[Mariska] Hargitay dislikes comparisons with her famous mother [Jayne Mansfield] and at age 18 said, ‘My dad was Mr. Universe,’ she says, ‘so it would be fun for me to be Miss Universe.’
I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that—I don’t mind people being happy—but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying ‘write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep,’ and ‘cheer up’ and ‘happiness is our birthright’ and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position—it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say ‘Quick! Move on! Cheer up!’ I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word ‘happiness’ and to replace it with the word ‘wholeness.’ Ask yourself, ‘Is this contributing to my wholeness?’ and if you’re having a bad day, it is.
Modern schools and universities push students into habits of depersonalized learning, alienation from nature and sexuality, obedience to hierarchy, fear of authority, self-objectification, and chilling competitiveness. These character traits are the essence of the twisted personality-type of modern industrialism. They are precisely the character traits needed to maintain a social system that is utterly out of touch with nature, sexuality, and real human needs.
Those in power have made it so we have to pay simply to exist on the planet. We have to pay for a place to sleep, and we have to pay for food. If we don’t, people with guns come and force us to pay.
“Right around 10,000 years ago, when former hunter-gatherers began growing grain seeds in neat, organized rows, something happened. Population exploded, because we now had a steady source of calories. Villages and cities sprang up, because we no longer had to follow our food. We could simply grow it where we lived. Those sound like pretty good things, at first. More food and shelter sounds good, right? Well, something else happened, too. Those early farmers were shorter than the hunter-gatherers they replaced. They didn’t live as long, and they had smaller brains. They got a lot more infectious diseases and more cavities. In short, they were not as healthy as the hunter-gatherers.”
Nation, this orgy of Christmas shopping proves once again, that America is back. We are once again spending money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to give to people we don’t like. USA! USA! USA!
Dude. Kristy Swanson and Corey Feldman on “Psych.”
“To encourage breastfeeding, the state’s seven birthing hospitals stopped formula giveaways this fall, apparently making it the first state to end the widespread practice.” … “Thirty-eight percent of Rhode Island mothers nurse their babies six months after birth, compared with 44 percent nationally…” … “‘Hospitals should market health and nothing else,’ she said. ‘When hospitals give these out, it looks like an endorsement of a commercial product.’”
It’s Thanksgiving/Day of Mourning! Depressing and happy, all at once, like only America can do.
“So, today, I asked my neighbour if he had some sugar I could borrow for my turkey brine. He said ‘No.’
“So I said, in my most stoic NDN voice, ‘I am a Native American. You should never forget the debt that your people owe to my people. You should always remember that we offered you kindness while you offered us broken hearts.’
“To this he replied, ‘No, I literally don’t have any sugar left. I just used the last of it. But if you’re that desperate, I can get some for you.’
“Embarrassed, I said, ‘No, I’ll get it myself.’ Then I turned to leave.
“Then, he asked, while we were at it, as neighbours, if he could borrow a cup of salt.
“At this, I replied, ‘IT NEVER FUCKING ENDS! GAAW!’ Then I ran away screaming and war whooping.
Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn’t have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. Without a prison, there can be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn’t afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn’t know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don’t know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.
“
| — |
John (Fire) Lame Deer, Sioux Lakota (1903-1976)
|
To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right nor the knowledge nor the virtue.
People often ask me what sort of a culture I would like to see replace civilization, and I always say that I do not want any culture to replace this one. I want 100,000 cultures to replace it, each one emerging from its own landbase, each one doing what sustainable cultures of all times and all places have done for their landbases: helping the landbase to become stronger, more itself, through their presence.
