Some thots on people and history

In today's entry, I will give some thots on people and history. But first, I want to address my fixation for junk ad food photos.

I can't recall when I first developed my fixation for junk ad food photos, but I can explain why it continues. It's cuz I know that some actual artist prepared the food, positioned the food, spotlit the food just so and then snapped the photo; and I am fascinated with this unsung hero's creation; yet I'm saddened that the artist's work is relegated to the position of hawking some corporation's product; so it makes me feel like a perverse type of Batman or Robin Hood, to free these images from their imprisoning ads and let them float afresh in a foreign context.

The duller part of me knows that I'm only goofing off and wasting time by doing this, but my fancy justifies its behavior by claiming that I'm fighting crimes-against-the-mind: amplifying the market's art while muting its commerce. "Revaluation of all values," as THE ANTICHRIST always sez. (I mean Nietzsche's book, not the biblio-fiend).

But I've recently decided that I've done too much with food ads, so I plan to stop using them for source material. But I have two more such pics stored in my computer's folder called "Obligatory image files to share with future diary posts"; so, tomorrow's entry should contain my last food-centered visual. After that, any time that you catch me adding edible items to my menu, call the Bad Art Police. Tell them I'm dangerous. But, for now, enjoy these dogs:

Dear diary,

Are people interesting? Yes, they are interesting. But are people really interesting? No, they are not that interesting; not if you aren’t willing to overlook their uninteresting aspects. In truth, you could judge people either way; you sort of choose whether or not to take to people. For instance, at this moment in time, there are a number of people who hate the U.S. president. I hate the president too, but I think that he’s interesting. Does that make me myself interesting? No, not really.

Do you see what I’m saying? Me neither. It’s cuz I’m not being clear. I don’t really care about these matters.

Rapid communication and online technology — what do these terms mean? I’m not sure, but if I’m allowed to guess, I’d say that they are like humankind’s attempt at building a giant electronic brain to help us remember all our history. What’s charming is that this big mechanical memory has the same effect as simply erasing history. Note the fun: instead of remembering it, it erases it. That reminds me of a rumor I once heard:

Apparently there was this empire in ancient times, and, just like certain chickens who keep all their eggs in the same handbasket, the leaders of this empire kept all their records in one single library. Then an emperor rose to power who desired to begin his rule with a totally clean slate, and to have no history at his back; so he burned down the library, and thus he effectively deleted his empire’s past. Indeed, to this day, nobody knows any historical details about that empire: neither names nor dates exist for any time prior to the Zero Moment, which refers to that instant when the emperor turned and said to the books: “You’re fired.” Scholars can’t even figure out what the name of their own country formerly was, as any publication that would contain such a reference got smoked. Luckily, however, the empire was rechristened by its emperor, right after the library-burning episode; so it did not have to suffer a state of namelessness. The emperor christened it after himself: as his christian name was Empiricist, that holy land became known as Empiricism. And all the countries that it was able to render subservient by way of its famous regime-change wars, it gave variations of the same new title (it rechristened them after itself; in imitation of its emperor’s original act): for example, the first territory to be annexed was denominated “Empirical Fact 1”; and the next was “Empirical Fact 2”; and so on. They simply changed the number that each colony’s true name ends with, reflecting its position in the great global land-grab. (I should mention as well, only as a side note: Dissidents within the empire speculate that its previous name was something deceitful like “Myth” or “Poetic Tale”. But they’re all full of shit. They can’t prove a thing.)

My point is that when We the People collectively gave live-birth to our bloody Internet, the result was as if we had burnt down our lone intelligence agency. Why do I say this? Well, primarily, because I’m bored. That’s pretty much why I say anything. But a distant second reason is that I think the medium of electronic interaction is not as it claims on its infomercial. It advertises itself as “a trustworthy rememberer” and “super convenient”; but, in fact, it is a malleable forgetter, and rather in-convenient. For electronic scripture can be manipulated: it is impermanent, in contradistinction to the medium stone, such as twin towering tablets, which is where I myself chose to preserve my own legal documents, back in the golden days of the mountain gods (formerly known as the pyramid gods, after the shape of their great schemes). And unlike a library’s card catalog, online interfaces are really annoying to use.

So that proves that. You can see how our modern history is basically lost now. Nobody knows how much of the Encyclopedia Monopoly is being edited away each workday, to serve the ego of the Galactic Tyrant (whatever they is). And all the cool things that we can do with our computers, like play games that go flash and sparkle and make boing-noises; also share photos of the faces of all our grandchildren to our foes on social networks, while the corporate spies gawk on and add comments such as “Cute baby!” and “What a sweetie-pie!” — I say, these enjoyable activities wow us and dazzle us so that we forget how important it is to be frumpy scholars. Most such scholars grasp how crucial it is to keep the rule in place that declares to the king of any given realm: Thou shalt not arrest your political enemies and cage them until they expire without telling them why you’re so rudely bugging them; and you must give them a chance to defend themselves legally when you accuse them; and the trial must be public, NOT private and fixed (NOT run by goons and thugs). I think it’s bad to forget this type of stuff. But, to be fair, some people disagree with me.

In my opinion, certain folks have made the world a lousy place to live in. I wonder why they did this. For instance, whoever owned the philosopher that originally told everyone to abstain from sensual pleasures and to care more about personal property than the pesky populace — I say that that doll or poseable action figure should have been defeated at the ballot box. And whoever made the rule that sez “liquid spirits cannot be sipped in perpetuity, from morn till night, but only after five and on non-banking days shall humankind gulp beer from cans” really flatlined a pastime.

And yet I wanna add that I don’t hold it against the nice figures who first suggested that our country prohibit alcohol — they had a good reason to do so: for, in those days, all the goons and thugs would get drunk in their goons-and-thugs-only clubs, and they’d then return home and beat up their sadly sober families; thus it was these sober family members who whispered, one to another, “Let us end this wretched pattern by making the acts of eating and drinking illegal.” This turned out to be a successful proposition; for the goons and thugs then stopped attending their exclusive clubs, and instead they all found good-paying jobs in reputable street gangs, vending contraband liquids and proudly serving as “muscle” for legitimized mobsters. Entrepreneurial opportunities soon opened up in the field of human trafficking, which helped them employ unwanted children; and they used these underage sex rings to bribe politicians. Now, a safely bribed politician will do whatever you, the lobbyist, want. So, naturally, you require of your politicians that they make the public say prayers before all ceremonies and non-ceremonies; and pledge allegiance to the flag; and you even add a nod to God in our credo, and upon our paper money. So everything works out for better or worse, in the end.

P.S.

I had to abandon the above entry where it derails, because I ran out of time; but I wanna copy here the text that distracted me, cuz it’s as interesting as a real living person. When I wrote “a nod to God in our credo”, I was trying to refer to the fact that “in 1954, responding to the Communist threat of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words ‘under God’ to the U.S. pledge (so that the phrase ‘one nation, indivisible’ became ‘one nation, under God, indivisible’), thus creating the 31-word spell that we United Statesians chant today. By the way, the author of the pledge’s daughter objected to this alteration. I might as well add that the pledge itself was “written by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy and originally published in The Youth’s Companion on September 8, 1892. [That’s exactly 103 years before I, Bryan Ray, graduated from public high school! . . . Now I wonder: is a century long or short, in this context?] Pledge-author Bellamy had hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country. In its original form it read: ‘I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all’.”

Anyway, returning now to the final lines of my above diary entry, I did not like to use the word “credo” to refer to the pledge, but it also displeased me to keep having to repeat the dull term “pledge”, so I searched online for info about the original document, desiring to know how its own author might have christened its genre. Obviously I couldn’t find a suitable substitute, which is why I let that sub-par word-choice (“credo”) stand; but the writeup that I keep quoting here and below, on the history and changes of the pledge, is something that I stumbled upon at a site called U.S. History Dot Org — it managed to fixate me, with an intensity far greater than junk ad food photos; thus I conclude by quoting a part of it verbatim:

The original tribute, first described in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, who authored the original Pledge, began with a military salute, and after reciting the words “to the flag,” the arm was extended toward the flag.

At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the flag the military salute — right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” At the words, “to my Flag,” the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side. (The Youth’s Companion, 1892)

Shortly thereafter, the pledge was begun with the right hand over the heart, and after reciting “to the Flag,” the arm was extended toward the Flag, palm-down.

In World War II, this formality too much resembled the Nazi salute, so it was changed to keep the right hand over the heart throughout.