Trail: Ready for 2011-2012 Season

Posted on November 24, 2011 by ehurst

Today I went out in two different sessions and finished the trail.
I am leaving it a little rougher this year, instead of clipping every single bit of growth. I’ll see if there is sufficient use to keep it all tromped down. I plan to hit it at least once each day as part of my ongoing work out plans.
Side note: I try to work out five times every day. I usually get at least three. That’s a heavy workout at wake-up to get the metabolism going. Then again around mid-morning just enough to make me break a sweat. Somewhere around mid-day I do the aerobic portion, either walking or riding my bike. Then in the afternoon I try to do something vigorous, again until I break a sweat. Lately that’s been turning a few rows with shovel in my garden. Finally, unless something has caused me to hurt too much, I try to workout before bedtime.
I made sure the trail is just barely bike-able, too.

Aerial photo of woodland with trail overlay

Approximate trail in orange.

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Unholy Days

Posted on November 24, 2011 by ehurst

Holidays reveal the best and worst of humanity, but often more of the latter.
Here in the US we celebrate something called Thanksgiving Day. It’s hardly what the label implies. The mythology taught in public institutions is tiresome. We aren’t going to explore that, but look at what the mere existence of statist orthodoxy has produced.
It would be easy to go too far either way. I could fully engage and be all social, even though I feel nothing of the sort. I’m an introvert. I have better things to do than lie to Aunt Hildie about how wonderful her foul concoctions are stinking up the house. Civility does have limits; they are rules about how we do or don’t discuss what really matters. It’s about diverting unjustified demands, from within ourselves and coming from others. It’s as much about stopping fakery as it is sparing feelings.
Because we refuse to balance, holidays often turn into disasters, or at least a form of hateful drudgery that serves no good purpose. They certainly bring no joy.
The basic assumption is feelings matter. They don’t. The agreement which is fundamental to civility is we don’t get too deeply into each other’s business, and this crap which says I’m supposed to care about yours but you don’t have to care about mine is evil. I’ll keep my rude thoughts to myself; you keep your rude demands I like your crap to yourself. Success should not be keeping peace long enough for everyone to suffer equally through a very unpleasant social constraint. This Germanic feudal demand that one party must submit to the other should have been mercilessly slaughtered long ago.
You aren’t permitted to demand I appear in your court. You aren’t permitted to burden me with social obligations for your own convenience and conceit. Too often what is promoted as “respect for the family” is simply “respect for my ego” when it comes from some wannabe matron. It’s rule by embarrassment; a raw and brutal coercion as ugly as that on the bloody streets of political protest. I’m not your servant, and you aren’t mine.
That is, unless we agree to something under a godly covenant. Your personal fantasies of family tradition is not a covenant. If you were willing to submit to God’s Laws and more ancient traditions, we would have room for discussion. Otherwise it’s just projecting your wishes, demanding everyone feel what you feel. This is about as evil and dehumanizing as it gets.
So long as Western Civilization demonizes the “live and let live” ethic necessary for world peace, no Western holiday will be a “holy day.”

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That Eternal Debate

Posted on November 23, 2011 by ehurst

To eat when it’s ready or wait for the appointed guests? (Danger: There’s a little sarcasm mixed in this recipe.)
Kids and menfolk agree you don’t wait. Women seem to be downright hateful about making everyone wait, muttering darkly about being civilized and such. It’s the same crap we go through when trying to get a woman ready to go anywhere outside the front yard, and sometimes even then. Women are not angels, nor are they particularly civilizing. Too much of what they do is for show, and that’s not civilization. That’s pure fakery.
I’ve seen people put on a huge spread, then the household matron make everyone wait while the food starts frosting over because some female guest took too long getting herself all dolled up. We’ve established long ago women never dress up to bless their men, but to compete with each other. So we have to microwave it, which destroys the food molecules, or stick it back in the oven to dessicate.
Women can claim it is a problem with immaturity and uncivilized impatience, but that’s just their excuse for being hateful about it. If you’ve ever cleaned a woman’s restroom and the men’s room at the same time, you tell me who is considerate and civilized. If you are late, eat what’s left. It’s not as if there won’t be enough to go around. In my case, I eat multiple small meals over the day because that’s far healthier. So because I’m the one who carves the turkey, I simply eat what I want when it’s ready. Thanksgiving is no excuse for gorging yourself. Sit down feasts are simply one more way for women to force us to behave by their silly standards, while killing us slowly with fattening food.
And people wonder why men so quickly become hermits.

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People are the Mission

Posted on November 22, 2011 by ehurst

On the walls in various military facilities, I can recall seeing any number of posters and banners proclaiming: “Mission First. People Always.”
The first part was accurate as far as it went, but the second part was pure horse manure. People never mattered, even though they were the single greatest asset the military has ever had. Such slogans are called “eyewash” — propaganda to make the right people smile.
This is the reason the US military will eventually fail. In God’s Laws, the mission for any military force is protecting the people. Since we have no concept of actual defense in the halls of government power, God has already cursed our military. It’s why “the greatest military force in human history” has been unable to defeat tribals with old rifles and a few handfuls of plastique. It’s why we spend more on our military than any other two countries combined in this world, and have nothing but misery to show for it.
Instead of defeating our erstwhile enemies, we have simply turned the whole world against us. The first military force in any nation which puts people first as the mission itself, God will let them beat us with slingshots.

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Better, But the Same Stuff

Posted on November 21, 2011 by ehurst

Life Church is much better than most of the churches with which I’ve associated in the past, but it’s still a Western church.
I’ve been attending the local campus of Life Church a few weeks now. This week began a series on “Because of You” and all the wonderful things they’ve done with the money and labor resources people have contributed. I must applaud the emphasis on pay-as-you-go building programs, the emphasis on people instead of programs, etc. I wish I could see more of this, and if you have time, I would encourage you to watch the video of the first message. It’s hard to argue with success.
I cannot deny the hand of God is supporting this, if only because it’s the best game in town. God isn’t that picky when it comes to this sort of thing. The closer you get to His ethics and morals, the better things work in the long run. I can’t pretend to know whether any of this is just good showmanship and how much is the real deal, but for now, it’s nice to be standing near it.
They are overlapping between Western Christianity and the Network Civilization. They are on the borderlands of what will someday be the world as we know it. I know of no other religious organization forging into this area. They are giving away all the software they develop, including the package which runs their online church. They give away their smartphone Bible application for free. They understand the necessity of this sort of thing, which is why it will prosper far into the future.
Still, too many of their organizational assumptions are rooted in the West. The one major flaw is blending the spiritual and organizational functions in the same leadership. The New Testament presumes dividing the spheres, so that their is a priestly function, and a ruling function, in some ways kept away from each other. That division is based on something fundamental to the nature of faith in God going back into ancient times, and it was prominent in the First Century churches. It’s also something built into human nature itself. In the long, this will create major headaches for them.
For now, they have zero interest in what I’m doing, and it’s wholly unlikely they will use me or any of my teaching. What that means is I have found a place where I can build some level of fellowship and human association necessary for survival in this broken world, but my real work for God will be outside that or any other church organization.
I am hardly surprised by this. What I believe and teach is admittedly too radical for most of the world. That was hardly the aim. I have been struggling mightily to understand things as they are, or as they were meant to be. I knew that was going to isolate me as soon as I realized the foundation included rejecting Western Civilization. It’s not as if I turned around one day and discovered I was out on the fringe of human thought; I knowingly followed a path which brought me here. I didn’t know where “here” would be in advance, but I knew where it wasn’t.
Despite a calling very much biblical in nature, I won’t be working within the church much as it now exists. I’m at peace with that, largely because there is no other alternative. I’ll follow along in worship and support them as much as their work coincides with mine, but I have a mission which isn’t theirs, and isn’t ever likely to be theirs.

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Trail: Just Like Starting Over

Posted on November 20, 2011 by ehurst

After the fire and so much being bulldozed, I had a tough time resurrecting the original trail. Several sections required a completely new route, as the old was buried and destroyed.
So during the summer I gave it a rest, as the poison ivy was everywhere.
We just had a couple of good frosts, which killed of the ivy, so I began cutting the pop-up underbrush which simply can’t be uprooted from the trail. That’s work enough, but then there was some summer dead-fall to chop and break from lying across the trail. Most rotting hollow logs aren’t that hard, regardless of being over a foot (30cm) in diameter. I found about a half-dozen.
Imagine my shock, though, that the burned over parts were completely grown over with vigorous woody shrubs. It was as if I had never cut the trail.
I’ve decided on those parts I’m simply going to bypass the woods and follow the old clearcut sections. That requires cutting underbrush, too, but nowhere nearly as much. I figure I’ll be done just about the time spring comes back and the poison ivy blooms again. At some point, I’ll cut through a bit of new trail to rejoin the old. Otherwise we end up crossing mud flats which are like quicksand when it rains.
Yeah, it’s the hobby thing, and the cutting is as important for exercise as the use of the trail. Mr. Camp Ax and Mr. Steel Shovel, we got work to do.

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Radical Management: It's Family

Posted on November 20, 2011 by ehurst

We expand on the principle half-stated in Budgeting.
We need not in any way refer to any part of Western political and economic theory to get at the ancient truth. All of that is so materially bent, no part of it is correct. In God’s creation, you regard humanity as the treasure. Restructure your balance sheet.
So while it may look like communism, communitarianism or a lot of other “isms,” the proper godly approach to physical property is certain people have stewardship, but nobody actually owns something except those who share the thing. Property is tribal in nature, and real estate is merely the function of who occupies it. All the more so in the case of so-called “intellectual property” (IP).
IP is not a thing. It is the spillage from the ferment of bright minds. Insofar as it belongs to anyone, it belongs to the tribe. Granted, the definition of “tribe” is pretty squishy when your whole social fabric is an abomination to God, but most people understand instinctively the concept of “right of use” when it comes to tribal holdings.
If the resource in question can be used by only one person, then it has normally been “first come, first served.” Only when there is some profligate waste should tribal leadership intervene to redirect use of resources. We could spend days discussing the ancient precedents about what constitutes waste, but the point stands. However, with resources which can be shared, there are no limits on who can use it. Something like IP cannot be limited once it comes into existence, so everyone has full access. The assumption is you are a team player seeking the welfare of the tribe.
Your “pay” is your reputation and credibility as one who provides for the tribe. This not merely a certificate of appreciation, but comes with very concrete perquisites attached to such honor. Everyone is someone; if you’re on the bus, you get a bite of the pie. But those who make life better for the rest are highly valued. That’s the meaning of “people are wealth.” By no means should we imagine anything which smells like modern “equality.” Modern Western humanity cannot say the word “equal” without implying “interchangeable” and that’s just wrong. There will always be some tasks for which others may be competent, but native talent and experience prevent us from ever being fully interchangeable.
Notice there is none of that silly nonsense about losing your identity in the crowd. You can always distinguish yourself by how you make life better for others. If you are so disabled you can’t reach out in some way, you can’t read this in the first place. The point is life is valued for itself, but honor arises only from demonstrated love — love defined as seeking the welfare of another/others.
Yes, we can put love on the balance sheet.

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An Empty Space

Posted on November 19, 2011 by ehurst

The storage shed has a big empty space in it.
It took several years for me to throw away the vast hoard of junk in my soul. That began two decades ago, and mostly was done a few years back. More than once during that time, I dumped a bunch of material junk, too. It made room for truth, sanity, and compassion. Then I passed on the secret of empty spaces to others.
After Mom and Dad split, she was left with a lot of junk. We gave some away, but the rest we ignored awhile. She finally found someone worth loving and he took her far away. The house was empty, but then my son and his family joined us. Lots of stuff got moved and plenty is being given away, even as I type this.
So Mom and her new man came back and got all her stuff. They took it away today. The shed is half empty, and some other relative who left her stuff says she’ll be here to get it in a few days. The shed will be nearly empty by comparison. My son will put his stuff in there.
My house is full again. Yet, there is a fresh empty space in my soul. There’s room for truth, sanity and compassion. Who will move into that space next?

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Can't Always Be a Cool Alpha

Posted on November 18, 2011 by ehurst

Don’t be too simplistic.
In several posts I’ve advised folks to use Game as a means to operating in social situations, simply because that’s a reflection of basic human nature. It applies most of all when you find yourself in a new setting. You walk in the door; the one thing which matters most is keeping your cool. If you can build that overpowering sense of mission, nothing will ever shake you, nothing will ever surprise you. Stay somewhat aloof. Make eye contact with whomever makes themselves significant; then close your eyes deliberately and look away at something else (says Vox). It works.
When I do this, I’m only acting. It’s not an easy part to play, because it’s not my natural personality. Indeed, saying “I’m an actor” should be a clue.
Simply because I’m introverted does not mean I have no social skills. I did have to learn them the hard way, but learn I did. I gained a very powerful stage presence. I know what to do when all eyes are upon me. I can tap dance, as the expression goes, and have typically gotten away with it. I am shameless, completely open and frighteningly honest about myself to others — but only when it serves a purpose.
I didn’t get there easily, because I had to become that honest with myself, first. I had to become the fellow who never takes himself seriously. When the focus was no longer on me, but on the truth — that Christian Mysticism thing — it no longer mattered what I or anyone else said about me. If it is true, who could argue, and why would they? I won’t. If it’s not true, in most cases folks who matter to me would know better.
Charisma is different things to different people. When people tell me I have it, all that means is I was able to reach them without trying hard. It means if I wanted to lie, I could very easily. Apparently I have little trouble getting the majority to follow me when I speak in public. This is something you can hardly train for, because everyone who really has a conscious awareness of such things agree: You either have it or don’t. It’s a gift, a talent, in the sense it is written into your character at birth.
So along with my advice to be cool initially, I would hope you have the sense to eventually be as much yourself as whatever that means to you. For me, that means being a big joker, enthusiastic and energetic, crazy and shameless, etc. I’m a nice guy; I love making people smile. I’ll wrestle with kids, touch people playfully, act a complete idiot for the sheer joy of living. As soon as I think I can get away with it, that’s how I’ll present myself because it’s what I do. At the same time, I’ll take you very seriously, regardless how old or young you may be.
That’s my mission.

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Natural Population Reduction

Posted on November 18, 2011 by ehurst

It doesn’t take a prophet, only someone paying attention, to realize we are entering a time of massive loss of human life.
Those who believe the world is designed to support only a half-billion souls may not get their wish, but there will be a massive reduction in human population very soon. Those who feel safe enough to dream up such nonsense are fooling themselves. It’s not the End of the World, but it will be a piece of the Apocalypse.
We’ve already seen the effects of warfare by the West on brown peoples. That’s just getting warmed up. New and more diabolical weapons are being designed every day for small scale killing. We still have a huge stockpile of WMD. I tend to believe Stuxnet also managed to help us all get a good dose of radiation, already. No one officially will talk about it, but the failure of the Japanese reactors to respond to emergency controls, even when running on battery power, are precisely symptoms of that computer virus, which was developed by Israel, and almost certainly the US. The point is, human nature is pretty deadly, both by design and by culpable negligence.
But even greater catastrophes arise from “acts of God,” with flooding, volcanoes, earthquakes, and now diseases. Were you aware of the new resistant infections sweeping Europe? They’ve been hammering the US hospitals for quite some time, now, but honest reporting on it is sparse. There is a pneumonia strain, which seems to have started in Greece, producing an enzyme that destroys the very latest and newest antibiotics.
As for “Global Warming,” we shall have painfully higher temperatures in some places, while an new Ice Age creeps down over other parts of the world. Humans have nothing to do with it directly, in the sense any scientist is going to ever make a conclusive link, in part because none of them understand climate and weather well enough. But the real issue is human sin, and the moral fabric no scientist wants to recognize, but does exist in this world. That refusal alone would be sin enough for God to take action, but the whole world is wallowing in moral filth of every kind.
That’s the whole point. When mankind walks justly, the Lord prospers however many are born, and the planet will support them because God will sponsor discoveries which make it possible. But when mankind chooses the wrong path, flouting the Laws of God, then Creation itself becomes hostile to human life. For every life taken by the hands of sinful men, nature will take ten or a hundred. It will appear random, but rest assured, those who suffer most have lived the worst. There is also the tendency for those to suffer last to suffer worst. Our time’s a’comin’.
I make no apology for the judgments of God against sinners. He warned long, long ago.

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