on US elections

  The president of America is selected by individuals sent to the Electoral College by the individual states. Since the American people do not elect their own president, why do they care so much about which poor bozo gets the job?

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

encylopediamericanifesto: panem et circenses

  Beyond its propensity for outright hostility against citizens loyal to the rightfully elected government of the United States, the military-industrial complex and its cohorts in the rapacious plutocracy has done injustice to the fed and to the American people alike in that instead of clever or devious tactics it prefers as the tool to craft for the ages a new order an ancient Roman method called panem et circenses.

  A ruling body exercises panem et circenses, or bread and circuses, by attempting to control the rage of an urban population using compelling, addictive entertainment and delicious, cheap food. The typical city dweller in ancient Rome resembled the modern homeless person in appearance and in morals both – by all accounts, he was as likely to be sexually promiscuous as he was to binge drink, and if he could drink and fuck while watching gladiators fight to the death, he was contented. But the modern urbanite is rich, and so he pays good money to watch the circuses on TV at his home, where he will eat from paper bags a meal of fast food suffused with fat and sugar that was prepared for him by silently desperate wage-slaves. The urbanite does these things because he is a good boy, and because good boys follow the rules – he watches the commercials and he buys all the useless and superfluous crap, and he does not mind that his conspicuous and incessant consumption (and that of his semi-affluent cohorts) makes only 0.05% of the US population wealthy beyond imagining. The richest of the rich, this group is comprised of those individuals who own television companies and fast food chains: it stacks chips like a boss while the remainder of the population, the 99.5%, descends into orca-fat obesity and chronic laziness.

  But it is not enough for the Point Oh Five to control the messages you hear and see or to dictate which foods you eat – these Rapacious Plutocrats have wrested the shaping of a new order for the ages from the federal government of the United States of America (which is the agent selected by Destiny to be the perpetrator of the whole Shaping a New Order for the Ages business). The people who own the TV stations and the fast food shacks become rich beyond reckoning upon the backs of the wretched citizens who fork over their meager wages to keep themselves sated of food and to spend their time staring at images dancing on a magic box.

  While the fed has at times acted foolishly, I place more of my trust in it than in a cadre of individuals whose minds are so twisted with the pulsing whorish thrust of money that their balance-sheets matter more than the vitality and diversity of the American people.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

unstoppable lawsuit to roll forward

  Affluent Tanzanian silk merchant Mr. Nelcott Surklin commenced with a false-advertising lawsuit against the producers and distributors of the movie Unstoppable (starring Denzel Washington & Chris Pine), claiming that in the movie the train stops before the ending without having destroyed much of anything.

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on novus ordo seclorum

  Every American dollar bill bears the slogan novus ordo seclorum, Latin for New Order for the Ages. The federal government of the United States (the fed) persecutes this new order in hot and cold military conflicts, and by wagingwar on those of its own citizens who would consume drugs other than those it itself licenses or sells.

  Regardless of whether you are American or not, and if you are, whether or not you vote: if you handle US currency, and if you conduct business with it, you give your tacit consent to the aims printed on the American greenback – if you use dollar bills, you perpetuate and maintain this new order for the ages. (I have followed with interest efforts in economically struggling communities to switch to location-specific para-currencies, efforts which seem to nullify the paper money printed by the US Treasury.) In the not too distant past, the fed faced oppressive and mass-murdering dictators that it had to destroy, which required it to reorder its economy and to draft its mission statement anew. By consequence the world was also ordered anew, and the smaller players held their breath as clear battle lines emerged, and as nuclear missile silos sprouted in the Urals, and in the Midwest.

  The outline of this new order began to change in the 1970s, when the fed abandoned the gold standard, causing the US Dollar to decline. Then, it changed the rules for financial regulation, allowing for rampant and destructive speculation, so that now the two hundred and fifty thousands of Americans who speculated best (the Point Oh Five) control the corporate structures that in turn control most aspects of society. But it is the duty of the federal government to shape a new order for the ages, and no other party – not the 0.05% nor the military-industrial complex – can manifest the destiny of this nation with the sort of extreme prejudice and blind dedication needed to finish the job.

  Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

encylopediamericanifesto - phaltworthiness

  The street art vagabond has sworn to preserve for Posterity the diversity of graffiti – it is her duty to capture, isolate, and upload photographs of any urban artwork she locates by bicycling or walking or skating around a city. Looking, however, does not always slake her thirst: in order to perpetuate the phenomenon of artwork that seems to appear suddenly on previously unadorned urban surfaces, and to prove her passage through the area, she leaves her unique mark, a hand-drawn image that serves as her Glyph of Personal Identification, her own meager tribute to the maddeningly prolific beautification campaign known as street art (or, alternately, as vandalism).

  The urban artist spends resources such as time and money on his efforts to fill the urban environment's many empty spaces with colorful and bizarre pictures; for his troubles he is hounded by police and harassed by them likewise. In addition to such acts of state-mandated repression, he suffers from repeated and chronic bouts of a newly classified condition known as phaltweariness (the individual suffering from this condition will commit frequent acts of frugality and self-sacrifice; his actions will reek of virtuous behavior; he will act not out of a desire to prove himself to another person, or to claim for himself glory, but because the majesty of the human spirit has rewarded his sacrifice of time and self by filling him with a transcendent vigor not seen since the dawn of humankind).

  No grasp as fleeting as that of Big Brother might contain, however, the inexorable and all-nullifying tempest that is Virtuous Action. The street art vagabond therefore who hurls without ado the bounty of her artistic labor upon the phaltscape's expectant canvasses while showcasing freely upon w³  her fellow street artists' work (where it shall be judged and ignored until all servers crash at once), she who does these things simply because they need doing, she who refuses to claim ownership over any part of the process, that street artist is phaltworthy – she acts for the good of the world by leaving well enough alone.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

encylopediamericanifesto: phaltweariness - dehydration

  Among the many serious dangers the smog rider faces daily is the risk of dehydration. A condition easy to overlook but deadly if ignored, the body's dehydration distress call resembles closely the distress call it makes to signal hunger; additional telltale signs of dehydration are crankiness and fatigue. A few reports say that within smog rider packs it is common for the incessantly whining and inexplicably binge-eating member to be forced to hydrate by the IPM (the Instant & Perpetual Militia, i.e. the smog-packs' ubiquitous, fully meritocratic agents of enforcement), however our trust in the source for these reports is shaken.

  Multiple trustworthy sources report that when cycling in desert climates the smog rider adjusts his body to the local variances for temperature and humidity, a somewhat risky process in which he trains his body to need less water than it needs in more northern-lying areas. The first step he takes in this process is to eat of the local soil, and to pledge his fealty to the spirits of the land, and to praise the things growing in it, and to celebrate the things scampering across its face (a curious custom akin to the practices of First People tribes). Once he has ingested of the local earth, he cuts back on water gradually until he needs only a liter of it a day, and perhaps a few ounces more if he should exercise vigorously.

  An active person and avid reader alike, the smog rider learned some of the eternal lessons of the desert by reading tales about Rommel and Lawrence of Arabia, tales of Westerners surviving in the desert on minimal amounts of water using methods they learned from the Bedouin people. (In fact, he considers himself deep down an adjunct member of the hard-scrabble group of desert dwelling bad-asses know as the Fremen, from in Frank Herbert's book Dune.)

  But he is not Fremen, and he is not Bedouin – he is a smog-riding street-art vagabond, a man free of scorn and haste whose heart is pure, and in whom there is no room for death.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on phaltweariness - the automobile

  Today's city streets are pitted and rough as if mauled by large and powerful beasts, and the souls of the people who drive upon are similarly abused. Aggression and impatience descend without fail upon the poor buggers who drive upon today's maligned avenues.

  We the Smog Riders of the America Phaltscape (the asphalt landscape) look often with pity upon our neighbors of the road, they who spend long hours strapped tightly to chairs which are in turn bolted to the floors of a tiny metal boxes. After spending years in such torturous environments, they will have forgotten the satisfaction of moving their own bodies through space/time using nothing other than living muscle and some metal tubes bolted to a pair of pneumatic tires. Rather than the good sweat that stands upon the skin of the bicyclist after a healthy cross-town slog, the sweat of the car driver will be distressed and foul, an oozing sheen that tends to creep through his furrowed brow as he worries about the skyrocketing price of petroleum.

  The smog riding street-art vagabond knows as well to avoid paying for petrol as she does to remain always vigilant of the withering and debilitating affects of phaltweariness – it is her duty to preserve the chaotic super-abundance of Street Art, and to record for Posterity as much of it as she can. To fulfill this task, and to keep her feet on the pedals, she has learned the limits of her body's tolerance for dehydration, pain, and exhaustion, and she knows how to make herself well again.

  Given the phaltweariness, the stressed out drivers, and the miles spend cycling through the phaltscape, how does the vagabond capture every unique work of street art that is at risk of being torn down as soon as it goes up? She does not. But she does what she can do, photographing what pictures might cross her path with the road grit fouling her mouth and a song filling her heart.

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on simplicity in cycling

  Increasing numbers of urban bicyclists are abandoning multi-gear propulsion systems in favor of less complex mechanisms with fewer moving parts. In theory, a mechanical system with few moving parts is less prone to failure than a system with many moving parts, as the more complex system contains more elements that could fail (think of the many levers, wires, and gear-wheels on a ten-speed bicycle compared to the single gear-wheel on a child's bike). Among the individuals rediscovering the fixed-gear or single-gear propulsion system are urban bicycle messengers.

  The rugged and far-ranging operator known as the bicycle messenger traverses dozens of miles of urban landscape in varying weather conditions carrying heavy and unwieldy packages on her back. In her effort to maximize her workable hours by reducing repair- and maintenance-related down time, the bike messenger put to use one of the most simple bicycle-specific propulsion systems she could find – the fixed-gear.

  While the simplicity and reliability of the fixed-gear propulsion system has gained wide popularity in recent years, I have re-discovered an even more simple system for propelling myself forward by bicycle – by pushing off with the foot from vertical surfaces or from the ground. While perusing randomly a tome-like dictionary at Central Library, I stumbled across a picture of the early bicycle, upon which the rider moves forward by pushing off from poles, hydrants, curbstones, etc.

  In this picture we can see that the device is missing standing-fins upon which the operator might rest his feet and balance (which would be included on a modern design). There is no mechanical propulsion system, and the wheels roll freely in any direction. On the one hand, this device is merely a large, steerable scooter upon which the operator can sit; the omission of a propulsion system other than the kicking leg may be too much for the velocipedist who faces hills or whose routes lack vertical surfaces. On the other hand, urban environments are filled with vertical surfaces the operator might kick from (electrical poles, parking meters, and street signs, to name a few), and most of Earth's cities are flat and covered with layers of asphalt (which makes for a smoother ride).

  People with whom I have spoken have voiced their disdain for the fixed-gear bicyclist – they claim he has retreated too far into the bicycle's past. They deride him for seeming to have abandoned needlessly the improvements made to Baron von Drais' original design. Perhaps, however, the smog-riding bike messenger he has not retreated far enough.

  Long live the vondrais!

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on Waring Ave., Los Angeles CA

if you love to cycle, with vigor, rage, and daring, then don't be a psycho - head south and mash Waring

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

encylopediamericanifesto entry - phaltweary II

   Persons suffering from phaltweariness tend to make calls, whoops, war-whoops, cat-calls, hoots, whistles, hollers, brays, and shouts loudly and often. Making loud noises with the speaking organ saves lives – absent a car's horn, uttering a piercing blast of blood-curdling gibberish is a proper way for a cyclist to signal to a nearby motor-vehicle operator that he is about to be cut off mercilessly. As to the general appearance of a peedubser (phaltweariness sufferer):

  His sun-dazzled eyes will dance with a light of their own, especially at night; his phaltburnt lips will be cracked and fissured; his dry tongue will grate across the roof of his mouth; and from his throat will issue forth a cry so foul, so loathsome, as to make the even the most wicked human among us tremble with abject loathing.

  The peedubzer will sound a signature call regardless of audience, circumstance, or location – although she war-whoops to signal lane changes and close calls alike, by yelling she loosens briefly the fetters upon her soul, her vitality radiant and pure, with every joyous breath celebrating life's fleeting tumble.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est – 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

encyclopediamericanifesto entry - phaltweariness

  Phaltweariness is a state of fatigue caused by bicycling for many kilometers on sun-baked city streets. The phaltweary person is known to go to bed easily, to sleep well through the night, and to exhibit a healthy and flexible physique. People suffering from PW (the peedubs, the phaltweariness) will experience aching muscles, 1000 yard stares, and prolonged periods of wild-eyed, fundamental indifference.

  While any avid bicyclist will occasionally encounter PW, phaltweariness affects the street art vagabond in particular, that isolated individual who prowls the Earth's cities on foot or on bicycle taking pictures of street art and uploading those pictures to the available data networks. Although the forces of homogeneity and societal control look upon him with blatant mistrust, the street art vagabond labors to perpetuate and to preserve for posterity as digital photographs the beautiful diversity of posters, stickers, paintings, and other graffiti that constitute the global Street Art movement.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est – 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on ambitions in cash

  During a recent conversation about the merits of socialism, my counterpart argued that ambition, ingenuity, and creativity would disappear in the absence of monetary remuneration for labor. In other words, he claimed that people would stop working if they stopped getting paid money to work, that ambition would vanish if the potential for gain were to also vanish. If this theory were true, fathers would stop showing up to coach their kids' little league teams, our interstate hiking trails would become overgrown for a lack of volunteers to keep them cleared of brush, and nothing would transpire within the walls of churches other than those tasks performed by paid clergy.

  Unknowable man-hours of labor are performed every year in the United States for which the laborers are not paid. This labor is performed to satisfy an ideal, to give back to the community, even to calm that deep inner need to do something positive with which the unlucky among are burdened. I believe this zeal to provide for the common good is inherent to all persons (although most of us have it stamped or beaten out of us at one point or other in our lives). I also believe that our current economic system has ensnared this zeal, and subjugated it to the fleeting, hollow satisfaction of conspicuous consumption.

  It is not as if the people are bad, or shiftless, it is that we have unlearned to cherish those things that are precious beyond their monetary value.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on gods we praise

  Sarah Palin recently made reference to the Statue of Liberty (see here). By doing so, Ms. Palin has given her tacit support to the notion of the goddess Liberty, a deity from times of old whom the American people have adopted fully. Fair and gracious Liberty is not the only deity whom we praise, however – the goddess of Justice, or Iusticia, graces our city seals (see the seal of the borough of Hanover, PA), and we etch her likeness into the stonework of our highest halls of justice (see here). Every time you wear running shoes with a certain swoosh on them, you are praising the Greek goddess of victory, Nike. Our connection to ancient gods runs so deep in this country that even our Declaration of Independence makes the right to Happiness unalienable, a right as often as not personified by goddess Felicitas (or Tyche), the goddess of joy and good fortune.

  To utter the name of a god is to give that god power in our minds and in our lives, such as in Jewish rituals, and in Muslim rituals. For example, every time we say the word Wednesday, we pay homage to the god (Wotan, deity of wisdom and poetry) for whom the day was named; on Thursday and Saturday we pay homage to Thor and Saturn (the gods of fertility and of the harvest respectively), deities hailing from separate realms and distant times, gods who still inspire us today.

  It is good to have as many gods as you can have on your side, so while you may go to a place of worship and pray to one god, remember that throughout your day you are also sending up praises to the other gods who shelter you under their wings (though you might not realize that you are praising them with your shoes or words, or even that they are sheltering you). Similar to the concept of polyamory (the capacity to be in love with multiple people), the capacity to love and worship many different gods is called polytheism. For an example of polytheism, see the practices of Roman Catholics, who pray to one god when traveling (Christopherus), to a different god when competing athletically (Sebastian), and to a third deity (Gabriel) when working in the postal trades.

  There is no limit to the number of gods you can have working for you, or looking out for you, just as there is no limit to the amount of goodness and virtuous action you can perform during your life. Maximize your coverage by increasing your spectrum of gods – you are sure to like the results.

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp