Grigovia blocks pipeline

After reviewing numerous environmental and economic feasibility studies, the Grigovian government is blocking a plan to drain local aquifers and export the water via pipeline. The decision is based primarily on concerns for the country's future independence and enduring water security. AguaMundo Holdings Ltd. (AHL), the Argentinian-Indian company that first proposed the idea, claims that the pipeline will bring prosperity to parched communities throughout Central Asia. “By moving water from these pristine limestone aquifers to the rain-deprived steppes of Grigovia's neighbor nations, we will help impoverished people gain self-sufficiency through agriculture,” said Armando Gupta, chief operating officer for AHL. “With access to these reserves and a 40 year exclusive contract to carry water anywhere in the Yalung River watershed or floodplain, our company will be able to operate at a relatively low cost to the consumer.”

News of the proposed pipeline (as well as the selling off of Grigovia's sovereign resources) sparked protests and indignation. Tens of thousands of people carrying signs and banners have gathered in front of the nation's parliamentary buildings to protest the pipeline talks; some three hundred environmentalists have set up a tent village in Free Speech Square, just down the road from the prime minister's house, where they plan to remain until the threats to Grigovian sovereignty and national resources have passed; and a group of vocational-technical college students is traveling on foot in the areas along the pipeline's proposed route to record the flora and fauna that live there and upload their videos to Youtube, in order to showcase the ecologically-diverse landscapes that would be threatened. “We will not rest until the threat to our homeland has passed,” said a masked protester in Free Speech Square who was perched atop a lamppost talking to passers-by. “We do well in Grigovia because we protect our resources, using them wisely and slowly, using them so that we all share equally of our natural bounty. This foreign company, however, wants to take our water and sell it to the Tajiks and the Uzbeks, our kind and generous regional neighbors. We love our oppressed brothers and sisters, and we wish them the best, but we refuse to let outsiders drain our aquifers and pipe our water – the very lifeblood of our people – beyond our borders and down into the dry and the dusty plains.”

Initial support for the pipeline came from a group of politicians from the Grigovia Forward Grigovia First Party (ЮВЮД). The group, which is known as the Kremlin 7 for their close ties to Russian business and political leaders, was also behind efforts to privatize Grigovia's national forests and open strip-mining concessions in the Yiptlong massif. Despite receiving less than 10% of the votes in national elections, ЮВЮД maintains influence in Parliament due mostly to its sizable war-chest, which is estimated to be as large as the gross domestic product of Sri Lanka and Liechtenstein, combined.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

student uprising in Grigovia

From the capitol city of Grig to even the smallest of hamlets, students enrolled in the Grigovian public schooling systems – some of them merely children – took part over the weekend in often violent protests to draw attention to a number of different issues. While some rose up out of solidarity with Syrian rebels fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad, others took to the streets to voice their dissatisfaction with capitalism and such poverty and income-inequality as is associated with this unjust and outdated economic system. The youngest protesters, however – they who are most prone to sudden, brutal violence – actively fought various police and even military forces to bring attention to the rising cost of candy and sweets, whose prices have skyrocketed following a local outbreak of the virus nonspecificus willibrandtis, which has destroyed much of the country's reserves of sugar-beets, ruining most of its sugar-beet-derived sweeteners, sweet-makers, starches, and similar smack-a-licious substances.

In a statement posted to youtube and disseminated by hand-printed fliers, the students of Grigovia's vocational-technical colleges declared their allegiance to all other vo-tech student movements around the world, especially to those in Thailand. “We – and our brothers and sisters around the world, especially in Thailand – are dedicated to the free speech, free assembly, and to the propagation and free expression of the various trades, among them woodworking, electrical wiring, and gun-smithing; any government organization that opposes our right to unionize shall not stand long.” Long columns of vo-tech students – recognizable by their red and gold shoulder-patches – marched through the empty streets, or drilled in abandoned lots.

Said Noviembr Chu-Yendt, age 7, from the northern village of Vonya Yellenda, who had traveled to Grig by train, alone, in order to take part in these historic uprisings, “Last night, I ran into some school-mates who were going to join a street-march to highlight the degradation of our national park-lands by foreign companies mining there for rare-earth-metals, but, afterward, we became separated, and so I had to spend the night in a park, which was no so bad, because I brought my father's Soviet-Afghani-War-era Makarov pistol, and all these knives.” The boy opened his knapsack, allowing us a glimpse at what appeared to be a collection of trench-knives dating back to the First World War.

Later that day, we spoke to unemployed former factory forewoman Hana Blastisyennd, a 67-year-old grandmother whom we found manning a street-barricade in front of a Home for Orphans of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine (HOIOP). “When I heard rumors that some teenagers were looting the orphanage of its silver, I erected this barricade to keep the police away while my grandsons went inside to re-capture the stolen goods and to give those damn teenagers a good spanking,” Mrs. Blastisyennd said before stooping to pick up a hissing tear-gas canister, which she promptly threw back into the midst of an approaching phalanx of riot-gear-clad policemen. Pulling an AK-74 assault rifle with a telescoping stock from a floral-print carpetbag resting by her feet, the otherwise-unassuming old woman fired it into the upper windows of a building a few blocks away. Her well-placed shots caused two men who had been hiding there to flee, carrying what appeared to be scope-equipped rifle and a pair of binoculars away with them. Furthermore, the phalanx of cops – which had approached to within a few scant meters of her position – drew back in haste, reforming behind the thick stone walls of a nearby auxiliary citizen's armory. “On any other day, if these policemen had asked nicely to make sure everything was OK within the HOIOP, I would have let them pass in peace, but these pig-dogs are not acting like gentlemen, so fuck them – fuck the police.”

Analysts except the protests to spread before they peter out, hopefully sometime around the harvest festival, in late November.

場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit

guerrilla tactics - squared

(This update covers the first and second of November.)

  On Wednesday, I arrived on the square around noon, and skipped diagonally across it to my post opposite the anti-choice crowd, leaping high in the exact center to click my heels. Once entrenched, I bowed to them, low to the ground and proper-like, to initiate the day's bout. Among my counterparts were new faces, most of them boring except for the blatantly sex-deprived young man who recited his religion's slogans at high volume, continuously. There was also a curious older man who walked up carrying a cane and pushing a wheelchair (briskly), only to sit in his device and to prop his PRAY TO END ABORTION sign on his seemingly all-too-functional legs.

  My dear readers, the foes of freedom are pulling out all the stops in their battle against the right of the American adult to make a decision. While their minor offenses of blatantly and continuously obstructing foot traffic on their staked-out sidewalk and of jaywalking in full view of the world (to escape proximity to me), their major offense is their continued struggle to force the American People to live according to one set of religious rules among the thousands practiced here every day. Such actions, honored friends, constitute religious oppression by any rule and measure. Hence, my newest sign, END THIS RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION.

  Regarding the name of this article, my guerrilla tactics have proven very effective. (I would like to thank Sun Tzu, and Mao Zedong.) Instead of just waving at the people who give me thumbs up, I have begun waving at everyone who honks or waves, without exception. This has led to a general decrease in honking, and to many upset anti-choicers who try to convey with any hand signal but the middle finger that they in no way support me. This has also led drivers who happen to be watching to think that I am waving back at my supporters, which helps them to override their fears, whereupon they give me a nice broad smile or a secret nod of approval.

  As I am taking from my opponents their (open) public support, so have I taken their slogans. My signs, (DEFEND FREEDOM | END THIS RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION | WHAT'S NEXT? PRAY TO END FREE SPEECH), when used properly, in thirteen words are capable of changing the mind of the wary passer-by, whom I can watch evolve from impartial spectator to full-blown, horn-honking supporter. If I am lucky, I actually witness the beginning of long and potentially deal-breaking conversations between romantic couples who probably should have talked about the whole abortion thing before they read it on some crazy guy's signs.

  As an effort to maintain a level of self-mockery, I always come dressed in different costumes. This confuses my foes and robs them of the power to offend my pride. (Pride is a huge factor in participatory democracy: maintaining a stable emotional state is crucial, so my distinctive lack of self-respect is really coming in handy.)

  In line with the ancient tactics of long-deceased military minds, I am flexible where my foe is stagnant, my message fresh, entertaining, attention-getting, their message one-sided, fixed. I have side-stepped the false prizes my counterparts have offered (calling the cops of them, responding physically to harassment by priest or parishioner), striking instead boldly to the crux of the issue. One of the most important victories I have won is the ability to control the dialogue. By addressing my opponents directly (when they are trying so hard to ignore me, and to shut me down), and by cutting to the honest core of the issue, I have exposed the cruel, thinly-veiled heart of their message: YOU WILL BOW TO OUR GOD. To force the American People to live according to the rules of one god in particular is to rob us completely of our freedom. If we ease off, and allow religious fanatics to erode just one of our Constitutional rights (such as a woman's right to her body, which is her property), we will forsake all of our rights, we will destroy our inalienable protections, and we will make a mockery of a once free People.

  I was in the middle of my dramatic farewell bow, when, righting myself, I turned to find a quasi-homeless man (with whom I have spoken previously) smiling at me from a few feet away. “Why don't you leave those poor crazy people alone?” he said. A note to the anti-choicers: if homeless people are calling you crazy, then your message is in serious trouble. Our foes are shaken, their position increasingly untenable.

  Long live the forces of freedom!

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

counter-protesting, day #6

  Pretty routine day today in downtown Hanover, Pennsylvania. After having played at Codorus State Park fourteen holes of speed disk golf (when you're not throwing, you're running), I showed up with some new signs I had made last night: MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS | IT'S NOT A BABY 'TILL IT'S BORN | WHEN THEY GO HOME, I'LL GO HOME | KEEP YOUR MORALS OUT OF MY BOWELS | ABORTION – SOMETIMES, IT JUST MAKES SENSE. With these as well as my other signs in hand, I was able to express quite a bit in a few minutes, without saying a word.
  Immediately upon my arrival, two of the four pro-lifers on hand, both women, rushed to their minivans, where they proceeded to conduct lengthy telephone conversations while staring at me continuously until I looked their way, whereupon they pretended not to have been looking at all. The only contact I had with the police was when an officer putting plain paper bags over the parking-meters noticed me trying to switch messages. He said, “You've got a lot of signs.” “Yeah... I've got a couple,” my reply. One passing driver hung his head out the window to shout, “If your mother had gotten an abortion, we wouldn't be in this situation.” Thanks for that, sir – I will pass on your sentiment to my dead mother.
  What was the main thing I learned today? That “mind your own business” (MYOB) goes over very well with the people of this region, and with those who pass through here. (This town being at the nexus of a handful of major connecting roads that point to all directions of the compass, thousands of cars come through the square every day, all of them exposed to my horrific and potentially insulting signs.) Old and young they waved, male and female, most with huge grins on their faces as they gave me thumbs-up and sped happily into the distance, confident that someone was out there fighting for Liberty.
  MYOB, moreover, also ties in with my greater message: a woman's body is her business, and trying to make abortion illegal violates the business of her body, which is her property, which is protected under not only the fifth, but also the fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
  When I returned from making more signs (over a nice lunch of smoked oysters, jasmine rice, and broccoli pieces all cooked up together in a rice-cooker), a neighbor of one of the families in town that I hang out with was on the square, her young daughter in tow, the child poorly dressed given the foul weather (the look of shock on her face almost sending me running until I clamped down on the Fear). Soon, it started to rain harder, and I was left on the square, alone, holding up a sign that said: THIS SIGN COST: $0.57
  I had almost rolled up my sign – the pedestrian light was taking forever to change – when a fat, young, two-pack-a-day grandmother leaned out of her daughter's car, and said, “Why don't you take your own advice, and mind your own business?”

  Well played, Gam-Gam; well played.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on abortion (counter-protesting)

  I am just come from counter-protesting the abortion protesters who have been infesting the central square in the small, rural town where I live. For weeks now, I have driven past them day after day, middle-aged men, grandmothers, and nuns standing out in the cold, standing up for that in which they believe. They carry professionally-made signs that say, PRAY TO END ABORTION, or, LIFE IS PRECIOUS. Some of the signs bear pictures of aborted fetuses, some pictures of cute and cuddly little babies.

  The first sign I made, at two Saturday morning with a head full of booze and a heart full of indignation, said, CHOICE = LIBERTY – KEEP ABORTION LEGAL. Having spent the day playing disk golf at Codorus State Park, I remembered the sign I had shoved into the trunk of my car the night before, and made it out to the square just before dusk, Saturday evening. Within a few minutes, two separate drives had either booed me or given me thumbs down, while one of the protesters, a young, sporty-looking woman, had waved to me at least five times. Fortunately, my disk golfing partner was there to back me up, and to take pictures for posting to the socialverse.

  Once again fresh from disk golfing, today I debuted my new sign, this one with two sides, and two messages. The first: CHOICE = LIBERTY – DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION. The second: KEEP YOUR PRAYERS OUT OF MY VAGINA. I made sure to hit the square around lunch time, this time without backup, to catch the midday traffic. Immediately, there were honks and jeers, thumbs up and down, brief conversations with drivers stopped at the light where I stood, and many, many people looking away in shame or embarrassment. More than one driver agreed that it was “only a matter of time” before someone did what I was doing. The sporty young woman waved once or twice, but her companions, two women in their seventies, never ceased shooting daggers at me, their looks dripping with malicious contempt, their polished little signs no match for the giant piece of spray-painted cardboard upon which I had clumsily scrawled my counter-slogans.

  I caught a half dozen drivers taking pictures, and a trio of proto-hipsters approached me at one point, to have their picture taken next to the vagina slogan, but the highlight of my hour on the square was the local rapid-transit bus that circled the block so that one of the passengers could take a picture of the vagina slogan, the bus's driver laughing and signaling to me with her hands to flip over my message-board.

  I believe strongly in my messages. According to just about every doctor on the planet, a fetus is just not a baby until it emerges from the mother's body. Until such time that it emerges, the fetus is the property of the mother – she has the inalienable right to do with it what she pleases. In the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, each person is granted the right to life, liberty, and property, rights that pertain to the body specifically, that property without which life is impossible.

  If one thinks that the fetus during the first trimester is human life (when it is only a cluster of cells), then abortion activists surely oppose (on moral grounds) surgery of any kind. During liposuction, living human tissue is removed from the body. Similarly, a cancerous tumor is living human tissue – when it is removed from the body, it dies. Who is protesting publicly to end the removal of cancerous growths? No one. When my pancreas is issued a passport, or when my trachea obtains the right to vote, I might agree with the protesters, but these internal tissue clusters are part of me, not separate entities: they are mine to dispose of as I please.

  No country of which I know issues a certificate of conception, whereas most countries issue some sort of certificate of birth. I think this shows us what modern, enlightened society understands: that anything growing within your body belongs to you. Our Constitutional rights must be guarded continuously from attacks by persons and groups that wish to take them from us. So stand up, speak out, and keep your prayers out of my vagina

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp