Who's Gonna Win?

Ahh, the wonders of an early Saturday morning... What the hell am I doing out of bed already? Oh well, I'm here, so let's see what I have to talk about this morning...

Paris Goes To Jail: Wasn't that a movie about a decade ago? Oh wait, that was Ernest Goes To Jail... Paris, Ernest, what's the difference? Who cares?

Was reading through some of the articles this morning about the first Republic debate of this primary season. Gotta say that nothing really stood out to me. I think we are still looking at the exact same candidates in the Presidential election as we were prior to the two debates (Democrats debated last week). So I will go out on a limb, and make my predictions for the actual election now, and we will see how good of a prophet I am.

Democrats: Hillary hands down. Obama may indeed become our first African American President but right now there are two things working against him. First, liberals have been clamoring to get Hillary into the Whitehouse since the day she left with Bill eight years ago. Second, Obama needs more experience. He was a dark-horse nobody during the last Congressional election which he won his seat quite easily, but he still needs more experience in Washington for people to feel comfortable about whether or not he can actually do the job as well as talk the walk.

Democrat Presidential Nominee: Hillary Clinton

Republicans: John McCain is the foil again this year. He hasn't been a serious contender for winning the nomination previously, and this time around that isn't going to change. But he is actually going to play a role this time by becoming a foil between the two that do have a serious chance at the nomination: Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. Romney is doing everything his speechwriters and his mouth can do to convince everyone that he is just as downright conservative as the Republicans seem to want their people to sound. The only trouble is, he's not, and we know it. Giuliani, at least, isn't running away from his moderate stances on social issues and will get the nomination in spite of it since a good portion of the votes Romney will need will go to McCain in the hope that Republicans can get their true blue conservative.

Republican Presidential Nominee: Rudy Giuliani

Then comes the election. This one will come out close because of Giuliani's moderate stances, but Hillary will indeed become the first woman President of the United States. She has the momentum, and since she is a woman there is a good chance she can pull many Republican women to her instead of them simply voting the party line. There is also enough to Republican backlash in the press to get people who wouldn't normally vote to hit the polls to vote for ANYTHING not Republican. Personally, I think either candidate would make a decent President, but neither is going to be outstanding.

Alright, there's the predictions. We will see how I do.

Now I Can Post This

Hmm, working on the fourth VO and Coke (I'll leave it up to you about how much VO and how much Coke is going into these drinks) for the evening, and feeling pretty good, so if my typing gets slurry, you'll just have to forgive me. I was planning to post this last night, but thought I might tell the person it concerns before she reads it on the blog.

You know that time when you first wake up? Before your mind has the time to contemplate all the things that will make you want to stay in bed for the day. For me, this period of time lasts about two seconds. After that, my brain goes into overdrive about who's home today, what kind of mood are they going to be in, what I have to do that I just as soon not, and all the other things that goes through my brain before swinging my feet onto the floor.

I consider myself lucky that most mornings I at least wake up to the most beautiful sight in the world to me. It's not the trees in the backyard, I don't have a water view from the bedroom, and it's not the dogs and cats. It's my girlfriend that I usually see when I first open my eyes. Because of our different schedules, she is usually coming to wake me up, and for that two or three seconds I get reminded every morning that there is something to get out of bed for.

So, I know I told her this today, but here it is to the world, me saying "thank you" to Eva for being the most beautiful thing in my life and sticking by me when even I don't want to stick by me!

Who Said Bloggin Was Easy?

Today was a lesson in how things in the blog world that should be easy sometimes just don't work that way.

You see, I started a blog project in August of last year, and while I really, really liked the concept and idea of what I was doing, I set it up wrong. That blog, or series of blogs, is done on WordPress. I don't have any trouble with WP, but I split the content of what would have been essentially one blog (for most normal people, at least, and we are getting an idea here just how not normal I can be...) and split it up over 6 different blogs. Ooops...

All I managed to do for myself was create an administrative mess, and not enough content going into any of the blogs to get any kind of critical mass going for the readers to respond to. Double oops...

Well, I procrastinated all winter under the guise of "thinking" about what I was going to do with it and how I was going to fix it. I knew I needed to combine everything back into the main blog, but I just didn't have the energy since I had a feeling it was going to be a job and a half. So I got up this morning, and after getting back into the whole writing thing again with this blog set out to finally do something with the other one and get it back in the public's view. And guess what? I was right about it being a job and a half! I am exhausted! (oh wait, the exhaustion may be from the cubic yard of rock we got today for the greenhouse, but that's another story)

So now it's midnight, and I don't know if I have the job completed, but it is presentable and as good as it is going to get for tonight. The other blog is called Gotta Be Reel and can be found at http://gottabereel.com. Basically, it's authentic reel reviews from the peanut gallery, and where I let my more sarcastic side out while giving the scope on the new products from Hollywood. Go check it out!

A Couple More Tidbits

Yeah, I know I have posted a lot today, and it seems that this may become a habit for me. When I have things on my brain that I want to get out there, I just need to get them out there. They may come in bursts, I may hit dry spells, but like I said at the beginning, we will see where this goes.

Right now I'm not feeling particularly depressed. How do I know this? Because I can sit here and think about it, and what it does to my life. I can't do that when I am depressed. I was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder long enough ago that it was still called Manic-Depression (about 20 years ago). I was in my mid-teens at that time. I don't ever get out of my depressions I don't think. Looking back over my life, I can honestly say that the times I have felt "happy" would be consider just "doin' okay" by most folks standards. I have tried before to explain what depression feels like, and for me, a poem I wrote over 15 years ago seems to sum up my brain pretty well:

Walking The Straight Line

Rust and sandy tan marbled swirl through shale,
The floating foundation of existence.
Limited boundaries of reality
Cloud supported finger of land and trail.

Look back as upon a moment of life.
Sight of blue-gray billowing nothingness.
Not a sight or sound from the world outside
Even though you just stepped from it’s strife.

Squint your pain blurred eyes to the left and right.
Just the same billowed mass of cloud and fog.
In the space occupied by companion
Emptier void than that of the pitched night.

Forward to future only way to gaze.
Follow with teared eyes the course of the rock.
Imagination vexed by depthless view.
No judgements of distance allowed by haze.

Impossible to retreat to haven.
Once left, sanctuaries form triggered snares.
No use trying to scale either blanked side
Cannot rise minus wings of the raven.

Tread onward in search of life in future.
Unsure of frail trail’s continuance.
Narrows to diminished point, fused with clouds
Promised existence no law of nature.

Ambition for movement coming from faith.
Beings dominion over all mankind.
Power of all life encompassed in one,
May it be god, spirit, demon or wraith.

The hiding point of the running torrent.
Moving at speed equal to your approach.
Never glimpse the future, only life of now
Fog shrouds only with your unthought consent.

Close your eyes tight and now witness the view.
The marbled mesa, light hued sky of spring.
Brightness of future, contentment with world
Picture of such power no mortal drew.

Secret of existence, live while awake.
Let the mind not linger on memories.
Nor continue pondering upon hope
For in this gamble, your self is the stake.

Poet I may not be, but I hope you enjoy none the less.

Pagan Faiths and Religions

If you haven't figured it out yet, I consider myself Pagan, though I do not follow any specific religious order just as many Christians have not stepped foot inside a church except on wedding and funeral occasions. One of the things that I get asked most frequently is: "What exactly does being Pagan mean?" Of course, just as asking someone what it means to be Christian, there is not a concise anwer that is accepted by everyone. But here is mine in a round about way.

By definition, according to the Illustrated Oxford Dictionary printed in 1998 (ISBN 0-7894-3557-8) pagan is:

n. 1.) a person not subscribing to any of the main religions of the world. 2.) a person following a polytheistic or pantheistic religion. 3.) a hedonist

adj. 1a.) of or relating to or associated with pagans. 1b.) irreligious. 2.) identifying divinity or spirituality in nature; pantheistic.

Or in other words, a pagan is someone who is does not follow either the Christian, Jewish or Moslem religions. There is also an argument over the word "paganus" from which the word pagan is derived from Latin. It seems that when Latin was actually spoken outside of churches, the word was used to refer to either "civilians" as opposed to "military" persons, or as a reference to people living outside the cities (ie: country folk). Neither of these uses would have implied any denigration.

However, this does nothing to explain what it means to be pagan. Before I get into all that, though, let me give a very short list of what is NOT pagan:

Satanism, or Devil Worship: Quite frankly, Satan (also referred to as Lucifer) is a creation of the three main world religions. He is used as the counter-balance in the moral tales of these religions to God's innate goodness. Therefore, if Pagans are those who do not follow these three religions, we are NOT Satanic since the worship of one requires the belief in the other.

I would also list "witch," "sorcerer," and "magician" in this category, personally. Yes, witchcraft is closely associated by most people (including other Pagans) with most pagan religions. It is not a requirement of them, however. I split witchcraft away from the faith of Paganism. Witchcraft is a learned skill, and can be performed as long as there is a belief in a God or Gods. It is the different higher beings that we believe in that makes the distinction between Pagan or non-Pagan.

Now that that is done, let's actually talk about what it means to be Pagan. First and foremost, Pagan religions, in general, are much more focused on "faith" rather than structured religious ceremony. I don't have to go to a certain building in order to get in touch with my god. Secondly, the vast majority of Pagan religions have their roots firmly planted in pre-Christian faith. In a very real sense, what is taught in schools as Greek and Roman "mythologies" are in fact courses teaching those two Pagan religions.

For me, at least, Paganism is simply a reliance on my inner feeling that 1.) there is a "higher being" than man, possibly more than one, and 2.) none of the three dominate religions of the world coincide adequately with what I feel to be true. It is nothing more than that, though nothing less either. It is just a different way that I look at my personal faith (which I am convinced that everyone has). I don't know which is "right" and which is "wrong" in the big picture, I only know what is right for me.

Before anyone goes off thinking that by definition "pagan" only covers such things as ancient mythologies or such belief systems such as Wicca, Druid, Thelema and a host of other sects whose names you have never heard of, let me give you a couple more that also fall under the definition as "pagan." Hinduism and Buddhism are also by definition "pagan" religions. Why do I bring this up? Because it is easy to discount pagans as a couple thousand (or even a couple hundred thousand) isolated wackos when only speaking of Wicca or followers of Greek and Roman mythologies. It is much harder to discount the 2.4 billion followers of these two religions in such a way.

Men and Abortions

I know this is a topic that I'm not supposed to talk about. I know it is taboo to even think, in the dark corners of my mind, that a mere man might be able to tell a woman what to do with their bodies... But guess what? I'm going to anyway.

This is one of the things that I mentioned in a previous post that I would like to see changed when it comes to the laws about abortion in this country. We accept the fact that it takes two people, male and female, to make a child. Even the most scientific methods of artificial insemenation cannot get past the fact that you at least need a sperm donor.

We accept the fact that men who father children have a responsibility to that child and its mother even if the adult couple is no longer together, or even if the child was conceived during a "one night stand" with no relationship. Neither of these things do I have the least bit of trouble understanding or accepting. If you are a male in this day and age and do not know how to keep from fathering children you do not want, you ought to be castrated. Plain, pure, simple, and let's save everyone a whole damn lot of money!

But, here's the thing that gets me. In our society, it is readily accepted that it take two to make the child, it takes two to raise it, but for that couple of months right at the beginning of the pregnancy... It only takes one to make all the decisions.

I do not have the right to force a woman I impregnate to have an abortion. I cannot physically pick her up and take her to the clinic. It is absurd to most that I would even mention the possibility of such a thing, myself included. On the other hand, I have no right to stop an abortion that I am against even if I am the admitted father of the child. I have no right to demand that the woman I slept with carry that child for nine months. I have no say either way. In fact, depending on the age of the woman involved, her parents have more say in the matter than I do as the child's father.

Once the child is born, I still have no say, but I do once again have responsibility. I pay child support regardless. Every family court in this country awards child support as a matter of course. I don't necessarily have a problem with the idea of child support, it wasn't the child's fault the relationship between its parents went to shit. A man cannot go into family court and tell a judge that "Well, sir, I am not going to pay child support because I offered to pay for the abortion and she refused." He would be laughed out of the room and all the way into a jail cell most likely.

I don't have an easy answer to this dillemna that presents itself day in and day out in our society. But I do have some ideas. One, the father's opinion must be heeded. If we expect the father to take responsibility then there should not be a break in the middle when he is considered as nothing more than a donor without an opinion. I do believe a man should have the right to request the option of being able to compensate the woman for carrying a child if he is against abortion and abortion is her choice.

I suppose what it all comes down to is equality between the sexes. Yes, equality. But equality is not very popular when it comes to this subject. We still live in a mindset that a man's contribution to a child is nothing more than a little sweat, a squirt or two of semen, and eighteen years of bill paying if it comes to that. When will we ever learn that "equality" has nothing to do with weighting one side against the other? Point blank, if it takes two to make the child, then it should take two to make the decisions about the future of that child from the day of conception, not the day of birth. Even if it means that us men have to start paying child support early, during pregnancy, to cover things such as medical bills and trying to make sure the mother has a proper diet. I would much rather be faced with that possibility than what I am faced with now. Afterall, what is another nine months of bills when I am literally faced with 18 years of them due to a decision that I have no say in, no control over? Equality isn't necessarily fun, and it definitely isn't pretty, but dammit, it is time that we stop paying lip service to equality and actually start living in an equal world, on this subject and all the others.

Watches and Laptops

I do the vast majority of my posting here working on a laptop. Until I started typing on this thing all the time I never realized just how inconvenient wearing a watch can be. We can put a man on the moon (if you happen to believe it happened on a soundstage in Hollywood, you at least have to admit that it took some damn good technology to pull off the hoax), we can make a car get 50 miles to the gallon, we can even develop weapons capable of killing the entire human race, but somehow we can't seem to make a laptop computer that is comfortable to type on if you have a watch. Incredible!

About The 93 Prophet

It occurred to me the other day that using an archaic greeting, and the word "prophet" as the title to this blog may need some explaination. Don't worry, it's nothing painful, and hopefully will make those with misgivings a little more at ease.

The "93" is simply a greeting that members of the Thelema religion use as a "shorthand" for the longer greeting of "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" (used for Hello) and it's customary response of "Love is the law, love under will." Without getting too terribly mystic on anyone, the number 93 represents both Love and Will when you are working with Thelemic numerology. If you want more information on Thelema (and it's founder Aliester Crowley) please visit here.

Which brings me to Prophet. No, I do not see myself as some sort of prophet for the masses, either in the religious sense or in the sense of being the next Nostradamus. I do, however, believe that all of us are our own prophets in the sense that with Love and Will combined we have the power within ourselves to become whatever we wish. We also have the power to create the society we wish to live in. To me, a prophet is nothing more than a person who sees their world, and lives within it accordingly, through a different lense than most. That is an apt description of my life so far.

So, if you had any misgivings about what this blog was about, just remember that the title of it literally translates to "The Will and Love Prophet." I might have actually used that, but seems a little too mushy for my tastes.

The NFL Draft and Changing Loyalties

I'm not normally one that pays attention to the NFL draft, which as anyone how glanced at the sports page of a newspaper undoubtedly knows happened over this past weekend. With the exception of a few outstanding high-profile college players, I don't need to know who went where at the end of April. I'm not going to see the vast majority of these guys on a field consistently for at least a couple of years. But the draft, and it's seeming insignificance, was brought home by the fact that the trade of a 10 year veteran between the Raiders and Patriots could overshadow the whole thing. Of course, I'm talking about the Randy Moss trade.

Now this trade poses a problem for me. I live in Patriot country, actually within hearing distance of Gillete Stadium if the wind is right and the amps get cranked loud enough. Why is this a problem? I don't like the Patriots! I grew up just north of Denver, and if you have ever met a football fan from there you know there is only one team in the NFL we are ALLOWED to like: The Broncos. I am an Elway fan. I like Shannahan's coaching. And yeah, I wish Elway would somehow come back from retirement!

Trouble is, I haven't lived in Denver for damn near 20 years. I have been on the east coast and my solution to this is that while the Bronco's are my team, I pick individual players that I like to watch from other teams. This meant that when I couldn't get the Bronco game on TV here I would watch a game with one of my favorite players. This is how I got to like Randy Moss. He is in my opinion the best wide reciever in the game now, and a very close second to Jerry Rice all time. This was great while he was in Minnesota. I didn't have to worry about wanting to go see a game so I could see him. He's good, he's not worth a two day drive. The last two years he spent in Oakland was a bitch, since of course he was in the division with my beloved Bronco's. But Art Shell predictably made it easier on me by not knowing how to coach. But now, Randy Moss is going to be here, which brings to light another trouble spot.

I picked individual players, but football is not an individual sport, which in turn meant that invariably I would end up rooting for the team they were playing for. Minnesota worked because of being the perrineal underdog, even Oakland worked since they were the "bad boys." But the Patriots? I liked them better during the early 80's when they couldn't win a game if the other team stayed on their buses. At least then they weren't a threat to the Broncos. Maybe it is time to change my loyalties from childhood, and just stick with the individual player thing. It seems what the NFL wants me to do with the whole free agency thing. I can live with that.

Sometimes We Just Move Too Fast

I just finished watching Cars... Yeah, the animated, G rated flick put out by Pixar... Yeah, I know I'm a single 37 year old male who happens to be sitting alone watching a "kid" movie... I know, I know, I need a life, and I'm working on it...

Anyhooo... there was one point in the movie when they were explaining what happened to Route 66, and all the little towns that straddled it before the huge expansion of the interstate system that got me thinking. Sometimes, we are just in too big of a hurry in this country.

I don't mean just the act of driving across it, though that is definitely a great example. But this plague is striking at every part of our day to day lives now. We are either in a hurry to "get on with life" and start making our killings in the business world, or in a hurry to have kids and get the family started, or in a hurry to hit the bar before last call for alcohol so we can manage to get through a night with a spouse we just can't stand. There are a million things we are in a hurry for, and not one of them makes most of us a damn bit happier than we were sitting on the sofa watching the Soprano's!

Or we are in a hurry to get gardens planted, flowers in the flower beds, the yard fertilized and the weed killers spread. I know these things need to be done, even that some people actually want to do them. But whatever happened to taking a walk on the first nice spring day and actually getting out of the house, out of the office, out of the cars, to just relax and enjoy the outdoors even if only for a couple of hours? Is it going to kill the garden dreams if it gets planted over two evenings instead of one? Are the flowers going to bloom a different damn color if they are planted two days late? Somehow I just don't think so.

I know we live in a culture that measures everything on what you have or don't have materialistically. What kind of car you drive, how nice the damn lawn is manicured, how much money did you make last week, month or year. I know we live busy lives and most of us are just managing to keep up. But I know something else, too. Taking that drive down Route 66 at 50 miles an hour rather than staying on the interstate at 70 may mean spending an extra hour or two to get to your destination. But I know for every minute you spend on Route 66 is an hour more you can manage to keep your sanity when you get back on the interstate of your life.

Why Men Hate Instruction Manuals!

Ever wonder the reasoning behind men NOT using an instruction manual to put something together? I don't mean something as simple as a bicycle that most of us have been putting together and taking apart since early teens, but complex things that come in enough boxes to fill the garage. Well, I'll tell you...

The instructions LIE!!!

Somewhere in there the manufacturer has probably been nice enough to put in an "estimated time to complete" or some other similar bullshit. It's a LIE! It's a marketing ploy to make it seem simple, that anyone can do it, therefore you as the customer is not daunted by it as much.

Case in point, Rion states that it should take approximately four hours to put together their Prestige model greenhouse. No big deal! Two able bodied men can knock that puppy out in an afternoon and still have time to shower before going out to dinner with the family, right? Fuck no! Granted, if there had been eight guys here, a couple cases of beer, and the ONLY thing we had to do was put the greenhouse together (not build and level the foundation, check the packing lists, or any of that other "extra" shit they never mention), we could have had a greenhouse done in four hours. Not going to get into whether or not all the pieces are where they should be, or the box or two of "extra parts" or if the damn thing is square...

But, even with all that there is a better reason most men hate instruction manuals...

Somewhere in the house, in the air conditioning, there's a woman that knows just enough of how that fucking greenhouse is supposed to go together to know it should take about four hours. And when they start bitching that their worthless, good for nothing, guys are just "slackin off and milkin the job," THAT'S when guys start hating the damn instruction manual!