h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Do you remember that woman who used to hangout at RCO saying how she really liked Lil and how the place was really going to hell after Rita and me started our things? I just remembered she was from New Zealand I think and had this thing about how racist she thought I was because I flipped off somebody when I was a kid.

I don't like to think of people as being all alike but it's sure starting to look that way. What is it with those kiwis anyway? Do you know?

Also, do you remember if she was ever really hanging out with Lil like she said? Somehow I'm getting the feeling that was sort of lie.

Analiese, I know you want often wish you were rid of a certain infestation, certain vermin; but, you and all of us of like mind must act immediately! Please!

Check what I posted at this link:

F19585?thread=249950

As for the NZers. I really enjoy that island paradise. I took all of the people there at face value.

They do seem a little simple, for lack of a better term. Sadly, I think the Euros there are sometimes closet racists, seems like most of the immigrants to the former southern colonies of England have a bent to that.

TSE seemed fairly harmless if a little airy to me. I'm not sure how 'close' see got to Shayna. Maybe she thought she had, but then she, like others from there may be a little simple.

On the other hand, I can say from my own experience, that you are at times really heavy handed, even though I am now certain that you are deeply hidden within yourself a very gentle soul. My own observation, take it as you will.

Let me know what you thought of the post at the link, soon!

I'll try to rein in my agenda about native rights for now in favor of saving the American commonwealth from itself, although sometimes I wonder why I should bother.

For example, if they strip me of citizenship, where will they send me back to, huh? I guess they'll just have to kill me then, which is of course always a risk anyways.

I hope you understand though that I'm not trying to erradicate any infestations of vermin. I'm trying to get a little justice concerning what was agreed to or what ought to have been agreed to regarding treaty rights including land and resources. That doesn't necessily involve exiling anyone or calling them vermin.

I can see though that by attempting to raise these issues in the forums relating to Iraq, for example, even though my point was rather transparent in that what was done and continues to be done to us is what is being proposed and being done in the middle east, has been mostly misinterpreted as a selfish promotion of an off-topic agenda.

I guess I can leave it here then from now on. Unfortunately, people usually don't want to talk about then, which is why I think they hardly ever talk at RCO. Unless it's introduced as part of another agenda, it gets virtually no exposure at all. That's a pity.

So I've failed in my purpose here. I wish it were different, but that's pretty much the story of my life. Easy to dismiss or marginalize, but sometimes asked to help out with the larger agenda. Maybe now you can see why I have maybe been a little "heavy handed at times".

Analiese, I hardly know you! I didn't think you'd ever show me your gentle side. Your post is clear and it is a pleasure to read it. You've not failed in your agenda, not at all. In all that manure that has been shoveled at you, there are, at the very least, a few little dung beetles, bright and shiny and busy in their work.

I only wish that we were an American commonwealth or even a true federation - in the basic sense of those words. In each of us, you included, there is a commonwealth of all who have contributed to what each of us is, by blood, by the gifts of sustance from those who passed before us in the area we live and grow in, by those who show us paths to knowledge ... you get the picture. Life is a very precious gift, one on which no value can be placed. It is important to continue to do good and not be overly concerned with consequences of such action.

As for your question, be sure, they will not hesitate for one little moment to aim a little lower, right at the middle of your face, and blow your life away. Then they may have your lifeless body but they will never have your obedience.

I saw your recent post on treaties. I agree with almost all you have presented - in a dispassionate manner most unlike any of what you have shared in the past; it can't have been easy for a creature of passion. At the risk of riffing with you again, I need to suggest to you that no one party - if we are honest and we wish to face the future together (and, I very sincerely believe that it is the only way if we wish to see humanity live on) - rather both parties must have equal status in how each item of what has been treated is treated.

Be certain, Wing, I do not ask that you renounce your sovereignty, or forget your ancestors, or accept crumbs from the table. I say that you can keep all these things even given that it is certain that the blood that flows in your veins and the sustenance that has made you today what you are, is the result of many and varied influences. In modern scientific terms even, this is so; in spiritual terms it is infinitely so. The future need is for greater unity and for justice. It is not so bad to allow yourself to merge with the world - importantly, without assimilating - it does not necessarily require giving up your identity and what is most precious to you, build on it and with it, instead. In your existance you are already the sums of many diverse parts. I think as you grow in understanding you will find that other ways of action and of being, ways that change presents to you, are well worth adapting to. For it is necessary that the surviving organism must evolve.

I do not think that you are racist if you remind certain people what the advent of their ancestors into our midst has done to us and to others in whose space they appeared - as if, from nowhere. Never will I say that any of the injustice that has been perpetrated is to be forgotten. It must be learned and remembered and it must be faced and eventually then, it may even be forgiven. What will allow such forgiveness to occur may be very different in nature for each of us.

Do you remember Shayna's words: one of her final wishes was along the lines of thinking globally. It is possible that the most effective actions we take are local - and, that may be where we start - but it is not necessary for us to limit all our actions to only one time and place and space. Indeed it is foolish to do so.

You are not easy to dismiss or to marginalize. You have the smarts to help like people - no, all people - towards a more compassionate and sharing future; don't allow yourself to forget this.

Talk to me.

I have a lot to talk to you about. Your thoughts are not something I can easily dispose of with a few well-crafted phrases. You're not a simpleton, which you probably already knew I think.

I don't even know where to begin because dealing in abstractions is not my greatest talent. I can deal with things much better in the form of stories.

So here's a story from this evening.

I went out on a date to the Museum of Science and Nature. There is an IMAX theater there which was showing a film called Space Station. Maybe you're familiar with it, but it was totally new to me.

This boy I went out with is a total space nut so he was quite ecstatic. I was quite astonished, mainly when I saw our mother on the four story high screen, round as a peach, mostly blue with a little brown and black and veiled with a wooly white blanket of clouds. Her awesome beauty enchanted me.

But all he could talk about was the men and women in that piece of junk circling in the void, reminding me mostly of a junked car as a matter of fact. It seemed like the abholstery had been torn off leaving bare metal and it looked so dingy.

They were even growing onions in plastic bags, not to eat but to have a little green around and they expressed gratitude for the portholes from which they could view our mother.

But at the same time though, they were waxing eloquently about the works of man, the various gadgets and experiments that were predicted to give us new medicines and faster computers. And one even talked about being detached from the earth. It seemed he couldn't wait to get away, to wander in the void and this piece of junk was the test bed for that.

This, as you might suspect, was a very radical idea for me to consider. I have a very difficult time understanding how anyone would want to foresake the beauty of our mother for the coldness of the void where the sun glowers angrily it seems.

Maybe that makes me immature but on the otherhand maybe these people are just foresaking their relations on the earth with all the associated problems so they can deal with relative simple stuff in orbit.

The international character was very apparent, but also very limited to engineering types, people imagining themselves spending months or years going to Mars. And what did they propose to do when they got there? I don't know. They didn't say. They acted like maybe that ought to be self-evident.

Curiosity then? I can appreciate that, but as they unloaded the shuttle transferring the cargo of hundred pound bags of water and other necessities, I noted with some alarm the size of the cargo bay and remembered reading how the shuttle was made so big because of some secret device the Air Force wanted carried into orbit. In some not so distant future, I wondered what secret device they might want carried to Mars and for what purpose?

So I left the theater with very mixed feelings, awed by the beauty I saw all at once for the very first time, but very very familiar nevertheless, but also troubled by the arrogance and negligence I suspect were being revealed to me, also for the first time in that context but also very very familiar for some reason.

I am not unacquainted with space travel. I have, for example, traveled to the moon and back several times, but this is something quite different than I've ever experienced. When I travel through space I'm never detached from our mother, but when these people travel, they are detached and seemed to enjoy it.

And this international cooperation that seems to characterize the project I'm thinking could be better applied to other matters. So why isn't it? I don't know why. Do you?

Anyways, I like this boy. I like his enthusiasm that seems so utterly guileless. Maybe in a little while I can share his excitement a little better, but right now, it troubles me a little because unlike him apparently, I'm not a child of the void.

the thing is that I can read so much from your stories or not at all, you know?

then, too, there is no such thing such as a perfect vacuum nor is absolute zero attainable ...

and, no mother is more proud then when her offspring becomes a mother or a father in her or his own right ...

... such a one is not forgetful of anscestry rather it is in them the advent of the ability to caringly concieve future generations in even the most adverse or unexpected of circumstances ...

... the ability to change, to evolve, finally, to survive.

I can see what you mean but I don't guess I see how space travel as currently conceived improves our chances of survival unless it would be in the visualizing of the earth as one world. What you do with that perception is a nother thing of course.

"a nother thing" ... did you mean 'a mother thing?"

Ana you promised me no dismissive well crafted phrases ... now, what it this? You are prolific everywhere but with me ... not?

Maybe, I think, it is the lifelong habit of being wary; it makes it difficult to think thoughts and express these that are not in some way antagonistic or challenging?

What an onion you are!

Well, what you say to me is not so clear either maybe. Do you read what you write to me?

Because sometimes I wonder. And I don't think I'm the only one who has problems interpreting what you write most of the time. So tell me why you're doing it so?

Suffering from the presence of an ego, I confess to re-reading my posts.

Being an avid student of human nature I re-read what has been sent at me as well. My imagination helps me see new vistas each time yet the context of the post is static; I however am not, just as you are not. I am fascinated nay enthralled by the infinity of ideas ... the combinations and permutations and interpretations and intentions.

What is it that you wonder, please be kind enough and tell me specifically, please. If you will do me the honor of taking the time - from all your more important activities, and I have no right on you, I grant, to ask this - and re-read what I have sent to you, I am certain you will know me better.

Why are you so wary of me, what could I possibly do to you, no ploys please. Then again I wonder what it is that causes me to even care. Perhaps it is that there _is nothing there and it is a mission impossible ...

I don't know what any of it means really.

"the thing is that I can read so much from your stories or not at all, you know?"

My stories are unclear then? Or that you don't read them at all?

"then, too, there is no such thing such as a perfect vacuum nor is absolute zero attainable ..."

My stories are imperfect? Or don't achieve a high or low extreme?

"and, no mother is more proud then when her offspring becomes a mother or a father in her or his own right ... "

Well, maybe so. You would hope so, but sometimes that isn't the case. So are you suggesting the intention for our mother?

"... such a one is not forgetful of anscestry rather it is in them the advent of the ability to caringly concieve future generations in even the most adverse or unexpected of circumstances ... "

Well, yes, maybe we continue to reproduce in bads times or good. Is that your point?

"... the ability to change, to evolve, finally, to survive."

Our parents conceive this ability for us? How so?

being a smart a** brat I see...!

okay, now that you've extended the exam period by re-reading one post, you'll understand that being just like you I need time too.

and how about you start taking off some of that armor? come on, take a step ... ya can't clap with one hand, or dance on only one foot though you can hop around.

I don't think I'm being a brat. More like rat as in I think I feel like a rat in a maze. Why do you think that is?

Damn woman, it has got to be hard to forever keep your shields up and your armor on!

You ain't a rat remember you're a wiz kid, I know you ain't forgotten that. So get off a that horsie, okay; be brave, walk a few steps alongside...

Here's a tangent, it'll tell you more about me, I'm a monkey according to the Chinese. How's that for exposure, hunhh!!

Okay, I'll try to answer your questions in sequence and as simply as I can and when I can't I'll say as much. I intend only to be honest and open. Please accept that. I ask that you will absorb what I've said and give me, in return, honest and sincere discourse. It will be disingenuous of you to merely throw my words back at me and very uncompassionate as well. It's the weekend, I know; but I believe you to be a merciful creature. It is my hope that you will un-bottle the quality of mercy that you so carefully hoard and keep hidden in the deepest, most unreachable place.

In my experience, sometimes, recounting an experience is extremely difficult and it is often more difficult for the listener to grasp the telling. I think of a caveperson, taken gently by the hand by a space traveler and put on a vessel from which the caveperson can see home (mother earth if you prefer) and the stars and the sun and the darkness of the open stretches of space. The caveperson is then returned to the time and place from which the journey began. How is the caveperson to recount to family and to friends what it is is that was witnessed in that absence or journey?

Your stories are clever; I've read many of them. I believe they are an outlet for you for the great deal of grief and anger and hurt that you are suffused with. I am afraid often that I don't get the point you are trying to make. Like seeing a diagram and attributing characteristics to it based on my own thought process that is the best I can do with them without knowing what you wish to convey if anything. I urge you to not allow hate to shrivel your heart and to respond with compassion whenever you can. I live by this. Don't give the adversary such control over your humanity.

Your stories are inaccessible in many ways. For me this is because these tales are so much of a place and an experience that it is hard for me an almost complete outsider to your own mind and to what molds your mind to understand them as you intend them to be understood.

As for vacuum, I was merely attempting to convey that 'void' is an imaginary concept just as is absolute zero; these are used to theorize in a science-based way about the nature of things. If the latter was reached there would be a complete cessation of all motion and the entire universe will, theoretically, collapse into nothing. But, 'nothing' is a whole other concept; don't ask me to write about it. Maybe someday will talk of it.

I am indeed suggesting that hope innate in mother.

I am saying that is not a bad thing to change and evolve and to take the next steps towards greater knowledge, maturity, understanding, to stand as a parent in our own right, to carry the sum of mother's and father's knowledge, to add to it, to continue to grow ourselves, even maybe humanity. I don't think it is bad to aspire to the stars; it is because I believe we are galactic stardust. I have no idea - given the extremely limited scope of our current understanding - of how to get there. The ISS, in my way of looking at it, is very much tied to mother's apron strings, open your mind just a little, I beg, and you will see it! To some however it may be the brightest, bluest star in the sky. I hope I'm not unclear and I hope you will not ridicule this!

Like you I too have been to the moon and travelled to the stars. There is a kind of yoga that teaches such. It does happen but it is rare and difficult but unbelievably beautiful thing. You might think this really far fetched but I have been able to put all of my body to sleep yet retained conciousness and taken a trip out, without the aid of any artificial or external input of any kind. My mother tells me of her own similar experience - from a few years ago - and the scream of her helper that brought her instantly back to herself.

As for change, every caring parent - especially the original one - hopes the child will do more, better, more gently and with a greater quality of mercy and benevolence than the generation that came before and will provide the circumstances to the best of their ability for the generations to come. It is not so much that we are created in God's image as some say, it is the breath of the creator the same that courses through us, in and out, that allows us to know where that omnipresence is in us.

I apologize for my tendency to add thoughts to thoughts and create extreme sentences a la Proust, though I humbly admit that I am _no Proust. If I seem some sort of hokey philosophe forgive it. You asked for honesty, now you have it. It is not a game. I will see now who you are, ARFw.

Thanks for your candor. I've got another story for you and then I'll explain some things about the issues you've raised, okay?

A New Day

The lone horseman approached the camp in the gray light of dawn. The sky was overcast and brooding. The horseman spied a campfire next to the big tent in the middle of the camp. Beneath the rain fly that protected the entrance to the tent, several soldiers stood waiting.

As the horseman demounted in front of the tent, he recognized the Colonel by the gold braid on his blowse.

"Good morning, Colonel McAllen," he said.

"Doctor Bogart?" the Colonel inquired.

"Indeed I am, sir, and it's a fine thing to be finally making your acquaintenance."

"As you say. How was your journey?"

"Uneventful, I'm happy report."

"That's good to hear. You received my letter then."

"Indeed, I did, sir, and read it with great interest I might add. I'm certain I can be of inestimatible service to you."

"I hope so, Doctor. I am not accustomed to be trifled with."

"Understood, sir. May I say, in my own defense, I have traveled the globe for years, a fervent student of human nature, especially that perversion of it we are accustomed to calling the 'savage temperament', and I can assure you, sir, you have solicited the right man for the job."

"Well, we'll see about that, won't we? What is your plan then?"

"Over the years I've discovered, to my great intellectual satisfaction, that savages are amenable to a relatively simple repertoire of appeals. They are after all most assuredly children and like children quite capable of molding towards maturity in skilled hands. They seek nothing more than simple joys and presents."

"I hope you are right about that."

"Oh, right indeed, sir. And I've wisely brought along my kit containing none other than Doctor Steno's High Potency Elixor, fully 120 proof I wager."

"Yes, I believe we used to call that, 'Oh Be Joyful'."

"Then you understand it's applications to enhancing conviviality?"

"I understand it makes them wilder than the wretched vermin they hunt."

"Indeed that were true but for the skilled hands of which I referred earlier, for I am a master of sophistication and nothing distracts the wretches like the miraculous. For you see, unlike us, they don't fear the universe. They are, in fact, mesmerized by it, and that is something we can use to our advantage."

"I'm not interested in philosophical speculations, Doctor. I am interested in compliance. Can you provide such a thing?"

"I can indeed, sir, and I might add in the most humane fashion imaginable. No need for timultuous violence for in my hands these creatures of clay can be kindly molded such that in time they may sore with the angels."

"I'll settle for them soring to the reservation without inordinant complaint."

"Ah, that should go without saying, sir."

"Very well, then. They'll be here directly, the chief and his bucks and usually a squaw or two the buggers bring as obscene tokens of peace intended I suppose to appeal to our baser instincts. I look forward to seeing your results speaking as eloquenly as your florid oratory."

"Not to worry, sir. Give me a place to stand and I can move mountains or bequile savages just the same or my name isn't Phineas T. Bogart."

And with that, the two men shook hands and settled down to wait in the cold air of dawn by the crackling campfire.

A few miles away, an old man greeted the rising sun and pondered what this day would bring for his people. He gazed into the eyes of those who accompanied him and silently nodded his head.

The girl thought, as she unshouldered her burden, that she saw his ancient eyes quiver a little.

"It will be alright, grandfather," she said.

"Yes, granddaughter, I know," replied the old man. "As long as you survive to bear children, and they in turn survive to do the same again and again, it will be alright, I think. I hope I have the power to make it happen today. And I hope I will not be fooled as they have fooled others."

"You're no fool, grandfather. Just smile at them and nod your head. They love to see you smile. It makes them think you believe their words. And I will smile too and walk proudly among them watching them watch me and wipe their lips."

"It's a bad time when our women become bait because our warriors can no longer defend them. I fear we can't win this, granddaughter."

"Don't worry, grandfather. We don't have to win. They have to win. We only have to avoid losing.

There is a man in their camp who possesses great knowledge but talks foolishness. With that foolishness he seeks to distract us. I've seen him in my dreams a little. I'll talk with him awhile, distracting him from his magic while you get the best for us that you can from that Colonel. But don't dispair.

We've dwelled in this land since before anyone can remember. And it's a hard land to make a living in unless you know what your doing. They don't know that. They probably never will, but someday, they'll learn little maybe or just go away like the others before them. Our mother earth will take care of us as she always has."

The old man nodded approvingly and walked toward the Colonel's camp, the others and the girl, shouldering her burden, following The sunlight fell on their backs, his warmth relieving the chill of the new day.

And the girl whispered, "Thank you, grandfather, for giving us another day."

This resembles many of my stories probably. It has a point, a moral as most stories should, but it leaves much to imagine, especially what might happen to the characters. In a way it asks that question of the reader who is in a way solicited for her or his opinion about what will happen.

It also contrasts the diverse ways of human beings, how they interact with the world and each other and how they evolve or adapt.

The story then shouldn't be considered an end but a beginning of discussion. I had hoped that discussion would happen here but it rarely does, which is sort of disappointing.

It's very difficult to provide a succinct summary of all thse stories. It's better to take them one at a time and discuss the meanings that each person sees in them.

We can consider the paths we followed to get here and the paths we might follow in the future. I can visualize those things a little better in the context of stories than in the abstractions you seem so fond of. However, I can also appreciate how you might be confused or frustrated by this way of doing it. That's why I think discussion of the specific story is important for you and me.

How else will we finally touch each other with trust? You have your riddles and I have my stories so maybe that's how.

But maybe now you see a little why I sometimes feel like a rat in a maze with you and how this feeling can sometimes generate distrust.

Your admission that you, like Doctor Bogart, are a student of human nature makes me wonder if I'm some sort of experiment for you, an anthropological specimen maybe. If so, I really don't feel comfortable with that.

Your sophistication reminds me of Phineas T. Bogart, that name a somewhat transparent version of a real man who once crossed the country in search of suckers to make him rich.

I'm not saying of course that you're such a man. I'm saying your expressions remind me of such a man, like many we've encountered through the years.

And I find myself in a whole city of such people everyday. So, yes, my guard is frequently up and with entirely good cause I think. I'm not that used to it yet. In time I might be as you are evidently.

So, if there's something specific you want to talk about, then let's talk about it and give the lurkers things to entertain or even educate them, what do you think?

First of all, let me thank you for gifting me two stories. In all your conversations I have not seen any other to whom you have been as generous. I put that beyond value and bow to you in appreciation. What you have given is from that quality of our ancestors that is, today, most often, forgotten; when it is remembered it is no less than a miracle - certainly, it is so to me.

I must confess I do not know who Phineas T. Bogart is or what it is that you are attempting to tell me with the use of that name. I know Phineas Fogg and I know H. Bogart and I’ve heard the song with the memorable verse, “… don’t bogart that joint my friend, pass it over to me …” but; this name escapes me and even a quick set of queries. Now, then, there is in me the thought that this use is intended as a trial balloon, or a provocation, maybe an insult; I feel you are wish to see how I respond so one of several possible scenarios, all ready in your mind, can take precedence and inform you in your future truck with me - should you continue to want to do so.

But, that brings to mind another conundrum in what you have posed to me in your last post. I think, and this is an intuition, that I am talking not just to one person anymore but to at least two. You may dismiss this or you may tell me why this might be. Whatever your answer may be, and indeed it is possible that there will be no answer – just as so many times before - it will be, for me, in the final analysis, okay. It does not mean I will cease to be curious it is that I am be able not to feel stifled.

The terms of engagement you propose are cold indeed. At so young an age, have your 'skin' and your instincts really become so scarred and healed, so scarred and healed, so hoary, that you will not allow a window into your soul? Be sure, you are not an experiment for me, if in no other sense than at least in the sense that I am not an experiment for you. That is not say that our meetings and our presence itself is not a modest experiment; I believe, that, especially as we are creatures possessed of free will, that it may indeed be so.

Analiese you are fond of reminding me, and all other comers, of how long you have been a child of the earth that you have been here longer than memory can remember. I respond: time will always tell. As for me, I have been here as well, I have lived for a very long time in cities, I have been a sojourner in the fields, going past streams, across many deserts, through countless mountain passes; I’ve not only spoken but I have written in language and carefully archived it for others to see so that it will serve as, maybe, some token aid to memory and as a guide to future action. I’ve been recording and learning and attempting to share knowledge.

As for this present personal narrative the end of which is, at this time, these words, it began some decades past in the area of the inland seas of this continent, it gained recognized individual existence on the other side of the planet, it was nourished in many different places there, then moved closer to the lands where the white people are in greatest strength, thence back to where it had been earlier, then called by some unexamined pull in stages back to this continent and to the place closest to a vast body of water (perhaps it was the constituent dirt of my corporeal existence that called for reunion), from here the narrative has gone hither and yon in all ways (not however to the poles or to the extreme southern ends of this land mass) but I feel blessed in that it always returned.

I want to talk, specifically, to _you, not a chimera, shimmering through a veil, hidden behind a diaphanous fog….

Spring is not so far away ... will you invite me to mamá-kwa-nhká-pu?