Economic Terrorism

The 1st International Beggar Conference convened in Toothpick, a wasteland near Bright Hope - a rusting rustic dream of exploratory ways and means with scientific cause and effect and logical rational certainty.

It was chaired by a distinguished group of Cambodian orphans.

NGO Fascists rented 12,000 orphans out to fake humanitarian organizations. Abandoned youth pleaded with ill-informed rich donors for marketing and branding money to feed international guilt and shame.

“Let’s eat,” said a fat banker moments before his yacht hit an iceberg in 2008.

“What you don’t see is fascinating,” said Zeynep, “like roots below the surface of appearances.”

“We have so much ice and they have so little,” said an Icelandic chess player attacking Death.

“Everyone comes to me. My patience is infinite,” said Death. “I make only one move and it’s always the correct one.”

Beggars, landmine victims, genocide survivors and sick and tired dehydrated dying starving neglected humans from 195 countries convened in sequestered committee rooms filled with suits, scholars, academics, UN personnel, CIA analysts, NGO profit-motivated scam reps, IMF bankers and plastic ornamental steering mechanisms.

“We agree to disagree,” said Rich Suit.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Wage Slave.

Orphans, beggars and children spoke about slave labor, hunger, exploitation, corruption, human trafficking, corrupt police states and the terrorism of economic poverty.

“Bad luck,” said a rich slave. “That’s a you problem, not a my problem.”

Children addressing global media held press conferences focusing jaundiced eyes on lenses, recorders and bleeding pens. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. Sound bites sang starvation’s misery.

If it bleeds it leads.

Incoming! Bleeding hearts ran for cover.

Orphan motions for adjudication, arbitration, fairness, equality and equity were tabled for further deliberation and discussion nowadays.

The average monthly wage was $37 in a Bangladesh clothing factory.

750,000 Cambodian women making $61/month stitched garments for Korean export companies.

Give someone a sewing machine and with a little luck they’ll feed their family.

Let’s Eat.

Weaving A Life (V1)

FUD

“What happens when totalitarian governments devolve citizen surveillance programs and discover a vaccine for C-19?” Zeynep asked her mother - the mother of all answers.

“Don’t worry my sweet,” said her neurotic mama-san living in bliss, “media, politicians and bankers will invent new improved fake fears.

“They will create problems, spin them for ADD sheep and try to sell us solutions. Ha, ha, ha.

“The joke is on them. They play us for fools and idiots. Anyone questioning authority is imprisoned for life, hauls shit in a Re-Education through Labor camp, is stoned to death, waterboarded, exiled or beheaded with a jeweled word sword. No worries my sweet. The manufacturing sector will rebound when shelves are empty. We’ll always have sugar and we can always go shopping. We shop to reduce our anxiety, a low level of fear. We buy things to make us feel better. It's a temporary fix like religion or Xanax. Take two and call me in the morning.”

“How long will it take until people wake up and pay attention?” said Zeynep.

“Hard to say. Some will some won’t.”

“Self-awareness and authenticity are essential. Letting go scares the shit out of people.”

“Learning to let go is learning to live. They suffer from FUD,” said her mother, twisting her hair until it caught fire.

“What is FUD?”

“Fear, uncertainty and doubt. They are internal psychological/emotional gyroscopes. A human’s first question is, Is it safe? Will it help me or hurt me? FUD are hunger angels with a vengeance.”

“How long has FUD been going on?”

“You ask many questions child,” fanning her daughter’s flame. “A long time. A Century is Nothing.”

“That’s the title of Omar's non-linear book, more like a jazz poem. Few read it. Fewer understood it. So it goes. It’s essential to cultivate humor and curiosity.” said Z. “What about adventure and surprise?”

“Adventure and surprise are life. You see the BIG picture. Talk is cheap. Character is action. Senses and language cannot be trusted.”

“I want to know the truth mother. Living safely is dangerous.”

“The truth,” she said, “is that life is an absurd comic process. If you laugh you last. Our illusionary insecurities and real authenticities evolve. Life is a celebration, a dance and process of becoming. It is a beautiful harsh short messy dream come true. It’s magic. We adapt, adjust and evolve. There’s no rhyme or reason. Life is not a career, it’s a game. Existence precedes essence. We are flukes of the universe. We have a one-way ticket. We feel peace in our heart-mind with gratitude. Wonder, abundance, and compassion. Help others realize their higher self.”

“We are stardust. We trust our power and our song. Let’s go and play now. Take the day off and be creative.”

“Yes, let’s invent a game theory my darling daughter. It’s called mindfulness. Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom. You don’t have to be swept away by your feelings. You can respond with wisdom and kindness rather than habit and reactivity.”

“I shared your wisdom earlier in this wandering tale.”

“Yes, you did. Telepathy. Reading about mindfulness it is one thing. Living it is something else.”

Holding hands they came out of the world.

The Language Company

Profit Before People

A global virus has a long term effect. Humans adjust priorities.

Big busine$$ restructures their operations. Oil, banks, pharmaceuticals, travel industry, automotive, and airlines.

It's a numbers game, said Profit Before People.

Story time...

...He unlocked the door. Five empty freezing rooms.

The kitchen counter displayed empty soda bottles, a black plastic bag of cheap harsh stale tobacco, a box of lavender herbal tea flowers, 1/2 jar of Nescafé, one white coffee cup, one spoon, a sharp knife, a fork in the road and one bright yellow plate.

On a white laminated shelf was a first edition of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, signed by the author.

“Read this,” said Silence, the loudest noise in the world.

Next to it was a black key for a teachers’ cabinet at TEOL.

“Call Trabzon,” the German man informed Ebru. “We have an MIA.”

She rang Sit Down in Trabzon.

“Lucky Foot took a hike,” she said.

“Call out the SWAT team and dogs. Hunt him down. Kill him with extreme prejudicial kindness.”

She called SWAT. The line was busy.

The German returned to TEOL and gave Ebru the key. She approached the cabinet. A rancid smell smashed her nose. “What’s that god-awful stench?”

Gagging, she threw up all over a teachers’ desk littered with empty tea glasses, cell phones and half eaten Simit pretzels. Regaining her composure she approached The Cabinet of Dr. Cagliari (1920).

She heard a ticking sound. Maybe it’s a bomb. I should call the bomb squad.

They arrived. A man in a bombproof origami suit applied a stethoscope to the front panel. Yes, something is ticking.

He drilled a hole and pushed a microscopic eye into darkness. A mirror inside the cabinet reflected a thin piece of pulsating metronomic metal. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.  

“We’ll have to open this with thrilling caution. Get the Die Rector.”

The Die Rector, an economist, knew what to do. “Let’s assume there’s no fucking problem. Give me the key.”

Ebru handed it over. Everyone backed up hard drives.

The Die Rector, 56, who was scheduled for a heart-valve transplant in January, unlocked the door.

Inside was The Language Company by Zeynep, class rosters, green, yellow, orange highlighters, a

magnifying glass, telescope, world globe, hourglass, a bag of hazelnuts, radioactive isotopes, a red rose with

thorns, a dissolving image of a smiling ghost playing with Lone Wolf in a mountain meadow, a mirror, a

dozing Black Mamba, a high voltage Dream Sweeper Machine from Hanoi, a Honer blues harp in the key of C,

a magic carpet, one sugar cube, a glass, spoon, dry tea leaves, an empty bottle of Xanax, a ticking

metronome, a bamboo forest, dusty footprints and rusty Communist loudspeakers squawking:

We are Authority, Power and Control. Surprise!

51 Days in Turkey

The Language Company

Study currency with a friend.

How did I grow?

Buy From Me

“Buy from me!” sang the swarming young Black H’mong girls in Sapa, Vietnam.

They swirled around him like dancers at the faire, like gnats around a flame.

He was on fire and they wanted to save him.

The Black H’mong wear a deep dark blue almost black indigo cloth. After it’s been repeatedly washed and dried in the sun it takes on a glistening silver metallic sheen.

They crowded around him. He was a stranger in town. A stranger goes on a journey. Two kinds of stories.

Girls carried orange and green and blue and yellow woven bags around their necks. Inside the bags they had postcards of the Red Dzao people, narrow embroidered colorful wrist bands and thin hand made wallets. The wallets had a zippered pocket inside for secret money.

“My story is to sell in the street,” said Mo, all of 10. She wore a dirty green t-shirt. Her face was smudged with dirt. Her off white broken plastic Vietnamese sandals had seen their better day.

They cost 15,0000 Dong in the market. He gave her a blue 20. “Go buy some new sandals.”

She said, “Really?”

He said, “Yes, really.”

He waited in the food market surrounded by new languages, clattering dishes, the smell of frying food and a mishmash of costumed humans.

The Black, White and Flower H’mong. Red Dzao. Tay.

Mo came back with her new white plastic sandals in a pink plastic bag. She squeezed between two slurping H’mong women and sat down.

“Are you hungry?” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Ok, let’s get some chicken noodle soup.”

“Ok,” she said. Delicious.

Mo & My

Year of the Bore

The Chinese locusts have invaded big time.

All of SEA is feeling the effect of their economic power, leverage and appetite for development and profit good, bad or indifferent. They promote and develop the “new” Silk Road. They need ports, railroads, electricity and access to markets while creating monster debt diplomacy.

The Chinese are here to stay with currency exchanges, grocery stores, hotels, tour agencies and casinos.

Many need a refresher course in polite public manners. It’s like Big Brother the zookeeper forgot to lock their cages one day and they all escaped to wreak havoc on unsuspecting citizens in other countries.

When I see them wearing cheap farmer straw hats, talking louder than an exploding volcano, browbeating shopkeepers to lower the price on cheap souvenirs and following the leader down the street like good communist party members I remember sitting with Bozo, an English major at Poetry University in Fujian in 2007.

We’d share noodles on “old” student street. Hundreds of students passed by going or coming from cheap eats.

She turned to me. “See all these people? They are all peasants.”

Confident with marketing and language skills she found work with a multi-national in Beijing or Shanghai joining the rising middle class.

Happy new year!
 

Fresh street food

Draw the dead

How did I get here?