Always Take a Pillow

This is one of what will probably be many retrospective nostalgic free-written expositions about my trip to France this summer.

I always take a pillow when I travel. Not an expensive or specially-designed travel pillow; I have a beat-up smooshy pillow which is probably filled with toxic disintegrating scraps of foam rubber. Whatever it's composed of, I'm able to hollow out part of it, fluff up the rest, fold it into a triangle, roll it, wedge it into a corner, or whatever I need at the time. It's my silly putty pillow. I have flown cross-country with this pillow. I have flown to Europe and back with this pillow. I have taken it on the bus, the train, and road trips. I love it.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says you should always bring a towel. I think the pillow is superior. It's more comfortable. It's superior for filling in the curved gap between the cramped coach-class plane seat and the curved bulkhead. You can hug a pillow when you're lonely. Besides, you can use a pillowcase as a towel, etc.

In today's world of airport paranoia, a pillow automatically makes you a sympathetic figure. Do terrorists carry pillows? I don't know, but anybody clutching a pillow like they're porting an oversized floppy teddy bear elicits an unconscious 'awww' response. It's automatic.

Okay, it may smell after a while, particularly if the trip is intercontinental or cross-continental. A pillow tends to soak up odors, and the airplane industrial-cleaner smell is all permeating. I can smell it on my skin even after a short flight. The pillow tends to soak it up too. Still, pillows can be washed, and before and after it still retains a core scent of home. I don't tend towards homesickness, but after a couple of weeks in a strange place it'll hit almost anyone; having the familiar smell and shape and feel of my own pillow made all the difference for me, even in a strange and uncomfortable bed with a thin, beaten-down mattress over a too-small particle board and a creaky industrial-pipe frame. It was my pillow, hollowed-out to let my head lie at the right angle, supporting my neck, familiar and perfect. I was home.

The Frenemy of my Frenemy is my Frenemy

The rule of triadic interaction breaks down in the real world. The Cold War mentality of "The enemy of my friend is my enemy" and its corollaries are convenient simplifications, unsuitable for a complex policy of nonviolent solutions. Unforunately, few people are hip to nonviolence, or complexity. Here in America, simple is preferable; a simple answer is always more comforting, even if it's wrong.

We like good guys vs. bad guys, our guys and their guys. Even if it means supporting our death squads vs thier death squads. Even if it means supporting totalitarianism vs. democracy.

Violence begets violence. Once you accept the definition of someone as an 'enemy', you accept the possibility, or the necessity, of commiting violence against them.

If we had not supported Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden in the past, would we have the problems we have today? If we had not pursued the policy of enabling the violent in the past, would we be reaping the whirlwind of violence we reap today?

Do we miscalculate the corollaries of collateral damage?

I want to get deeper into this. I'll add more to this later.

The Sound of One Civilization Clashing

The chain of civilization has come full circle, the cradle of civilization robbed by the great-to-the-N grandchild of the original patriarch, generational abuse the story of the city, all cities as one, all the same.

The bastard children of Mohammed, Europe and America, hove come back home to Babylon, bringing it all back home again, the New Babylon on the crumbling foundations of the old.

The original law incised in clay only spells out the difference between free and slave, noble and common, king and noble, indelibly defining who has the full protection of law, and who does not. Hammurabi is the original apologist of The State.

There is only one Civilization. This is not to say there is only one modern way of life. This is to say only that all cities are the same. The real unit of modern life is the town. Towns are self-sustaining, renewable, sustainable communities. Cities are parasitical entities that cannot provide for themselves. Without colonial relationships, without armies of soldiers and merchants, cites cannot survive.

Back to Spinworld

I'm back in the U.S. of A. after three months in France, in an isolated location in the Alps, away from news, television, newspapers, and the massive spin machine of the American media and government.

I'm in the throes of culture shock! After three sweet months of silence I'm once again subjected to the barrage of opinions, factoids, polls, and spin, spin, spin.

The Iraq war drags on, much the same as before I left. Despite the Presidential address tonight, and Gen. Petraeus' report before Congress earlier this week, it's truly the same old story.

Does it Matter?

I didn't watch the Democratic candidates debate. From the analysis I've seen, I didn't miss much. This will all prove irrelevant if a "national emergency" is decared and martial law instituted to protect us from whatever the administration uses as an excuse.

DHS moves to Lunatic Asylum

The Department of Homeland Security is actually moving into a mental hospital, as reported in Federal Times.



This is an old story, but new to me. Apparently, it was announced last year, as reported on the Daily Kos.



Much of the Department of Homeland Security is moving to St. Elizabeths Hospital, the first government insane asylum in the United States.



It was established in 1855, and has held poet and propagandist Ezra Pound,who pleaded insanity to charges of treason so as to escape a possible death penalty for his pro-Mussolini efforts.



American Indians imprisoned and committed largely for political crimes were later moved to St. Elizabeth's for rehabilitation. Few were released.



The hospital is currently the home of John Hinckley, Jr., former President Ronald Reagan's would-be assassin.



St. Elizabeth's has been home to at least one Catholic priest accused in the current and ongoing abuse scandal.



The hospital is currently embroiled in a lawsuit, shades of Walter Reed.



The hospital is also rumored to be haunted.



Creepy. Typical.

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Haiku For Gonzales

Klieg lights shining
Attorneys demand anwers
Who is culpable?