3rd reformed tender of whorphans

Friends.

Our budding tender is struck today with tragedy. United whorphans of the Pan-Coastal region, our lesser jace, Randolm Whittlesmaeyer, died this morning in his sleep. All surviving lesser jaces are expected to attend the emergency sitting of whorphans at 1900 this evening at Jinjo's Diner (near Wahalaihala Point).

At this sitting, duties previously performed by Randolm shall be distributed among the assembled whorphans. These include maintaining the gravel walkways, patrolling along the outer western fence weekdays between 1200 & 1400, chairing the departments of crop maintenance and water recapture/preservation, instructing close quarters combat, and manning the crèche every other evening. Thank you for your time. May you be without ado.

Sincerely,

Reginald Augustus Steele

on operation coverall

Have you ever seen on television footage of United Nations soldiers standing around in hot, impoverished places wearing blue helmets on their heads? Have you ever wished you could shake the hands of those brave and self-less people and thank them for their service? Keep an eye out in your neighborhood for members of the United Nations Urban Beautification Group (UNUBG), a loose affiliation of self-directed urban beautification specialists (SDUBS) licensed under a mandate from the U.N. Special Assembly for the Perpetration and Preservation of Street Art to apply their graffiti on any otherwise unadorned public surface.

You will identify these SDUBS by their patented blue UN windbreakers and by a rambunctious spirit uncommon to the youth of today. Be alert: they are executing Operation Coverall (OPCOV) in cities and towns across the globe. The first graffiti campaign to be waged by an international body, this shall be to date the most aggressive and best financed street art campaign ever launched. Authorized by an executive mandate signed personally by Ban Ki Moon, OPCOV has been criticized by civic leaders and property-owners alike, who claim the action infringes upon their right to own and to erect structures of boring and repetitive design. Supreme Leader Moon says that he may have mistakenly authorized Operation Coverall when he signed a document that he thought was a birthday card for his granddaughter – he claims to have never before heard of SDUBS, or of graffiti.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

US reopens diplomatic mission to Grigovia

  In a surprising move, the United States today reopened diplomatic channels with the Republic of Grigovia. The two nations recalled their diplomatic staff last year after a succession of incidents that culminated in a spat of very nasty, very public name-calling. Tensions began when at a session of the United Nations the Grigovians accused the American delegation and its European allies of turning a blind eye to Russian aggression in the region.

  Named for Grigov the Watchful, the 13^th century national hero who first sighted an invading Mongol horde, Grigovia split from the Russian Federation in 1993. Situated high in the Caucasus mountains, this nation of four hundred thousand people sits atop potentially vast deposits of rare earth minerals. Upon hearing the news, the heads of state of dozens of different nations telephoned each other in an effort to puzzle out just what the Americans were up to.

  場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

Paraguayan Navy to purchase destroyers

  After a series of lengthy negotiations, the Paraguayan Navy announced today the purchase of seven destroyers from Xi-Do-Gao shipyards in the People's Republic of China. Built from blueprints for the U.S.N. Fletcher class of war vessels, the ships will be named Floracruz, Chaco, Libertad, Panmundo, and Obligado. Some of the material used to make these ships will be supplied by Indian steel magnate Mr. Bingrap Singhur, a controversial figure wanted for questioning in regard to crimes against humanity committed during Apartheid. While this is the first large purchase made by the Paraguayan Navy since its inception in 1962, military analysts suspect that, lacking a seaside harbor, the ruling technocracy might have the ships broken down and moved by truck to the landlocked country's larger lakes, and deeper rivers.

  場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

cop-be-gone

  Have you ever run into a power-maddened, nitpicking, racist, or similarly mentally-challenged police officer? Do you find yourself occasionally pulled over on the side of a deserted highway in the middle of the night staring at an aviator-sunglass-wearing stranger as he bangs on your car's window with a two foot long flashlight? Have you ever left your house and been accosted immediately by a gravel-voiced man who appears to despise you completely, from your hair to your clothes to the way that you walk?

  If you answered YES to any of these questions, grab a pen and paper, and take down this number: 8973302746 extension 5390 sub-chapter 418 desk 0. By calling this short, easy-to-remember string of digits you will summon to your side a pair of Enforcers of Liberty, impartial agents charged with securing for you your constitutionally guaranteed Blessings of Liberty and dedicated to preserving your right to pursue your Happiness any way you see fit so long as you are not infringing upon the Happiness of another person.

  Enforcers of Liberty are trained in the Socratic method, in the pacification of irate police officers, and in at least three different martial arts. These agents defend your freedom, and they will stay by your side until the forces of repression harass you no longer. They are not armed with knives, or guns – their tools are a pure heart, a firm grasp of the English language, an immovability similar to that of a stone wall, and an overwhelming need to preserve individual liberty. So don't delay; call today – we'll keep those pesky cops away.

  Once more: to summon a pair of Enforcers of Liberty to your side, dial 8973302746, select extension 5390, choose sub-chapter 418, ring desk 0, and ask for help.

  場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

(.^.)

please phone oenothèque owner Guiseppe “We No Take Credit Cards” Petri

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

terrorism? not in America

  Over the past decade, the military forces of the United States of America have persecuted a series of wars started by President George Bush and Dick Cheney. These politicians and their ilk sold the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan to the people of America on the notion that this country would be attacked by waves of by crazed, turban-wearing foreigners with bombs strapped to their chests who had infiltrated American society so fully as to be able to strike any target anywhere, anytime. Convinced of the risk and cowed into submission by a fear-mongering and alarmist news media, the citizenry stood idly by as its president entered the Stronghold of Liberty into a two front war.

  (As the orphaned son of an officer of the United States Navy, and as one who has had the honor of being befriended by United States Marines, I respect unequivocally any person who has served in America's armed forces, or in the armed forces of any other nation founded upon principles similar to our own.)

  So much war and so much blood spilled, good thick blood oozing from Columbia's valiant sons and daughters, precious fluid escaping the bodies of good honest people from Indiana or California or New York who fly to foreign lands and give their lives in answer to their president's call. And as our troopers fight with honor in the air and on the land and upon/below the seas, has our nation faced this dreaded wave of suicidal attacks? It has not. Has our civilian infrastructure been compromised extensively, and have (innocent) bystanders been slaughtered by the thousands in lightning daytime raids against our airport or ground-vehicle terminals? They have not. And since they have not, we ask ourselves if it is time for the federal government to stop expend the lives and the resources of the American people on killing foreign religious terrorists, and that it should instead form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

  場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

  p.s. devices for societal control such as the Controlled Substances Act, as well as SOPA and PIPA, destroy the Blessings of Liberty – they have no place in America's enlightened and modern society; they are formidable to tyrants only

*^)|(^*

  the deep urge by which other animals sense both earthquakes and mysterious energies man misinterprets often as the Voice of a God

  場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

declaration of corporate supremacy

  When in the course of pursuing Profits it becomes necessary to formulate the rules by which the people shall live, and to remind them for whom it is they toil, We, the assembled Capitalists and Corporations headquartered in but not paying taxes to these united states of America, ignoring of the opinions of mankind, declare that the economic well-being of our Executive Boards and Voting Members by far outweighs the people's constitutional right to safety and happiness. The original declaration of independence, that document upon which the united states was founded, those words that failed to grant mankind the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that scroll is a dead and worthless document – its declaration of unalienable rights is null and void, and its ability to define the role of government as the sole agent charged with making the American people safe and happy was long ago buried under heaping shit-piles of our Avarice and Greed.

  We enforce through police action the following Truths: that a few hundred thousand Americans shall receive the most of the profits generated by all of the other Americans working hard every day; that We have the right to speculate with and to put at risk of loss the monies entrusted to us by the people, and that We shall be safe behind our high walls when our speculations fail and millions lose their hard-won gains, our ill-begotten riches guaranteed and protected for us by the federal government; that our risky businesses shall in cases of bankruptcy and financial failure receive unlimited financial bailouts from the federal government; that We shall profit from the sale of drugs such as alcohol and tobacco that are legally available to the people, drugs that kill them by the hundreds of thousands and that maim them by the millions.

  Additionally, We hold: that imprisoning individuals in for-profit prisons that We own and run for the crime of consuming drugs other than those that we sell is proper government practice; that the federal government should wage endless war against unseen foes (see the war on terror) in order for us to manufacture, develop, and sell it arms and weaponry, even though We know that the only sure way to win these wars would be to force everyone on Earth into concentration camps and to forcibly lobotomized them there; that We shall through unscrupulous and otherwise fraudulent advertising convince the people that unbridled consumerism and unchecked personal debt are the bedrock of the American dream, and that Happiness does not grow from within or that it is not a fragile state of mind that blossoms from patience and self-understanding but that it is something you cram into your wallet or pocket-book, something that you spend in our shopping plazas, something that you spend on useless items that are little more than clutter.

  Furthermore, We declare: that it was our patriotic duty to abandon the American manufacturing sector in favor of foreign shores, and that We served the motherland well by sacrificing the jobs of millions of our countrymen to boost our Profit-Margins; that We shall force children to work as slave-laborers in free-economic-zones located around the globe; that We have bestowed upon the unemployed American citizen the privilege of buying cheap goods that break soon after they are first used; that We have the Right, regardless of the complaints of tree-hugging hippies, to rape and to destroy the land for short-term gain, to poison the streams with runoff from our mines, to clear-cut the once-great forests for export, and to pump the animals We sell you as food full of steroids and antibiotics rather than to provide them with clean and open places in which to live out their short and pathetic lives; that We have willingly and to vast personal profit rejuvenated the methods of the ancient Romans for controlling the lower classes by providing them with bread (fast food) and circuses (television), methods that keep the human rabble blessedly quiet and contented throughout its pitiful and mostly worthless lives; that We shall run our corporate societies not as democracies but as totalitarian fiefs while convincing our workers that through hard and dedicated labor they might reach the highest rungs of our bogus organizations, while, in reality, they shall, after infighting, backstabbing, and reckless self-promotion, find themselves flung out into the cold, the pathways to our fleeting and hollow ranks closed to all but a most rapacious and lustful Few.

  At no point in the long yet subtle process of making a mockery of this once great nation did We pause to consider that by appropriating this nation's wealth we would violate the Constitutional directive of promoting the general Welfare, although, by funneling the collective wealth of all Americans into the pockets of our cronies and fellow oligarchs, We shall secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and to Our Posterity, not to all Americans equally, but to those who have, as we have, dutifully sacrificed their sacred Honor on the altar of the Insatiable Hag of Materialism, to those who have shat, as we have shat, upon the once-grand notion of Liberty and Justice for All. We have stopped our ears to the Voice of Justice, preferring rather the comforting Shriek of Lies. We rejoice in the violation of the flimsy protections once but no longer afforded the America people by the Constitution.

  All this We pledge, and more: We have the means to lobby the Legislature for our own gain; We have the money with which to live comfortably for ten lifetimes even though millions of American children go to bed hungry each night; We have convinced the people that consumption is preferable to ingenuity, that watching TV is preferable to creative expression or the telling of stories, and that the formula for happiness starts with a dollar sign and ends in a decimal point. We, therefore, the capitalists and corporations headquartered symbolically in these united states, Assembled, appealing to none but our Majority Share-holders, by our own authority and the might of our wrongly appropriated wealth, brazenly Publish and Declare, that this Country belongs to Us now, that the dream of a more perfect Union has no place in the world of top-few-capitalism, that 99% of all Americans shall toil ceaselessly to make us, those of the remaining One Percent, rich beyond reckoning, that government is instituted not to secure the Rights of the people but to satisfy the whims of the Few, and that the people may neither alter nor abolish the system of federal government that long ago forsook and abandoned them in order to satisfy the needs of its wealthiest few subjects, and that it is too late to change things now, because the people waited too long to act out against our blatant and flagrant transgressions.

  So suck it, you hard-working American fools, and while you are sucking it good and hard, remember that you long ago gave up those inalienable rights that your ancestors fought and died to secure for you.

  Signed, this Wednesday in 2012, by

  GFYS

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a a a

all Americans are liars; I am an American

re: v-day

v-day stands for victory day, as in victory over Hitler in the European theater, not for Valentine's day, and anyone who confuses the two is capitalism-addled unpatriotic scum

x

o o s

to occupy all streets ride bicycle

In Allah We Trust

  the official motto of the United States of America is In God We Trust. No specific god is mentioned, and therefore our motto could mean In Ganesha We Trust, In Wednesday We Trust, In Allah We Trust, etc.

場黑麥

s c m

even seasoned cocks make rookie mistakes

read this, smokers of tobacco

  Additional cigarette-smoking permits available – act now, limited numbers available. The California Department for the Restriction of Freedom (CDRF) has printed additional permits for persons seeking to smoke tobacco in public. It is illegal to simply light up, and citizens interested in sparking that cancer-stick on the street are advised to initiate the proper paperwork necessary to start the arduous process of obtaining one of these permits.

  In a press release issued today the CDRF stated that it restricts the liberty of the tobacco-smoking population in this fashion in hopes of silencing complaints from marijuana smokers, those violent and vociferous vagrants who grovel gladly before the CDRF for permission to pursue their Happiness. To insure the domesticTranquility and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to all citizens equally, smokers of any type of tobacco must henceforth obtain permits before they shall be allowed to smoke in public their preferred substance.

  The elected leaders of the State of California and the appointed heads of the Department for the Restriction of Freedom began using the permit system when they discovered they could deliver vast profits to their prison-owning cronies by outlawing the use of addictive substances other than those sold or regulated by the State itself (prescription medication, alcohol, sugar). In addition to printing this batch of new tobacco-smoking permits, the CDRF is accepting applications from individuals seeking to drink coffee in public, from people wishing to gain or to lose body-weight, to cut their own hair, or to prepare their own food, and from citizens seeking to possess and to read books. Act now – limited numbers available.

  - reporting for The Violent & Vociferous Vagrant is HELLO MY NAME IS WHORPHAN

Spes Mea In Ratio Est | 場黑麥

n's g

nature's god is a self-ordering chaotic universe

- 場黑麥

tilla was

a peck of tilla was shunned today in the county courthouse, causing the assembled to panic

on a new preamble

  As the citizens of America already suffer daily of the effects of the corporation-oriented, profit-at-all-cost form of capitalism that currently rules their country, the preamble to the U.S. Constitution shall from now on read:

  We who control the most wealthy and powerful organizations in the history of mankind, we the all-powerful Corporate Executives, in order to silence Dissent, sidestep Justice, appropriate for ourselves the wealth of the Commons, and secure for Ourselves and Our offspring alone the Blessings of Liberty, do declare that the federal government is to us financial life-raft, attack-dog, and sniveling underling, that rules and laws do not apply to us (and if they were to, that we have the money to buy a way out of trouble), and that we shall not give up our privileges without a fight (which we would win, since we have the money to bury a motherfucker like you ten times over).

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

any tongue

America has no official tongue, no official language, and therefore any tongue is America's tongue.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on indirect representation

  When the Constitution of the U.S.A. was written, news took weeks to travel from one city to the next; it was necessary for a representative to be chosen to assuage the mood of the people around him and to decide for those people great and pressing matters at places distant and inconvenient to reach.

  In our modern time, however, news travels at the speed of light, and the citizens can speak to one another at any time and in any place, and they can be called upon, individually and instantly, for their opinion on great and pressing matters. The system of representative democracy under which America currently suffers grants political power to a small number of individuals who are in anything but name the princes of this republic. Individuals who have power will be corrupted invariably by that power. Therefore, we need to draw up a new Constitution, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to us shall seem most likely to effect our Safety and Happiness.

  The People shall be Safe and Happy when no single person holds power over a nation.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

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

on francophobia

  A scourge has been spreading throughout these United States – the love of things French! Also known as francophilia, this adoption of French customs has infiltrated our cafeterias as french-fries and as Pasteurization; it has crept into our language as adopted words, among them respondez s'il vous plait (RSVP), a-la-carte, reason, arrest, and blonde. For the love of the flesh yet clinging to my bones, our President Alexander Hamilton even spoke this foul language while he held office.

  In order to purify our society of the remnants of this most dangerous of influences, we must do more than change our french fries to freedom fries – we must excise from the annals of history the names of Hamilton and of any other American, living or dead, who at any point was even suspected of being able to speak the tongue of those cowardly frog-eating bastards. Anything less would fall short of our stated goals, among which we count the cleansing of foreign contamination from our society. Only through vigilance might we prevail.

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on LA, briefly

  I love LA. My fluids suffuse her soils, yet she always provides spoils. Too easily she drags me in, enticing me with perfect asses, teasing me with furtive glances, breaking my heart a thousand times a day, my own insecurities and fears amplified against the foul tympanum of her heaving cracked pavement. Within her envelope I walk and wander gladly, casting about clumsily for the dim remnants of tenacious glory, my eyes grating like those of a madman, my soul zigzagging between high elation and base surrender. She knows me as would my mother, yet she denies me all but that which I might truly obtain.

  Bear with me, courageous readers. I am not yet over my culture shock, and shall resume my regular posting schedule when it has abated.

  Sincerely, JP

americansFIRST

  I am hereby announcing a new nomenclature for all Americans, one that, by addressing the individual directly and his or her status as a member of this nation before addressing his or her race or skin color, will hopefully be a more equalizing and egalitarian form of address than the forms in use currently.

  Instead of saying African-Americans, or referring to people whose skin color is somewhat darker than that of the majority, as "black," let us refer to them as "Americans of African descent." Instead of saying "whites," let us refer to these people as Americans of European descent (their skin color is more pink than white, anyway). In cases where there are multiple origins of descent, let us say Americans of Mixed descent.

  Since we Americans have a hard time abandoning completely the use of "race" as a primary identifier, perhaps this new nomenclature can help smooth our transition to a more egalitarian coexistence.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est – 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

occupy, sons of liberty

  The Sons of Liberty were active starting in 1765, eleven years before the collective colonial bodies agreed to declare their independence. For eleven years they risked life and limb in order to liberate their fellow citizens from the yoke of oppression. At the time, our forefathers were fighting against an aggressive occupation by a foreign regime that had become blind to, deaf to, and destructive of, the rights and liberties of the people of this land. Now it has come to pass that the government of the USA has become blind to, deaf to, and destructive of, the rights and liberties of the people of this land.

  What would these brave people say about the state of affairs in our current time? I hazard that they would gape in shock at the level of control under which the population is held. I believe they would cry foul of the inordinate rights and privileges (near total immunity from prosecution, tax breaks, a lopsided economic system that redirects the wealth generated by the labor of all Americans into the pockets of but a few Americans) granted to private interest. I trust that our founders did not sally valiantly into the night so that we, their Posterity, could eat fast food, get fat, and drive around, lazily, in gas-burning cars because our city planners failed to plan for public transportation.

  Dig in, comrades of the Occupy movement, and know that our efforts will require time, patience, and sacrifice. It may take us eleven years, and it may take us eleven times eleven years, but we shall prevail!

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on the pagan power of capitalism

  Capitalism, with all its evil and all its ills, has had one definitely positive affect on American society: to rid our pagan holidays of religious contamination. Neither morality nor meaning matter in the eyes of capitalism – the only thing that matters is making more money. For example: capitalism has freed the ancient holiday of goddess Eostre from the clutches of biblical oppression. As a holiday that once celebrated that goddess who makes women fertile (and the land grow green again), the festival we now know as Easter was high-jacked by religious forces and co-opted for their own narrow uses. In the last half century, however, the ever-grasping paws of capitalistic greed have freed Easter from the Shackles of Scripture, so that we once again celebrate lustful procreation (symbolized by the rabbit) and the return of the teeming things (symbolized by daffodils and other such flowers).

  Similarly, the holiday of the winter solstice, an occasion that has been marked throughout the centuries with lights mounted on pine trees. This holiday was taken hostage by the forces of Christianity, forces that bastardized the logical marking of the passage of time and tied it to the fictitious birth of a fictitious god in a land far removed in time and space. The passing of the winter solstice was only recently liberated by the uncaring hand of capitalism – an emphasis on Santa Claus and the profuse giving of gifts has replaced, thankfully, the (biblically) unspecified day upon which a young lady gave birth, in a (biblically) unspecified structure, in an (biblically) unspecified place, to a male child. (The story of Jesus is a precise retelling of the story of Horus, an Egyptian god born of a virgin who died only to arise from death after three days.) Now, instead of worshiping some stagnant and foreign godhead, during the darkest days of winter we celebrate the coming-together of loved-ones, and shower them with presents as a sign of our affection. Gone are the days of the churchly mandate – capitalism has finally, and for good, removed Christ from Christmas.

  And, most importantly (to me, at least), the uncaring and voracious greed of capitalism has removed any shred of religiosity from the delightfully pagan holiday of Halloween. What started as a heathen ritual to mark the beginning of winter was commandeered by Christian forces, who turned it into All Saint's Day, on which day only the dead of that religion were praised (in effigy). After centuries of suffering under the cruel, stifling blanket of this biblical slavery, Halloween has been dragged from its prison by the ever-hungry maw of monster-capitalism. Gone are the days when Americans celebrated the Christian dead – arrived are the days when we Americans celebrate inventiveness and the ability to take a good scaring, when we shower upon the children of the land many sweet gifts, when we might, for one short night, become someone other than our boring normal selves. (The proliferation of Halloween as a national holiday was made possible by profit-hungry corporations that recognized in it a way to sell cheap, Chinese-made costumes.)

  While I generally abhor capitalism for its tendency to make only a small portion of the American people rich, I celebrate it now for freeing our shared and common history from the clutches of religious oppression. We can ill afford to live according to the rules of a lost tribe of desert people, so it is fitting that the forces of our chosen economic model are wiping our history clean of religious contamination.

  The next time you are carving up a lamb on Easter, remember horny old Eostre, and give your spouse a long, lingering kiss. When you find yourself stringing lights on a tree, remember to go outside and enjoy the longest night of the year. As you are putting the finishing touches on an elaborate and dazzling costume, remember that its job is to scare away the sickness-bringing forces of the impending long cold darkness. Thanks to the religious impartiality of our capitalistic system, you can enjoy these events without being forced to fear the wrath of some jealous, vengeful godhead.

  America is not a Christian nation, nor was it in any way founded upon the Christian faith. Neither easter nor the winter solstice were originally Christian holidays – these pagan rituals were commandeered in order to facilitate the spread of one set of religious teachings. Just how non-Christian is America? We honor the Roman god Saturn on Saturday. On Wednesday, we remember the Norse god Wotan, and on Thursday, his son-brother Thor. In the harbor of New York there stands a large statue of the Roman goddess Libertas (whom we call Lady Liberty), a goddess who holds in one hand the Torch of Progress, in the other a representation of our most treasured of documents, the Declaration of Independence.

  Everywhere in this great land we witness the chaotic jumble of different faiths and systems of belief, all tumbling together and jostling to retain the slightest shred of relevancy. May the uncaring grasp of our institutionalized greed continue to keep American society free of religious one-mindedness! Thank you, lustful and rapacious Capitalism, you old sport, for doing you part to keep America jumbled, confused, and oppression-free.

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on my loss of faith

  My parents were both Lutherans. My father was a pastor, my mother a devout follower of the same religion. From birth until my fourteenth birthday (at which point I rebelled more openly) I was for most of my life either in a church, on my way to a church, or otherwise engaged in some sort of churchly activity. Among my earliest memories outside of wild animal encounters as a toddler take place in churches. I sang my first public solo, (at the age of ten years) on Christmas Eve, to a packed house, at a church in Shamokin, Pennsylvania.

  All around me were devout and loyal Lutherans who all sang the same songs in the same fashion at the same times of year, their practices unchanging from one decade to the next. While I, in general, have no problem with people engaging in religious practice, I realized recently (after deep and introspective thought) that I had abandoned my own faith at a very young age. My belief in an invisible god, as well as any respect I might have had for the doctrine of the Lutheran church, those things faltered as early as the age of six or seven; by my teens, they were long gone. It is well that I was a shy and quiet child – if I had told anyone about my doubting, they would likely have forced me into re-education classes, so as to keep me enslaved to The Church. (I have never believed that thinking “bad” thoughts, doubtful thoughts, would get me in trouble with a godhead whose main message is love, forgiveness and compassion; thankfully, I recognized at a comparatively young age my fellow Lutherans' fear of eternal damnation for what it truly is: a thinly-veiled effort by the church hierarchy to keep the people in the pews hating themselves for sinning, and begging the pastor to do something about it.)

  I was a young boy standing in a front-row pew watching my father perform the service. I can remember looking at all the people around me, their heads bowed, their lips moving in unison, and I thought they were all going to look up at some point to spring the joke and laugh. I can recall looking at those docile individuals standing in that wood-paneled church, looking at them and bouncing the backs of my legs against the dark wood of the church's benches while laughing to myself quietly. I have since that time not stopped laughing at and mocking any organized religion that happens to cross my path. The complexity and self-contradictory nature of the thousands of different teachings found in the Christian bible had become overwhelmingly foreign to me at that young age, so foreign and confusing that I knew, in my deepest of knowing-places, that they could not all be true. At that young age, for some reason, I was able to see through the smoke-screen of canon and verse, and pluck from the brambles of dogma the few tender fruits of pure and honest meaning. In time, I have been able to utilize these fruits outside of the framework of the artificial, and inherently corrupted, structure of organized religion. (I wish sometimes that I had not lost faith, that I could somehow become faithful again, and believing, that I could abandon perpetual doubt, that I could once again with impotent fury shake a fist at the sky and curse the god who made me, but I do not believe in an external god, only in the Majesty of the Human Spirit – I hold myself responsible for my place in the world; I fix my problems instead of bitching about them.)

  Of course, standing in that church and doubting quietly, I feared Yahweh, that terrible and jealous god whom I had been taught from birth to fear with abject and abiding terror. Once I had in my own mind mocked him and laughed at him and shown him my young and tender behind, however, I realized that the might of His Wrath (an emphasis on paternalism pervades the Christian bible to the point that I am shocked that any woman would practice that faith willingly) existed only in myth, or in the tales of old. I knew at the age of seven years that religious indoctrination was very much a form of mental slavery, and I was abhorred by the fear-mongery and intimidation used by most organized religions to perpetuate their existence.

  Now, many years later, I am so very happy with my young self for his brave and clandestine decision to rebel quietly against the culture within which he had been so enmeshed. That seemingly simple act of doubt, along with Lao Tzu's Tao Teh Ching, has helped me to find the path to inner peace, to primal simplicity, to a life without need for self-aggrandizement or self-justification; now, the action is the goal. I let the chips fall where they may, no longer constrained by the stultifying and stagnant framework of a desperate and failing religious organization. Now, my mind is free and elastic, while my heart is empty and still.

  Three cheers for doubt, and for quiet and patient rebellion.

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on constitutional parameters

  The Constitution of the United States of America was established in Order to do just a few things: create a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. Therefore, the federal government of the United States exists for no other reason than to enact these six simple standards; the sole purpose for the continued existence of the U.S. federal government is to ensure that these parameters are met. Beyond the fulfillment of these few parameters, the federal government has no Constitutionally justifiable reason for existence.

  To public figures (such as Bachmann, Perry, Paul) demanding reductions in the scope of government (without considering the Constitutional parameters), the following services are essential to the realization of the parameters of our Constitution, and, as such, are secure in their continuing existence (until feasible replacements are developed):

  Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid promote the general Welfare;

  The state and federal judicial networks help to establish Justice;

  The state and federal police forces help to insure domestic Tranquility;

  The Constitution, as the common document that shapes the life of every inhabitant in this nation, helps to create a more perfect Union;

  The armed forces provide for the common defence.

  Excluded from this list, however, are the elusive and hard-to-quantify Blessings of Liberty. From liberty, the citizen crafts Happiness, serenity, and peace. Absent liberty, the citizen is reduced to the level of a dumb beast – she becomes a slave incapable of rational action or independent thought. She is restricted in her liberty when denied the right to abort an unwanted fetus. His liberty is destroyed when he is denied his inalienable right to his body, and to consume drugs of his choosing. She is restricted in her liberty when she is forced to abide by the tenets of a religion not of her choosing. His liberty is under siege when he is discriminated against because of the color of his skin, his religious practices, or because of the type of head-covering he wears.

  The freedom-loving inhabitants of this nation are forced to resort to the black market to obtain the substances they desire (such as cocaine, marijuana, and heroin), substances the American citizen has every right to consume (as drug-use affects his body, which is his property to dispose of as he sees fit). The good people of this land must consort regularly with shady and dangerous people who possess of quantities of drugs unobtainable in the legitimate markets. The upstanding citizens of these shores, they who would gladly buy their marijuana (and pay taxes on it) at their local drug store, must fear for their very Freedom every time they wish to pursue their Happiness by lighting up a joint.

  The individual American has, over the course of his life, proven willing and able to fulfill the parameters of the United States Constitution, regardless of the hurdles that government puts in his way. The American citizen is already living a life of liberty (by doing that which he pleases while not infringing upon the life, liberty, or property of anyone else, which is known as “minding his own business”), although he very often has to break existing laws to do so. Domestic terrorist plots foiled in their execution since September 11, 2001 were uncovered for the most part by average citizens who took upon themselves the responsibility of providing for the common defence. (Love and respect to our brave, heroic soldiers who sacrifice regularly, for the common defence, of their time and lives.) The peaceful people of this nation insure domestic Tranquility and establish Justice by going about their daily business with serene and glowing hearts, righting any wrongs they feel are theirs to right while ignoring other wrongs chronically, wrongs such as poverty and homelessness, wrongs that in their continued existence violate the right of each and every American person to be Safe and Happy.

  At its core, my argument is that every act by any type of government in America must fulfill, in some significant way, the parameters of the Constitution. Any legislation that directly violates these parameters, such as the Patriot Act, or the Controlled Substances Act, is unconstitutional. Once legislation is designed according to these parameters, and once all government action is balanced against this short list, our country will surely revert to the horrible messiness of pure and honest liberty.

場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp