a funny joke

A string of simple words is enough to completely expose goals as irrelevant and disarm ambitions--it is enough to expose the dream of modern society as the most dangerous joke ever to be entertained. And it is a joke.

We spend our lives yearning for more when there is happiness to be found in so little. We spend our lives clobbering over others attempting to prove ourselves in the social hierarchy; we belittle, we compete, and we go to any deceptive or honest means to obtain coveted superiority above another human. This is the American Dream. Are we content with the knowledge that there is so much suffering and that we, the fortunate few, the "brave" individuals we would all humor ourselves to be, spend our days flying off ski jumps, sitting in class rooms, or working in a cubicle?

When I was in elementary school I was taught about the horrible, horrible slave trade of the 1800's. I learned about the underground railway, people who risked everything to smuggle fugitive slaves to their freedom. When I heard the story I knew that had I lived in those days, I would have been part of the underground railway. I would have stood up for what I believed was right and put everything on the line to prove it. What my teachers forgot to tell me was that slavery is still happening, and that even bigger world issues exist. Even so, we turn a def ear to it in order to blissfully live out our lives. We dream of a future with a white house on a green filed, our kids running around chasing ponies, and two new silver cars in the driveway; one automatic transmission Toyota for the wife, and a standard Civic for the husband. The only sound to be heard during the day is that of lazy bumblebees flying around your nicely arranged garden and the laughter of kids playing on the trampoline next door; the sound of injustice so completely muted by distance.

But how can this be? In elementary school I would have called that person a coward, but he is not considered a coward who has his family’s best interest in mind. But is there any other word for the person who sees world issues and decides that it is too complicated to get involved with, or too dangerous? Who remembers those who stood by and watched the slave trade unfold in the 1800's? What teacher talks about the valiant father who decided to run away to the countryside and start a family instead of taking a stand for or against the slave trade? These people are not in textbooks, they are not remembered. They are forgotten not for what they did, but for what they didn't do. It is true that the opposite of love is not hate, it is apathy.

It makes me wonder what good is the person who risks greatly climbing mountains when all that is to be gained is ego, what lasting influence will a brave father have if he runs away from real world issues? Time and again, average North Americans chose apathy if it means that they can continue pursuing their version of the illusive American Dream.

If injustice is a threat, I wonder what kind of life-style we are trying to justify.

thats my sister!

who is currently the most famous person in the WHOLE WORLD!!...or at least IN SALEM!!
Which, I am pleased to announce, means that I too am famous by association. I will be glad to give out my autograph but I only sign bodies...to save on paper of course. Its the green way of giving your autograph.

today

Today
A gray and mournful day
The kind of which on funerals lay
This misty sheet of moisture fall
Down on gray and mournful all
Who, clothed in black and boring cloak
Are sullen, sad, and sunken folk.

Mortuary's dance and frolic whence
The sun is blocked and rain commence
For now does business swell and bloom
When the living sway and swoon
Down to hell if not first saved
By the dirt floor of a grave.

Be spared this fate ye living few,
Act with haste upon this coup
When arrows fall from high heaven,
When our enemy fastly beckon,
Deploy, deploy our sole defensive
Umbrellas bounce and spring to action.

Unyielding black umbrella's attempt
To hold the heavn'ly armament
But yet it is to no avail,
The troops begin to fail and fail.

Bodies limp and faces sleek
Gnarled limbs wet and bleak,
Die in the onslaught ever falling
Fast in sheets of dampness galling,
Out flanked, out numbered, umbrellas swirling
For their children and wives yearning,
The troops by the thousands succumb.

But what did that great warrior state,
If beat them not, then join them late,
And so we must if to survive
To drop all grievances aside
And ask our wet foe to befriend
Those who for years paved o'er their land
And on bended knee to plea
A thousand years of clemency
On one condition tis employed
If all umbrellas be destroyed.

giddy cavers

And you people thought I was technologically impaired! Ha! Not only have I proven you wrong by posting a picture but also a movie! So I never want to hear about it again.


Surprisingly, claustrophobia was about the last thing on anyone’s mind—like the thing everyone knows is there but no one pays attention to…like babies. Caving is probably the most adventurous activity a normal Joe could pursue—the last frontier on earth that doesn’t require an exorbitant budget of those who desire to explore. Add in the beauty of underground geology, technical rope skills, and a good time with a few nutty cavers, and you’ve got yourself the vacation of a life time.

In comparison to their egotistical, global-summit-dominion motivated mountaineering counterparts; cavers seem to hold a strong camaraderie between each other. While mountaineers would rather boast about how many summits they’ve sacked in the Himalayas, cavers would be more likely to make fun of your mother over a pint. Maybe the main difference is that mountaineers climb mountains to feed their insatiable ego and cavers cave to discover the cave—not to prove something. I like that.