for your consideration...

i think this is a pretty interesting article that conflicts interestingly with this whole line of thinking i've been doing about alienation, labor exploitation under capitalism, greed, excess, money...for me, this makes me want to think more about the language i'm using to describe the system and where i'm placing (or depriving) people of agency/desire to do good. (what is the desire to "do good?") anyway. i'd love to hear your thoughts.

whole text is at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/2007/02/army-of-altruists.html

"Army of Altruists: On the alienated right to do good
By David Graeber
Harper's Magazine 2007

You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq. -- Senator John Kerry (Democrat, Massachusetts)

Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country's call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education. -- Senator John McCain (Republican, Arizona)"

(continue reading here)

from the warm&quiet isolation of the regenstein,
elz

giving birth to a vacuum

I am fundamentally against the smashing of guitars, and all other varieties of instrument destruction. Don't throw a tuba down the stairs. Don't stab a drum head with a stiletto. Don't siphon off the beans from a maraca. Don't bury each piece of a clarinet in a separate location. Don't open the emergency hatch so your Vulcan lute gets blown into the vastness of space. Just give them to me if you really want them to stop talking to you.

the marked hen

this is not a story for the faint of heart

here on west wind farm there live about 25 mature hens who lay about 25 eggs every single day. in a separate coop there reside about the same number of 3-month old chicks (who are black and blue and slightly brown and haven't grown their red gobble gobbles on their heads), who will replace the others when they become too old (they're near the end of their lives).
russell, the 22 year old from seattle who came to these lands 4 months ago and has decided he will never leave, is the master of the hens. he feeds them, collects their eggs, and spends good time with the chicks, allowing them to become accustomed to the human touch.
about two weeks ago, russell began noticing queer occurences in the coop. at least one, if not as many as 3, eggs were broken each dusk as he went in to collect them. who was the culprit? the mystery continued...
until last week, russell walked into the coop and saw a hen run out of the wall of nests, with a shell and bit of yolk on her beak. she was caught red handed.

quickly she was moved out of the mature hens coop and into the pen with the younger hens where she could not eat any more eggs. but she kept getting back into her old coop, the wily one. she was then splattered in blue paint, for us to more easily identify the disrupter of order on the farm. since then she has remained with the younger ones.

and there are still more gruesome facts... it seems she is teaching the young chicks of her ways; by laying eggs and pecking at them. the young chicks have never seen eggs before and now, it is feared, all they know is to peck at them until they break.

something must be done about the marked hen. it is russell's mission (a directive from peter, master of the lands) to get rid of her. most likely by outsourcing her death to a neighbor who will find some unsavory use for her tough body.

she will be remembered by the few as a boundary-breaking, devil-may-care, rebel with an unknown cause who was murdered for her beliefs.

rest in peace, marked hen.


----
edit at 3:07pm:
russell dutifully placed the hen in a dog crate and about 10 minutes ago coleman (the neighbor) came by with his dogs in the bed of his truck, placed the hen in with them, and rode away. her body will be too tough to eat plain-- she will have to be boiled or put in a stew in order to be tasty. i told peter i hoped i wouldn't get carted away if i started drinking my menstrual blood and he said if people found out, i just might. but then again no one harvests my blood to sell at saturday markets for $4/dozen. this is so fucked up... she is being killed for eating her own eggs (she laid and ate another one today). apparently with chickens these days it's actually bred out of them to fuck. there is a rooster here who lives with 25 hens and only rarely does one of them actually guard her egg and take care of it (it's called brooding) because she knows it's fertilized.
maybe we will have a little ceremony tonight for her by the fire.

Saber T. wrote this last night.

all:
can we all channel the same thoughts at the same time IN THE SAME WAY? are we thinking the same actual thoughts or just the same words.
tamara is sleeping
eliot's was a physical contribution. let me translate in words: I LOVE YOU and i am so just at peace with everything and have an opinion in the form of vics vapo rub on your lip

oh no! i'm gonna post later! leaving to get the book, back ltr. love ethan toast doobs mcgee

jake is gonna think of somethin really really good. he's here that's enough

sara goes by SABER

tamawa's symbol like prince is blowing rivulets of air, it's beautiful, also the texture of brad's hair is beautiful!

todd's brain is made of cookie dough ice cream
todd turned a whopping good age on the second of this month!

guinea piggggs

the rolling ball and being behind, in front of, and on top of it

it is quite possible
that this couch,
in the halflight of our living room,
has powers to suck people in.
i have experienced this.

onto other squidling topics...i feel my tentacles tingling a little.
the past few days have been somewhat immemorable. a few moments:
watching some kids at weiser concoct vegannaise out of olive oil and tofu and stuff.
smearing menstrualblood-ish dye into my hair and scalp, blood everywhere.
scavenging and cooking (of epic proportions) with hausmates...a cacophony of smells and delightz.

tuesday night i bedecked myself for rocky horror at the roots collective. sporting a new(old) leather vest and black-and-white striped tights and a full head of black curls, i reexperienced how fucking hot tim curry is and raised my voice in praise of cultfilm genderbending. wow. we played combat kissing in the yard and i weaved home on my bike, clicking away and hoping no cars got in my way.

then i dreamt that i went to a music festival somewhere in indiana! there were lots of groups of students and their teachers. food for students was free but they only had banana muffins and teacher food (cheese) cost 2-5 cents. i didn't have any money. then there were some anarchists, all scruffy men, organizing some kind of action.

i have been sprouting collard greens and catnip in the house and it is so so ready to be planted in the garden so that's what i'm off to do now.

sorry this is boring. sometimes (but only occasionally, if you live in the baohaus), life is boring.

this is not a blog post

blue day,

rue day,

i-want-to-moo day.

i've been meaning to post about camp trans but i don't quite know how, yet.

cats shedding,

vodka in the afternoon.

humid air and

sidewalk stares.

even when the bathrooms at work are always empty, choosing between the one down the hall and the one further down the hall is still an existential conflict.

sometimes revolution makes me happy

and sometimes my bone marrow aches with sadness for everything that is wrong.

(today is among the latter days.)

and yet

my garden flourishes

gabe and vlad have been sleeping with me

the lake is cold and bright with just a bit of a vomit-like skin

and i got free condoms from 5710.

anyone interested in going to pittsburgh with me for the G20 protest, september 24 & 25?