Pseudo Hierophantology:

Posted on February 22, 2023 by Guillermo Calvo Mahé

A satire of sorts in the ancient Keltic style

The following is an obviously fictional account (probably) of a future event, predicated on being able to project using currently undisclosed aspects of quantum dynamics. This manuscript was provided by a would-be-publicity-seeking-pseudo-whistleblower, you know, one of those crazed conspiracy theorists that fact checkers at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google and their pseudo siblings filter out so we won’t have to decide on our own what’s accurate and what’s not (only commie traitors and Putin puppets think otherwise). It’s only shared to demonstrate the perverted depths to which Russian and Chinese troll farms (not even using humans, but artificial intelligence), will go.

Anyway, purportedly …. According to a source we’re not free to identify (perhaps, because it doesn’t exist) …., the following events will transpire, probably in Chicago during the summer of 2024. Echoes of 1968 may still be resonating then, and the Happy Warrior may be all but forgotten as will the cries of his victims, but, probably no one will really care. It was all Mayor John Daily’s fault anyway. One might then wonder whether the then current incarnation of the Daily Show, in contrast to the original, will have been coopted by that famous political family (the Dailys) for the event. I also wonder about what Jon Stewart will think then. I kind of like Jon!

….

So, ….

It’s mid-summer, probably July, in 2024. Chicago, Illinois. The city is swollen with politicians, pseudo journalists, pseudo celebrities and their groupies as well as with purportedly woke, cancel culture warrior wannabes. Theretofore despised public authorities are on full alert everywhere in the city and its suburbs lest the citizenry be riled by the plethora of “guests”.

The convention grounds are[1] surrounded by local and state police, National Guard troops, CIA operatives, Secret Service agents and a few mercenaries (i.e., regular military troops temporarily separated for clandestine duty). They’ve certainly not forgotten 1968.

The convention hall is huge; as long and high-tiered as it is broad, … but somehow, … it seems hollow, even though it is full of bellowing sycophants, sycophants of every race, gender, nationality, religion, and sexual orientation, all in appropriate percentages, all firmly “woke” (in the new, pejorative sense of the term). Many are waving state flags and other symbols, confetti fluttering in the hot air. A lot of hot air, .… In several senses. Not all of the hot air is atmospheric in nature. Handshakes and hugs are omnipresent but inchoate blades await new homes in unsuspecting backs.

It’s summer during a leap year! Time to select candidates for the next federal elections scheduled for November 5, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the sixtieth presidential election since adoption of the constitution of 1787-1789. Somehow, in many states, ballots, already including the names of as yet, un-nominated nominees, have already been mailed, whether the designated recipient has asked for one or not. Some have even reached their correct destinations and some, how many will in all probability never be known if recent history is any guide, are being successfully commercialized, either by their owners or others of an entrepreneurial bent. Evidently, the right to commercialize the vote, turning it into a tangible asset, is now sacred. Following up on the euphemism that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, massive mailing of ballots now permits their conversion into cash prior to actual elections. Something frowned upon in earlier, less enlightened times, and even now, in less enlightened parts of the world. But it is now as American as apple pie, or perhaps pizza. Or chicken wings. “Make every vote count!” For something anyway.

An interesting thought comes to mind related to the philosophical query of whether or not a tree falling in an utterly uninhabited forest makes noise as it falls. Is a crime a crime if it is so carefully plotted as to elude evidence? Or if those charged with investigating it refuse to do so. Does a criminal act that does not end in prosecution render the act non-criminal? Unlike the case with our tree, or the chicken or the egg, in this case, we apparently have an answer, at least according to the corporate media, prosecutors and the courts. And the answer is ….

¿What was the question? Yep, definitely! That’s the answer.

Anyway, back to the future (good title for a movie or two, or three, ….). But not just yet. We still need a bit of context.

“Federal elections” are a misnomer. Interestingly, there are no real federal elections in the United States and only one variant even purports to be national, i.e., nationwide: the one where a president and vice president are purportedly elected. All United States elections are held on a state by state basis, even those for federal officers such as members of the House of Representatives, members of the Senate, the president and the vice president. Actually, the election for vice president is rarely separate in any sense, rather, since the fiasco in 1800 with Aaron Burr, it is part of the election for president unless the purported Electoral College fails in its task, or a sitting vice president has to be replaced. Then, as indicated below, the election falls to the Senate (not to “We the People”).

In addition, voters never really vote directly for a president or vice president, only for state members to the fictional Electoral College, a non-existent institution (as it has no tangible presence anywhere), whose members never meet but who purportedly select a president and vice resident by majority vote. Whether or not they have the right and duty to exercise their best judgment is such process (as was originally hoped) appears irredeemably confused based on a conflict between state and federal laws on point. Pluralities among the electors results in sending the election of the president to the House of Representatives and of the vice president to the Senate. Still, national conventions for the two major parties that form the duopolous dictatorship in the United States, even if not all that relevant, or perhaps more relevant than is supposed (a quandary), are a sight to see. A show really, albeit with the reality being carefully hidden away. At least usually.

Sooo, for the United States, at least on the federal level, no democracy, no democracy at all, or liberty really, and the purported Bill of Rights appears to be made of Swiss cheese (although it smells a bit more gamy after two and half plus centuries, more like limburger perhaps). Like the purported Constitution, it’s purportedly “organic”, whatever that means. Anyway (again), be that as it may, …. Back to the hall!

It is the metaphorical eve of another in a long series of purportedly existential elections. Another election in which voters will have to determine which evil posited is lesser, and rarely if ever will they be permitted to merely vote for that in which they believe. That is almost never on the ballot, at least in a manner which renders it an effective choice. Only evil is granted that role, only evil has a chance to win, at least usually, at least, … almost always; … perhaps always.

This is “the” Convention. The quadrennial (like the Olympiads) national convention. One of two. There are many other political parties, political movements and independent candidacies, but of course, on a federal level, since 1860, only two have ever really been in play. The Supreme Court has defined American “democracy” in that way, asserting that the nation has a vested interest in a two party “system” (others define that as a duopolous dictatorship and the member of the Supreme Court as incoherent, calcified fossils, and other less flattering appellations).

Be that as it may (again), ….

A lot of planning and even more plotting has been involved in orchestrating exactly the right results for this convention, as has been true, if not since time immemorial, at least for a very long time. Some of the electorate think decisions are really made at national political conventions but, then again, some of them even believe they play a real role in the process rather than being mere extras. Some even believe in ludicrously inefficient concepts like truth and justice and honor. Most, however, at least most of those present at the convention, realize that the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, Santa Claus, fairies, elves and imaginary friends are as likely to be real as those utopian imaginings.[2]

Not everyone is welcome at this or at any other purportedly national political convention. Indeed, the concept of “We the People” is apparently anathema at national political conventions. After the 2016 election, in an unsuccessful law suit brought against the Democratic Party for failure to abide by its own primary rules[3], the judiciary sanctified the right of at least one of the two “major” political parties to do whatever its leadership wants with respect to nominations, thus, codifying existing Democratic Party elitist practices. But, in an attempt to create an illusion of fairness, there exists a multilayered screening process designed to assure that only reliable partisans attend nominating conventions. It is called the primaries’ system but also includes a strange concept referred to as the caucus’ system, in each case controlled through something referred to as “super delegates”. The process is not always totally effective, although of late, it has been much improved. Still, notwithstanding earnest efforts to homogenize the party’s party (so to speak), this time, at this specific convention, there is a very, very uninvited party crasher illegally (sort of) present. A spy really (although not one of those authorized, even invited spies present assigned by what has euphemistically come to be known as the Deep State). Not a professional spy notwithstanding the very sophisticated beta version equipment she’s been lent (or is it loaned) and which she hopes will permit her to translate the hyperbole flooding the fetid air of the convention into useful information: seemingly innocuously looking techno-spectacles purportedly and earplugs using neurolink technology (we use that word a lot for legal reasons) specially designed for a wealthy South African impresario which he’s purportedly, for unknown, non-philanthropic reasons, personally made available to the uninvited guest, along with a related set of earplugs.

Both gadgets purportedly work by translating brainwaves into images and sounds which reveal the underlying reality behind subterfuge. Being beta versions, they are not perfect, but they’re good enough, and anyway, nothing better is available. Ironically, they’d been commissioned for use by the United States intelligence agencies which pretty much operate the Deep State, though they do not own it; that is above their admittedly very high pay grades. Ownership is currently limited to the billionaire class, but not every billionaire is eligible. Even more ironic is the fact that the almost anonymous donor is taking the risk of changing the original purpose for which the two devices were designed in order to at least attempt to thwart the long term plans of those who’d commissioned them.

The purported impresario is very famous (assuming he is whom we believe him to be). He is perhaps the world’s wealthiest man, … at least some of the time. To continue our train of irony, as someone not born in the United States, the purported donor apparently has no personal benefit to attain from messing with the pending elections or with any future elections, at least not directly. Xenophobia has always been preeminent in the United States and no one foreign-born can ever successfully aspire to its highest offices. Still, he is a member of the human race and the entire human race is impacted by political decisions taken in the good old US of A. And of course, the purported “highest offices” actually have little to do with governance. The latter is why it is hard to understand why the donor is interested in events such as the convention at all, unless, of course, his peers have “DFI-ed him (designated him for assignment, a sports metaphor some readers may understand). He tends to ignore “rules of engagement” (which have nothing to do with nuptials) and that annoys his peers. Plus, he is not of the old aristocracy, rather, a bit like the intruder, he is a bit of a gate crasher. Despite his wealth and power, he has apparently not been invited into the Deep State club, although the Deep State seeks to keep him in line via the carrot, i.e., grants of massively profitable government contracts.

Equipped with the misdirected devices, the intruder[4] watches and listens, ensconced amidst a pile of electoral debris in a concealed alcove that is normally full of cleaning supplies. “Funny”, the intruder thinks; in a sense, it is still full of “cleaning supplies” (her and her gadgets), especially should her efforts prove successful.

The purported South African donor usually knows what he’s doing, and is usually successful, notwithstanding the constant barrage of criticism to which he is usually subjected. Being skeptical, as real journalists are wont to be, the intruder wonders whether, rather than a South African, the donor is really the South African’s nemesis, the owner of the world’s largest retail vendor and of one of the more prominent exponents of the yellow journalists’ trade, an offshoot of poorly plotted creative fiction. Anyway, whoever he is, apparently criticism not only rolls off of him like water off of a duck’s back, but it actually motivates him, it inspires him to succeed, regardless of the odds, and regardless of the costs, at least to others. Hmmm, the intruder thinks, the alternate to the South African as the donor rather reminds her of a fictional commercial spokesperson for a cleaning product referred to for over half a century as “Mr. Clean”, although that appellation in no sense would have applied to him. But the intruder still wonders why, whichever multibillionaire the donor is, he’s taken the risk of helping her. Anyway, this is not the time for speculation. That will come later. It’s show time.

The intruder carefully dons and adjusts the spectacles and earplugs, they have to be perfectly in place for the bidirectional neurolinks involved to function adequately, and she listens to and watches the scene unfolding below her. For some reason, the name of an old, black and white television program she’s never watched comes to mind, “The Twilight Zone”:

….

The convention hall is filled to the brim with slightly intoxicated men and women, most of legal age, indeed, most way older than legal age. Indeed, some are also significantly more than slightly intoxicated. Consequently, the hall reeks of stale beer, whiskey, tequila, rum, tobacco smoke, other smoke of a somewhat sweeter-smelling vintage, but most of all, it stinks of bodies that could use a shower and lots of soap, notwithstanding a state of the art air-conditioning system plus functioning at full blast (the plus involves the ability, if necessary, to discretely spray a variety of psychotropic vapors to be inhaled by unsuspecting participants). Everyone seems to be talking at once until a chant is picked up in which they all (or at least most) eventually join. The chant was started by a gaunt older woman seemingly addicted to plastic surgery. She insists on being referred to as the “Speaker”, a role she’d once held in the House of Representatives and is determined to keep that fact at least somewhat present in everyone’s mind; kind of like a former federal attorney general in the ill-fated Obama administration has done, insisting on being referred to as AG (followed by his last name) in his constant tirades and demands for donations to save “democracy” from the opposition, which ought never, under any circumstances, be permitted to ever, ever, ever win any elections at all. Something with which the Speaker and most participants at the convention fervently agree.

Anyway, …

“Let us sin!” the Speaker seems to shout (remember, that’s the earplug translation version, she actually intoned: “let us pray”). Interestingly, outside the convention hall, tens of thousands of angry and disappointed “activists (i.e., unpaid, abused and manipulated, naïve young “volunteers”) are chanting something that sounds like “let us sin” but is actually “let us in”. They’ve not been credentialed and thus are barred from the hall, being deemed too unreliable, especially when nothing they’ve been promised is actually going to be delivered there.

Anyway, … back to the Speaker. She’s a practicing Catholic, if not all that true to her purported faith (or anything else). But then, nowadays, few Catholics really are. Actually, few Catholics ever have been. Few followers of any religion really are. Religion is fascinatingly like politics in that the more vociferously its principle tenets are proclaimed, the less they seem to be adhered to. Consider how many humans have been killed or maimed, how many lives destroyed in the name of love and peace and in the names of myriad deities and their prophets. Instead of being “true believers”, many Catholics who deem themselves “modern”, like Reformed Jews, treat their faith really more as a cultural thing, but, the Speaker’s purported Catholicism has been useful to her (and to others) in her political endevors, even when Catholic leaders condemn her for her apparent apostasy. Perhaps especially when she is so condemned.

The Speaker looks very different through the intruder’s filtering spectacles than the carefully coiffed image she seeks to portray in real life (if her life can, in any sense, be considered real), although her photographs always require quite a bit of air-brushing. She is, in actuality, stylishly dressed in a white designer pantsuit, however, the spectacles show her wearing garish blood red garments trimmed in brackish gilt and garlanded in fake garnets, and instead of her actual stylish small cap, it shows her wearing an antlered helm, a bit askew, apparently knocked off kilter as her faux-passion-on-demand controlled fake fury seems to agitate her. Kind of like a fundamentalist preacher performing faith healings.

“Let us sin” her enflamed congregants seemingly respond (remember the earplugs) in a roar!

The spectacles seem to show a complex mob. Some have tally books in hand, and have begun to furiously lodge double dubbed entries into ledger books and balance sheets. Others, who appear to have suitcases full of what appeared to be purloined or purchased ballots, head to areas set aside as vote exchanges where offers and bids for the ballots fly wildly, establishing electoral odds for pundits to declaim, with winning bidders and enriched sellers merrily laughing and singing as the purchasers fill in their newly acquired pre-signed ballots. If one vote is priceless, how about a thousand? Price is obviously relative. “Count every vote” they laugh and jeer. “Count every vote”!

Still other “mob” members (perhaps a double entendre certain Italians are especially well-suited to grasp) head to what the techno-spectacles interpret as troll farms but which such members refer to as social media communications centers, places where, using thousands of interrelated computer systems, messages warning of fabricated crises fly back and forth, hither and yon, demanding donations, but in carefully crafted and disrespectfully-respectable, even pleading tones. “They’ll destroy social security, they’ll bring back slavery”, “they’ll take away your right to sell your vote”, “they’ll force women to bear all the children while men are unfairly exempted from that duty”, “they’ll force you to participate in sporting events according to birth gender”, and other such stridently effective fund raising themes. Actually, the earplugs just let those slogans slip by without much real translation. The fundraising gurus actually said things similar to those (and others just as effective), albeit in every case, at best distortions or even more frequently, blatant falsehoods (the latter being obviously favored). The suckers will buy anything if their emotions are riled enough!

Who cares as long as the bucks keep flowing in: small donations, large donations, huge donations, money set aside for mortgages and food and education, they all count, and they’ll all end up in the “right hands”, or at least a good deal of them will, and anyway, just which are the “right” hands is open to interpretation. It depends on what the meaning of “is” is.

From the back of the hall, in the upper tiers, apparently furious backbenchers also take up a chant, soon echoed from every nook and cranny, except for the tiny nook which sometimes doubles as a cleaning closet, now temporarily occupied by the intruder:

“We want war, we want war, kill the damned Ruskies the stinking Chinks too, and the freakish Iranians, and the damned North Koreans, and the stupid Syrians, and heretical rag headed Muslims!!! More money for defense and for homeland security!!! Everyone’s out to get us! More money to stamp out unauthorized news! Real patriots pay whatever taxes need to be imposed … but borrowing is just as good; in fact, better! Sacrifice is awesome!

No to infrastructure, no to universal healthcare and free education, no to guaranteed minimum wage, the money is needed elsewhere!!! No, no, no, no, noooooo!

We want war, we want war …!”

Again, the earplugs rest. No need to translate all that much, except with respect to the pejoratives and racist aspects, those are, in reality, couched in more polite terms.

The crowd is on fire!!!! Hell on Earth in a sense, a very figurative as well as literal sense.

The intruder, wanting to do an equipment check and to contextualize the situation to assure that her report will be accurate, removes the spectacles and earplugs and this is what she sees:

Below her, on the flag bedecked main stage, at the podium, stands the carefully coiffured and only slightly mummified recent Speaker of the House of Representatives, continuing to address the massive crowd of carefully screened political delegates, all sworn to monolithic obedience. Others who’d expected to speak, imagine large hooks pulling her off of the stage.

Outside the hall, muffled screams can be heard from excluded Bernie Sanders’ supporters, but Bernie himself is just fine, indeed, he’s been given a prime speaking role (assuming the Speaker ever gives up the podium) and promised plum committee assignments after the next election, guaranteed assignments as the election is apparently in the bag. After all, enough of the ballots have already been sent out and “re-acquired”. Good old AOC, she whose name has become an acronym (and a curse to some), watches, entertained, dreaming that perhaps soon enough, perhaps even this cycle, it will be her turn, and not just at the podium, … if she can just keep “her” squad under control.

For all the orchestration and fine performances, some almost Oscar worthy[5], the comforting and comfortable fact is that the seemingly hard fought results supposedly to be determined have already been tabulated by friendly monitors in the intelligence community, the Department of Justice and the Judiciary. It’s great to have loyal and reliable friends, not only in high places, but burrowing among the wonderful federal bureaucracy; even among the purported opposition. Of course, the intruder is not directly privy to the foregoing, but she gets the drift. The sensations comfortingly set in stone in the minds of the delegates enter the gadgets’ neurolinked translation matrixes.

Posters are plastered everywhere urging voters to re-elect “Honest Joe”. Interesting that the “president” has elected to attempt to grow a Lincoln-style chin beard. He’s not been successful but the posters have been doctored to make it seem as though he has. And a Lincoln-style stove top hat has also been included, as well as an image of the log cabin, albeit in Pennsylvania, where “honest” Joe is now rumored to have been born. Indeed, it is being whispered-about that “Joe” was really his second name, and that his real first name is “Abraham”, so he is really Abraham (Abe) Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., the name having been purportedly selected after a medium present at his baptism had fainted and begun to speak in tongues, fortunately variants of English, proclaiming that the newborn was fated to become the most beloved and respected United States president ever (make some room on Mount Rushmore). It was only because of his humility that he’d elected to be called Joe. One should remember that plagiarism has always been “honest” Joe’s strong point. Other posters show “first son” Hunter as a naval war hero after he’d purportedly served unstintingly in the Peace Corps all over Africa and won several “father” and “husband of the year” awards, all as recently reported in all major corporate media (except for a furious Fox News, whose broadcasts have encountered inexplicable transmission problems).

From another part of the crowd comes another chant: “Honest Joe, honest Joe, honest Joe, everyone’s friend!! Honest Joe, honest Joe, honest Joe, everyone’s friend!! Honest Joe, honest Joe, honest Joe, everyone’s friend!! Honest Joe, honest Joe, honest Joe, everyone’s friend!!” Posters indicating that “Labor Loves Joe” are ardently waved by earnest union-busting execs from a number of high tech, Silicon Valley companies as well as by senior management of the nation’s railroads and the heads of some major unions, especially teachers’ and entertainment industry unions.

But all is not just carefully scripted “guns and roses”:

To the dismay of the Speaker and honest Joe, a counter cry of “we want Hillary” is taken up from somewhere, even though it seems no one is really involved. The Speaker suspects that Hillary may have somehow gamed the hall’s state of the art sound system and had it piped in, although Hillary herself is modestly sitting on the platform, blowing kisses and waving as though she hopes that the counter chant will end, … or perhaps soon end. The Speaker is in a bind. She secretly hates Hillary but can never admit to that. She isn’t all that fond of Joe either, feeling that they’ve both screwed her out of her rightful place in history. So she just ignores the counter-chant and, seemingly thrilled, keeps waving her hands and smiling. Blowing kisses is out. It requires use of too many face muscles paralyzed through overuse of Botox.

Unfortunately for Hillary, there are counter-counter cries of “Michelle, Michelle, Michelle” as well, which irk Hillary no end. Michelle is not demurely sitting at the speakers’ platform though but actively encouraging those chants, as is her husband and their erstwhile assistant, good old AG. AOC theretofore sitting patiently on the speakers platform is thoroughly steamed, she’s been upstaged. She’d not thought about having her own chant piped into the sophisticated, computer controlled (and thus, eminently hackable) sound system. “Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid” she berates herself, under her breath.

It’s what the intruder expected, although she’d hoped otherwise. After all, she may technically still be a Democrat, she’s not yet changed her registration, although she’s in a bit of a moral and ethical quandary given that her hero, or actually, heroine, a former Congresswoman from Hawaii, has officially left the Democratic Party. Uncomfortable with her thoughts, the intruder re-dons the anti-bovine feces neurolink-spectacles and earplugs, and stares at the scene below while listening to the translated proceedings.

She feels a bit queasy, a bit ill, a bit like regurgitating, and she hates to regurgitate. She’s voted Democrat all her life. She is black so she’s had to. Or else! At one point, her political volunteer supervisor had insisted she denounce her womanhood in favor of “transhood”, and she’d played along; forced to stop reading or watching anything that had to do with Harry Potter, et. al. Perhaps, now that she’s joined Tulsi’s new movement, she’ll be expelled, not only from her party but from her race and from her gender.

What will she be then? Will she be somehow transformed into a racist, xenophobic, misogynic white male?

….

The spectacles and earplugs, again in place, portray the following scene:

Down in the hall, on the speakers’ platform, the Speaker, still in monologue mode, watches happily. The chants in favor of honest Joe and Hillary and Michelle (but not in favor of AOL) have quieted down, perhaps because she’s been maniacally banging her gavel for order (she loves to do that, it reminds everyone she’s been Speaker of the House). She smiles broadly, her tightly crafted face stretched to the limit, stubborn wrinkles hidden behind a mask of powdered gold, wig glued firmly in place. She cackles and croons and begs and threatens and cajoles. Fund raising is her favorite thing, her strong point. And her legal team has advised her that Congressional immunity (some would say impunity) permits her to say whatever she wants, free of detrimental legal consequences.

The earplugs translate her televised words as follows: “more, damn you, don’t hold anything back!!! College funds, dowries, retirement savings; you can take out mortgages and loans, and those credit card balances-available are an affront to decency. Pitch in and save our country from the rabble that would make it theirs.” Her actual words are much more polished, even humble and pleading. Begging even.

Then, she switches audiences. Faster, and wilder on closed circuit to the delegates, she continues and the earplugs, getting a bit overheated, translate: “there are no limits, just fabricate as needed”. “If enough of us firmly believe something (or claim that we do), then that’s the truth, … or it will be”! And her congregants: purchased jurists and faux journalists and molish federal bureaucrats answer jubilantly, “so it’ll be written, for we’re the ones writing it, and so it’ll appear, no matter what happens” while others chant over and over again, “history is what we say it was, tear down those monuments, censor those books or better yet, burn them, especially George Orwell’s and Aldous Huxley’s and Kurt Vonnegut’s” and other phrases sacred and pleasing to the hallowed cackling sort of shrew (hey, it’s the earplugs translating and that’s how her audience really views her, her opponents opinions make those observations very tame in comparison).

Finally, once again, the sacred phrase (as translated) is shouted and echoed throughout the halls of the great convocation: “Let us go forth and sin, and sin and sin!” And other slogans like “Sin is in” and “All hail the happy harpies of the apocalypse”. The latter chant seems to bother the Speaker as she feels it includes her nemeses, Hillary and Michelle. Maybe even AOC.

….

Back to context: Of course, as indicated above (several times to avoid misinterpretations and law suits), the foregoing is a translation, perhaps a transliteration, and subjective at that. The neurolink-spectacles and earplugs have apparently been provided by someone claiming to represent Elon Musk, but not Telsa, definitely not Telsa, or Space-X. In all likelihood, Mr. Musk had nothing to do with any of it, even though the spectacles and earplugs had apparently been developed by one of his many smaller companies. But not even he would be stupid enough to risk all the government contracts coming his way. Or would he? He can be pretty weird. Naw!!! It must have been some other South African billionaire entrepreneur responsible, another one whose own former sports car orbits the sun. Or, maybe, taking a page out of Machiavelli’s purported masterpiece, The Prince[6], Elon’s main rival, on earth as well as in space, is responsible, the Beeeeezzzz man, and he just wants Elon to take the fall. After all, the Securities and Exchange Commission already hates him, and they can bring down anyone.

The chants and exhortations are certainly loud. The phrase “Damned Trump” now seems omnipresent, and cries of “where’s Hillary” and “where’s Michelle” are also very popular, which does not really please the Speaker. Or AOC.

Anyway, … the spectacles and earplugs haven’t really changed things all that much. Not all that much to change. And the odor in the hall, what a whiff. Practically deadly. The intruder should have asked that guy from South Africa (or wherever) for nose plugs too. She’ll have to talk to Tulsi about that when she gets out. Before her next gig.

If she gets out.

As opposed to her hero/heroine as a woman, as a real journalist, the intruder’s hero (though she is loath to admit it publicly) sits imprisoned in an English jail, held without bail, while Biden administration attorneys seek to have him turned over in the name of freedom of the press to face what passes for justice in the purported Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. And she is all too well aware what will await her, should she be caught.

Of course, if she gets out, she has another similar assignment pending concerning a sort of slightly distorted mirror image national convention (mirror image in the sense of mirrors once found in county fair funhouses way back when), a convention to be held by the purported opposition. It too will be carefully controlled by the Deep State, perhaps even more so as a recent convention got out of hand with disastrous results. Many of the Deep State spies present at the current convention will also be present, under different guises, at the GOP national convention. The parts are virtually interchangeable, except, of course, for the Speaker and Hillary and Michelle and AOL. They are pretty much inimitable, at least in their own opinions. But Nicky Hailey will be there, as, in all probability, will Alaska’s own Sarah Palin, and Mitch McConnell and other cartoonish Republicans. Donald Trump is not expected to be there if attorneys general in New York and Georgia and Democrat appointed judges and traditionalist members of his own party have any say, which they might not. He terrifies them as much as he sets off Democrats.

That should be quite a show as well.

The intruder wonders what will happen to the information and imagery she is gathering, even if she is successful in getting it out. Would even Consortium News dare to print it? And even if it did, would the Masters of the Internet let it circulate?

And even if it did circulate, would anyone read it?

And even if some people read it, would anyone believe it?

She thinks of Edward Snowden, and before him, John Crane, and she thinks of Chelsea Manning and Daniel Hale. And of course, she remembers Troy’s Cassandra.

Not all that comforting.

[Cut!!!]

Caveat!!! While this “story” may be useful in seeking to understand the realities underlying the United States’ political system, the author recommends against citing it as a source for civics class research papers. Instructors may not be amused. On the other hand, ….

Further Caveat!!! Civics instructors might find this “story” useful for their classes but their principals, and especially, their local school boards, might disagree. …. Vehemently.
_______

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] Actually, “will be”, but it will be grammatically too confusing to keep using the future tense so we’ll revert to resent or past tenses (simple, continuous, perfect, conditional, progressive, etc.) anything being possible in the quantic realms anyway.

[2] Some among us, on the other hand, would call those people despicable cynics, there existing no definitive proof for the non-existence of the Easter bunny, Santa Claus, fairies, elves and imaginary friends, or even unicorns. Thus, as to such things, we must remain agnostic, if the scientific method is to be respected, and acknowledge the impossibility of proving any negative definitively. It is possible that the intruder as well as Elon Musk, like Nikola Tesla, are at least among “we the agnostics”.

[3] Carol Wilding, et al., Plaintiffs, vs. DNC Services Corp., D/B/A/ Democratic National Committee and Deborah Wasserman Schultz, 941 F.3d 1116 (2019).

[4] Actually a journalist, a real journalist rather than one of those puffed up pseudo professionals who hog the airwaves as well as the quickly fading print media, already almost irrelevant.

[5] All the old cinematic awards have been coopted, as have the Pulitzer prizes, the Nobels, the Golden Globes, the Grammies, etc.

[6] Machiavelli had actually much preferred his Discourses on the First Ten of Titus Livy, which led to very different conclusions.

A Writer’s Early Morning Refrain

Posted on February 10, 2023 by Guillermo Calvo Mahé

A new day breaks, perhaps sunny, or foggy, or perhaps just plain cloudy, or even drizzling, or raining, or storming with winds howling. But a new day.

Coffee, for many, first thing. Colombia appreciates the gesture! Then perhaps breakfast, or maybe just juice, perhaps orange juice, or grapefruit juice, or tomato or V8. What to choose, what to choose.

Coffee smells great, even if you don’t care for coffee, but if you do, should it be black and bitter, black and sweet, or loaded with cream, or perhaps just milk. Maybe skimmed milk. And toast, dry or buttered? And what about jam? And eggs? Scrambled? Omelet? Sunny side up or just fried, or what about a raw egg in a glass of orange juice, that’s supposed to be healthy. On the other hand, what about pancakes? Or waffles. What to choose, what to choose.

A blank page but a keyboard full of promises, good promises but pretty bad ones as well. That’s the nature of the inchoate. What key to choose, what keys, there are letters and punctuation and numbers and symbols, upper case, lower case, what to choose what to choose.

It used to be a blank page on a typewriter, a real page, not just a virtual facsimile, but then, if you made a mistake, you all too frequently crumbled the page and threw it out with nary a thought for the trees. That is no longer politically correct, or efficient. No cut and paste back then, or spell checker, or grammatical suggestions (a poet’s bane).

Anyway, what to write. Hmmm, let’s see. Just start with a word, any word, the rest will come.

Maybe. Hopefully; perhaps it will even be adequate, or even decent, maybe even good, or even great.

But what if it’s crap and there’s no paper to crumble.

What to choose, what to choose.
_______

The Wannabe Secret Life of Sidney Stone

Posted on February 5, 2023 by Guillermo Calvo Mahé

Sydney Stone was not at home, which was unusual, even odd, he was a homebody, albeit not by choice. He just had a very boring life, no real friends and he suffered from agoraphobia. Not just open spaces but uncomfortable situations. Not a deep rooted fear, just a smidgen, but the smidgen made things uncomfortable, and that just made everything worse in a spiraling sort of way. So he mainly stayed at home, worked from home and shopped from home, but he sensed that he might be coming down with a touch of claustrophobia as well.

He was not into video games and found that all the cool old television programs had been replaced by politicized drivel. One black woman was now always the heroic protagonist, hopefully lesbian but bisexual would do. One Asian, one Hispanic, perhaps a member of a local indigenous population and one dweeby white guy who always reminded him too much of himself, with gender roles, including transgender, carefully distributed equally. So he was not much for television either. Lately he’d mainly been trying to come up with a cool nickname for himself and not doing all that well. “Sid” of course, was out, as was “Ney”. The “Stoner” might have worked if he’d been into drugs, but he wasn’t. “SS” had strong anti-Semitic elements and he was sort of concerned with the sanity of Zionists, so that was out as well.

Sidney, it’s sad to admit, was not all that creative, except when it came to illness. There, he was an artist (he suffered from a touch of hypochondria as well). It provided a bit of spice to his spiceless life but unfortunately, paramedics would no longer come when he called, all having realized that he was just a very lonely and bit eccentric kind of guy. One, a redheaded girl named Lucy, had come for a while, but eventually, she’d stopped coming too. Evidently she had mental issues of her own. Not dangerous ones but apparently, she’d come to believe she was married to a Cuban band leader and had two imaginary friends named Fred and Ethel, and she’d just sort of dropped out of site.

He wished he had a girlfriend who was good at nicknames but the truth was, he didn’t have a girlfriend (even Lucy had never been a girlfriend), or even a friend who was a girl (ditto again with respect to Lucy). It was hard meeting other people of any kind, stuck in his apartment. He also didn’t have, as we implied before, any guy friends, or even any pets. Just himself and his mirrors; three of them, one in the bathroom, one in the foyer (to make it look larger), and one behind the bedroom door that had been left there by a prior tenant. He frequently talked to his mirrors, usually complaining about his situation, but often also asking about prior tenants or their guests, or even workmen and women, any people at all really, people whose images they’d reflected in the past. Kind of crazy he realized but, you never knew, and he hadn’t all that much better to do. Plus, every once in a while, the mirrors would respond, but that was only when he was asleep and dreaming. He’d try to recall the dreams when he woke, and he almost could, at first, but then, the harder he tried, the faster they’d fade.

He had one favorite book, an old one from tenth grade literature class about a guy named Walter Mitty, with whom he identified. “If only I had an imagination like Walter’s”, Sidney (for lack of a nickname) would say to himself, “my life would be a lot cooler”. Walter Mitty, had he been non-fictional, might have been pleased by Sidney’s admiration, of course, depending on which daydream he was in.

Thinking of Walter Mitty usually led Sidney to consider the viability of developing a multiple personality disorder but he had no idea whether that was volitionally possible. He also wondered whether or not multiple personalities could interact with each other, realizing that, if not, then the only benefit would be if the alternative personalities lacked his phobias and could get out and meet people. But then, pessimistically (he was a pessimist as well), he was sure his primary personality wouldn’t derive any benefit as he was pretty sure the principle personality would be unaware of the others, all of which would, in all probability, gang up on him, ridiculing him to his metaphorical back, which of course would worsen his agoraphobia. Apparently, he was paranoid as well.

“Hmmm”, Sidney whispered to himself, as though he was afraid someone would hear him, an epiphany of sorts breaking through. “How do I know I don’t have a multiple personality disorder”, and wondered whether, in fact, other personalities were keeping him in the dark. “Yuck” he whispered (for the reason we previously mentioned), he was afraid of the dark as well. Now he was also developing both delusions and paranoia, but “Hell” he whispered (you know why), “it’s better than sitting at home with nothing to do.”

Then he realized he wasn’t at home at all and really panicked.

One wonders if narrators count as aspects of multiple personality disorders.
_______

Silicone Sally, an ironic mini micro-story

Posted on January 31, 2023 by Guillermo Calvo Mahé

It was 1975 and Silicone Sally was not the kind of nickname you’d think an attractive young woman would be drawn to, or, especially, one she’d give herself, but she’d perceived of herself as a pioneer and a trendsetter. And it did call attention to some of her more prominent attributes. That they were, in fact, natural, rather than artificially sculpted, was a sort of surprise she enjoyed bestowing on her more serious and reflective admirers. Interestingly, she eventually went to work as a designer in Silicon Valley.
_______

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Sayonara Baby!

Posted on January 23, 2023 by Guillermo Calvo Mahé

Phineas was in a pithy mood although he didn’t know why. Fortunately for him he didn’t care why, he was just enjoying it. Perhaps today would be the day he’d finally write something and, if he did, why he might someday get it published.

Phineas was not the easiest name to bear but he managed it good naturedly, although he wondered just what his parents might have been thinking when they’d endowed him with it. It wasn’t as if they’d named him after someone for whom they deeply cared, or even knew. Apparently, it had something to do with a film a long time ago, a film based on a book about a wager concerning travelling around the world more quickly than then seemed possible. But then, his parents had conceived him in the sixties when decisions were sometimes made based on chemically induced spur of the moment epiphanies, epiphanies thereafter quickly discarded.

It wasn’t as if he was often epigrammatic, he tended to be a bit vague and indirect, lost in phantasies; perhaps a bit like his parents had been way back when, way back in the day so to speak. Interesting phrase that, “so to speak”.

Anyway, perhaps Phineas had decided to turn over a new leaf, not a vegetable leaf, at least not directly; rather, a metaphorical leaf, so “pithy” was his word of the day. He dressed nattily for a change. He usually favored jeans but today, dress pants it was. And a vest, even though it had once been his father’s. And a tie, even though it was paisley, and paisley had been out of style for a while, except, of course, among the vintage crowd (of which he was not a member in good standing). “Hmmm, shoes” he whispered to himself. A problem as most of his were old tennis shoes or sandals, not a loafer to be had, or an oxford. And tennis shoes and sandals tended not to qualify as pithy in matters of haberdashery.

Of a sudden, his pithy mood did not seem quite as satisfying as it had, as though a wind had whipped the page he’d sought to turn back to where his book of life had been. Speaking of pages, he’d need some paper if he was going to write something, or a pen, or a computer, or a tablet, or a cell phone.

“Damned shoes” he thought out loud. “Who needs them”, although it seemed obvious that they might be a necessary accessory to anyone, who, feeling pithy, had decided to dress nattily, which at that point, no longer described Phineas. Fortunately for him, his apartment was not large, rather small really, and cluttered with non-natty accoutrements. And he’d not yet made his bed (almost a tradition). So back into bed he plopped, back into bed to hopefully dream non-pithy dreams.

Sayonara baby!
_______

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

The Revelations of John (an Exile in Patmos) Reconsidered ,… Sort of

Posted on January 18, 2023 by Guillermo Calvo Mahé

Or perhaps, the “Reconsiderations of Bill or Guille” (an expatriate of sorts in Manizales)

Introduction

(The serious part)

The purported revelations of John of Patmos (really, an expatriate who fled to Patmos), a John who styled himself the Elder, the purported book of revelations written on or about the year 96 of the Common Era, seem, in their apocalyptic aspects, almost completely Zoroastrian. A cartoonish culmination of the doctrine of ethical dualism. Indeed, the version of Yešu[1] it envisions, denominated “Christ”, seems utterly different than the loving Jesus reflected in modern imagery, much more the messiah longed for by racist, ethnocentric Hebrews, to whom all others were inferiors, now, ironically, subsumed in fundamentalist Paulist Christianity^[2].

Interestingly, old Johnny seemed most bothered by the sexual and dietary heresies of the Nicolaitans, followers of Nicholas the Deacon, a real apostle (unlike Saul, albeit as a replacement) and member of the Jerusalem Community. As in today’s uber polarized world, relatively irrelevant issues were used to divide people who had much more in common than in conflict, the apparent goal (as it is today) being the elimination of any who held contrary views, regardless of how innocuous. The Nicolaitans’ horrible heresy (according to their detractors, including John but strangely, not Saul), involved the belief that monogamy was not essential and that sharing those beloved with others was a positive, rather than a negative thing, true love promoting the joy and pleasure of the beloved, rather than restricting it; but also, the belief that it was not inappropriate to eat food (specifically meat), offered in sacrifice to idols if it had first been exorcised, … probably important when food was scarce.

John was not original in his revelations, primarily using imagery, threats and promises old before Yešu had purportedly incarnated. Imagery, threats and promises made in writings such as the books of Daniel and Ezekiel in the Old Testament, 1 Esdras in the Apocrypha, the Book of Enoch in the Pseudepigrapha, the Assumption of Moses, and, portions of the Synoptic Gospels. He merely placed them in a new, anti-Roman Imperial context, and directed them specifically against the Roman Emperor and those who followed him, especially followers of Yešu willing to compromise the beliefs Pauline Christianity required of them. In essence, he was a plagiarist, but that was not looked down upon in antiquity. Indeed, a popular literary device at the time was the antithesis of plagiarism, giving famous others credit for what one had written in order to enhance its impact.

Of course, all of the threats and promises reflected in John’s purported revelations were to take place while the Roman Empire continued to exist in its pagan version. It’s hard to believe that they applied after the Roman Empire became Pauline, when it became Pauline Christians who engaged in persecution, torture and murder, as well as who placed restrictions on religious beliefs; actions such as those attributed by John to the Romans. Hence, everything predicted should have taken place prior to the Emperor Constantine’s decrees in the year 331 of the Common Era, decrees which made Pauline Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Through distorted rationalization (such as are common today in journalism) disassociated from the religious aspect of John’s purported revelations and focused exclusively on their political dimension, i.e., the existence of the Roman State, one could, albeit unconvincingly, argue that the promised (or threatened) events need only have occurred prior to the fall of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire in the year 1453 of the Common Era. And if later, only if today’s Vatican State is seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire against which John railed can an argument be made that the prophecies of John’s purported revelations remain merely inchoate, rather than utter claptrap.

Interestingly, the sexual beliefs associated with Nicholas the Deacon seem to never have gone out of style and seem, at least since the 1960’s, to have emerged from the closet, as it were. As to eating food sacrificed to idols, well, who knows? Who can tell where today’s food has its origins, regardless of labeling laws, … except perhaps for Kosher food.

Summary of John’s Imagery

(The satirical part. Accurate, but satire just the same. Unavoidably so):

Yešu, in his role as the Pauline “Christ”, purportedly speaking from heaven to John, addresses messages to seven angels, each responsible for one of seven specific Pauline churches in Asia Minor. One might ask why Yešu, in heaven, would need the assistance of John, to address his angels, but evidently the divine communication network was not functioning at the time. So much for ubiquitous omnipresence.

With reference to the seven angels, one each had purportedly been assigned the role of guardian to Pauline churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Thyatira, Pergamum, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Evidently, five of the angels were not doing such a great job at eliminating those who found the doctrines of the Nicolaitans reasonable. Yešu seems especially miffed with the angel charged with guarding the Pauline church at Pergamum, where “Satan”[3] was purported to have his headquarters.

Interesting.

One wonders if Pergamum has been carefully searched in quest of a portal leading to the infernal regions. For anyone interested, the site of Pergamum is located sixteen miles from the Aegean Sea on a lofty isolated hill on the northern side of the broad valley of the Bakır River, a site currently occupied by the modern town of Bergama, in the province of İzmir in Turkey. One wonders if, as in the Colombian municipality of Rio Sucio, they have biannual carnivals dedicated to “the Devil”.

Following Yešu’s message to his angels, strangely, via John (as I’ve noted), he describes to John, evidently for transmittal to us, a message concerning seven seals (no, not the animals, just scrolls) on which is (or will be) purportedly written an account of events that “are about to take place” (the term “about” was evidently to be interpreted in a very broad manner, a manner to include any temporal period whatsoever; hmmm, a bit suspicious that). But only Yešu is purportedly authorized to open the seals (no one else being worthy).

There follows a bit of equine fantasy (I’m rather fond of horses myself) as the first four seals, if ever opened (John assures us they will, be, Yešu told him so) for some reason deal with horses. Sigismund Schlomo Freud might have had something to say concerning that imagery, had it ever been brought to his attention. Perhaps it was and perhaps he did. Hmmm, on at least one occasion Freud did discuss equine fixations as follows: he interpreted horses, as a phobia (unfortunately he did not discuss them directly as a fixation), as symbolic of the father, and that fear that a horse would bite represented fear of castration as punishment for incestuous desires towards the mother, an expression of the Oedipus complex. One might wonder what that tells us about John. As far as I know, Yešu had no personal interaction with horses, only asses, although certain ranks of Roman soldiers in Palestine (where Yešu lived) did use them. For the safety of my eternal soul then, I’ll limit my observations to John.

Anyway, again according to Yešu (via John), when Yešu opens the first seal, a white horse will appear whose rider will go forth to conquer. Other seals will then be opened, and three more horses: a red one, a black one, and a pale one, will appear in rapid succession. According to analysts of John’s purported revelations, the four horses and their respective riders purportedly symbolize the conflicts that will mark the beginning of the final destruction of the Roman Empire (and have nothing to do with an Oedipal Complex, but, … who knows).

When the fifth seal is opened, the souls of those who have been waiting for the purported second coming, in duly respectful tones but obviously “verily” annoyed, will demand to know (respectfully of course), how much longer they have to wait until their suffering is avenged, but will be advised (one assumes by Yešu) that they still have a while to wait, and that their wait is likely to be unpleasant, but that if they are patient and faithful (it seems they were not merely souls, but living entities as well), they will be among the redeemed whose names are written in a “Book of Life”. Evidently, such souls will never have been previously exposed to the revelations of John and will thus be ignorant of what is happening; apparently not being all that conscientious in complying with their Pauline educational obligations.

According to good old John, the scene then changes and we will embark on act two of his revelations. One wonders if John’s production might not make a good video game. Four angels representing the four winds of heaven will be told to hold back their winds (hmmm, flatulent angels) until “the servants of God have had seals placed on their foreheads”. “Ouch”; one wonders if that will hurt. It seems quite a bit like branding. Then, apparently, notwithstanding the billions who have, since the dawn of the Common Era, attempted to comply with the usually incoherent, incomprehensible and contradictory instructions they keep receiving from the heirs of Paul (and presumably John) in Yešu’s name of course, all but a very few of them, 144,000 to be precise, will be sentenced to perdition. As of the dawn of 2023, the world’s current population is approximately eight billion people, most of whom may have souls (although most politicians, lawyers, journalists and priests may not). As of the dawn of 2023, it is estimated that 117 billion people have lived on Earth, the vast majority having lived following the start of the Common Era. Assuming that Yešu decarnated (a neologism for when he abandoned his “carnate” form) approximately 1,990 years ago, as 2023 dawns, that means that, were the events “imagined” by John to occur today, an average of only about 72 people per year would have been “saved”. One wonders at those stuck in Limbo, all the unbaptized infants, etc., what is to happen to them? That means that fewer people will be “saved”, regardless of their piety, belief and conduct, than currently comprise the 0.01% who rule and own us. What are the probabilities that such 0.01% have somehow cornered this market as well? Hmm, they currently constitute about 800,000 people; that means that less than one in five of them will make the cut. Interesting situation, at least for them. For the rest of us, it’s apparently “Abandon All Hope”.

Anyway, according to Yešu (according to John), before Yešu opens the rest of the seals, another series of disasters will be heralded by seven angels, each one carrying a trumpet. One wonders if the seven angels are the same each time, or if they arrive in teams of seven. The trumpets must be huge as they have massive destructive power when blown, although they perhaps are only indicia of coming calamities, Harbingers in Black, perhaps like those that the Latin American poet César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza wrote about in his poem, “Los Heraldos Negros”.

Following the blowing of the trumpets, a massive earthquake will purportedly occur, turning rivers to blood. The light of the sun and the moon will be extinguished and the stars will come unglued and fall to Earth. Then things will really get bad, especially for any surviving persecutors of (one assumes) the 144,000 lucky ones. Given all the schisms in Pauline Christianity since John’s day, where members of each Pauline denomination claim all others are to be condemned to Hell as heretics, certainly a form of persecution, it would seem that the most avidly religious may well be both among the punished and the vindicated, concurrently, which may explain the 144,000 number.

John, apparently paraphrasing Yešu, unless he has a really good memory, then maligns dragons, equating them with poor old confused Satan (remember the whole thing with Hêl él, Lucifer, and Sama’el; now they’re turned into a dragon, yeesh!!!). But apparently, Satan and Marcus Cocceius Nerva, the Roman Emperor in the year 96 of the Common Era (when John purportedly wrote his “revelations”), are to be considered one and the same. Poor Nerva; he did not reign long at all, just fifteen months, and he was a reformer of sorts, no Caligula or Nero. But then, perhaps communication was slow back then and good old John thought that someone else was in charge. However, one would assume that Yešu would have known better. Perhaps poor John just misunderstood. After all, it may be that Yešu was declaiming to John in Enoquiano, the mythical celestial language. And there have never been all that many certified, or even qualified Enoquiano translators and interpreters, at least since the fall of that tower in Babel.

Anyway, ….

The “Dragon”, a-Satan (clearly a reference to Hêl él who rebelled in Heaven against YHWH and then purportedly schemed with Herod I, also known as Herod the Great, to do away with the infant Yešu) will somehow have been busy along with his retinue of angels (supposedly fully one third of the former Heavenly Host), challenging Yešu, YHWH and the Holy Spirit, purportedly working through poor Nerva (more probably his predecessors as Nerva was the first of the Five Good Emperors, or perhaps his successors, or perhaps the Papacy, or who knows who). At any rate, “he” (whoever “he” is) will have been the one who will have been persecuting Yešu’s followers. Hmmm, that “he” could be any leader of any purportedly Pauline church[4] since, based on the aforementioned thousands of Pauline schisms, almost all followers of Yešu will have been commended to condemnation in Hell and to damnation (assuming the two things are different) by other followers of Paul, given that they each consider all others blasphemous heretics.

Actually, the aforesaid “he” ought to be easy to recognize as, according to good old John (as told to him directly by Yešu), “he” will have seven heads and ten horns and will be somehow further identifiable by calculating his number, it should be “666” (although how our numbers are calculated remains a mystery); so be in the lookout for anyone fitting that description.

As the end finally draws near (again), again according to John as told directly by Yešu, or perhaps only by Yešu’s voice, three angels will appear (one wonders what will have happened to the other four, if indeed they are the same, or why the change in numbers if they are different; and whatever will have happened to the horses and their jockeys?). One angel will announce that the hour of God’s judgment has come, the second one will yell that Babylon has fallen (which happened millennia ago so is no surprise) and the third will be doing his best to terrify anyone who’s been worshipping “the Beast” (probably the Dragon, you remember, our composite nemesis), all of whom are to then be thrown into a lake of fire where they will forever be destroyed. Hmmm, that seems a bit oxymoronic at best, poor phrasing, as destruction seems a final event rather than a process. But then again, as you may recall, it may be that Yešu was declaiming to John in Enoquiano, hard for mortals to understand.

As if that’s not enough, with all the bad guys frying in a lake of fire (sounds sort of like something the Nazis were accused of doing), seven more angels will then appear (ahhh, the seven reunited perhaps), each one carrying a bowl filled with one of seven plagues as YHWH will be really wroth!!!!. One wonders at the interaction of the fire in the humungous lake into which billions of bodies and souls are frying, with the plagues, which are to be as follows, almost as though they were a recipe: the first bowl will have some sort of agent generating “foul and evil sores” on the men who at the time bear the mark of the beast and who worship its image (does that mean women will be exempt, just asking, that will certainly please feminists); the second, will be poured into the sea (which sea is not clear), and will turn its waters into blood (which supposedly had already occurred to rivers somewhat earlier), but this time, killing everything there (assuming our pollution has not already done that). Hmmm, it seems YHWH will become a mass polluter. Then, similar calamities, all different, will follow as each angel carelessly empties its bowl, without any thought for the consequences.

So, having destroyed everyone and everything except for the 144,000 lucky prize winners, Yešu will finally return, riding on clouds (hopefully not thoroughly polluted) and, amazingly, it appears that the fiery lake and plagues will not have been enough to destroy all the “wicked”, because more will be slain by the light Yešu’s coming generates (as though he were radioactive). Apparently, concurrently with that event, the Dragon (a-Satan, etc.) will be bound underground for a thousand years and the Earth itself will be condemned to a thousand year period of desolation. In the meantime, the 144,000 lucky righteous ones will have been flown to a celestial city where they can hang out with YHWH, Yešu, the Holly Spirit, and those angels who’d declined Hêl él’s invitation to rebel.

But that’s only for a single millennium. Apparently, somehow, during that time, the remainder of the 117 billion will have recovered; revived so that they can be destroyed again. Interesting to speculate as to when they will have died as their torment was to have been perpetual, what with the fiery lake, the plagues and all.

Anyway, according to John, as told to him by the voice of Yešu (one wonders if his voice is an entity in and of itself, which would seem to make the trinity a bit crowded), the celestial city will land on earth and someone or someones will engage in one more wars (which will probably make the 144,000 very happy, as, assuming they coincide with the current 0.01% who rule us, war seems to be their favorite pastime), and the wicked will be destroyed … again. After which, the residue of humanity will live happily ever after, perpetually partying with YHWH, Yešu, the Holly Spirit, and those angels who’d declined Hêl él’s invitation to rebel, in the celestial city now on earth. Given the slight population, it could be on a tiny Island somewhere in the Caribbean perhaps, perhaps near Eden, a new Jerusalem with streets of gold, walls of jasper and gates of pearl (and what about windows?), in the midst of the good old River of Life, which will flow eternally from the throne of God, with neither sorrow nor crying allowed (or else), for God will wipe away all tears (one wonders, with no crying, from whence tears will appear), and there will be no more death.

One does wonder a bit what might happen to any of the happy denizens of the grounded celestial city, should they become a bit too independent; one wonders whether “free will” will be an aspect of that paradise; one wonders, … just asking, what would happen to any who might transgress. You know, sing out of tune or harp off chord or something. Perhaps wonder about dear old Nicholas the Deacon.

Anyway ….

Amen.

Concluding Observation

One wonders what happened after good old John sobered up.
_______

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] Yešu, commonly referred to as Jesus, or the Christ, or Joshua, or Yeshua, but the correct Aramaic variant (the name he might answer to) was Yešu. He never, ever, ever answered to Christ.

[2] The adjective Paulist is added because Saul of Tarsus perverted the original teachings of Yešu, for his own purposes, in opposition to the religious movement that initially sought to promote the beliefs espoused by Yešu as promoted by Yešu’s brothers and apostles through an organization known as the Jerusalem Community. He referred to his counter movement as Christianity and to Yešu as the “Christ”, a Greek term roughly analogous to messenger or messiah. Saul, who renamed himself “Paul” for some reason, first tried to destroy the Jerusalem Community through legal and religious means within Judaism (including assassinations) but eventually found it much more profitable to coopt it, disassociating them from their Jewish origins by melding Jewish beliefs with Greek spiritual philosophies.

[3] Known to latter pre-Pauline Hebrews as ha-Satan, the unfortunate syncretic composite through mistranslation by Jerome of Stridon of the Hebrew archangel Hêl él, Lucifer, the Roman god of truth and light, and, YHWH’s chief legal advisor and prosecutor, Sama’el. Poor Lucifer, eternally calumnied since then.

[4] All leaders with the possible exception of a certain Jorge Mario Bergoglio, also known currently as Pope Francis I. He’s an unusually forgiving and empathic sort who refuses to condemn anyone.

An Unusual Quandary

Posted on December 31, 2022 by Guillermo Calvo Mahé

He wondered how one broached the fact that one had been born twelve millennia ago, how one broached that reality to someone with whom it seemed a romantic relationship was a distinct possibility, even if age did not appear to be an issue for her.

The good thing was (he thought) that, at least for a while, she’d just laugh it off, assuming it was a joke, or an attempted witticism.

If she did, should he feel that he’d done what was appropriate and just let things slide?

It was, of course, not the first time he’d had to face the issue. But precedent provided no consolation. And despite the hundreds of times he’d faced the dilemma, he’d yet to deal with it in an entirely satisfactory manner.

Ironically, her concerns mirrored his.

This should prove interesting.
_______

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Dessert Fit for Poets, a haiku of sorts in e minor flat

Posted on December 30, 2022 by Guillermo Calvo Mahé

Onomatopoeic veracity, especially if spiced with consonance and assonance and set in alliteration amidst scents of allusion, and metaphor and simile.

Mmmmmmm
_______

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections on a Black Friday:

Posted on November 25, 2022 by Guillermo Calvo Mahé

Sports versus Team Fandom – A sort of Ode

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, has become an important commercial holiday, both to those who sell as to those who purchase, although it is also a reflection of the reality that prices have been unjustifiably high, at least in terms of equity and decency, than they ought to have been all year long. Consumers are easily manipulated but no consumers are more easily manipulated and abused than sports fans, those “fanatics” who shell out trillions of dollars in attendance and viewing costs, memorabilia and incidentals, while the recipients (owners, not players) seem to snicker, and generally, to ignore them.

Being a fan is generally a passionate but passive activity, with frustration the most obvious aspect, especially when one is a team fan and the ownership views the team as business, rather than a hobby. Consider the current New York Yankees as an excellent illustration.

When father George was at the helm, he was an owner and a fan concurrently, and, although a businessman, the fan aspect was paramount. Indeed, he treated the massive ongoing investment in the team by the fans as a trust, and it was to the fans that he felt that owed the highest loyalty, although he was also loyal to the players and former players from whom he demanded so much, in so emotional a manner. Even those he’d mercilessly bullied.

His son Hal, as in almost anything and everything, is a negative of his father whom he does not respect but from whom, everything he has, was inherited: a typical second generation syndrome. Calm and profit oriented, the Yankees, to Hal, are primarily a vehicle operated for the benefit his creditors and investors, and it is to them, rather than to fans or players, that his loyalty is rendered. And his chief advisor and operating officer, the aptly named Irishman, Brian Cashman, is his ideal henchmen. Randy Levine, the Yankees president seems to be a seldom seen illusion, and apparently likes it that way. While an extreme example, the model is not unique.

Yankees fans, the ideal illustration of “team” rather than “sport” fans, are for the most part, a masochist lot. Vocal, emotional, passionate and pretty well informed, but kept at bay, carefully, by management trolls who infiltrate their social networks to support management decisions, suggesting that fandom is a permanent state whose prime virtue is loyalty to ownership. In essence, Team fandom, in the view of ownership and its trolls, involves a sports variant on the “my country right or wrong” slogan that led the Germans to morph from liberal social leaders of the nineteenth century to the obedient masses who watched their values destroyed in the first half of the twentieth.

Team fandom is a strange but effective means of social control, diverting attention away from issues that really impact society and thus permitting a tiny elite, which now includes billionaire owners who also disproportionately exercise control over just about everything, to rule us all just as surely as if they collectively wore Sauron’s one ring. But it is so addicting, that, notwithstanding acknowledging the foregoing – I’m a passionate Yankees’ and Jets’ fan.

Being a sport fan is quite a bit more rational and hardly masochistic at all. One does not care who wins, only that the sport is brilliantly played. It is much less passionate than team fandom and many team fans can enjoy that passive distraction too, when “their” teams (not theirs at all, fandom is not democratic) are not involved.

Fandom, a diversion that lets off steam so that the issues that impact our real lives can be safely obfuscated, manipulated and controlled. Machiavelli would be proud. He’d probably approve of Black Friday as well.

Go figure.

Anyway, Happy Black Friday!
_______

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Here’s Hoping; …. Again

Posted on November 13, 2022 by Guillermo Calvo Mahé

I wonder at the relationship between black holes and entropy.

Then I translate that into quotidian social dynamics and finally, perhaps seeking to ground the esoteric with that which by entertaining us, helps subjugate us, … into sports.

Perhaps that’s because I’m watching Tom Brady, the all-time best performing quarterback who I despised while he was with the New England Patriots (I have been a Jets fan since their birth as the Titans), sort of implode after a few successful seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It’s as though the Buc’s loosing tradition has slowly drained the positive energy Brady initially carried with him, leaving him, more or less, a frustrated husk as his teammates accentuate the power of their mediocracy over his talent and charisma. The Green Bay Packers and Aaron Rogers are a different story. The team has deteriorated around Rogers, and age has taken its toll on him, but the magic still manages to shine through, at least from time to time. Which somehow, in a convoluted fashion, brings me to my Jets, or rather, the Jets I share with millions of frustrated fans, waiting for Lucy to once more pull the ball away as Charley Brown tries for the ever-elusive field goal.

Many decades ago, most of us Jets fans, new at the time, it was early 1969, still believing in providence, begged for just one victory, after which, we agreed, we’d understand if we’d never again enjoy the privilege of asking for divine boons, at least in professional American football. Evidently, if the Divine exists, he, she, it or they have a sense of humor and a close working relationship with a fellow by the name of Murphy. At least most of us have always assumed it’s a he, but it might well be a she, or perhaps it’s androgynous, or plural. We got our wish and, in the ensuing fifty-three years, have been paying off that open ended debt.

Apparently, at least from today’s perspective, we were young and foolish on that January 12 in 1969 at the old Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. But then, given our nature, had we to do it all over again, we’d probably make that same deal despite the trail of ensuing tears, curses, lamentations and complaints. It’s not so bad when our team is just uniformly terrible, it’s when it shows sparks of brilliance and raises our hopes, only to tumble them time after time that Murphy gets his, her, its or their kicks. Perhaps we should consider drafting a quarterback named Murphy, and perhaps linebackers, cornerbacks and safeties named Murphy. That might at least confuse him, her, it or them, at least for enough time to let us sneak one more super bowl victory in.

Thinks look surprisingly good for our Jets this year and Lucy seems to be promising that she’s reformed, and the Jets do have a few Murphies: there’s Kevin (assistant director of pro personnel) and Tom (vice president, information technology) on the staff, but I know of no others. So, just like Charley Brown, I and many other Jets fans are hopeful, optimistic, excited this year, … but a bit wary. But then there’s the issue of black holes and entropy, and unfortunately, a somewhat negative tradition.

Still Joe Namath and company were awesome, and there’s never been a professional football game as important as Super Bowl III, and the AFL may have disappeared after that game, but it’s alive and well in some sort of sports Valhalla that echoes in our hearts. And this team’s coaches seem different, as do the players, well, at least most of them.

Sooo; anyway:

Here’s hoping; .…

Again.
_______

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

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Guillermo Calvo Mahé

Author, Academic, Political Analyst, Political Commentator, Poet, Linguist

Category Archives: Silly but fun

Pseudo Hierophantology:

A Writer’s Early Morning Refrain

The Wannabe Secret Life of Sidney Stone

Silicone Sally, an ironic mini micro-story

Sayonara Baby!

The Revelations of John (an Exile in Patmos) Reconsidered ,… Sort of

An Unusual Quandary

Dessert Fit for Poets, a haiku of sorts in e minor flat

Reflections on a Black Friday:

Here’s Hoping; …. Again

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