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Activist Times Inc. Issue 183
"This is for the people of the sun."
OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE MAGAZINE:
Are you really interviewing Julia Butterfly
for September '99?
The shadow of George Washington is in the
mouthpiece of Ben Stiller's phone, huh?
Hey, thanks for publishing me.
Ask Garofalo if we're on for Harlem Friday
nite, will ya? I'll pay if she can't get
passes; but only if she can't. "Why" if she
can, right?
s/
prime anarchist
"Look over there, up in the sky!"
"It's a bird!"
"It's a plane!"
No! It's..
**** ******** ********
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c i n
t m k
i e .
v ,
i
s
t
***********************************************
This organization has *extremely* limited means
of publicity, and appreciates all e-forwards,
regular mailings, published advertisements,
radio announcements, etc, of our information.
*************** THANKS!!! *******************
Greetings phellow earthlings. Welcome to
ATI, activist time, ink. This is issue
183 and I'm your host, Redward Morrow.
We're live from webzine99. Well sort of.
Virtually. V-Live. The special "UR there"
issue.
You notice Newark and Network look the same?
How 'bout fiance, france and finance??
Or am I origami???
Bitchin' Camaro. Did somebody say McDonalds is
bland?
Phrase of the week: She got lips so full
I wanna check the pressure.
Radio note: I hit /SEEK/ every time I hear
an ad for the second time, or any of those new
censorship noises.
Means I do it often, huh? People probably
presume I'm spastic, eh? Think I should wait
'til each third time?
Just an observation. This comes from living
longterm in many different parts of the US.
People at payphones in supermarket lobbies
always seem way more stressed out than at any
other payphones dotted around the towns.
We got a lot of emails about the article
"BLUE CHEESE DRESSING: Delicious Cure; or
Horrible Texture?" Only thing is we didn't
publish it. Wrong magaZINE maybe?
Next up is our numba rhumba and then
some lettuce for your brainsalad. And then
the usual inputs. It was a harried week.
JFK Jr passed on, in case you missed the
news. And Woodstock is celebrating its
30th birthday as we speak. Champaign I
heard, as is required substance when you're
officically a YUPpie. I think RATM is
calming people down right now, believe it
or not. It was almost a full-on Ted Nugent
violence-fest there during LimpBandMember's
Viagra-styled set.
In a poll of 14 Serbian farmers, 13 feel
US intervention in overseas politics had
little or no effect. And one said "Oh shit,
please don't shoot me, I believe in God,
Hail Mary..." (Of course that's a bad
translation; some things just don't move
well.)
Because most other newsmedia are still
harping on every single "new and improved"
angle on the JFK event, I'm only going to
touch one thing briefly and then move on
not looking back at all. It was very
difficult to fast from news this week. And
I tried really hard to keep my sanity. It
was on car-stereos booming out windows,
checkout aisles were just shouting his
phrases, everyone was asking everyone else
"what do you think of...yadda yadda..."
elevators were using their BOSE stereos
for a moment of JohnJohn, and even NPR
devoted three hours a day to allowing
callers' complaints about how the media
is harping too much on JFK. I see the
irony, do you?
So ok. My little tidbit before
moving on. After meeting Mother Teresa
a short while back JFK remarked publicly
how much it bothered him that US citizens
were so wrapped up in each and every
pocket of Princess Diana's tragedy, that
most places didn't even respond to
"Sistah T's" passing.
There, you heard it here. The
nexclusive. (sic.)
Joyce Balza, Stella Marie Bauer,
David P. Berg, Mary A. Jaber, Laurel C.
Joas, Mrs. David Maddix, Erwin G. Mehrtens,
Richard O'Conner all had funerals last
week in a smalltown near you. Oh, and
Edith F. Brusewitz apparently died out
of alphabetical order. (&.)
I wonder if any of their relatives found
out late for glued to their tube?? (tired.)
Full moon's coming in a couple days.
We're probably the only journalists you know
who would hold the presses for that, huh?
--I'm Prime--
#'s
http://webzine99.com
http://www.coolbeans.com
http://www.yankthechain.com
http://www.superbad.com
http://www.thehungersite.com
http://navajo2000.com
http://www.cubby.net
http://www.angelfire.com/nc/cambridge/diary.html
http://books.dreambook.com/robertljones/soa.html
http://www.jessklein.com
http://www.abbiehoffman.com
http://www.adamoworld.com
http://seussie.webjump.com
http://www.suite101.com
http://www.wrybread.com
Dear Prime,
You live in paper hell right? I found
this on my deluxe package of 16-pack
toilet paper today.
FORT JAMES WEST EMPLOYEE USE ONLY
Imported by/Importee par
Amway of/du Canada, Ltd./ltee;
London, Ontario N6A4s5
Made in U.S.A/Fabrique aux EU
This Amway product is made from 100%
Recycled paper fibers.
What do you make of that?
to ati@etext.org
Are you really the "/"
in "http?"
Mowgwi (305)
(and in our guestbook:)
"whatever."
anon
Marco
That link didn't work, you dork.
-anon-
[ed note: woulda been nice if you
specified.
http://www.angelfire.com/wi/kokopeli/ATI.html?
Last week's zine? Other "marco"
publications???]
------------------------
--------that's it for letters------
----kinda sparse this week---------
------------------------
"They Make Great Packet Radio Stations."
by prime
I'm driving by a bank and there's two 386's,
seven monitors, five modems (1200 and 2400,
nothing special) and cables, power cords,
floppies galore piling-up out on the curb.
I almost got hit from behind when my neck
turned like a held-up rooster in a merry-go-
round to see if anything was worthwhile. I
pulled over, waited for all the middle fingers
to drive by me and put some of my garbology
masters degree to work.
Nothing really interested me so I went home.
Then I remembered it's just possible one of
the 386's might have a couple SIPPS chips in
it -- which is all that stands in the way of
me teaching myself linux on one of my 386's.
So I get right back in the wagon & popping
the clutch I hurry down the five blocks to go
explore. Some guy in a similar beat up old
stationwagon beat me to it all. He's hauling
it all away like Lord Hanson in a Peabody
Coal Corporation stripmine on an Indian rez.
"There, I'd better stop at that monitor,
else my wife'll go ballistic."
'Yeah,' I think to myself. 'Lord Hanson's
wife shoulda slapped stuffing outa him a few
decades ago. Or perhaps his mom? Well, we won't
go there. I say not a word about what's in my
head at the time.
"What are you going to do with 386's," I
ask him, "can you upgrade them?" I'm hoping
my next question might be if he's got some
RAM chips cheap."
"No," he tells me, "they make great packet
radio stations as is." I think he wished me
happy "scrounging."
On Mythology, Civilization, and Star Wars
By Carl Franklin
Email: carl@franklins.net
July 25, 1999
First of all, let me say that I have no point
to make here today. I am not here to discredit
religion, mythology, or those who have
no religious beliefs. I am here to hopefully
shed some light on the human condition.
There is no other goal in my mind except
to stimulate thought and discussion
on those subjects that I am most fascinated
with: Mythology, Spirituality, and how our
connectedness affects us both personally
and in our society.
Myth: Window to the Soul
Throughout existence, humans have always
invented reasons for phenomena that can't
be explained by science, and created stories
that explain and reflect their temporal reality.
A flash of lightning turns a dead tree stump into
fire. With no shared knowledge of this experience,
one resorts to an instinctual explanation,
or what the whole of our being tells us
about this phenomena. It must be a sign
from the gods. What does it mean? etc.,
We are not content to live with questions.
We must have answers. If we do not have
answers, we answer with our instincts.
These stories fill the holes in our lives.
They bring our communities together, they
provide comfort and understanding, and they
provide a bridge between the physical world
and the "other" world... the conscious and the
unconscious mind. We are like computers.
We need storage, places to store
information. Before the printing press,
our shared knowledge was handed down
orally from generation to generation.
We tell these stories so that we will
remember. By explaining the fire message
from the Gods to a second party, now
there are two people who understand
the meaning of it; and so on.
Without these shared dreams, it is
much harder for us to find the
foundation, that terra firma on which
our reality is based. But yet, a large
number of people (especially younger
people) have rejected conventional
organized religion, because it no longer
works for them. For better or for
worse, I tend to fall into this category.
Organized religion is failing to touch
people because it has not updated its
core metaphors to fit our modern world.
Worse, religious texts are taken at
face value as scientific fact,
and not the beautiful metaphoric poetry that
they once were. Because we have no experience
interpreting religious texts as products of man,
as manifestations of bodily energy,
as a window to the soul of human beings
(not of something other than humans)
we are left with either believing that
Adam and Eve were the first two people
ever to appear on earth, or that the
story is completely insignificant,
that all religion and religious texts;
the stories of mankind, our myths,
are meaningless.
One of the dangers of not allowing
ourselves to indulge in shared fantasies
is that one can easily cut oneself
off from the fountain of wisdom that
pours forth from the past. Not wisdom
about something metaphoric, like
"Jesus was the Son of God", but
about our real lives, like "Love thy
neighbor". These stories, these myths,
were written by human beings. As human
stories, they naturally communicate
the wisdom of the ages. "The Ten Commandments"
is part of a famous religious text,
but it is also damn good advice.
"Thou Shalt Not Kill."
This is the foundation of civilization.
The difference between a civilized
society and anarchy is that civilized
people do not kill each other over land,
food, possessions, etc., but find other
means by which to exist together.
Now that we have internalized (and even
made law) the tenet "Thou Shalt Not Kill",
does that mean we have no place for the medium
by which this wisdom was made known to us all?
So what in our modern society has taken
over the task of communicating our values
through time and space (on Earth, anyway),
the task that religion has held for so many
thousands of years? Some would say that
movies have, to a great extent, become
religious in nature. An actor on the screen
has a God-like quality. She is there and
not there at the same time. A movie is
made and communicated over and over
to the entire world, albeit about a
million times faster than a message
can move through the Catholic Church,
let's say, to its parishioners around
the world. In a single opening night,
"Star Wars - The Phantom Menace" was
experienced simultaneously by over 8
million people in the United States
alone. How can you not consider this a
spiritual event, as compared to those
that occurred within the last 99% of
man's existence on Earth?
Music and musicians also fall into this
God-like category. You may not think
that Britney Spears has anything deep
to say, and you're right. She doesn't.
But the relatively simultaneous experience
of Britney Spears by 20 million
adoring teenage fans is a significant
event. The wisdom is in the connection.
An instant conduit is forged between...
(CON'T next week)
To see this article in whole (or in part,)
goto:
http://www.freespeech.org/kokopeli/franklin.txt
Carl Franklin
President: WorldTRAIN, Inc.
http://www.worldtrain.com
"Take a class. Teach a class.
Do it in your underwear."
.Carl Franklin is a computer programmer of
.the finest caliber, an author of the most
.digestible cheese, a web designer out of
.this world, one of the finest studio
.engineers you'll ever work with, a dad
.of the class you didn't think they made
.anymore, a fairly proficient hunter-
.gatherer and one of my best friends
.in this or any universe.
.oh, and did I say he's an
.awesome guitarist?
/\ /\
\/ \/
ANALOGY
Cigarette is to tobacco as Log Cabin is to Maple.
If KRAFT MAKaRoni KoRporATion were reKwirRed
to list ingredients to what they call a cigarette
these days, it would look something like so:
Ingredients: Paper, plastic, petroleum product #1,
chemical agent #1, pp #2, chemicals 2-5, pps 3-4,
tobacco, chems 6-10, pp #5.
Contents may...
/-\/-\/-\/-\
/This anarcho\
\rant brought/
/2 u by ATI. \
\not just a /
/news organ. \
\It's p'rhaps/
/the oldest \
\e-rag on the/ ...net!
\-/\-/\-/\-/
And now, a Prime Anarchist Interactive
Scavenger Hunt.
If you can find pure tobacco within 400 miles
of your home (either growing or already picked,
doesn't matter) acquire it any way you can and
notify Activist Times at 860.887.2600 box 5293
or email ati@etext.org
We will add you to our list of amazing people.
FLYER FOUND IN BATHROOM
"Hey Kids!! Are you too young to hang out in
the casino and gamble after the show? Well,
even if you're not... come on down and watch
TV the way it was meant to be seen: In a
movie theatre.
UHF 10th Anniversary showing tonite after
"Weird Al" Concert.
Well, that's it for ATI this week.
Hasta la byebye.
Send all questions and comments to
ati@etext.org
Of course if you have comments and
questions, wait a little while 'til
they turn around and then send em.
...................................
. .
. ATI: Like compost for your mind .
. .
...................................
We end with a poem
Lunch break 101
by prime anarchist
Sitting in a company car
Eating a fresh ear
This morning's pick
35c
At a stand.
Looking straight down
At a stripped quarry;
Ain't much left.
There's green water.
Aquamarine? F2? CL2?
Nah.
Ain't that blue??
Should I B here long?
Lks lk U cn ctch
Cancer jst lkng.
Yummy corn.
Yucky quarry.
----<><><><>----
Summary.
A quick review: for anyone who doesn't
wanna read the whole e-zine.
(just call us Cliff Monarch)
Spastic, Plastic, Ballistic, Music,
Catholic, Metaphoric, Scientific,
Alphabetic, Sic.
***********************************************
This organization has *extremely* limited means
of publicity, and appreciates all e-forwards,
regular mailings, published advertisements,
radio announcements, etc, of our information.
*************** THANKS!!! *******************
