From the Shambles

Inside Ground Zero
I was amazed this week seeing once again that only 3300 people officially died in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. This happened at 3 minutes before nine o'clock in the morning; this was a place where 50,000 people could at any one time be working, most having to be at their workstations by nine o'clock. I am awed that 47,000 people got out of the 3 huge buildings that eventually fell. I never heard much about what it was like underneath those buildings--in the subway tunnels, in the walkways beneath the WTC, in the stores, shops, and eateries under there that did some of their biggest business at breakfast. 3300 people doesn't sound bad at all; compared to the 2450 US soldiers having been killed in Iraq. Also, an estimated 110,000 Iraqis have died there. That's 112,450 (and this doesn't include deaths in the Coaliton of the Insane troops--British, Italians, Polish, et al.), in revenge for this attack that only took 3300 lives. We forget Afghanistan; the figures over there are hard to find. Seems 35,000 pops up a lot as the estimated Afghanies who had to die in revenge for what "Osama bin Ladin" supposedly did to us to scare the hell out of us; that's what terrorism is intending; the "president" says this is a war on terrorism; therefore, I assume We the People of the United States are living in constant terror, which seems to be exactly how we're supposed to act, according to Braveheart Georgie Porgie the Photo-Op King of men who have never been elected president. People I've met who lived around Ground Zero in New York are more terrorized by the still foul air down in that area of the city than they are of another terrorist attack. These were the people who were told by the honest, almost-a-saint, rich-bitch, Christie Todd Whitman, who with a sweet smile on her face, that the air was sweet as her bank account and fresh as a daisy, no toxicity, no asbestos, no strange bacteria. (So why are you wearing a gas mask, Christie?) Now people are suffering the consequences of their being told the lie that they could go back to their fouled apartments as soon as they did, some of them before their apartments were even cleaned. Apartments in that part of downtown Manhattan were flooded in dirt and dust after 9/11. God knows what was in that matter that boiled through that area that day. God knows what people were breathing for months after this scary but actually more awesome than scary attack on New York City. The mealy-mouths who pulled this off, this handful of sexually drained, still half-drunk, bird-brained mostly Saudi diehards who barely knew how to fly paper airplanes much less huge jetliners, managed to put these big planes through extraordinary maneuvers to get them in such exact alignment to hit those towers where they did--hitting in about the same area of both buildings--and now, if we're to believe our dear sweet honest FBI's videos of that so-called "plane" hitting the Pentagon, the way this same bunch flew this plane into the Pentagon seems just flat-out aeronautically impossible; that huge jetliner, going 600 mph, and these Saudi flopheads flew that big son of a bitch coming in less than ten feet off the ground and straight levelly into this short-story structure, a hit so totally exact it erased any evidence of an airplane; it erased body parts, flesh, blood, clothes, even erased luggage and paper goods; it even erased human crap and piss! I couldn't write such an extraordinary story even if I were drunk as William Faulkner when I tried to.
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Where Idolatry Comes From
Alfred North Whitehead says, "The two most obvious characteristics of Nature, writes Lytton Strachey [from his thoughts on the poetry of William Blake], are loveliness and power. The beauty dawned later upon human intelligences than did its power. Also in early phases of thought the powers of nature became the minds of Nature--minds bestial, ruthless, and yet placable. In all stages of civilization the popular goods represent the more primitive brutalities of the tribal life. The progress of religion is defined by the denunciation of gods. The keynote of idolatry is contentment with the prevalent gods." Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, Macmillan, 1967.
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Depression as a Way of Life
I can see an utter depression overtaking us all in our crystal-ball futures. Could you survive in a life of total depression? How long would you live if you were depressed from birth and taught depression as a way of life? In "low" school, not "high" school. "Best dressed and most depressed" kid in the most depressing school. The school teams who lost the most would be the champion losers. There would be no cheers only lamentations. Wars even are to lose for being put into slavery is a hell of a great state of depression. How depressed can you get? Or does a slave get so low there is no more depression?

Might be a yowling place to live this City of Total Depression, madmen running to and fro as if busy with an important business that is nothing but more insane decisions to be even more insane than just before that insane decision was insanely decided upon to be insanely vetoed so a more depressing decision is forthcoming. I am trying to write like a depressed person. Like Edgar Allen Poe waking every morning. I can't do it; no matter the insanity, I can't get depressed. I grew up in war so war was fun for me as a kid. I loved bombing the enemy with my toy airplanes that carried little wooden bombs and I would swoop my little air force down on the innocent and guilty of my enemy capital city--and blow them all the way to the Hell they originated in. There was nothing depressing in winning a war. That's a time for rejoicing. But losing a war, like we are doing in Iraq at this moment; like we are doing in Afghanistan at this moment. The news casts report sadness but they always end on total jocularity. Ever noticed that? Not in the City of Depression. All news ends with utter breaking down. Going madly off into a fading teevee breakdown, a degenerating of colors to boil down to utter depressing greys, greys of all shades, deepening into the blankest of the most depressing color there is, that which is totally empty of color, the color of tears.

A Great Story of From Ultimate Comfort to Total Self-Willed Depression
His name was Nathaniel Bentley (1735-1809) and where he lived in Leadenhall Street came to be known as the Dirty Warehouse. Raised in wealth and comfort, dressing to the nines, frequenting the tailors, jewelers, and druggists of Paris for his clothes, accessories, and perfumes and hallucinagens, he was so natty he became respectfully known as the "Beau of Leadenhall Street." All of a sudden, from out of nowhere, though it was said to be due to a shunt from a woman he tried to love, his lifestyle changed 360 degrees and he fell into such miserly squalor his "Beau" title changed to the handle "Dirty Dick." He owned a hardware store, which he allowed to become so contaminated it became a famous place known for its thick dirt and odiferous decay. After Bentley's death some of his more sordid and filthy possessions were taken to Bishopsgate to decorate the famous London drinking establishment Dirty Dick's, the proprietor naming the joint after Nathaniel "Dirty Dick" Bentley.
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A Statement From the Gestaltists
"When expression is overt, there normally is a release of pent-up energy--for instance, the seeming lethargy of depression will, if unblocked, be replaced by what it concealed and held in check: raging or the clonic movements of sobbing." Perls, Hefferline, Goodman, Gestalt Therapy, Dell Publishing, Delta Book, 1951 You gotta love "the clonic movements of sobbing." Sobbing is very popular in the City of Total Depression.
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Great Baseball Was Had By All
I don't how many people care, but I just saw two of the most exciting baseball games I've ever seen, the Yankees playing the Mets the last two days at Shea Stadium Holy Gestaltism, both games were lopsided then tied, then pitcher-dueled into extra-innings then one hit winning the game. It was the Mets's David Wright who hit the walk-off winning double Friday when the Mets beat Mariano Rivera and the Yankees. Aaron Heilman saved the game for the Mets by pitching perfect ball, striking out the side once. But then today, it was the Yankees's turn. The Mets led 4-0 going into the top of the eighth with Billy Wagner pitching for the Mets--on only two hits, two walks (one to walk in a run), and a hit batsman, the Yankees tied the game. Scott Proctor was the Yankee shut-out pitcher of the evening. Then in the top of the ninth, Johnny Damon beat out a fielder's choice that allowed the winning run to then score on a base hit by Melky Cabrero, the Yankee's newest young sensation from the Columbus Clippers. Then Mariano Rivera came on in the bottom of the ninth, was unhittable, and saved the game where the night before he had blown it and lost. So now it's Mets 1, Yankees 1, with the rubber game tomorrow (Sunday). By the way, as a batter, old blown-it has-been Randy "Limp" Johnson got a solid single. Baseball; the greatest game ever invented.
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