Friday, June 15, 2001

COLLECTED POSTS OF ANONYMOSES IV

COLLECTED POSTS OF ANONYMOSES
JUNE 2001 PART TWO
CONTENTS:
-The Stain on Bush's Address
-Seek Clarity
-This Accursed Land
-Learn to swim, indeed!
-Calling on Angels
-Heir to McVeigh
-Your histrionics are overblown
-...the eye of a needle...
-Dear Abby, I'm a Texas Mother
-Liberal Common Sense
-Liberal by Default?
-Rooting for the Overdog
-Pope, Inc.
-Desposyni
-Calling all Noahs!
-Frankenchrist
-Sine Qua Nun
-Were he only legitimate!
-How Bush Stole the Election
-Bush Guilty in DebateTapeGate
-Mass Hypnosis
-The Proof is On the Pudding
-We create our own wood.
-My First Bloomsday
-Shootout at the Fantasy Factory
-Traffic: Good band AND Movie!
-Chew the Fat
-What are your credentials?
-Hundred bucks and I'm good.
-Blessed are the Rich?
-You say the sweetest things!
-What state are you from?

The Stain on Bush's Address
by ANONYMOSES
People are doing something about it, and not only will things change...heads may roll...before all is said and done.
The weird thing is that some would want to derail the flow of democracy toward its becoming a reality in America. Some tend to think that if you become too democratic...you turn into a communist...at least from some of the posts I've read.
And even though the so-called "liberal" media may want to ignore the approaching tsunami...they will, in the end, wind up the big loser...for not doing its job, and becoming just a megaphone for Spielberg and the Bush White House.
Bugliosi is no flash-in-the-pan lawyer, and he does have a good record on convictions.
You're right about the problems, and how they never should have happened in the first place. I thought I was hallucinating at times, watching the obvious lies and coverups happening right before my eyes. I frankly think the whole mess is bordering on evil, and certainly has the stain of Mammon all over it.


Seek Clarity
by ANONYMOSES
It is not about whose team wins. It is about the truth. If Gore and the Dems did something untoward...root it out, tell the world. Same with Bush & Co.
Having been suspect of the Media, and its role in shoehorning Bush into the White House, for financial gain...I have been viewing much of anything they say with skepticism.
And my position has been borne out time and again. Look at all the reversals!
Early on, about the same day that Jeb stepped down from his involvement...one of the Republican Advisors (I forget his name...be he is a short fat guy who worked with Reagan) said "There is a little fraud in every election."
Oh yeah? I never knew this! Maybe he knows something that is likely to be found out, if people sniff long enough.
About that same time Jeb said "Well you know...there are people who don't live here but vote here."... but then seemed a little uncomfortable at having said it. Flags went up again.
Earlier...when Bush was sitting in that room with his family, waiting for the outcome, and trying to deal with the report that Gore won Florida...there was some strangeness between them and the way the Media was acting...and before long...sure enough...reality was changed. They did something. The whole affair was shady.
And then there was MSNBC...posting the score when Bush was ahead...but never when Gore was ahead. Do you really thing Gates and GE would be for Clinton? When it was the Clinton adminstration that was suing Microsoft...and it is GE who stands to make billions of Nuclear Power?
My very keen intuition was also picking up that there were a lot of fuming investors who were assured that Bush would win, and they would get their ROI...meaning "King" and "Return on Investments".
For a free vacation, you can go to Florida and intimidate people! And people took up the challenge, and effectuated the needed changes. "The whiff of Fascism" was in the air.
I talk too much. But I think you should hear this, and know this.
From this and your other post, I can see that you bought the official story, as perpetuated by Bush Inc. and the Media... Gore invented the Internet, Clinton trashed the White House, Gore is an habitual liar, Bush was in the National Guard, Gore is stiff, Bush is a uniter and "trusts the people", Gore stole the election, lie upon lie upon lie upon lie.
If you're not careful, you will wind up a liar too.
What is the truth about Florida? Seek Clarity, as Clinton said..not Chaos and Confusion as the RNC counselled. But how else can they hide the truth?
Oh yes! And speed it up! Deadline deadline!
Now sweep it under the rug. "Time to move on!"
Can you not see how you've been duped, by the very party who is supposed to represent you?
Do they represent you?


This Accursed Land
by ANONYMOSES
"Special" Interests, in their grabbiness, have spoilt this once-tender land. And once a critical mass of us cease propping up this unnatural and unethical structure...sadly, some other pack of greedbred self-serving samsarists will move in and pillage what's left.
Yet while America-at-large and the world becomes McWorld... I will probably wind up in a village or community not entirely unlike
http://www.zendik.org/
Before long, it will be unnecessary to
bother with cities, energy grids, cars, guns, Big Sports, pollution, and all the other trappings of the Republican world.
If I find a good place (or create one)...I will certainly let you know!


Learn to swim, indeed!
by ANONYMOSES
I have been having these synchonicities involving Noah, for a couple of years now...and I am beginning to understand why.
Be Simon Birches. Learn to swim. Here comes the flood. It's already here.

Calling on Angels
by ANONYMOSES
You are far too generous. I am a multi-foibled anachronism with greying temples and a southern drawl. (We do confuse the phthongs so!)
Had I your calmness and repose, I mightn't have lashed out against one whose very name itself, to me, screams "kick me". But, like you, I am not given to the short response, at, I might add, the brave reader's peril.
It is because of this lack of using brevity as a tool, that I felt it all the more appropriate on this one...for reasons posted on my 2nd response to the author.
I was not personally offended by his post, and nor, I hope, was he. But given the temporal proximity of the execution of "he who personified the end result of fanatical vengeance", I could not help but draw parallels.
To simply say "You're an idiot"...was a way to punctuate what I saw to be a very wrongheaded post.
The title, however, is a different matter, and contains several meanings.
Nice to talk to you again. Have a nice weekend? -Dave
P.S. Come on over to cool! :)
Good people are always welcome!
(Calling on Angels!)


Heir to McVeigh
by ANONYMOSES
Then he can come home and kick some UN butt too!
Before the UN...it was the Federal Government. Kicking their butt, however, became strangely unpopular after someone acted on it.
Your mentality, if taken to it's repugnant conclusion, would result in a war with Europe, and terrorism against the United Nations...both of whom have done way more good on this planet than you and me combined.
OK. So you're not an idiot. Don't be so quick to see Europe and the UN as adversaries. The reason the European Press seems harsh on Bush...is that, unlike the American Media, they are not sucking at The Bush Money Teat.
We should be so lucky as to have an objective Press.


Your histrionics are overblown
by ANONYMOSES
You are being paid to write this crap, aren't you! I sort of suspected as much when you used "standing firm against Europe"...thus drawing attention to Bush's book "Standing Firm", which, as I recall, came out about the same time as the Viagra craze...and men who could not get it up on their own, could suddenly fake virility. Well, Bush's standing firm in Europe is no different. The World can whip Texas's ass any day. Is that easier for you to comprehend? The world has about had it with Rambos and John Waynes. It told me so.
So there!


...the eye of a needle...
by ANONYMOSES
ever tightening...

Dear Abby, I'm a Texas Mother
by ANONYMOSES
Dear Abby,
I'm a Texas mother of twin and lovely teenagers. But this isn't about them. They and I are perfectly sane. It is the hubster I am worried about.
You see, he has done gone and got himself into a heap of trouble with his creditors, and now that he has convinced other people to foot the bill...some are starting to wise up to his scheme. (Or perhaps I should say...dumb down to his scheme. I do so mangle my phrases. I'm osmotic.)
But that is not really the problem. The problem is that he has these "enemies", as he does so enthrall in calling them. And more and more, as time ticks off...I find myself physically attracted to these enemies of his, so much so that when I am around them, and I begin to hear erudite elocution issuing from those full and succulent lips, I don't know Ms Abby, but I do think that my dizziness could hardly be more palpable. And I'm afraid I might want to join up with them, and leave my poor beleaguered husband to his own devices, shall we say, and the twins are practically drunk over the idea that I might even consider such a decadent thought, but all they seem concerned about are all the hot guys...which I must admit! Lordy! Lordy! Aw never mind! Must act like a lady!
Anyway...I was wondering if you could give me some good tips on how to tell the difference between silk velvet and faux silk velvet. Ever so important. Quickly now. Ne dawdle pa.
Thank you ever so much! We always read and enjoy your truly marvelous contribution to world literature.

Liberal Common Sense
by ANONYMOSES
Common Sense was invented by a famous liberal back in the 1700s. Fake people like Pat Robertson, however, wrote a book with that title, trying as he might, to steal tha famous liberal symbol. But they have also tried to steal other liberal inventions like God, America, Truth, Love, The Bible, Jesus, West Point, and a few other salivary words.
They do this because they are plants, and as such, are missing the famous upper brain. It's all just common sense!



Liberal by Default?
by ANONYMOSES
I believe you have been drowning in the liberal media for too long. You've been spoon fed what to think and believe from the most "common" medium of all, the t.v..

I guarantee I watch TV less than 95+% of Americans. I didn't watch it at all in the '80s...and rarely watch it now.
How many hours per week do you watch?
Conservatives take in the information, investigate it's validity, then conclude for themselves if it is factual, truthful, or invalid.
I'd like to see you prove this one! What technique and sources do you personally use, as a conservative, to "investigate its validity"?
Liberals seem to be the most "common" of today's society. Look at the drug users, the morally perverted, the destitute, the uneducated. Do you think that a heroin user that never graduated high school is a conservative? How about a prostitute that has had 5 abortions and lives in a sh*t hole?
Oh, I see. If they have signed up with the Conservative Gestapo, they are Liberals by default.
You mock cons. for being "frat boys" and the wealthy.
Which are you? Neither! Has it ever dawned on you that you are fighting for the bad guys...and that they will probably never have anything to do with you.? Any letter from Rupert Murdock? Pat Robertson? Falwell? Liddy? Limbaugh? Lott? Barr? Jesse Helms?
How does it feel to be one of the laughable "working-class tories"?
Well, it would seem to me that if the liberals were indeed brighter than cons. you'd be the one's with the college degrees and the owners of big business.
We do hold the better degrees, and plenty own businesses. Just not those that harm people and the earth.
You guys are trending south...in more ways than one. How long will you tow the line, before you realize there is nothing in it for you?


Rooting for the Overdog.
by ANONYMOSES
What is it, exactly, about Conservatives or Conservatism, you find appealing?
Why do you limit your News sources to the commercial American press? Don't you realize how biased they are, by design?
Have you never read Bagdikian? No wonder you think the way you do. Look at what you accept into your head!
I have learned that the Media are not trustworthy.
Here's my technique: I call it "Let go, and let God". He sorts through the news and then tells me what is real. Maybe. Sometimes. I also read a lot of different things. Experience helps. Having a vast and deep knowledge base helps.
If there were a war between the Blacks and Whites...whose side would you be on?
What about North and South? East and West. Men and Women? Gays and Straights?
Rooting for the Overdog is too easy, my friend. You're better than that.


Pope, Inc.
by ANONYMOSES
It has been suggested that all Christianity was originally Catholic, and that protestantism sprang from this original religion. This is not entirely correct.
There is also the actual family of Jesus to consider. But the Catholic Church would really rather you didn't.
Don't focus on the blood of Christ, the sanguinity. The "sang" is too "real". Sang Real. Sangrea. San Grail. Holy Blood... and the cup (or body) that bears it.
Turn your attention, instead, to Rome. Where the action is. Oh yes...and Power!
"It is the Divine birth we must focus on. No mere Joseph!"
Say what?


Desposyni
by ANONYMOSES
(shhhh!)



Calling all Noahs!
by ANONYMOSES
It is beginning to look ominous outside, and word is the storm is building. This one has an interesting mind. It just thundered. And thundered again, as I was going to mention his name. Related to the close Mars? Global Warming? Red states inheriting the wind?
Calling all Noahs!


Frankenchrist
by ANONYMOSES
Hovering above this goofy earth,
Mr. and Mrs. God look down and snicker
at the sad monster, Frankenchrist.
"There are more Baptists here than people!", Mrs. God says to her loving husband, echoing a joke she heard from her southern footman, Mose, who'd seen the floodtide crest in the arms of Jim and Tammy.
"Tell me about it!", Mr. God replied, sleepy-eyed and bored of his broken creation. "If they'd take those stupid cigarettes out of their mouths, I could breathe some life back into them!"
"Oh look, honey! They're waking up!", said Mrs. God.
"Pulling the plug, you mean." Mr. God injected. "For them, sleep is the only time we see each other. Then they snap, and think they're in charge."
"You and your mind games!"
___
So you see...Gay Pride is wrongheaded. Not because of the Gay. But because of the Pride, which is, after all, a deadly sin.
Why not celebrate Gay Sloth or Gay Avarice?
If this is a referendum...let it be a referendum on "Pride"...and then begin to dismantle all the other manifestations of this particular sin?
Gay Humility. Gay Intelligence. Gay Atheticism. Gay Spirituality. Gay Faith. Gay Hope. Gay Conscience.
Why team up with Pride? Why not then, Gay Patriotism? Gay Self-Righteousness?
Drop the Pride thing. Let the Baptists* struggle with it. They're bottom-feeders.

*Baptist is a euphomism for any self-righteous churchianity salesperson.


Sine Qua Nun
by ANONYMOSES
Without which Nun?
Who knows? This may be the essential condition, the prerequisite, for some serious discussion about the various elements involved in that bizarre turn of events.
I must say though...it does sound like a killer college! I think I will stick to liberal universities...even though we don't get to kill people.


Were he only legitimate!
by ANONYMOSES
If Bush were a legitimate president, things would be different. But many Democrats, as well as people in other countries, frankly do not see him as the real POTUS. We're just biding our time until the real thing returns.
But even if he were legitimate... that doesn't mean that one should take an isolationist view, just because the POTUS wants to. Once you go global, you never go back. At least not without sufficient cause.
I actually feel sorry for the man. But then I remember that he got his own damn self into this mess by hurrying along the vote count...putting deadlines above accuracy. But then again...had he waited...he would have lost. And winning is apparently better to the Bushes, than playing fairly.
If there are questions with the Electoral Vote...default to the Popular Vote...don't work tricks to tweak the Electoral Vote. Right in front of people! You see...WE were watching all of this! And it stunk of corruption.
So please don't go foisting labels on us for our acts of Satyagraha. No less a man than Gandhi taught this most effective tool against tyranny.
You get what you paid for.


How Bush Stole the Election
by ANONYMOSES
Here's how the president of the United States was elected: In the months leading up to the November balloting, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, ordered local elections supervisors to purge 64,000 voters from voter lists on the grounds that they were felons who were not entitled to vote in Florida. As it turns out, these voters weren't felons, or at least, only a very few were. However, the voters on this "scrub list" were, notably, African-American (about 54 percent), while most of the others wrongly barred from voting were white and Hispanic Democrats.
Beginning in November, this extraordinary news ran, as it should, on Page 1 of the country's leading paper. Unfortunately, it was in the wrong country: Britain. In the United States, it ran on page zero — that is, the story was not covered on the news pages. The theft of the presidential race in Florida also was given big television network coverage. But again, it was on the wrong continent: on BBC television, London.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=33&row=1

Greg Palast: "Just look at my Florida theft-of-the-election story. When it came out in Britain, hundreds of people asked me, "When will Bush resign?" It¹s a dual shame: first the election shenanigans, then the almost total lack of reporting about them. Mainstream American papers don¹t like to publish controversial stuff, particularly if it has to do with investigations of industry. The Washington Post did print my story on the scam of utility deregulation in California, but for the most part, while I¹m mainstream in Europe, I¹m non-stream in my home town. I should say, though, that I am currently filming a documentary for PBS on the presidential election rip-off."
http://www.gregpalast.com/columns.cfm

Florida state elections officials and hired data crunchers used computers to target thousands of voters, many of whom were then purged from the voter rolls without reason. And many thousands more saw their votes thrown out as a result of error-prone voting machines and poorly designed ballots, the results of an underfunded and chaotic electoral system.
In all, some 200,000 Floridians were either not permitted to vote in the November 7 election on questionable or possibly illegal grounds, or saw their ballots discarded and not counted. A large and disproportionate number were black.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010430&s=lantigua
If you shut out the real news...does it cease to exist? You better learn to keep up. Time is exposing what Bush thought he could keep hidden.


Winning Finite Games
by ANONYMOSES
To some people...winning is the only thing. A damn shame really! Look at all they have sacrificed in their Faustian Football Game!
Have you read James Carse's "Finite and Infinite Games"? If not...here it is, in a nutshell:
Finite Games have winners and losers. Most sports are like this.
Infinite Games are played...in order to keep the game in play. Like volleying. Also like love, friendship, America.
Bush is playing America as a Finite Game, as are many of his "team". They simply want to win. Now. Rather than slowly develop America into higher and higher forms of evolution...keeping the ball rolling, the game going, the torch burning. Like a friend or a lover.
It is little wonder that Bush Inc. is so fanatical about Sports! Finite Games are all they seem to know! And play.
I loathe Sports, I must admit, and put most of it on about the same ring of Hell as the Boy Scouts...both of which are simply quasi-military endeavors. Nothing to do with anything of import. But that is another topic for another post.
Lucky for us Spirit and Nature tend to go for games of the Infinite variety!
When we, as humans, move too far from our true homebase, we are sent reminders. Hopefully people are not too hoodwinked to read them when they come.

Bush Guilty in DebateTapeGate
by ANONYMOSES
All of Bush's lies are going to be found out. Here is one for you. Remember the famous Debate Tape...that you were sure was Gore's mischievous doings? Well...a Bushie just confessed to it. If you'd allow yourself to read opposing viewpoints, you would know that much else is going to be surfacing about your Mr. Bush, and the shadies that surround him.
Read for yourself...if you dare!
_______________________________
Ex-Bush worker guilty in tape case
Plea deal may cut fine, prison time
06/15/2001
By Pete Slover / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – A former office manager for George W. Bush's media adviser pleaded guilty Thursday to mail fraud and perjury, accepting responsibility for stealing and mailing debate preparation materials to the Al Gore presidential campaign, then lying about it to a grand jury.
Juanita Yvette Lozano, 31, of Austin faces up to 10 years in prison and $500,000 in fines when she is sentenced Aug. 17.
Federal sentencing guidelines make it likely that she will receive a prison sentence of between six months and a year, and fines and fees of up to $2,200, under a plea agreement with prosecutors.
If her sentence falls within those limits, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks could allow her to serve her time at home or in a halfway house.
Prosecutors, Ms. Lozano and her attorneys declined to comment after the hearing.
Answering the judge's questions with a firm "Yes, sir," Ms. Lozano admitted to a lengthy scenario read into the record by prosecutors.
Ms. Lozano – a longtime Democrat – did not reveal her motivation. Under the deal with prosecutors, she must cooperate and testify against anybody else charged in the affair. A source close to the investigation said that government officials would not rule out additional charges until they debrief Ms. Lozano.
The case began with the Sept. 11 mailing of a Bush videotape, strategy book and other papers swiped from Maverick Media, the Austin consulting firm where Ms. Lozano worked. The material was sent to former U.S. Rep. Tom Downey, D-N.Y., who was advising Mr. Gore before the first presidential debate with Mr. Bush.
In exchange for her plea, the government will drop one count of a three-count indictment – the accusation that Ms. Lozano lied to the FBI during its investigation.
Early in the investigation, Ms. Lozano insisted that a post-office surveillance video did not show her mailing the debate package, but a pair of mail-order pants back to the Gap for her boss. To the grand jury, she said she had no idea who the recipient was.
There was no talk of mystery mailings or pants Thursday: Among Ms. Lozano's admissions were that she used her home computer to look up Mr. Downey's address on the Internet before sending him a package promising further help and signed "Good luck, Amy." She admitted using her employer's credit card to pay for the postage.
FBI agents found a record of that address search on her hard drive, and her subsequent denial of that to the grand jury was the basis of the perjury charge.
http://www.dallasnews.com/politics/394388_fraud_15tex.AR.html


Mass Hypnosis
by ANONYMOSES
The Eastern mystic, Gurdjieff, viewed War as a form of mass-hypnosis. And since he was an hypnotist (among other things), he felt he could also de-hypnotize people.
To act upon his belief, he would often put himself in harm's way, and remove hoodwinks. In the process he was shot on several occasions.
I used to be afraid of dying. But I am not any more. And if I should die in the service of truth and light...so be it. We all have to go sometime!
American journalists are pussilanimists. Period. They are even afraid of being fired, or not getting the big bucks, or being sued.
But that is one thing. The real problem is not so much fear of writing and exposing...it is the weird fear of reading and being exposed...that is the real tragedy here.


The Proof is On the Pudding
by ANONYMOSES
Eventually there will be enough proof of Bush's mental midgetry to fill a Bible. And even THEN some of the slower of head will still be kneeling at the shrine. It is impossible now for any person of mentation to defect TO Mr. Nucular...only away FROM him. And eventually the day will come when he finds himself in solitary confinement, since all have dropt the haut potatoe, and have moved on to higher vegetables.


We create our own wood.
by ANONYMOSES
You guys invent Viagra.



My First Bloomsday
by ANONYMOSES
Yesterday was a day for synchronicities. I thought about my mother, and she called. When I said I was just thinking about her, she said she knew. Later I was thinking about my friend Woody, and he called. Later still, I pick up Finnegans Wake and start reading, put it down, come here, and you are saying "Happy Bloomsday!"!
What are you smoking?
(Sorry! I have spiral messagitis, so messages spiral and spiral until all I can possibly say is a projection.)
I remember my first Bloomsday. It was a dark and stormy night, and all of Boston was aglow in cliche. Except for Jordan Hall, who was playing host to the 1985 Joyce Symposium in celebration of Bloomsday.
As usual the event with a dramatic rendering of Molly Bloom's final (and wondrously naughty) soliloquy, which was, as usual, crescendic and yesifying.
Throughout the event, I was looking for a gap in the ceremonies where I could blurt out "baba badal gharagh takamminn arronn konn bronn tonn eron tuon thuntro varr hounawn skawn toohoor denen thurnuk!", as I had taken the time to memorize it, and felt that it would be more than appropriate, especially if echoing like the tonitruous sound of God it was meant to be...there, on the first page of Finnegan...yet echoing throughout the land, again and again, like church bells pealing, or The Most Ancient yawping across the rooves his sadness, his dadness, as his beloved bites the apple, and is divorced from his cold mad feary father only to rejoin, rejoyce, at the end which is the beginning...again.
Finn again. Wake!
But no such moment was ever to befall me, and so I packed up my word, and walked silently to the fountain at the Christian Science Monitor, and began exchanging information-laden energies with Sirius, while doing tai chi in the fountain...Joyce's words ringing in the bells in my head.
Thanks for reminding me what day it is! I shall do something very Joycean! As will, I suspect, you. A walk on the beach would be nice! Fireworks.
I wish you all the best.


Shootout at the FantasyFactory
by ANONYMOSES
Before long, these devices will be in the hands of average citizens, like guns. And like guns, some will be use the technology for ill. There is a strange similitude between cameras of all stripes) and guns. You can be shot by either...through your house. They both then invade your privacy and your castle. They both give an unfair advantage to the one who holds the device.
Some day the guys with the cameras and the guys with the guns are going to have a shoot-in, or a shoot-out.
I think I'll take a walk through a meadow.



Traffic: Good band AND Movie!
by ANONYMOSES
Whenever I hear "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys", I think of Homey. (Don't tell him I said that!)
With all the new SuperEyes, SuperEars, and SuperNoses coming out...one wonders when SuperTastebuds will come along.
"Mmmm! She looks delicious! Lick lick!"
I'm sick.
I guess the future will be a utopia for voyeurs and exhibitionists! Personally, I think I will work on my dematerialization skills.
Chew the Fat
by ANONYMOSES
There is a ritual I perform just prior to my interaction with thishere messageboard, and it goes sump'm like iss:
1. Git the flyswatter.
2. Pull up the rocking chair.
3. Ring for the scribe.
4. Roll the Claret I.V. onto the porch
5. Back the car up to the porch.
Once these preparations are made, I can then relax, swat flies, and have my scribe read the post and return what I dictate to him.
But the reason I come here, as you say, perhaps overstatingly, is to simply reduce the fly population.
Must things be more complicated than this?


What are your credentials?
by ANONYMOSES
If you are going to prop yourself up as a teacher of people, you must expect that they will want to know your credentials. That IS important to you, isn't it? Or will you let any old schmuck be your teacher?

Hundred bucks and I'm good.
by ANONYMOSES
Loved that bit on SNL!
To answer your question though...
Well, let's see... in the late 80s, 10 mil was considered rich, so I would suspect it would be in the 50 or 100 mil range by now.
As another poster said though, it really depends on where you are.
For example, if I make 100k here in Charlotte, but then move to Manhattan...I would have to make 260k to keep the same standard of living. Quality of life would have to go through some serious readjustments...which is why I prefer QOL to SOL.
You've seen these calculators, surely:
http://www.homefair.com/homefair/cmr/salcalc.html
Personally. I think "rich" is one of those dead words, whose meaning has been twisted and turned so much as to squeeze it of all meaning. Relativity doesn't help either!
Good question, Matt! Still working on the other response. Been alternately scattered and busy lately...


Blessed are the Rich?
by ANONYMOSES
"This is Meister Eckhart, from whom God hid nothing." is the title of one of this 13th century mystic's sermons...and reading him, I get the feeling that he was telling the truth.
And I think his words could hardly be more timely, as America and the World trample over each other in their mad moneygrab.
Here are some of his, and perhaps, God's, thoughts on the matter of richness and poverty:
"It is written: "They have become rich in virtue," and that will never happen except that we become poor in things. He who will have all things, must first give them up."
"...for of all his gifts, gifts of nature, gifts of grace, not one was made with the idea that we should regard them as our property...We are to have what we have as if it were loaned to us and not given."
"Thus the more things we keep for ourselves, the less we have of his love; the less we own things, the more we shall own him and his."
"When we rid ourselves of outward things, in return, God shall give us all that Heaven contains, yes, Heaven and all its powers, and all that flows out of God. Whatever the saints and angels have shall be ours as much as theirs."
"We shall merit this divine proprietorship by relinquishing all our rights to what is not God in this world."
"Do you want to know what a really poor person is like?
To be poor in spirit is to get along without everything not necessary. That person who sat naked in his tub said to the mighty Alexander who had all the world under his feet: 'I am greater Lord than you are, for I have despised more than you have possessed. What you have felt so proud to own, I think too little even to despise.' He is far more blessed who gets along without things because he does not need them, than he who owns everything because he needs it all; but best of all is the person who can go without because he has no need. It looks like a great deed when, for God's sake, someone gives a thousand marks of gold to feed the poor and build convents and cloisters, but much more blessed is he who disdains that much stuff on account of God. A person really has the Kingdom of Heaven when he is wise enough to put off everything for the sake of God."
"There's not a cent's worth of difference between my condition and the best I could imagine for myself."

Experience has taught me that what he says is true. The more things I have...the more time I have to waste on them. As such, my own way of life is to constantly pare down, rather than pile up. It is very freeing.
One must first, however, break the consumer habit that has been instilled in us through the the purveyors ubiquitous marketing of even the need to acquire acquire!
As Eckhart says..."the poorer, the richer".
I am still too rich in things, and need to pare down even more. I do, however, see that there is a tradeoff, and I, now, would never dream of going back.
I don't mean to bash the rich, but rather console the poor...who receive little more than disdain in today's world.




You say the sweetest things!
by ANONYMOSES
I wish I could take credit, but most of that post was from Eckhart...who does indeed write beautifully.
I did play some rather pretty music last night though. A sort of "4th gymnopedie", if you will...based on Satie's famous work.
Another musical project I am working on is a series of percussive works. For that, I plan to call myself "Big Drummer Man"...as a sort of tribute to "Little Drummer Boy", with whom I have oft' identified. As a David, I play to please the "Central Scrutinizer", and magic is sometimes the result. There is usually a peeling away period, where my small self, which is not that talented, falls away, and a sort of channeling, for lack of better words, occurs. The stone. The zone. The zen. Is in.
Your post has been an inspiration for me to peel back, as well, more of the non-essentials in my life, and I am practically giddy at the thought. Thank you thank you!
No need to apologize for calling me a bore. I put myself to sleep sometimes, I am so monotonous. God this and God that! Yet I haven't been to church in years! I still, somehow, feel connected.
I have overwritten this response, and do hope you will forgive my ramblings. I do so enjoy talking to mature and thoughtful people, like yourself, and look forward to the ongoing saga.
I hope you have a splendid weekend, and that you are filled with love and happiness. It is what you radiate. I feel healed just reading your words.
Peace


Which is more important?
by ANONYMOSES
I have done a little research into the people that make up the Senate, and it seems to me that there are at least 17 or so Republican Senators who are pretty close to Jeffords and Chaffee on some of the more liberal issues, such as the environment...which will only grow in importance.
Many Republicans are beginning to ask themselves which is more important...to be a Republican, or to be a Conservative.
I cannot help but think that the future is in better hands with a Chaffee or a McCain, than a Phil Gramm, a Jesse Helms or a Strom Thurmond. Call me crazy!


What state are you from?
by ANONYMOSES
You forgot to indent your paragraphs. You also misspelled "embarrassing". Twice.
You used 3 hyphens instead of the standard 2.
This messageboard, if you did not know, is national.
What state did you move from?
Where in NC do you live? Sounds like it must be Jesse Helms country, in the eastern floodplain...which has become hog hell, and is overrun with conservative yahoos. Perhaps you should move to the more liberal Research Triangle area, or the Piedmont in general. Or Asheville.
Or better yet...back to where you came from.
When I moved from NC to live in Mass...I tried to make a valuable contribution, rather than throw down on them for being so short, driving like maniacs, talking funny, and having their own specialized bigotries.
Maybe you would do well to ask yourself why you attract what you do. Raise your being, and higher beings will see you. I've never even met a pig farmer, and I've lived here for several decades.

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