesson, said a listener. 

Tell us a story about Cold Turkey.

It may interest you to know Turkey has the highest number of journalists in JAIL or PRISONS than any country in the world. More than China or Iran.

Sounds like a great place to speak your mind free from fear.

Yeah, free speech is cold in Turkey. Colder than leftovers.

What happened to open your head, open your heart and open your mouth?

Speaking free has it's risks. You can say that again. Censorship is alive and well. Best served cold.

Who cares? We can always go shopping.

Amnesty International.

Monday
Jun282010

Laughter fears sex

Greetings,

It is 9.11 in the morning. Only numbers. Do the math. You attach your personal meaning to 9.11.

Another lousy day in Asian paradise. I work for the Fun Police. The reality is I am surrounded by idiots. The idiots are the foreigners. They live on death row.

The local people remain traumatized by their history of genocide. It will take another generation to see clearly. Disconnected. Unfocused, easily distracted. Watching other people make things happen with dead eyes. 

I said this once to a couple of native teachers in Asia Minor. They may have thought it was: Rude. Impolite. Scary. True. A reality to be avoided like H1N1. They didn't feel comfortable facing this UNpleasant Fact. I love facing unpleasant facts because these facts are great lessons in humility, honesty, compassion and foolishness. 

Human intelligence on Earth is a rumor.

Daily survival business is nothing but wear and tear on people.

Children, adolescents and adults are rounded up and taken in for questioning. The SYSTEM is well designed for these interrogations.

RUBBISH! screams a 25-year old English woman coddling her disturbed, distraught English boyfriend. She is his secret mother. He doesn't know or realize this fact. 

They've created their own personal fiefdom. It's like an NGO. They get the money and create jobs, opportunities for people with disabilities, empowering people with dignity and respect and value.

He is afraid of intimate emotional sex. In fact, he's so afraid of sex he changes the subject, avoids her sharp piercing eyes inside the swirling chaos of her rusty loudspeaker. She pushes her voice down the broken street yelling RUBBISH! RUBBISH!

This highly intelligent and slightly evolved life form expression is all. Everything clear and direct. When you love RUBBISH setting fire to human lives is easy. She is afraid of emotion truth and authenticity. Their life is one deep black hole. They have so much in common, like a mutual fear of sex. They need more practice.

Do you want an example of my recent practice? he asked her while cramming eggs into an orifice. If you must, she whispered, but hurry up, I'm late for work, work, work. I'll be brief, he said. 

She reclined inside the blue hammock on the porch as twilight filtered through leaves of time. Shadows danced in her 24 childlike freedom. He gestured they go in. He explored her neck, lips, ears. She didn’t like kissing. Kissing in her culture was the ultimate sign of intimacy. He roamed small hills with his tongue down to valleys. 

She gave him her passport to heaven and he slaked his thirst with her essence. She was more relaxed and passionate. They were familiar with each other’s bodies. Her boom-boom demands were muted. The vocabulary of touch. Sleeping, her face was a calm Apsara dancer, refined elegance, soft cheeks, brown glow.

He walked her through the morning garden down to a moto, smelled her long neck, tipped her bye-bye. She returned to the slums waiting for night. Waiting for strangers. 

His flame grilled girlfriend started screaming, RUBBISH! RUBBISH!

Calm down baby, he said. Give a person a match and they'll be warm for a minute.

Set them on fire and they'll be warm for the rest of their life, she said. I am the mother of all RUBBISH!

Take them in for questioning. Get the answers. 

What's the next question?

Metta.

 

 

Friday
Jun042010

Dhaka

Greetings,

You find poetry while sweeping. Poetry finds you while weeping.

Metta.

Dhaka

Only five million humans 

Horns for beggars, their arms
Broken and bleeding
Hands extending through cracked windows
 
Floods send them into traffic
Unable to cope with land loss
Daughter sells body, father sells wife,
Son sells self
 
We sell them malnutrition,
Handfuls of rice
As sanitation system collapses
Under strain of poverty
 
Misery is a child
Bloated stomach a hopeless
Jaundiced eye full of tear
Never going to fall
Into streets where holy bull wallows
Next to a one-legged man
His crutch a stench rising
In dust, sleeping in a broken down 
Life

My fake pregnancy begs for charity in China. Save face. 

Tuesday
Mar092010

International Women's Day

Greetings,

To honor women this day, every day, everywhere, here are some cultural images.

Nature is what you are. Culture is what you can be.

Metta.

 

Monday
Oct202008

We are all born free

We are all born free is a new children's picture book celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We Are All Born Free

Synopsis:
We are all born free is an outstanding and beautiful picture book celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Artists and illustrators from all over the world offer their personal interpretation of the Articles, making them easy to understand for young readers. Children aged 6 and over will take great pleasure in discovering an exceptional illustration as well as a fundamental right on every page they turn.

Published by Frances Lincoln in association with Amnesty International, with forewords by David Tennant, who describes this collection as a 'beautiful book' in which 'you’ll find thirty rules for the world to live by' and John Boyne, for whom this book 'might be the most important one that you ever own.' 

We Are All Born Free has already been translated into more than 30 languages and sold over 200,000 copies.  more>>

Metta.

   

  

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