Exploring beliefs this morning over breakfast. Juliet announcing that she feels as though she keeps taking off a bunch of winter coats – that's how the course feels to her. that's an amazing way to put it. that's what it feels like. Identities coming off. Old patterns and ideas and indoctrinated beliefs coming off. The body becoming lighter. The mind becoming calmer. Awareness starting to waken up again.

Is ‘2 plus 2 four?’ we discuss. Is it a belief? We agree. It’s a belief. But can it be changed like most beliefs can be? hhhmmm. Could we create if we want to ‘2 plus 2 is five?’ hhhmmm... I like blonds, I don't like brussel sprouts, I am prone to depression, I'm not good with money... these are all beliefs that can be changed pretty easily. But mathematical absolutes? Challenging indeed.

Somewhere a mathematical absolute takes form. But when? Does the universe need consciousness in order to create absolute beliefs? do absolute beliefs exist without consciousness? The old tree falls in the forest quandary... does any belief exist, does any reality exist, without something to create or observe it? and if there is nothing to observe something, does the something really exist at all? and if so, then what created it in the first place?> if consciousness, or perhaps awareness existing as consciousness, is the only thing that can create, then what creates when there is no evidence of consciousness existing?
-----------------------------------------------------
Quick. Recall the history of the universe timeline. According to modern scientific theory, the universe existed for billions of years before any measurable consciousness existed in it or outside of it. wrote about this a few months ago. Just don't have access to it in my memory and cannot log on the Internet right now to recall the specific details. But yes, the universe existed and things were happening long before any conscious life existed, such as the dinosaurs even, if one is apt to consider them capable of creating reality, and I for one, believing that they were conscious, am apt to believe this. but still they didn't come around for billions of years. and us, humans,,,, well we took hundreds of millions of years more to arrive... so what is going on here? who the hell was creating it? that is, if one is to believe that experiences, realities, can only be created by awareness or consciousness.... rather than just creating themselves into existence without consciousness... tricky. Can the big bang just happen on its own? can universal expansion of matter and energy just happen on its own without conscious awareness? Can minute life forms, single celled organisms just create themselves out of thin air without measurable consciousness?

One would have to answer yes. and yet, of course, one wants to answer no. that there has always been something that has been doing the creating... some kind of eternal universal awareness... doing the creating.... and yet... so chaotic, so random, so without order and purpose, one is inclined to think not... and yet, more, how did that initial awareness and then consciousness, if consciousness is indeed necessary for creation, come into being?

Life is a funny thing. that's the first thought. And yet. we aren't even speaking about life here. the universe existed for billions of years without what humankind currently labels “life.” think about that. billions of years of the universe existing without any life to speak of whatsoever. So again, can matter just create itself? Without awareness. Without consciousness. Without life?

In the ‘America the beautiful’ category this evening we offer the following from our friends at Nightline:

“April 27, 2005 In the early 1980s, there was no bigger story than the prosecution of Edwin Wilson. Wilson, a former CIA officer, was convicted of selling 20 tons of C-4 plastic explosives to Muammar Gadhaffi's Libya, then considered the leading terrorist state. Wilson, labeled a traitor, was sentenced to 52 years in federal prison. Several of the government attorneys involved in the case went on to become prominent in legal circles today. Is it possible that more than 20 years ago, those same U.S. government officials didn't come forward when they found out that key evidence used to convict him was likely false?”

Starting to see a pattern in American government. A long standing tradition that as the years wear on becomes less and less invisible to the world around us. we hear stories like this everyday, every week, when it comes to the governments of the world; its not just the American government. maybe something will be done about it, maybe not. it all depends on how important it appears to be to ‘the people.’ for the most part, ‘the people’ don't care about anything if they are properly fed and entertained. ‘Bread and puppets’ I believe is the term for this. Just murdered your brother, married your mother, and killed three thousand royal guards to take the throne and take over the country? no problem. throw a bunch of bread and cash out to the people and throw a big party. Tomorrow no one will remember your crimes. Edwin Wilson mentioned above seems to be suffering from this exact mechanism at work. The people are happy and therefore Edwin Wilson will most likely stay in prison for something that he may have had little to do with. The Iraq invasion by the American government is perhaps the most glowing example of this in our modern times. almost two hundred thousand Iraqi people now have been killed at the hands of America, but the American people are well fed and entertained, and much of the people from many of the world’s other countries are well-paid and entertained by us, so for the most part ‘the people’ do not care or pay attention to the plight of the Iraqi people. but for the sake of argument, what if the people did start to care? What then? what would happen? what could the people actually do?

O.k. this from our friends at the normally-commendable nightline, but prepare yourself for some of the most inane and worthless drivel this side of the Fox network or the wb:

“For those of you looking for love this Valentine's Day, we bring you the ultimate love story. Fred and Gladys, 35 years after they first met, are finally getting hitched. It is a story of romance, betrayal and constitutional high drama." 

"Who on earth are Fred and Gladys?" you might be asking yourself.

***no we’re not actually, but continue.

“Well, those are the not-so-aristocratic nicknames Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles had for each other during their long and tortured romance. Rumor has it that the original plan was to announce the engagement today, Valentine's Day. It would have been fitting really, since their story does prove that love conquers all."

***O.k. so how the hell does this tie in to the Transcendence Diaries? glad you asked. (I'm in a conference right now by the way – production meeting – five people total... I am acting like I am taking notes... which I am, sort of, but just not about the actual meeting) I just need to get this out of my system... o.k. ... so, uh, yes, on with the nightline drivel:

“It was 35 years ago that they first met, the perfect match: He, the heir to the throne and the most eligible bachelor in the country, and she, from the privileged, upper class. Polo, fox hunting and other common pursuits are what thrust them together.

***is it just me or do you have to read that sentence ten times in order to convince yourself that there are people in the world who are that stupid and inane that “polo, fox hunting, and other common pursuits” are what brought them together?

“They loved each other from the very beginning and everyone knew it. She was exactly the type of woman one might have expected the Prince of Wales to marry, but it was not to be. He joined the Royal Navy and traveled the world. She married someone else.

****o.k. so the chick married someone else and now we who don't care about these two in the first place, being Americans, are supposed to fall for this love story crap after you just told us that as soon as he joined the navy she married someone else? and this is supposed to be pawned off to the public as a love story? this is the part I really don't get... why the fuck are we supposed to care about this? why the fuck is nightline trying to pass it off like news?

“Of course we all know the rest.”

***uh, no, we don't, unless we are idiots who have no actual life of our own...

The lovely and innocent Lady Diana Spencer became the Princess of Wales, the People's Princess. Camilla was said to have approved the choice. But the marriage of Diana and Charles was fraught from the start and Camilla never disappeared. Diana famously described her marriage to Charles as "rather crowded" since there were three people in it, Camilla being the spare wheel. Just days before that fairy tale wedding back in 1981, Charles had a bracelet made for Camilla engraved with "F" and "G"- the initials of their pet names for each other, "Fred" and "Gladys."

***what an asshole. I fucking hate people like that. I am tired of the lowly common masses around us using things like country or religion or custom as an excuse for other people to lie or cheat or deceive..  if this guy wanted camile, he should have taken camila in the first place and spared us all the fucking trouble and perhaps almost certainly spared poor Princess diana her life.

“After years of being "the other woman", "the homewrecker" Camilla Parker Bowles will gain respectability as the wife of the one man she has always loved.

***so much so that she married another man...
“Of course it was not their decision alone. His parents, The Archbishop of Canterbury, the British prime minister, all were involved in the ultimate decision on the nuptials. It is, after all, a constitutional matter.
***as it certainly should be, since it is so goddamned important. my God I am very shocked in fact that our own president is presiding over the wedding itself... this is some life and death shit here...

“Tonight, "Nightline" correspondent Dave Marash reports from London on this royal romance, on the theories as to the timing of the announcement and why the British Royals still are so fascinating to so many of us.

***insert vomiting noises here***
“Ted Koppel anchors tonight as we have a little fun on this Valentine's Day. We hope you'll join us.”
***if this is your idea of fun, God help us all...

-----Original Message-----
From: Zeke Ziskin [mailto:.com] 
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2005 6:49 PM
To: 'fishy'
Subject: Diaries

Hey Fishy,

Was perusing through your diaries, and just had to comment on a post you made talking about how much you're into hip-hop/R&B/urban music.  It's so funny, because that's exactly where I'm at as well.  Rock feels positively dead to me, and all the interesting stuff being done these days is in black music.  In fact, I'm desperately figuring out how to adapt the new songs I'm recording to incorporate more of these influences, and less of the rock elements, which is so tired to me.  But like you, there's the feeling that I can only escape my "whiteness" so much, which if you're like me, is proving frustrating.

In other news, what happened with the NIC DVD?

Z

Dear zeke,
Dude you are sooooo right! black music is just killing me right now... knocking me out. its so creative and has it all going on... so refreshing as an artist no? and rock bands... God I hope I never have to make another plain old rock/pop album again... yes its hard my brother....

I used to look at Justin Timberlake like... well, like all white rock guys look at him probably... but after I bought his album... I dug it... I just really got it... and really understood where he is trying to come from... he's doing it pretty well.. he's got a good team of the best black people behind him and really I think that's what we would need... because you know, white men can’t jump....

In NIC news... there are several remix guys that want to try doing some remixes up here... but Fred says he cannot get the master DVD to operate properly. so I am trying to get him to send it to you to fix... but he is a fucking STONER. You may never get it. I hate stoners...

Check it from our friends at nightline. For a second there I thought I was just crazy. Thought maybe I was just being the boy crying Wolf. Turns out I was just a few months ahead of the storm...

TONIGHT'S FOCUS: This country has long been wrestling with the issue of American jobs leaving for other countries. Lower wages, fewer benefits, worse working conditions... most of which make moving jobs overseas attractive to companies. But a whole new job sector has been moving to India, and it's already becoming a campaign issue.

Tonight we're not going to be talking as much about manufacturing jobs. We all know about clothing being made overseas, often in sweatshops. Much of the steel industry and other manufacturing has moved away as well. This has been going on for decades. But we were supposed to find comfort in the jobs that stayed, in the job sectors that we were supposed to excel in, and dominate: service, and high tech.

Well, as correspondent Mark Litke will show you tonight, if you call a major company like Dell or Delta or American Express, or if you need your X-rays read overnight, or if you need your taxes done... all of that may connect you to India. The person on the phone may be in Delhi, not Dallas. Advances in technology have obviously made all of this possible, but so has a booming economy in India and a huge growth of a highly-educated and aggressive middle class. Now there is an economic argument in favor of this trend. If it can be done cheaper somewhere else, why shouldn't a company do just that? And will that create new jobs here? But remember this is a political season, and jobs, and the poor job-creation performance of the U.S. economy, is going to be one of the major issues. One of the President's economic advisors is in trouble now, from both Democrats and Republicans, for saying, out loud, that outsourcing jobs is not necessarily a bad thing, and that the President believes that too. Needless to say, a lot of people are unhappy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“”From our friends at Nightline:
November 20, 2003

TONIGHT'S FOCUS: Thousands of demonstrators are in the streets of London, as President Bush meets with Prime Minister Tony Blair. But the cost of supporting the U.S. has been brought home to England today as the British consulate in Istanbul and a London-based bank were bombed, with more than two dozen killed and hundreds wounded.””

And while this was going on in England and in Istanbul, tens of thousands of protestors marched in the streets of Miami Florida to protest the FTAA meeting going on in the Intercontinental Hotel. I am in the media center now. A lot of action. A lot of dedicated people who haven't slept or showered in days just working around the clock to spread the word. They are making no money from any of this, but doing it simply because they believe. It is an amazing thing.

This just in from Nightline. I know I said I wasn't going to talk about the war anymore, so I won't. After all there never really was a war, and whatever you want to call the shenanigans in Iraq, they appear to be over now and yet... this just in from our friends at Nightline.

“TONIGHT'S SUBJECT:  We said one of the reasons we went to war in Iraq was to bring them democracy. But what if they want a type of government that is at odds with what the U.S. wants? And what about the rest of the Arab world? There's not a lot of gratitude towards this country, even from our friends. So what does this mean for the future?

“Back during Desert Storm, I was one of the first journalists to enter Kuwait City, before the main forces actually went in. We were mobbed by cheering Kuwaitis, who thought that we were the vanguard of an army of liberation. I remember that they were handing their babies into our trucks for us to kiss, while many of them fired weapons into the air. It looked like something out of the old films from World War II of the liberation of Paris.

“I think that a lot of people, or at least some, expected the same thing to happen in Iraq. When U.S. forces did arrive, they ran into fairly heavy resistance. To this date, there has been no victory parade. So where is all the gratitude that so many predicted? As Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said this week, if the Iraqis decide that they want some form of theocracy, like that of Iran, that "just isn't going to happen.” Doesn't that go against the whole idea of democracy? Are we in favor of the process, or the results?

ABC News correspondent David Wright is in Iraq, and he'll report on the growing sense that postwar Iraq may look very different than what many people expected. And what about our friends in the Arab world? How do they view the war and its results? A young woman named Lama Hassan, who works for ABC News, went to Cairo to talk to people there about their thoughts on the war, and on this country. She is a native Arabic speaker, and got some answers that Western reporters usually don't hear. Now I'm sure that a lot of people may not want to hear some of this, but I think we ignore it at our peril. Agree or disagree, this is the way people feel, and that has to be taken at face-value.

So happy Friday, and I hope that you'll join us tonight. 

Friday, April 25, 

Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff

Nightline Offices

Washington, D.C.

So lets get this straight. American forces invaded their country to protect us from weapons of mass destruction and biological weapons. Which we found none of. Well that's o.k. We really did it to free their people, but we aren't going to let their people have the kind of government they really want now, according to Rumsfeld. O.k... well at least we got Saddam. Remember him? oh that's right. we didn't get Saddam. Or Osama. So now they’re even madder at us, along with the rest of the civilized world and our former allies. O.k.... America has taken over their oil fields. And now we find out that before the invasion even started American companies that government officials worked for throughout their careers and are still shareholders of were already chosen to make millions of dollars from being hired to clean up,  rebuild their country, and take over their oil fields. O.k... But you know everything’s still fine. Right? That's what the spineless idiots keep telling us on the television news with their big fake-smiling puppet heads. Just keep on believing the lies people. C’mon we can do it. And if for even one minute you have a problem with living in a country that just continuously lies all the time, hey that's your problem. You must be un-American. What else could be your problem?     

From Nightline: “TONIGHT'S SUBJECT: A sniper is terrorizing the Washington area. Six people are dead, two wounded. No one knows where, or when, he or she will strike again. This is terrorism in the most literal sense: people are scared and don't know quite what to do.”

Amazing sign of our times that things are so crazy with bush and his mysterious new war on Iraq and all the other terror going on around the world that this lone sniper stalking innocent people seems like such a minor news story comparatively. Right out of a movie and a lot of people don’t even know it's happening. But what's more is the fact that someone is still capable of doing this right here in our nations capital and we can’t catch him. Crazy.

Getting ready to go on a spiritual sabbatical next week. Agents called from Atlanta about setting up dates for upcoming tour for the east coast. Band is excited. Still sick with a cold. went to the doctor’s office—a new doctor due to new insurance—a regular md doctor. Hadn't been to one in a long time. I couldn’t believe it. not only did he not know anything about health. He didn't even look healthy. He was fat, had psoriasis, bloated. Walked with kind of a limp. Had a donut in his mouth while he spoke. It was as funny as it was traumatizing. A whole room full of helpless sheep in the waiting room who were his patients. Little did they know. Because they are so used to it. they don’t know any better. 

He told me it didn't look like a bacterial infection and then prescribed an anti-biotic anyway. I told him his practice reminded me of the quackery you read about in Time and Newsweek. He got real scared. I told him to close his door because I was about to yell and I didn't want his staff to hear. He closed the door. And I yelled. Then we talked for a while. I told him my DHT levels were regularly high and we should test for it. He asked me what that was. It was sad. He just didn't know much. All he knew was to prescribe pills. Scary. I told him I needed to see an ENT specialist for my throat to see why I am losing my voice. He said, well if you aren't going to take anti-biotics then what good is he going to do for you? I replied, ‘are you trying to say that's all a throat doctor is going to be able to do for me or anyone else? Prescribe some fucking pills for someone who is losing their voice?!’ he says, “well that and prescribe other medicine like steroids…” I was like, ‘so that's what it comes down to now for you guys is just prescribing drugs? You don’t do anything else?” he just stared at me. had no idea what I was getting at. And of course not. I looked at the way his big stomach protruded out of his body. He didn’t have a clue about health.