Drink from me and live forever: the case for Vampire Jesus.

Reblogged from Consider the Tea Cosy:

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I know that you lot are used to getting scintillating, intellectually challenging, and delightfully witty posts from me here at the Tea Cosy. Which is why, today, I'm dealing with one of the most pressing issues of our time. One of the major misunderstandings of the (Western) world. Something that affects us all.

I'm referring, of course, to what is traditionally referred to as Zombie Jesus Day.

Read more… 939 more words

#DelhiProtests: 336% Spurt in #Child #Rapes in #India and #Police #Violence

Reblogged from THE 50 MILLION MISSING CAMPAIGN BLOG ON INDIA'S FEMALE GENDERCIDE:

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April 20, 2012

Like with the December 2012 Delhi gang rape protests, once again there is an angry public rocking India's capital.  Last week a 5-year-old girl was kidnapped, held hostage for 2 days by two adult men, and repeatedly gang-raped and sexually tortured with all kinds of objects, like candles and bottles, inserted inside her.  Then the rapists tried to kill her by slashing her throat.

Read more… 593 more words, 1 more video

Please help spread support against "child" rape! --I was raped when I was just fifteen years old!

Moxie supper related websites

Moxie supper related websites.  Please visit as often as you can!  Moxie Supper thanks you –deliciously!

Moxie supper related websites

Please also visit (a primary limited fork website) http://www.4orkology.com

Please also visit a t-shirt website visit: http://www.lex97.com/

http://www.4orked.com (a flash-based site) A flash-based site is here.

http://www.moxiesupper.blogspot.com

For adventures in sonic experiences and many free sonic downloads, based on a presentation at
Vassar College, go here

Also visit here –another forkergirl typepad blog (a forkergirl typepad blog)

Please try these limited fork podcasts:

limited fork podcast

limited fork music

limited fork video anthology

–and http://www.forkergirl.tumblr.com

And please check out my i-petition at:

http://www.ipetitons.com/petition/creative-writing-in-art-design/

–free to sign! the company hosting the petition may ask for donations, but YOU DON’T HAVE TO GIVE! Please help spread the word! –The Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design should also offer form of Creative Writing! –students should be able to choose traditional writing platforms: English! –or something more “. Please repost, reblog! Anything you can do will help move this machinery! –that often serves to stifle creativity espoused!

Why BIFURCATE?

Interacting is risky because of exchange of information, some of which might change views held when entering the interaction.  if you want to safeguard your thinking, try not to expose that thinking to other ideas; if you have answers, and doubt that anything else might have answers necessary to your thinking or what you try to do, avoid interacting where you will leave behind bits and pieces of your ways of doing, while picking up from what become a partner in interaction, bits and pieces of information that you can –will– spread as you continue to bifurcate, each time temporarily connecting with something, giving and receiving information, perhaps changing what you think you know.

OUTLIVING CHILDREN (acknowledging that Earth is one of this Universe’s Children)

OUTLIVING CHILDREN (acknowledging that Earth is one of this Universe’s Children)

Very sad indeed for parents to outlive their children.; Something happens to the generations that should not. My paternal grandmother outlived most of her ten children, and for a while, it looked as if my mother might outlive her only child. Fortunately for her, i’m still here alive and ready to try to accomplish more than ever (ideally driving). If not, there are other ways to assert a meaningful presence. For me: limited fork ways.

With all the (rather frequent) tornadic events in the US in 2012, such outliving must be more common, if not more natural. Wars contribute to this dreadful phenomenon –our DNA supports conflict, or we’d have evolved without it. I feel like adding my tears to buckets and barrels of tears –not that my additional tears would help anything, but I still crave such addition –some form of math seems involved, so far, with everything, not that human forms of math are the best or only forms, but as part of humanity, I will continue to submit to them. I must rely, as I’ve always done, on human senses, the only senses I have –even humanity’s instruments improve what humanity can see, hear, touch, etc. I need an equation for tears, but when I add tears, I just get more tears. I do fear that there might not be enough fresh water (or food for populations of Earth, and I do not feel that humans are not more deserving of food just for being human –I doubt that, were other animals in charge, the Earth would be experiencing this decline this fast –some of my assumptions surely show here), and tears tend to be incredibly fresh when produced, so my tears –they aren’t too salty to be fresh– can add a minuscule amount. I can’t cry enough for everything. And looping bifurcating systems may not offer enough to constitute salvation –even if all possible loops are formed. Million of forks, for no reason but to make art that possibly no sentient one will see. Not that humanity’s seeing it makes it any more splendid (note the assumption of splendor –humanity’s Hubble space telescope did not make things easier for me; increased, actually, an accessible amount of splendor.

A time may come when dependence on tears could make a life/death difference –not a splendid difference.

I definitely do not wish to outlive my son. He must go on to live a full life, one that rewards him with joy (however he eventually defines joy). ;what ;successes, generations –if the world lasts long enough. I am optimistic that the Earth will/can endure. For my son, and sons of my sons. Surely, I hope long enough for his life to matter to more people than me. But then again, I am not promoting an afterlife such as what I was taught about so long ago. My mother still insists that her Christian beliefs are the correct beliefs. But I think that what is thought to be known (what I’ve been taught, and what I’ve observed at planetariums and through telescopes [I've been ruined, it seems, by Hubble]) about the universe and the solar system cause me to doubt her beliefs. She tells me that the prayer chains she initiated while I was hospitalized affected my outcome –I cannot say with certitude that all that praying did not help, but I wonder about what happens to the body; decomposition seems quite likely to me. Houdini did not return, and I believe that he would have had return been possible. Humanity’s atoms may become available for next forms of life, assuming Earth can continue to sustain life as we’ve known it –not because we have dominion over other lifeforms, but because

I hope we have a chance to improve the earth, to try to return it to some of what it was like during days before greed –that benefitted a few, not everyone– helped to deplete the planet of finite resources. I do not think that we have suffered through all that will have to be endured before planetary decline can be halted or, better, reversed. Maybe it’s too late for reversals. Maybe humanity does not deserve reversals. But I also don’t want belief systems of humanity to perish –all that believing must not have been for naught. Surely. I don’t want human generations to have an abrupt ending, but such an ending may be inevitable. There is interconnectedness among species. As insects and amphibians, for instance, meet demise, lifeforms dependent on those insects and amphibians may perish from those extinctions. Not to mention possibilities of asteroids and comets that may have deposited building blocks of life on Earth –comet Gods, I guess.

I’m not sure how my grandmother coped with being here after so many of her progeny (she had ten children, outlived all but three) were gone, returned to earth her husband tilled for so many years. A southern farmer. She outlived him too. I used to play with their geese, many of which were as tall as I was. He was dead already; never knew him except for what survived in my father and what was passed on to me through him. I’ve passed along some of what I received genetically to my son. Half. Lately, I’ve been impressed that everyone alive now has roots that extend to the first people on this planet. This seems to offer a truth no matter what is believed, creationism or evolution –of course, I thought that Darwin also offered a truth, seriously questioned by the Scopes Monkey Trial –in Tennessee, of course, where my father grew up and met my mother who now rejects everything I was taught in Cleveland, Ohio public schools, but not what I was taught in Sunday school. She is converting the garage into a church (it is not going to become the dolphin tank that my father promised, except in dreams and imagination that would not be mine had he not made the promise). My mother was always with me while my father stayed home, often on the second floor porch, watching, once, me by his side, a funnel cloud form above the church just a few yards away. True Vine. My son was not raised in church as I was; he was raised more to be a free thinker, encouraged to form his own ideas based on what made the most sense to him, and it is not organized religions. This exclusion from church has helped him rely more on logic –another human invention. How can humans not rely on human knowledge systems? Are we not surrounded by what humanity has made, whether for the detriment (according to someone’s assessment) or improvement (according to someone’s assessment) of human lives? Are we not primarily concerned with what may happen to people? Animals primarily as pets and food –for humans? I think of zoos, though I’ve visited many, as comparable to what happened in slavery, the captures that separated families –when animals are captured (I won’t even talk about what happens to animals raised to be human food –no other purpose, the most noble purpose, according to Babe, book by Dick King-Smith, screenplay by George Miller and Chris Noonan –I do eat meat, the sanitized [relatively] forms purchased in supermarkets, relying on others to do the killing and butchering and packaging for me. I do like tastes of meat, and I do experience misgivings about being the carnivore I am, criticizing no carnivore for their carnivore ways –that I share). There is hypocrisy here –how can there not be? I am human– I’ve admitted to eating meat, but I’ve rejected organized ;religions (many of which restrict the eating of meat to certain animals under certain conditions [of preparation] without outright prohibiting such consumption). I do not know all of what Buddhism teaches about the eating (or the not-eating) of meat, (go here http://mingkok.buddhistdoor.com/en/news/d/18354 for more info), but I reason that we should, even thinking of limited fork tenets, show more compassion toward other animals to whom this planet belongs just as much as to humans. I don’t accept biblical teachings of humanity’s dominion over other animals or over the world –planet. Exceedingly difficult for me to do that. Other animals may not have been as destructive as humans have been. I seem to take more outrage against those who are not free- thinkers than against carnivores; perhaps because I also think that meat-eating free- thinkers may have reasoned that eating meat is acceptable –I am from a family of carnivores, the human family as well as my personal family (my son was vegetarian until ninth grade and a field trip to Chicago where he ate a burger for the first time).

I don’t know whether or not the sacrifice of the cow entered his mind (he is a member of Mensa –not that that membership means he is more or less likely to eat meat; he’s also a member of the human family, and, as I’ve said, we haven’t performed particularly well, given our responsibility for the planet –we are the planet’s [self-appointed --made in God's image, according to many, including my mother] caretakers). A willing or forced sacrifice? What do we know or understand about cowness? How many of use have really tried to listen to what cows or other animals (including humans) might have to say? Does this understanding or lack of understanding really matter? As humanity runs out of what humanity, in any of its forms, considers food, perhaps this (and similar questions) will be answered. It doesn’t really matter which questions are raised or attempted to be answered according to human ways of processing information –biblical or otherwise acquired– ways of determining which questions to ask in search of a truth accepted by all with liberty and justice– hmm; I’ve heard that before. Even had to recite that daily to get the “A” that I wanted (from the Declaration of Independence –not a declaration of free-thinking). ;

Hello to my Tol…

Hello to my Toledo Friends  Let us bifurcate together and dine on wonderful ideas; we will bifurcate above and below ground, rather like trees, anchored with roots that cling and spread in soil while our branches spread even between dimensions, temporarily connecting them –I don’t think that any connection is or can be permanent; that is one reason that we must eat again and again (ideally stopping when we feel full, even though the fullness is temporary.  

         We will hunger again.

Please think, if you don’t mind, for a moment of ceiba trees, or of any tree you have liked –forgive me, please, for assuming that there is a tree you’ve liked.  Each tine of the limited fork also functions as a root and/or a branch and may curve, circle, disappear for a while, temporarily connecting things, possible even snagging something tasty, something possibly nourishing, something that can be ingested –maybe without harm(ing us), but what is ingested will change during this process, and we may change, so the temporary connections is also a means of exchange: we give something and we receive something;  we may not realize immediately that we are different, but we are.

(more legacies of) Slavery

More Legacies of Slavery

Slavery was (is) so much like what has happened (is) happening with credit now –to credit and to citizens. Credit card companies own (most) of us. Every day, my inboxes fill with offers to provide me with credit scores, and/or additional cards. Switch! (I’m encouraged). To speed up shopping, link a card to your account, tap and go! Meanwhile, those at the top are getting richer and richer, and those at the bottom seem to get poorer and poorer, resulting in a vanishing middle class. The gap between the top and the bottom is widening –I hope you like what you’re born into, because moving out of one designation and entering another will be difficult (at best). As I write this, I’m recalling when (some, not all) women got the right to vote –not as impressive to me, perhaps because of (some of) slavery’s legacy: seemed just right for women, from that tradition as its women had always worked –after all, slavery was an (economic) path to getting labor done –an economic path with racial barometers and barriers. For enjoyment, I read When They Were Girls; the they included Clara Barton and, a personal favorite: Susan B. Anthony. Perhaps because of my father’s pale coloring, that book was magical to me, anything that applied to him, I figured (still do) also applied to me, but I was wrong (still wrong) about that. I failed to understand that Susan might not be working on my behalf. She (in pictures I’d seen) and my father were a similar color
–they looked the same.

I come from a household in which my mother and father always worked, so it was not strange to me to be left at home, alone, while adults worked –no matter the job, I was left to my own devices, usually reading and writing till my parents returned. I started writing at age six. The legal right for women to vote was granted in my mother’s country (also mine) in 1920, via the nineteenth amendment to the US constitution. But as a woman of color, she had to wait longer to exercise that right. Slavery, in essence, was extended (even to now). Post-reconstruction America, was not a hospitable place for the variety of citizens that lived here, then and that live here now. Please read more about the USA’s history of low tolerance for racial equality here: (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2957.html). Read more about some of the history of black exclusion from home ownership via exclusion from bank loans here: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage_discrimination).

–such reading can help to change a mind (such as mine) about affirmative action (which has probably) helped me, and is probably still helping me: as I think about policies based on (or rooted in) medical discrimination, especially against those with physical and/or mental abnormalities and/or anomalies. While not at the bottom, I don’t believe (except for perhaps in remembering –no more mental math team for me, I guess!) I am not at the bottom, either. I can still both teach and write, but with more compassion for those excluded from these ranks. I am a better person (seems better to me) because of what I’ve survived, and the ways in which this survival is manifesting itself. (–would be better, perhaps, if not for the banks.)

I do feel enslaved to banks –and to credit card companies (who really own me). My car is mine, however, paid for in its entirety (but, being a 2004 Nissan, the car does require maintenance, that I must pay for –often with a credit card, so until that amount is paid off, I suppose I don’t really own my car –and as balances get too low for the lien holders, I get offers to go into more debt, possibilities of reverse mortgages, etc. (now that the house is nearly paid for) and a general lack of empowerment for me who is not a corporate leader, who owns no valuable stock, and who is not invited to the meetings where decisions are made. I pass nothing on any sides of tables (but I do have to report injuries, –my prior medical conditions– when asked by companies about to make some decisions I’ll have to try to live with –oh my numbered days!)

There was a time after slavery ended when blacks still had no rights, still lived without any real ownership of their lives, couldn’t make legal decisions that would be upheld wherever they went –even within the country, south to north, east to west, etc. (Still a problem for the bi/multiracial and the gays & lesbians in various parts of the world.) Religions have made acceptance more difficult, not easier. It seems logical, for instance, to construct a brown Jesus. Would He not be the color that people from that part of the world tend to be? Our recent enemies from Iran and Iraq? Brown –a dominant skin tone (darker than my own father). The most violent forms of aggression against minorities seem to have ended or seem to be ending. There will, likely as long as there are people, be pockets of violence filled with people who take out their fears and animosities on others. An end of aggression is not upon us, despite turning the other cheek. It seems likely that lynching was an outcome of the end of a terrible system that persisted in the new world longer than anywhere else –and now enslaves us all. My maternal grandfather was murdered, perhaps lynched –this isn’t talked about much; hardly ever mentioned. His absence has been felt; however. He is enigmatic; a person of imagination, not memory. And he is one of my antecedents. Incredibly shadowy –as a lynched figure would have to be.

I am beholden to companies with lots of money, bank wads (–I know that Nene is rich, but I don’t know Nene–), the ones really responsible for my having the stuff I consider mine (could be stolen at anytime –hope not, however). Some of it, I’ve had so long I no longer fear a corporation taking repossession of it (again: could be stolen at any rime, but then wouldn’t be mine tom worry about theft might help get me off the grid where none of this would matter, including blogs and websites –where servers are maintained by others, including the corporation –what I consider my work depends on them).
The house (in need of repair), provided I can hold onto my job for (at least) another five years, will be ours (I’ve been married almost 40 years) –no more mortgage then! Some (all Jehovah’s Witnesses) of my friends –one of whom would have made a superb French teacher, were not supposed to go to college because the world was supposed to end before their graduation –in the eighties. But the world is still here for now –I don’t know for sure –who does; even those who claim to know have based this knowledge on human perception –which remains problematic. For how much longer, no one can say with certainty (–this planet is as vulnerable as any other cosmic object); and right on Earth, we’ve got climate change and its effects (poor polar bears), those wayward asteroids and possibly a return of a comet that took out the dinosaurs (the Earth does indeed have some craters. Click on this link for a list, each item of which is also clickable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impact_craters_on_Earth). It shows, what I believe from what I was taught and what I’ve been exposed to (what I haven’t been exposed to has not had an opportunity to influence me, but if LFT is correct, then such opportunities might have a chance to occur before what we believe is here –according to unreliable human perception– is gone).

Of course, we are capable of annihilating ourselves (hydraulic fracturing may assist with a process of annihilation –but may not– contribute to an ultimate demise that seems rather definite to me. I doubt that humanity will last forever (Limited Fork Theory is all about strategies of doubting; connections could be made in doubt as well as in affirmation). So far, lasting forever has not been a tendency of any terrestrial inhabitants –why would it/should it be different for humanity? For human beings? I don’t think that we are special, no more so than anything else alive. Aren’t we just parts of other species in a long chain of life? Chain is significant, I hope, calling to (some) minds those chain gangs –and a song by Sam Cooke, released on an album: Wonderful World –an album where the rights belong to (Cooke’s first single for RCA):

The Corporation.

Clicking on this link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_Gang_(song)) will take you to more info about the song. There are, of course, other songs about chains, but the focus is on the song named.

Click on this link (http://gerryspence.wordpress.com/category/corporate-slavery/) to read more about how we are corporate slaves –slavery that is a part of, it seems, citizenry (in this democracy –built-in slavery, built-in like appliances also made by corporations. One of the flaws of democracy, that many of us think of a form of (political –to differentiate it, as much as possible, further from religious) salvation. Our money does say: in God we trust.

Sharecropping

Quite an insidious system. You never own your little agricultural plot; takes an incredibly long time to buy off your family. You’re encouraged to plant, plow, harvest, but progress is difficult (at best) to measure. This link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharecropping takes you to more about sharecropping as Wikipedia reports it (I like how Wikipedia is an aggregate, relying on the knowledge and accountability of users –I see no reason not to trust this user-based system of info dissemination –I’ve been taught to trust the Bible and encyclopedias –Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but one that constantly accepts info as info become available; it self-corrects, and expands, grows as humanity grows, –is as trustworthy as humanity is– Wikipedia bifurcates, is a bit of LFT in action). Cotton enters here (again): the touch and feel. The fabric of our lives. Please visit http://www.lex97.com and watch the T-shirt skeletons movie, on the website: lex97 and on YouTube: the forkergirl channel.

Whitney’s Gone…but I’m still here

Whitney’s gone, but I’m still here
(hoping to take advantage of this gift)

(–maybe the world needed or wanted Whitney more –
but she is gone, and I remain to do what I can –but I can’t sing as she did, certainly not at the peak of her career in the 80′s and early 90′s, but perhaps I’ll do what I can –what more or else? I expect to fall short, human that I am without choice or argument).

Whitney’s gone

(but I’m not, not that our lives should be conflated;
I would disappear without fanfare or even notice beyond my family & employer, maybe a few friends from neighborhoods where I’ve lived; a handful of doctors who may still wonder a bit exactly who I am/was).

What should I do with this “extra” time that is mine
–not that I really believe that I have “extra” time;
I don’t think my time on earth has lengthened; I don’t think that suddenly I have skills previously lacking, but I can see (a little) more of my son –I hope at least another 20 years though the world may be gone, and I may have entered another dimension presently (though not necessarily forever) inaccessible from here. Perhaps climate changes will make the planet inhospitable to life as humanity has known it and has come to expect it (with some religious-based differences).

Will there be enough food and and clean, fresh water?
Something that has led to me has been here since life on Earth began, so I may have descendants who will struggle to survive (along with all other lifeforms), but the easy ride (fortunately, humanity did not have to share this world with dinosaurs, but recent work suggests –pretty much confirms for me– that birds are descendants of dinosaurs and that some of these past lizards may have been feathered –the male t-Rex may have been quite a bit more familial –caring, involved with rearing young
t-rexes, etc. He may have stayed with the nest, protecting it, decorating it, etc). He may have been one of the early gardeners.

I don’t know what kind of gardener Whitney was (or in more time would have become).

I am not (never have been) noted for my gardening. I did receive a small plot to care for long ago as part of the Moses Cleaveland school gardening program). My mother has performed more admirably with plants; she deserves an award from me (my father is no longer here to award her personally, but she believes she’ll be reunited with him –and with all others who have departed
–including Whitney and the dinosaurs).

Hunger in the World!

Hunger is a major problem in the world. Many are hungry without awareness from parts of the world where food seems not to be a problem, is even thrown away without anyone attempting to consume it. Parents –or rather– my mother would tell me to think of the starving children in Africa,as if that would make me clean my plate.

The Huffington Post reports Hillary Clinton as saying this about hunger.

This morning, one billion people around the world woke up hungry and tonight, they will go to sleep hungry. This issue has not gotten the attention it deserves, and it is a personal priority of mine and of the Obama Administration to address the challenge of chronic hunger with a very high level of focus and dedication.

Hunger is not only a physical condition. It is a drain on economic development, a threat to global security, a barrier to health and education reform, and a trap for the millions of people worldwide who work from sun-up to sun-down every day to produce a harvest that often doesn’t meet their needs.

Today at the World Food Prize ceremony at the State Department, I am honoring Dr. Gebisa Ejeta, who has transformed farming in many parts of the world and saved millions of lives by identifying varieties of a key African crop resistant to drought and specific types of weeds.

We have the resources to give every person in the world the tools they need to feed themselves and their children. So the question is not whether we can end hunger. It’s whether we will.

The Obama Administration is committed to providing leadership in developing a new global approach to hunger. We will look to 7 guiding principles to support the creation of effective, sustainable farming systems in regions around the world where the current methods aren’t working:

We will seek to increase agricultural productivity, by expanding access to quality seeds, fertilizers, irrigation tools, and the credit to purchase them and training to use them.
We will work to stimulate the private sector, by improving the storage and processing of food and improving roads and transportation so small farmers can sell the fruits of their labor at local markets.
We are committed to maintaining natural resources, so the land can be farmed well into the future. That includes helping developing communities adapt to climate change, which has had a major effect on the world’s farms.
We will expand knowledge and training by supporting R&D and cultivating the next generation of plant scientists.
We will seek to increase trade so small-scale farmers can sell their crops far and wide.
We will support policy reform and good governance, because sustainable agriculture flourishes in a clear and predictable policy and regulatory environment.
We will support women and families. 70% of the world’s farmers are women, but most programs that offer farmers credit and training target men. This is unfair and impractical. An effective agricultural system must have incentives for those who do the work. And it must take into account the particular needs of those whose futures will shape our world: our children.
These seven principles will guide us and help us set benchmarks to measure the impact of our efforts. We are committed to collecting data, assessing our progress, and when necessary, correcting our course.

Supporting sustainable agriculture won’t be a side project of the Obama Administration. Attacking hunger at its roots will directly impact whether we meet our foreign policy goals and I invite each and every one of you to join this effort.

__________________________
However, knowledge alone has not/will not/can not save us.
Knowledge includes religion.

If hungry people know more about agriculture, that knowledge may help alleviate some of their hunger. Seeds, fertilizer, maybe even soils may be needed to improve who, where, and how food grows. What, however, will make these agricultural areas sustainable? Does this idea take into account what may be happening? say, if global warming is in progress now? Are not polar bears running out of space to live as they are accustomed to live? in the north, meeting once again the grizzlies that may be responsible for the emergence of polar bears —ancestors of polar bears? The grizzpos, and polies that result from some of these meetings, new breeds forced into existence as the earth warms to temperatures not exactly hospitable to humanity, closer to the ways to was before humanity emerged, eventually to dominate for a while.

How far north will insects travel? Will birds that currently migrate south during northern winters stay in Michigan year-round? Will we take more interest in eating what presently is not considered food? Food is not universal anyway; what’s eaten in one location may not be (readily) eaten in another location –I think a bit of Bourdain, and Zimmern
We do tend to be food snobs.

And Then there’s the matter of our own star, the sun that will stop shining one day, (not scheduled till long after anyone alive now is gone).