Hail and Farewell: A preamble to the New Year's Resolutions to come... by Dale Mitchell on Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 12:48pm

I have to say, I'm grateful for the friends I have in this world whether I've met you in the flesh, haven't seen you for years or have only enjoyed conversations on Facebook. It's funny that people find that odd or impersonal... I remember as a child having pen pals that I corresponded with at least monthly... some more some less... that I never met in person. No one found that odd, and yet we shared quite a bit about our feelings, events in our lives, interests etc... and they had my address! I value all friendships and acquaintances regardless of their genesis. 

Which is why I definitely take notice of friends who bail on me on Facebook. Ultimately, the world still spins and life goes on... I just don't like writing people off. I do notice from time to time that people who I know don't agree with my thoughts, rants, politics or taste in music just up and jump ship. Not a word. I truly wish there would be a brief exchange first... let me know how I've offended and we can talk about it. I'm very fervent in my beliefs, but I'm always open to facts, figures, historical data and rational thought... I just don't like uninformed opinion passed off as fact. That's the only time I really get annoyed with someone.

And so... I gain a friend, I lose a friend... but in the end the choice is always theirs. I have many friends who don't agree with me and I would never turn my back on them solely for that reason... Facebook friend or otherwise. In fact, I've never blocked, unfriended or otherwise ostracized anyone who hasn't done something far worse... like lie, cheat, steal or defame my character... and I think even that list is maybe one or two people long.

So as the year comes to an end, I won't be performing any mass deletions... I won't be slicing and dicing based on political views or clothing choices... I'll just wish everyone who's stuck around happy holidays and share my wish for their happiness. Because at the end of the day, that's what my rants are about... 

I just want everyone to have a chance to be happy... to chase their dreams, be successful, be respected for who they are, be treated equally and as humans not stereotypes, mistakes, or sinners. I want everyone to have the opportunity to live instead of just exist, to know the joy of being able to take a breath at the end of the month... to finally have peace without a ten ton weight on their chest because they don't know if they'll make ends meet. To not be paralyzed by the fear of hunger, eviction, homelessness, or unemployment. To be able to realize their full potential, and in turn pay it forward.

I know I want too much... and that by my age cynicism should have already cured me of this sort of hope. But for some reason I've come through the other side still thinking that it can happen... but realizing it going to be a dirty, hard-fought, nasty and at times horrific battle to get there. And so I hold my positions ferociously... and unless I'm given facts or good reason, I don't back down. I'm sorry that it has cost friends, but there are things larger that my personal life that I have to be true to. 

I may achieve nothing, I may not so much as make a dent in the armor of my opponents... and in the end my life may truly be 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.'. But I can not let that be for a lack of trying.

Work in progress... music in the works as well... title... to come? by Dale Mitchell on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 12:30am

I punch the sky, and curse the earth

I walk the walk, I wear the dirt.

I feel surprise in my cheeks,

body warm with chagrin, and pique

Bastard child of love and hate,

I left my nescience at the break.

Too many odd years…

{ I place my fist against the door

I PLACE MY FIST AGAINST THE DOOR

breathe a sigh from every pore

Hand over my dreams, hands over my eyes,

Give over to fate, the dirty whore. }

Going nowhere fast, and I can't believe 

what good time I'm making

Running from a past

that picks up where my heart stopped beating…

 And I'll do it all again

and still wear this stupid grin.

I know less with each grin,

I know more with each sin.

I drink sunshine and know it's pain,

Test my probity in it's flames

Mendacity is my passport

if I want to remain sane.

Too many odd years…

I place my fist against the door

I PLACE MY FIST AGAINST THE DOOR

breathe a sigh from every pore

Hand over my dreams, hands over my eyes,

Give over to fate, the dirty whore.

Going nowhere fast, and I can't believe 

what good time I'm making

Running from a past

that picks up where my heart stopped beating…

 And I'll do it all again

and still wear this stupid grin.

Writing again by Dale Mitchell on Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 3:29am

Words… burning in my throat,

lived inside of you… 

truth be told and wrote

I lay the blame as proof

Cold, dead full of youth,

I put the blade to you.. 

you choose to leave the room

and hang the words and hang the truth…

Silence… stirs the secret beast

within my breast i must confess

it's dark inside and hot as hell,

but you must know this well

tired and yearning and restless and 

burning up the downs and brood

and then the words begin to drown 

and wash away this wretched truce

Painted black and left for dead

while turning heads, and cutting throats

your silence gloats and kills the joke

and then snuffs out all hope

all silence no learning of cheeks been left

turning alone with solicitude stand before your glare

and kill this bitter taste and act aloof.  

gnashing little eyes 

slashing little smiles

dripping with the sighs

of 100 cruel trials

End - This - NOW!

The flow from the other night in note form. by Dale Mitchell on Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 3:54am

My bio is luminescent near omnipresent poor but not a peasant mark me present... for I am always near and not to fear I'm almost here so give a cheer and pass the beer root if you please as I don't partake in the disease known as alcohol anonymous like most of us I freeze when I feel the breeze from passing words of hate I won't hesitate to debate the wisdom of your ignorance knowledge is independence and truth will set you straight from the mouths of babes and it may take days but you will know me for what and who not how I look but what I do so how does it feel when it becomes so real that you can't run and it has begun I won't stop till we've all won so call me a fool or a dreamer or just an inbetweener but I have presence of mind to walk the line and pull you over to the other side so you can be what you despise without thinking and sympathize see with your heart and let it blind your eyes for just a moment and be in it to begin it and heal not be a bigot so you have a chance to be a man and not a pawn shop of horrors here comes the dawn of a new day rays of hope chest bare soul shine and become aware of the ticking time line us up and knock us down we wont survive another round you can play the clown or be down the choice was always yours now make the world proud and throw the sword down and gather 'round.

Misc. Morning Musings... by Dale Mitchell on Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 5:18am

Why is the concept of the end of the world so hard for us to grasp? Every time the idea is mentioned, it is swept aside as folly, stigmatized as the lunacy of conspiracy theorists, or said to be better left to the theologians of the world as though only the 'enlightened' would be able to see it coming. 

I don't need clergy or an ancient calendar to tell me that we stand on the edge of the precipice, and that it wouldn't take more than a brisk wind of change to plunge us into it. The signs are all around us. Not biblical teachings, or predictions from beyond the grave. Step back and view the world as a whole. Set up an RSS feed and monitor news from around the globe. No... these are not the actions and tragedies that make up the body of our decline. Rather, they are the precursors... the stage is being set.

Famine, drugs wars, the wars for control of oil, fresh water shortages, global climate change, financial collapse around the world, ethnic cleansing,  centuries-old religious wars... and much much more. There is so much more on the line right now than there was decades ago. Consider this... WWII nearly destroyed europe and asia... and it very well could have. The allies got very lucky on many occasions. Were things to have turned in Hitler's favor, Germany may well have had an atomic device.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Hitler-won-atomic-bomb-race-but-couldnt-drop-it/2005/03/04/1109700677446.html

Ultimately, a handful of missteps and misfortunes kept the Nazis from the momentum and time they needed. Why mention this? Because if it HAD come to pass, how much longer would the war have lasted... and how many atomic devices of various types would have been used? Would Nazi Germany shared the plans with Japan? Would we have faced atomic dirty bomb kamikaze pilots?

That scenario alone indicates the will and the means for complete mutual destruction. Now throw this in the mix. Overlay this scenario on today's wars... North Korea and Iran fighting the west for control of Asian and the oil. Who would China side with? And Israel with it's nukes? Other Arab nations?

What if it were something even more precious... like food or water? Both are commodities controlled by the few and necessary for the many. Climate change has already created drought and famine, and it has only begun to reshape the planet.

We now have more countries than ever before in possession of nukes. The poverty rate is increasing exponentially at a rate that can be measured in weeks and months, not years and decades. Never have so few held so much wealth and power, while so many suffer.

So I put to you the question again... Why is the concept of the end of the world so hard for us to grasp? Perhaps I should say, the end of human civilization as we know it, or even altogether. That way hopefully we can avoid confusion with the fire and brimstone, four horseman scenario.

The bottom line is we have the means of our destruction readily available, and every day we prove that we are as a species willing to sink even lower in the pursuit of wealth and power. We become more violent, more tolerant of the violence against us in it's myriad forms, more accepting of a fundamental lack of a moral compass. Truth, honor, decency, respect... these are nothing more than anachronistic tags. Tags for behaviors that by and large have been so twisted and co-opted into posturing, patriotism, and pandering that they no longer resemble or represent their true nature. They have lost all meaning for most.

Why then doubt our ability to end ourselves? Because we want to believe our own press... that all of the morality tales both ancient and contemporary are a true diagram of us. That somehow at the end of the day, no matter how horrible we are to each other... no matter what terrible, unspeakable things we do... that somehow we'll always find a moral center in the end. We want to believe that we are somehow these noble creatures that sometimes lose our way, but ultimately do the right thing.

And that's our disconnect. Because that's a load of crap. There is darkness in all of us... we deny it but it's true. That denial will be our downfall.

I believe that there is more darkness in the best of us, than there is light in ALL of the worst of us. And the worst of us hold all of the cards. It won't be long before the best of us call upon that 'darkness', that primal side to defend what little is left for us... or turn on each other and fight over the scraps.

WE are the 'antichrist'. If we can't accept that this sort of thing can happen, and accept our roles in getting us there, we will be the instrument of our own destruction. Think decades, not centuries.

Depressing, yes. But take a long, hard look around you and around the world. Then ask yourself the hard questions. 

It is as simple as this... by Dale Mitchell on Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 8:51pm

You tried break our legs, so that we might not march. You tried to gag our mouths, so that our voices might not be heard, you locked us out of the people's house so that we could not debate your crimes, you tried to cover our eyes, so that we might not see the full scope of your deeds... and now you seek to entrench yourselves in office by co-opting and corrupting the very powers given to you by the people... by writing into law provisions that would not allow for your recall. You seek to usurp the people's power... to bind us by subterfuge, and crush us under procedural red tape.

What you don't understand is this... if you remove all options available to the people... take away every democratic mechanism to balance the scales, and to have our will represented - what mechanisms that are left... however unsavory, however difficult, however distasteful... will be the means of your downfall, and the messenger of this democracy.

Best to leave the people's only remaining voice alone. We will have our recall. Does it happen on ballot? The choice is yours.

But make no mistake... it will happen.

Facebook asked what was on my mind... by Dale Mitchell on Friday, January 13, 2012 at 2:29am

What's on my mind? Too much for my brain to allow me to sleep, Facebook. I'll tell you this, though; running in place eats away at your soul and bores a hole in your heart. Bravado fades, hope is stretched to it's limits, energy dwindles, and the body begins to break under the strain. Facades begin to crumble and hands meant to create are otherwise occupied mudding the cracks so that others won't see the haggard spirit wilting on the other side or the battered muse trapped under the rubble of a broken spirit. It is what it is. To admit defeat is to be defeated, and defeat is never an option. But then again honesty is easy when speaking to others… it's much harder when speaking to one's self.

In short... Facebook... bite me.