My thoughts on hunting…

My opinion of hunting is very similiar to my opinion of sports; I used to hunt when I was young, because it was kind of expected for guys to want to hunt, so I did it to be ‘just like the guys’ (although i was never ‘just like the guys’). Hunting seems to include a lot of butt smacking, jock scratching, grunting and testosterone (maybe not literally in all cases, but it is definitely part of the whole ritual). I find it so funny when I see people lined up to go out and ‘hunt’ deer (which really means, sitting in a tree with a high powered rifle and high powered scope and waiting for them to walk by so you can shoot them [now that’s what I call ‘sport’!]). Even more, seeing the foolish people, in the pouring rain, spending hours and hours of their life doing this. If they were doing it because they couldn’t afford to go out and buy meat; then I am very glad they have the opportunity – but the majority of them aren’t (in fact, a lot of them don’t even like the meat).


As far as children hunting; I think it’s scary enough to have grown men walking around in the woods with Guns; I don’t think children should be doing it. As far as women, I feel the same way as with men, although I don’t get it (perhaps because I’m not a woman), without all the butt smacking, jock scratching, grunting and testosterone, what do they get out of it?


Now, don’t get me wrong, I used to kill chickens and rabbits and turkeys for meat; we needed to do it to survive when I was a child (I hated it, but I did it, and I LOVE rabbit meat!) – so i’m not all don’t kill the poor little animals; although – I much perfer watching the deer, or rabbit or turkeys in my back yard year round, over watching then be stuffed and hung on the wall. I’d prefer to eat domesticated animals, rather than wild ones (in fact, I’d love to have my Dog or Cat for dinner!).


I wish I could go pee on all the hunting spots in the word to scare off the deer with my human scent and save the poor little creates from the greedy bullet with their name on it.


I bet though, this is just a form of controlling the masses; allowing them a time of year to expound upon their inner aggressions and the thoughts they are harboring inside of their heads against their neighbors, co-workers, or perhaps even their spouses.


I’m so unpatriotic, or un-American or un-Manly, eh? 🙂


More importantly, if you are a friend of mine, and like to hunt; I don’t hold it against you; don’t hate me for this blog! 😉

Would even one linger?

If I withered like a flower, would you miss me when I’m gone,

If you woke to find me missing, how would that impact your dawn?

If I dried up like a stream bed, would I ever leave a mark,

If I melted like a snow drop, if my candle lost its spark?

As a shooting star will disappear, I’ve often wondered how,

The way they would have treated me, if they knew then, what’s now

The moment that I fly away, I wonder if they’d care.

Or when they lower me below, would one memory linger there?

© 2007 Jediah Logiodice

The weight of Gold

I am stuck inside a mud pit with


A pocket full of gold.


This story of my wayward step


Is one that should be told.





One day while walking on the edge


I thought that I would try,


To soil my sole, to take a step


and yet keep clean and dry





And ‘lo perhaps if I should fall


Or something worse unfold


The remedy was right with me


My pocket full of gold.





I walked out deep, I felt no fear,


As you can clearly see


The safety net, that you can get


With gold so plentily





But now I stand up to my knees


And sinking very fast


There’s something that I could not see


But late, at last, I grasp





And with a frown, my head goes down


Below the mirky foam


The weight to bear of gold so fair


Has crushed me like a stone.





© 2007 Jediah Logiodice



– Sometimes the more gold you have in your pockets, the deeper you get stuck in the ruts of life –

Being a mall rat… Humanities Assignment

Being a Mall Rat



One P.M. Thursday afternoon. It’s October, and the air is becoming crisp, and the leaves are turning colors and starting to fall. Today, feels like a swimming pool day. You know, in the middle of the summer, when it’s in the 90’s and the pool is around 70, when you step into that pool from 90 to 70, the 70 degree pool feels freezing, even though you tell yourself it isn’t; today, is like that; the sun is hot, the black leather seats of the car have absorbed the heat. While it’s one of the warmest days this week, probably close to the mid 60’s, stepping out of the car, feels like being doused into a pool on a summer afternoon. Today is a swimming pool day.


The sun is bright, but the sky is a dark grey, it doesn’t look like it will rain today, the clouds are transparent, but winter is coming. I’m driving, pulling into the parking lot. I live about 2 hours away from this town; I’m glad. I enjoy getting together with friends, spending time even with large groups of people that I have commonalities with, but I disdain crowds. Loud and noisy, waiting in lines, waiting at lights, waiting, waiting, waiting!


The parking lot smells distinctly of garlic. I’m sitting here watching people pull in and out, walk in and out. So many different people, fast walkers, slow walkers, mothers, fathers, old people, even teens, I wonder why the teens aren’t in school. The building here is one big building, hundreds of stores connected together. I’m sitting out near Best Buy, one of my favorite places to shop. The building is red brick, with bright signs on some of the markers. Best Buy in big bright letters, Country Buffet, right next to it. I become aware of my stomach, I’m hungry – I haven’t eaten yet today. I pull back out of my parking space, and drive around to the other side of the mall – the “food court” as they call it. I might as well accomplish something on this little endeavor.


Now, as I start walking to the doors – there are a set of 8 double doors – one set opening with a blue plate on the side for wheel chair access – I realize with trepidation that I’m going into the mall. I don’t really like the mall. Sometimes when talking to my wife, I compare it to a carnival. In my view, the carnival is obscene pollution for the senses. Thinking over the noise, the smells, the sights, the closeness of the crowds, I go, because my wife and children like to go, I don’t enjoy. There is one thing that I do like to do in the mall though, and as I’m on my way in, I start thinking, “Are they going to think of me as a sociopath”, I mean, they thought Ricky was!


There was a young lady pushing a stroller in, not a stroller that you would buy in the store, but one of those goofy children strollers, it almost looked like a bus, but it was red. She was very pretty, but as she turned, I saw that she was smoking. Her beauty dissolved, slightly, almost imperceptibly. I started to wonder if she smoked with that young child in her car, or in her home. Smoking is such a disgusting, destructive habit. I’ve lost two grandfathers to smoking. Oh well. I went to open the door for her, but another woman beat me to it. I walked through the side door, and opened the next door and held it for both of them. As we walked through the doors, I was overwhelmed with sights, and sounds.


The one thing that I enjoy doing in the mall is watching women and children. My wife teases me that, in regards to the women that I’m just remembering when I was young, and single, and thinking up all the different pick-up lines that I might use (and boy did we have some really retarded ones). But it’s so much more than that. It’s so much more than their bodies. I mean, God created the woman’s body, just to drive the man insane, in my mind there is no doubt. The curves, the way they walk and move, and hold themselves, they way they react, think, and view the world. But, more specifically, each and every one has a story to tell, a complex story, a history, a past, a present and a future.


As I look at them I see, beauty. The girl standing next to me in the line, her face, not overly beautiful, but just pretty, like the daughter in American Beauty, but this girls face is covered in freckles, her hair short curly brown, and her shirt, low cut. She must be here just to hang out; I don’t think she would be wearing that attire to work. The girl that just walked by, she had on tight, short, white shorts, very nice legs. So I start feeling guilty, knowing that this is an assignment, and realizing that maybe I should look at the guys too – see what kind of beauty I can find in them, so I don’t sound like a pervert, or something else. The guy that walks to me in line, as I’m standing there pondering what I’m really going to order. “Are you in line?” he asks. “No, go right ahead” I reply. He’s middle age, kind of has a Richard Gere look, graying white, slightly curly hair, a well defined nose, and he seems to have dark eyes. It’s no use; I just don’t see the beauty in men (Is that what defines a sociopath?). I mean, when I was young, and I found out that my father has an uncle that was Mr. Olympia and Mr. America, I decided that was what I wanted to do. I used to train real hard, and long, and I had the framing for it too. I thought the physique of these men, the huge masses of muscle, like rocks, jagged, etched, now that was beautiful. But, I’m digressing.


The smell of the Japanese food draws me in. I can remember the taste, the texture, squishy almost rubbery chicken, in the al-Dante noodles. My wife and I ate here a year or so ago, the food was good. There is a woman that just came into view, almost around the corner. Her face is very beautiful, she works at the mall, she is pushing a trash cart in front of her, but that does nothing to mar the beauty of her face. I’m sitting here thinking, that while this is an assignment purposed to discover and describe the environment of the mall, that people are probably totally going to find me weird, so I decided not to describe this girls facial beauty.


I ordered my food, and went and sat down. The tables were hard, and cold, the chairs were hard and cold, the floor, while I refused to reach down and touch it, because of how much dirt and germs it was harboring, however, being tile, I could imagine it was also hard and cold. I went and sat as far away from people as I could. They were all going to think I was weird anyway (I was speaking into a DAT recorder, rather than writing on a notepad).


The sounds, it was like a buzzing, almost like a summers evening sitting outside under the stars. The sounds of the crickets and tree frogs, and owls and coyotes all mixed together, most of the time I couldn’t pick out anything (like the sounds of the crickets or tree frogs), but once in a while there was a sound or a voice that rose above the din, like a coyote or an owl. I found it so odd that I could be sitting in the middle of a mall, with hundreds of people walking by me on every side, and I could still feel like I was lonely. I miss my family. I always miss my family on the days that I commute on this 2 hour one way drive.


There are all these beautiful little children running around. Like the cliché, the faces of angels (although, I’m sure, like most kids, they aren’t angelic, but their simple little smiles, they’re bright little eyes, for each and every child I look at, I think to myself that I hope they have a healthy, and safe family relationship, that they are getting the love and support that they need. It’s funny though, as much as I love my children, I cannot handle noise, confusion, I often pull into a shell when my children start running around the house and hollering, and laughing and fighting and yelling. It’s something I constantly need to work on.


So, here I am, finally done eating. Ready to go, I want to get back to work. I’m sure I have enough material to finish my assignment. I’ve enjoyed the time to contemplate life, the universe and everything after; although I think Douglas Adams has that saying trademarked. I’ll probably review my audio, and write this up over the weekend.

Yes – I ate a glowstick….

Ok – I’m going to puss out on this one because I couldn’t even come close to describing it as funny as it really was – so if you’re interested – you can read about it on Anna’s blog.


Man we spent almost the whole night laughing – but because I still have a persistent cough – which made me start wheezing and gasping desperately for air – I now have a headache. Oh well – it was worth it! 🙂


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What is doublethink, crimstop, crimetink and blackwhite?

In a recent post – I made some comments of how people even in today’s day and age practice doublethink, crimestop, crimethink and blackwhite.


These are terms that come from George Orwell’s 1984 – and I felt a responsibility to define them for you, if you do not know them.


Winston Smith explains doublethink – which is the foundation of the beliefs of “The Party” in the book 1984 – it’s scary to realize how many people’s minds work this way today.


doublethink:


“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.’


crimethink:


All crimes begin with a thought. So, if you control thought, you can control crime. “Thoughtcrime is death. Thoughtcrime does not entail death, Thoughtcrime is death…. The essential crime that contains all others in itself.”


crimestop:


“The faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. In short….protective stupidity.”


(Ingsoc stands for English Socialism – which is the ideal of the Party).


blackwhite:


The willingness to accept the ‘truth’ you are taught, no matter how absurd it is.


blackwhite is “…loyal willingness to say black is white when party discipline demands this. It also means the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know black is white, and forget that one has ever believed the contrary


Emmanuel Goldsteim:


EG is the enemy of the party – he is the scapegoat, the party uses Emmanuel Goldstein to foster anger, and hatred, to create war (for war is peace according to Ingsoc). Through this fanaticism that they stir up, they control the thoughts of the party members, they teach them, through the fear and hate of Goldstein to pratice crimestop, crimethink, blackwhite and above all doublethink.

For those that want to know…

There are some people in life that will stop at nothing to have things their own way. They’ll do anything, say anything, teach anything, and believe anything.


There are some people in life, that think they belong to the thought police. They are adept invokers of the cultish practices of doublethink, crimestop, crimethink, and blackwhite.


There are some people in life, that believe things, things they know or are afraid that can’t be supported by facts or logic; they hold onto them so tightly, so religiously (if you will), that if you approach them and ask them to reconsider, they begin to act like cornered dogs. They bite, they nip, they growl, they bark. Foaming at the mouth, they become possessed. Will they reason with you? No! Will they talk with you? No! They shut you out, they shut you up, they try to discredit you, they use whatever is within their power to try and control you (or those around you).


There are some people that work in the shadows, they hide behind the trees, they hide behind the rocks, they slink back, and when you pass by, and they pounce and stab. Or, there are even those, who are worse. They will use propaganda, they will regurgitate untruths, they will stick them to your back, they will pass them around to your friends, they make sure to conceal the truth, they twist mind’s, they twist themselves, they are contortionists, or better yet, extortionists.


There are some people that want you to believe something so strongly, that they force it down your throat. They jam it, they cram it. They are in such a frenzied state of mind that they don’t even hear that you are choking; don’t even see that you are turning blue. They don’t even feel the anger, the hate, and the resentment that is welling up inside of you.


There are some people that won’t talk to your face, only to your back, and only if you can’t hear them. They claim that you are a troublemaker, and a problem causer, and they do this by running around and spreading trouble and problems that they focus on you.


I am none of these things; I will tell you to your face, I will try to tell it as it is, as I see it. I will promote thought and thinking, reasoning and logic. I won’t hide in the shadows – I will speak in public, I have nothing to hide. I provide a meal, but I won’t force you to eat. I provide an ear, but I won’t force you to talk. I provide friendship; use it as and if you will.


And above all, for those who are of the Spy’s and the Thought Police themselves – I am guilty of thought-crime, my name is Emmanuel Goldstein.

A Tree

Joyce Kilmer. 1886–1918

Trees

I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

The days of past – Nostalgic

We went to the Augusta Museum on Friday. All I can say is wow! Every time I go there, I am just overwhelmed with nostalgic.


Now, let me start by saying that in reality, I am very glad that we have moved so far into the age we are in (I mean, I love technology), but I can’t help but being sad.


I am reminded of the ‘days gone by’, right before me; days that I hardly remember, days my children will never see. An age where both men and women had special skills, working with their hands, bringing forth magnificent works of art, bringing into the economy things that were needed for everyday life, and a few things that even brought pleasure.


I looked over little shops in the corner of a wall setup to mimic where people would heat and bend iron making so many wonderful things – wow, i bet it was hard, back breaking labor – but when you were done, you could admire what you had done, see it, feel it.


I saw wood working shops, where people built desks, cabinets, I saw sewing shops, I saw shoe maker shops.


My head was filled with information on these businesses as they started in Maine, as some grew to the point of having thousands of workers, and then as they replaced these workers with machinery (or in some cases, low-paid Mexican workers from another country).


Even the woolen mill was sad. I had a job in a woolen mill about 15 or so years ago – I remember the sights, the sounds, the smells, the feeling of accomplishment working with your hands. They’re all gone. Distant past – in a museum. My children will never experience the excitement; my children will never experience the aura.


What happened to the days of “White Christmas”, the feeling of home and family?


And while I’m thinking about it, what happened to childhood.


It makes me sad, and I’m getting old, I guess.