I made a version of that last image into my index page's background. Who else can say that they spent the morning making baphomets in photoshop? Since the creature is a composite to begin with, bulding them from chopped-up bits seemed an obvious project. Google images: goat, topless, boobs, wings, baphomet, hooves, skirt, kilt.
baphomet, by the way, is what it is: an image of a goat's head on a woman's body; properties, associations and explanations beyond that are speculative, even though there are some likely scenarios.
The idea of baphomet seems to have been invented by philip IV of france's inquistors, in cooperation with the knights templar under torture, ca. 1100 AD. The knights templar were a fanatical, monastic bunch, incepted by the papacy to defend the conquests of the first crusade. They became financialy powerful, and finally were tortured and murdered in typical medieval-christian fashion, probably at least in part hecause philip IV wanted their money.
King philip "the fair" accused the templars of worshiping baphomet, along with performing acts of homosexuality, desecration of christ, etc, in order to gain pope clement V's support in killing them off. The templars descriptions, under torture, of this supposed idol vary widely, and don't specify a goat's head on a winged, bare, female human body.
This variance could be explained by the idol never existing in the first place -- if an inquisitor with a branding iron is urging you to confess to worshipping an idol, and then urging you to describe that idol, you're going to say something.
I think "baphomet" was conjured from the bible imagery-inspired ideas of the inquisitors, and the confessions under duress of the templars, and then later honed into more specific form and image by various writers, theologians, and thinkers in the following centuries. A composite of thought, guided along by christian concepts and images of evil.
If the christian church serves no other function, at least it's great for inspiring horror movies.
The familiar image associated with "baphomet" came from an occult writer, eliphas levi, who drew it up in the late 1800's as a symbol of something like eternal cosmic harmony, the oneness of all reality, fundamental union of being, etc, etc.
Baphomet was eventually co-opted by goth teens and black metal bands digging for imagery of shock-satanism. The english band "akercocke" put out a song called "horns of baphomet." it's not bad.
No one seems to have a definitive idea of the name "baphomet"'s source, although there are a few theories. One that seems particularly plausible to me is that the name is a variation of "mohammed," which makes sense inasmuch as this is all associated with the medieval crusades (as opposed to the modern crusades, haha) to "take back the holy land" from the muslims.
King philip's goal was to paint a portrait of the templars as blasphemers. A good way to do this, in that historical and cultural context, would have been to accuse the templars of worshipping the very thing christendom was fighting to undermine: islam and its prophet.
The contents of my baphomets' thought bubbles are courtesy, of course, of "return of the living dead." everyone is familiar with this, but in case you aren't, the zombies in that movie eat living humans' brains in order to sooth the pain of rotting alive. So, they run around yelling "BRAINS!!" it's great.
Oh, and the other four images above the baphomets were made by standing in a bathroom with the lights off, and waving a keychain-light in front of the camera. It's been done, I know.
I'm getting too fat. All of the weight I lost in california has just about returned.
Eat less and exercise, as they say. I don't mind exercising so much, as in I don't mind the physical exertion associated with it. It's just that it's boring. Perhaps a ballet class.
WHO THE HELL DO I KNOW WORKING FOR KAISER PERMANENTE IN SAN JOSE!?!??!?!?! This has been perplexing me for at least a year.
When I'm alone, I keep myself company by blogging. When company is in town, I don't blog as much.
I bet I filtered out a few readers there, with my full week of not blogging. READERS. I'm constantly baffled as to why I have any readers. READERS. Shit. Eddie was showing me a blog yesterday that's actually funny and interesting, and talks about something besides the author. This is one of the principle complaints about blogs: that they constitute shrines to their authors. Basically, a version of the "welcome to my homepage" pages of yore (maybe they're still around, but I haven't seen any for a while).
There's nothing to do. There are things I'd like to write about, but that I don't write about, because there would be consequences. There are a few categories of objectionable web publications:
1) journalism on life-events objectionable to a large scope of people, including but not limited to potential employers, and other people in positions of power and misguided morality.
2) items that will be offensive to individuals, not necessarily on "moral" grounds, but because I'm talking about how I hate them and how they suck.
3) having thoughts and opinions that don't conform to "company policy"; presenting myself as more than a faceless robotic drone. "i exist as a human being" is a statement someone whose intent is to control your every action doesn't want to hear. An officer in the army once told me that the more idealistic you are, the less the military wants you. The same applies with any hierarchical organization.
It all comes back to the (prospective) employer, which is a shame: who's going to not hire me because of what I publish? I can't possibly predict where I'm going to interview, and what those interviewers' attitudes are going to be, let alone who's going to sneakily google my name before the cache turns over.
I would need to present myself for the lowest common denominator; in a way that offends as few people as possible, and in the process never really excites anyone. This is what marketers do in order to maximise profits. A niche market that appeals strongly to a particular demographic isn't as profitable as an "overall" market that appeals blandly and just a little bit to everyone, for easy consumption -- the principles of elevator music applied to all products. I'm forced to think this way when I blog, or at least I would be if I were wise, perhaps.
I have a mix of a need to publish, hatred for readers both regular and incidental, and fear of not being able to live life the way I want to live it because of my blog or publications. I tried to compromise here -- it's easy to find out who I am, especially if you're at all computer-savvy. It's impossible to totally undo years of nonymity with a sudden impulsive burst of anonymity.
But, there are things I can do to make it a little less obvious, even though to date if someone googles my name in quotes, this site is the first thing that comes up. Even someone reading this blog, where no offensive things per se are mentioned, is going to think "what sort of offensive things might he be talking about when he says 'offensive things'?" if an employer is presented with the choice of two candidates with equal qualifications, one crazy, amoral and opinionated, while the other is a grinning sheep, that employer is going to go with the grinning sheep.
In this age and economic system where conformity is valued, it's considered important not to profess values that differ from the norm, or that are considered amoral or otherwise objectionable by the norm. It gets hard to second-guess, and practicality eventually helps one to arrive at the conclusion that it's easier not to publish anything, or reveal any personal information whatsoever to anyone, including what one ate for breakfast yesterday.
In a job situation, even having a personality is a liability, which something like a blog tends to throw into relief. You're not supposed to have a personality. If you do, chances are 99% that it's not going to correspond exactly to a manager's ideal one. The perfect job candidate, in a manager's mind, whether he or she admits to it or not, is going to have exactly the same mindset as that manager. So, the smart thing for a worker-bee to do is to minimze its presentation of a personality, and allow the employer to project whatever he or she wants onto this perceived blank slate.
I have to go to the doctor now. See? Right there is another example: medical information. My AIDS test is at noon, and it's 11:30 now. Haha, just kidding. MAYBE. Fuck everyone. I've heard it argued that freedom of speech is severely curtailed in the united states not by legal consequences, but by economic ones (you get sued, fired, or not hired to begin with). Sounds about right to me.
I keep alternating between wanting to have my name on my index page, and wanting to take it off. I guess the best course is to leave it off, and learn to enjoy sneaky privacy. Whatever. I don't know how I got myself into this mess of being primarily defined, at least in my own mind, by my stupid website. For everyone else, I'm defined as being an obese bum.
But I really do have to go now. I'll finish this entry later, or at least clean it up. The thing is, the consequences of controversial publication don't really effect how I want to live my life, but rather how others want me to live my life. I haven't yet put into words the way I want to live my life. Maybe I should do that when I get back form my TRANSEXUAL SURGERY CONSULTATION.
Here's a reason not to vote for a third party candidate. There are policy differences between a democrat's government and a republican's government. The republican and democratic parties are more the same than they purport to be, but are not precisely the same. Furthermore, they're different enough such that having one in office rather than the other isn't totally meaningless -- specifically, it's meaningful enough such that getting one in office (or out of office) rather than the other is preferable to voting for your ideal candidate.
Once you've established that having one main-party candidate in office rather than the other is a significant thing, and you've realized that voting for a third party candidate serves to put the candidate you don't want in office, you can easily derive a logical course of action (vote for one of two main party candidates).
The necessity of such behavior is an unfortunate consequence of the winner-take-all electoral system, but voting for whoever has a chance, and THEN lobbying constitutional change, might be a good idea. Hopefully it's out of my system and I can stop writing about politics now.
James comes home today. I might pick him up at the airport, except I haven't heard from him yet.
I stopped in at borders books today, and picked up howard zinn's "a people's history of the united states," just because I'd heard of it. It was well-written, and sitting in a fat vinyl airmchair I read through several pages on atrocities committed against american indigenous people by european explorers and colonists.
The book is pretty "left wing" ("a peoples'" is a good tip-off) in that it addresses the more-powerful's ill treatment of the less-powerful. It's focused on the "everything my teacher told me was a lie" side of things, citing right off the notable example of columbus torturing, killing and subjugating the indians, taking advantage of their generosity and hospitality to enslave them and steal their resources. This of course contrasts pretty stories of columbus leading the nina, pinta and santa maria to discover america, and then the pilgrims enjoy their first thanksgiving with the indians, and then reagan defeats communism.
The thing is, the second option being unabashed bullshit is not news. Those in power have always treated the less-powerful poorly; inequity is a prerequisite of foreseeable and imaginable civilization. Maybe we'll reach a day, millions of years down the line via biological evolution, or hundreds of years down the line via technological symbiosis and singularity, where a lack of hierarchy is a realizable thing, and/or entities in positions of leadership and power don't use underlings for their own material gain. But as of yet, we're not built that way.
"a people's history" is interesting, but not shocking and revelatory, because obviously these evil, power-based acts exist: genocide, killing and torturing aboriginal people to facilitate theft, pathological selfishness, callous disregard for others -- in summary, a lack of compassion. This is hardly hot off the presses (for some people). School-children in the 1950s (and their intellectual equivalents) were naive enough to buy a picture of a shiny happy world, and a place where those with power don't crush those without it. But most of us know better. A necessary condition of power is the subjugation of the weak; it's impossible to have an upper-class without an under-class.
This is not to say that we should stop being nice to each other and exercising what compassion we can and are compelled to exercise, because humans are hopeless, unredeemable filth, and we shouldn't even bother. On the contrary, that "random kindness and senseless act(s) of beauty" are baby steps on the road to societal and species evolution, and it's important that we take them. For now, we do what is doable, and act in keeping with principles of democracy, tolerance and generosity, to the best of our ability.
I think I understand why the majority of left-wingers piss me off so much: they're hypocrites -- their theory doesn't match their practice. Take the classic example of the proclaimed social democrat who hires an accountant to grab the biggest tax refund he can, and hoards it in a 401k. Finally, worrying that he'll die with huge sums of money in the the bank, he spends it all on world-tourism when he hits 65. Essentially, voting for nader while secretly hoping bush or kerry wins the election. Advocating change is easy if you're reasonably and comfortably certain that change will never be implemented.
When a bunch of assholes advocate tolerance, democracy and compassion, it confuses me.
American lefties are humans too, and value self-interest, just like everyone else. They're members of world-culture and species-wide genetic makeup too, and move towards power-structures and hierarchies, just like everyone else. But they speak and think as though they were something more than human -- enlightened priests who presume to tell others what is "right" and what is "wrong."
They talk about "all those republican assholes" or "stupid americans," and approach the world with the same rabid, angry absolutism as the people they're angry at. They're more concerned with vitriolic criticism, relishing the feeling of demeaning and mocking, than they are about helping people. But they know that "helping others" is a required bit of the culture of the left, coveted membership in which being the only motivation for said altruism.
For just $50 a year donated to greanpeace, you get to join the club of smart people who sneer at the stupid, unwashed masses in jesusland. I've heard, firsthand, the statement, "people who voted for bush are getting exactly what they deserve." not to state the obvious, but a statement like that casts serious aspirsions on the american left as genuine purveyors of altruism, as opposed to a power-lusting elite class: people in power, subjugating those without it. The contemporary american "left" has've become exactly the thing it rails against.
Contemporary western leftists suffer from the same problem leninists and maoists do, albeit on a lesser scale: instead of presenting a feasible idea or plan of action, they murmur a vague notion of an impractical utopia, something that's not possible within the current state of culture or human genetic properties. Remaining in this fantasy world instead of planning actions of practical altruism is detrimental to the causes contemporary western leftists purport to support.
People like mao tse tung and lenin were and are ahead of the times, just like so many other theorists. They envisioned a just, equitable utopia, where everyone is provided for, and where no one tries to grab power; ignoring historically demonstrated and established properties of human nature, instead of making an honest attempt to "work within the system" -- to use the toolkit available that best promises to reach the ends of altruism (such as democracy).
The fact that some of us can do so much as envision total equity, let alone work towards it, provides a spark of hope that someday, maybe a long, long time in the future, we'll put together such a just society. Of course, the soviet state, communist china, and the khmer rouge are examples of what happens when this abstract utopian ideology is forced onto people, a society and a species that isn't ready for it.
Some people are "born to lead," and others are "born to follow." this is just human organizational behavior -- it's not an evil of capitalism, nor an evil of communism, fascism, etc. Tribes have chiefs. Despite this inevitable extant hierarchy, some societies are more equitable than others; the power-elite handle things better or more altruistically, and the effects of hierarchy (inequity) there are minimized. Of course, some systems celebrate inequity, and encourage it (american-flavor capitalism).
When leninist statism was forcibly applied, it didn't eliminate inequity, but rather resulted in the same sort of inequity and subjugation that's inevitable with any hierarchical system. The hierarchical system will always be around, because there are always going to be a few "type-a" folks who grab power in the absence of power. This not happening is a necessary condition of utopian marxist-slash-leninist communism.
Communism isn't a system of government. The governments of china, the soviet union, cuba, and north korea are and were not, by any exaggeration, "communist governments." for one thing, even the phrase "communist government" is a contradiction in terms. Communism means "the workers own the means of production." however, it doesn't attempt to describe a schematic for action that leads to that society. Communism implies a lack of government -- in its ideal state (it's only state), it's much closer to anarchism (even identical to it) than it is to hierarchy of any kind, including the fascism it's often associated with because of the aforementioned disasters in eastern europe, n. Korea, china, etc.
Advocating communist revolution is oxymoronic; a "people's republic" isn't going to work semantically (it's very similar to "communist government") or practically, as has been demonstrated time and time and time again. We just can't do it while we're the kind of animals were are, in this time and place. In the absence of a hierarchical power-base, it doesn't take long for "anarchy to crumble" as new hierarchy is established, as it always is.
Marx described communism as being the inevitable result of capitalism's progress to and past its end-state. But I don't believe he thought much about how far into the future this would happen, or a precise map to that end. His wasn't political ideology or a manual for revolution, but rather philosophy, and, some might argue, science fiction.
I believe, maybe naively and idealistically, that we're eventually going to get there, as a species -- maybe the only idealistic hole in my trademark cynicism. But, I also think that we're biologically, inherently, genetically unable to get there now, or even very shortly. Getting there is going to take a singularity, either technological, or bio-evolutionary. We have to fundamentally change as a species before society becomes equitable.
Of course, terms like "species" and "society" might very well become totally obsolete when the planet transforms itself to a single techno-organic consciousness in 2354, and then the universe follows suite some 850 million years later, and god is born. Oops, I've said too much already.
My spell-checker doesn't know several dictionary words: "revelatory," "unredeemable," "idealistically," "oxymoronic," "altruistically," "aspirsions," "purveyors," "weirdest" or (this is the weirdest) "chiefs."
