Babuji's Urs 2001
In my divine studio
What I have been working on is this:
Painting the Truth,
Revealing
A more realistic picture of God,
Tearing down the cruel walls
That separate you from the tenderness of Fire.
Someone must be withholding
The crucial lines
In all those stories you have heard of you
Friend,
For there is still too much fear
And pallor upon your cheeks,
And I rarely see you
In the marvelous Theater of Freedom.
Hafiz knows
You could not describe him
Even if we sat side by side on a caravan
For years,
Even if we slept close in my desert tent
And you became familiar
With the holy scent
That the sun and my Master leave
Whenever they visit me,
For something has happened
To your youthful passions,
That great fuel
You once had to defend yourself
Against becoming tamed.
And your eyes now often tell me
That your once vital talent to extract joy
From the air
Has fallen into a sleep.
All that you could ever say of me
Can only describe my camel's tail --
And that coarse hair
That is barely visible sometimes
On the left side of the moon's nose.
In my divine studio
Where I am sitting right now
Crafting your heart, lyre
And flute,
I long for the day when you will join me
In knowing
The extraordinary humor
And all the enchanting realities
Of the infinite performances
of
God.
(The Subject Tonight is Love -- versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
Today is the anniversary of the shot heard round the world, the Waco massacre, and the Oklahoma City Bombing.
It is also the maha-samadhi day of Mahatma Shri Ram Chandraji Maharaj of Shajahanpur, UP, India, the founder of Sahaj Marg, the natural path, aka the Shri Ram Chandra Mission. Though I never met this little man, though he left his body less than two months after I learned of his existence, though I am not currently practicing his method or sitting with his preceptors, he is still my Master, Babuji Maharaj, the Lord of the Universe. Master, Thou art the real goal of human life. We are yet but slaves of wishes putting bar to our advancement. Thou are the only God and power to bring us up to that stage.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled program...
AP via the Detroit News - Tax Blast targets IRS forms - In Bancroft Michigan, 64 miles northwest of Detroit, people paid $2 per shot to put 50 caliber holes in tax forms. What a rush, man. [market]
anonymous at free-market.net - Protesters Flooding the IRS with bogus 1040 tax returns - some evil libertarians are planning to flood the IRS with millions of bogus tax returns next year. We've got to stop them. Forward this story to everyone you know so that we can prevent it.
There's a new article in The Libertarian series by Vin Suprynowicz:
- "Restore released felons' rights -- all their rights" - let's stop
trying to catch political mice and get rid of the political elephants
in whose legs the mice are hiding. For example, the racist roots of
the wars on guns and drugs. And while we're at it, how come former
felons, who have paid their debts to society, aren't allowed to vote
or own guns? No reason at all except fear-mongering tyrannical
bureaucraps.
The importance of an armed citizenry for maintaining freedom and order in our communities was once so well understood in this country that virtually all Confederate veterans of the Civil War were allowed to carry their personal weapons home with them after the North accepted their surrender. These are men who -- from the point of view of the conqueror -- had just spent four years committing treason and armed insurrection. What felonies could be more violent than those?
NORML News Bulletin - Political Officials, Leaders to Call for an End to Marijuana Prohibition at "4/20" NORML Conference; Three-Day Forum Will Be Broadcast Live on Internet - I considered going to this year's NORML conference. They're finally calling for complete legalization. No more of this pussy-footing about medical cannabis. Yes! The conference is today through Sunday, April 19-22 in Washington, D.C. Featured speakers include Gary Johnson, Barney Frank, Ira Glasser, Terrence Hallinan, Ethan Nadelmann, Lester Grinspoon, John P. Morgan, Marsha Rosenbaum. I'll pass through D.C. Saturday evening if all goes according to plan. Maybe I'll stop for a while... The conference will be webcast. [market]
Heidi B. Perlman of AP via the Boston Globe - Governor of New Mexico urges end to war on drugs - nice to see some more press for Gary Johnson's ideas. [market]
"When it comes to drugs we need to say 'know' that's K-N-O-W," he said.
Rick Klein at the Boston Globe - Swift, facing cigarette move, pledges to veto tax increases - Jane Swift, the new governor of Taxachusetts, has pledged to veto all tax bills, including a proposed fifty cent per pack cigarette tax. Good for her. [market]
Bryan Appleyard at the Sunday Times Magazine via Cryptome - No Hiding Place - Privacy is dead in Great Britain. But Public Key Encryption helps. I only skimmed this, but it looks interesting. [cryptome]
Opera 5.10 is available. It has a bunch of new features including navigation by mouse gesture. I especially like the popup progress bar. [/.]
Joel on Software - Don't Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You - at some point, if you want to be useful, you've got to stop designing and start coding. Architecture Astronauts never stop designing. [latte]
Jabberview is back up!
Yesterday's Craig Burton tutorial covers channels in Radio. Dave Winer recommends it. I haven't watched it. [script]
I downloaded and read The WIZ last night. If you have any kind of technical interest in computer hardware or software, I highly recommend that you read this. Steve Bush'es Incredibly Simple Processor (ISC) looks to me like an Incredibly Good idea. Very very cool.
