Real quick for the record. Two Americans have been beheaded –what this means is that these men in masks throw a tied up and blindfolded man down on the ground, they then take long knives and they saw the mans neck until it comes off. Sometimes they start from the front and sometimes they start from the side. The whole time they are sawing the man is screaming madly, like an animal, the most desperate screams you have ever heard. When the knife gets to the throat or voice box the screams start to change depending on where the knife is; the man is still alive and he is still in dire pain, and his screams start to sound like a pig at slaughter; his body wiggles and struggles as men hold him down and the one man keeps sawing away at his neck trying to get his head off.

This has happened twice this week to us here in America. For those who don't know about it, they go about their days. For those of us who have seen the footage we will never be the same. I am changed inside and outside. I am confused as to what we should do. The president of France said yesterday at the UN meeting that America shouldn’t have attacked Iraq and that by doing so we opened up a Pandora’s box. He then left early and did not stay for president bush’s speech.

Today the president of the United States spoke at the UN. He smiled and posed for pictures. I felt ashamed and disgusted that he could smile at all for pictures because not less than two days ago two innocent Americans had their heads sawed off and it was broadcast all over the world. the families must be so grief stricken that they can probably not take being alive right now. I pray to God they did not see the footage. I do not dislike our president. I respect him. and honestly he seems like a good old boy that you cannot help but dig. But I feel that he needs to be acting more aware of what just transpired. He needs to be in mourning right now in the public eye. He needed to hold a candle light vigil for these innocent victims of his war. He needs to be dressed in black and showing the world that he is taking the losses of this war of his seriously and that it isn't all just business to him.

Kofi Annan has said that the American president broke the law by invading Iraq. And again today after the president spoke he gave a speech that said that now we are seeing laws broken everyday and a complete disregard for the law. Of course he did not specifically mention America, but it was obvious from the attitude he has had about our invading ever since we first started talking about it. The general tone of the UN nations is that the president is a defiant pit bull that goes around doing whatever he wants regardless of public opinion or law. Of course they are right; we have been doing that now for the last fifty years. Ever since we dropped the bombs on Japan. But bush has stepped it up even more now.

Still, as a citizen, I'm not sure if that's not exactly what we need right now to fight all these freaky little terrorist groups that are popping up. I mean, if it comes down to it, maybe we just need to bomb the shit out of every Muslim nation in the world till there are barely any left to attack us; and the thing about it is that bush is probably the best man for that job. You can tell that he wouldn’t be against doing something like that. Like when Truman dropped those bombs on Japan, I forget the exact number and don't feel like looking it up, but I think he killed more than 300,000 people. Japan has been our bitch ever since. And because of that bombing we have things like walkmans and plasma TVs so thank God for that.

Maybe bush and his evil consorts are right. Maybe we just need to kill a lot more Islamic people until we get all the terrorists. We’ve killed over 40,000 Iraqis in this new war. Imagine that. 40,000 people in little under two years dead... frankly I still think my friends and I got it right years ago: take some cool American companies and open them up all over the Middle East. Dell, compaq, Microsoft, American express, McDonalds, and put these people to work. These men are so happy to saw other peoples heads off or fly planes into buildings or drive cars into cafes with dynamite up their bum, all because they think it is going to give them some honor. And you couldn’t talk an American or a German or an English man into that for a million bucks; because we just have too much honor in our hearts already. I mean maybe for a million, but I doubt it. But these people, they just must really not feel a lot of honor inside of themselves, in order that taking these actions for the sake of honor are making them feel so good about themselves.

Received this from rob Breszny today, along with every other Libra in the civilized world:

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "I lost the plot for a while," says a character in
 Nick Hornby's novel, *High Fidelity.* "And I lost the subplot, the script,
 the soundtrack, the intermission, the popcorn, the credits, and the exit
 sign." I'm betting you could have said something like that recently, Libra.
 The story of your life seemed to have been whisked out from under you
 and banished to the wilderness on the outskirts of limbo, where the
 wasteland meets no man's land. That's the bad news. The good news is
 that while you may never recover the plot you started with, you'll soon find a brand new one that's better than the original.”

The amazing thing is how completely accurate he is most of the time. I don't know if that is a testament to how gifted he is or how utterly will-less I am, and how much I am at the pure mercy of the mechanizations of the universe. But regardless, a more suiting summary of my last three months couldn’t have been written by me personally. I have been so plagued by a general feeling of homelessness and not belonging in the life I am currently occupying that I am not shocked at all by this sudden and mysterious re-occurrence of panic attacks a few weeks ago.

[Luckily none since. as long as I keep plenty of Bs in my system and keep the caffeine intake down to two a day they stay at bay. Interestingly since their reoccurrence I have mentioned it to a few people and have been surprised to hear that a lot of people are experiencing similar symptoms. Not knowing what it is. thinking they are going to die and feeling as though they have to go to the nearest hospital or at the least making appointments with their doctors. I think it could just be the combination of our horrible diets here in the states now and the high levels of stress we have now in mass consciousness in general. Take a look at this: the top five headlines on cnn.com today.

• Ivan evacuations begin along Gulf Coast
• Baby tossed from car during police chase |  Video
• Fire-rigged letter sent to Schwarzenegger
• Guilty plea in $50 million identity theft
• Sisters in jihad
Female terrorists are becoming more common
• Russia adds $5b to terror fight
• Pictures show horror of Madrid train blasts

This is the world we are living in today. what a mess. at least according to CNN. IF you pay attention to what's going on. Its insane. Not that it hasn’t always been insane because certainly it always has been for us . the human condition is at best barely bearable. I would dare say that our best bet to maintain our sanity would be to avoid paying attention to the world around us entirely and just focus on the things that make us happy and content and do our best to spread that feeling around us as much as possible. I am convinced that the world we live in will always be filled with chaos madness despair pain agony deception vices murders tortures rapes hangings beheadings gripes battles lost environmental degradation genocides and general human suffering enough to make even the most heartless among us lose a little sleep now and then. The key as it has always been is to focus on the simple pleasures that make it all miraculously worthwhile: art music love truth beauty friends and family.

In other news, I had a marvelous dinner with a friend from the TMG offices tonight. my first official day back in mainstream reality. We went for sushi and discussed everything from fractal theory and madelbrot sets to seeing beyond the known to get to the known unknown. Break through to the other side of that and there you really have something. drank six bottles of cold saki and ate more sushi than should be legal. A glorious night. there is intelligent life on South beach after all.