When reality bites on Mondays

Mondays are a symptom of corporate dominance; they are the wiliest instrument of fate they are obvious days; where your desperate ways are revealed to you in the harsh morning light.

The relief however brief felt on a sunday night gives away to a weary sort of fright as the alarm peals out in a death knell of doom your peace vanishes as your mind is consumed with realities that are normally concealed.

The feelings so free; on a friday, one night of glee fade away and dark thoughts of the fates of human beings in the grey dawn arise

thoughts, unwelcome, thoughts; chase away greed; thoughts of fate, death and the purpose of life assail you as you go about your daily routine, anything to escape

from this monstrous landscape.

So as the morning gives away to sunlight, and the demons of everyday dreariness and worldly delights take over; you are once again externally focussed and once again a short termist;

in the short term of life.

Come to Sri Lanka, see our war crimes.

So the EU wants to organize a tribunal thingamajig to investigate civilian deaths not only by the hands of the tigers but also by the hands of the government. Well, here's a thing or two for you to consider Mr. EU bigwig. We never claimed the LTTE posessed nukes, and we never used falsities like that as an excuse to indiscriminately kill people. We never bombed no wedding parties and killed whole families just because we suspected the bride's fifth cousin by marriage to have a nephew who once was possibly in the same building as Osama Bin Laden. Sure we don't have a lot of clout in the international arena, unlike some people, but we are human beings too, and therefore equipped with brains capable of intelligence to a certain degree, and your self righteous hypocrisy and cowardice is painfully obvious, even to us.

Why don't you bring down Bush to the Hague and try him for war crimes instead of letting him peacefully sit in his ranch watching his cows piss into the drying desert sand? Why don't you investigate all the accusations of torture and disappearing tourists instead of trying to poke your nose in places you are not wanted? Why don't you investigate the atrocities on the Gaza strip and the audacity of the Israeli's claim of being able to use precision bombing with the ability to target a single insurgent within one million civillians right before they demolish the UN office in an aerial attack (oops)? Come Mr. EU bigwig, we all know who lubes your ass every night.

But you know what we also know? we know your threats are empty. Oh yes Mr. Bigwig, we know the game you play. Its been played for a long long time and we are familiar with the rules. The first rule is there are no rules. Here's how it goes, you will use your clout to make us submit and you will proceed to own our asses. Yes you will secure the national resources and you will secure an 'open' economy and you will 'integrate us into the global arena'. And thank you very much we will too, 'cos maybe thats exactly what we need. Oh yes, you will try to bribe our leaders and if you cannot reach a compromise, you will roll us in the dirt and call us terrorists and rogues.

But you also know that this is not as easy as it used to be, oh no. You have competition now. And we have Iran on our side, and the Russians. Who aren't exactly on pally terms with you we notice. Also our geographical location puts us in an ideal position to take advantage of the regional economic boom, we only need to hope like hell our leaders will see these opportunities and grab them. Oh yes, we may eventually have to be owned by someone but at least now we've got options.

So come to Sri Lanka, try your luck. Here's the famous hospitable smile also =)

You know you're broke when..

you decide against a second chicken samoosa cos your delirious pangs of hunger have died down to a mere inferno after eating one, and survival till you eat your home cooked lunch is just an agonizing hour away.

you decide to walk to the junction instead of taking a tuk tuk cos you want to take the 'scenic route'

you 'window shop' at the used booksellers' on the pavement

you avoid eating an isso vadey in order to 'cut down on the the oil intake'

you walk around unity plaza looking for the best prices for blank dvd's, and your colleagues have to call you and remind you to get back to work.

you decide to splurge on the way back and spend lavishly on a five rupee bus ticket, and feel rich 'cos you don't feel guilty afterwards.

you think the 25th of April is the happiest day of your life.

Help! i am running out of controversial topics!

So 'tis another Monday. Ah! yesterday night was a bittersweet mix of half a movie, you tube, a couple of cigarettes and an overwhelming dread of today. You can always tell when you actually start being a 'slave' to the system when you start dreading Mondays. When i was in school, most Sunday nights lost their whole flavor cos i was stuck in contemplation of the early morning crispiness i'd be invariably (and forcibly) woken upto.

The weekend was alright. I am feeling kind of placid of late. There was a Bachelor's thing on Saturday. I turned up a bit late, but then most of the others were even later. It was the usual crowd, though some of them couldnt make it. Jerry magnanimously decided to grace us with his presence as well.

So Jerry being Jerry, we couldn't (or rather i couldnt) simply welcome him with a handshake and a few hearty words. So we're sitting on the beach right and Jerry calls MP on the phone, I pick it up

'Hi Machang'

J: Hey man, im here

'What? you're on the beach?'

At this moment i see a dude, kinda heavy set, on the phone, near a boat, hmmm, im used to expecting people to look totally different to how i imagine them. The sly Demon of Prank Playing piped up a bit.

'Ah ya man i see you, turn around'

he turns around.

'walk four steps forward'

he walks a few steps in a diagonal direction

'No no u bugger turn around' he turns around.

'Now walk towards the boat'

Now he's standing right next to the boat again right, almost humping it.

(feigning irritation) 'Dude! turn around! We're right here!'

He turns around and sees about four guys sitting at a table, with a vacant seat. Jerry slides in and sits down without a word. Blending in smoothly.

Except it wasnt us he was sitting with. He'd gone and sat down with some TOTALLY different people and was just sitting there watching them talk. See, i had cleverly manipulated him into thinking we were sitting there. So now we're all having a good laugh at poor old Jerry's expense who is sitting at a table with four strangers, who barely seemed to notice him. Probably too drunk eh.

Except that it wasnt Jerry.

See, i had to go over eventually rescue the bugger right, so i go over to the table and im like; 'Jerry! Dude we're sitting THERE!'

I am met with a blank stare so confused that it wouldn't have looked out of place on Mervin Silva confronted with a legal document.

'Machang we're over here you bugger, you missed the table.' More silence and confusion. The rest of the guys at the table he was sitting at still dont notice anything out of place. I'm wondering what the hell they were stoned on.

'You ARE Jerry right?'

' er no'.

What? screams my mind. Im feeling slightly shocked. This chap did almost exactly the same things i asked the real Jerry to do over the phone! damn, what the night, the beach and a bit of herbs eh.

Ah ok.

So now i'm wondering who the real Jerry was and where the hell i had him turning around in circles at. That, as it turned out, was a totally different story full of thrilling danger, deserted streets, 'empty' gates and water balloons which probably warrants a post of its own.

A Rational Argument

Today i was coming to work in the bus. And there was this little spat between the driver and a chap on a motorcycle. The bus stopped and the cycle chap walked up to the driver and they proceeded to argue. It was the usual flinging of bravado. All threatening and no real action. you know how it goes;

'hey shut up or im gonna hit you!'
'Who the f*ck are you to shut my mouth up you bugger? you shut up or im gonna f*cking hit you harder!'
'Hit me? your gonna f*cking hit me? do you know who you're messing with you garbage eating stray dog?
'Son of a bitch'
'HEY learn to talk to people okay? or im gonna smash you over the head you good for nothing piece of shit.'
'YOURE gonna hit me? so try, try u piece of stale bread, see if you can lay a finger.'

and then when its pretty apparnt they're heading nowehere,

'Okay fine fine so what do you want, what the f*ck do you want?'
What do I want? You tell me what you want, huh, little piece of money grubbing filth'
What? who the f*ck are you calling filth? Im gonna *whizza whizza blah blah mutter mutter whazza grinna guzza....*

And so it goes on, a battle of words. As far as i can discern, the objective seems to be to batter the other guy with strongly worded threats until he stops. The objective is to subdue him with the threat of a punch up, not a real punch up. Cos then the person who threatens harder would seem the one more eager to fight, even though he knows that fighting on the road in the middle of rush hour morning traffic will deifinitely mean getting punched up and spending time at the Police. Also losing the income from a whole day of running a bus or a days work. Which is no easy joke im told.

But of course, in an evenly matched situation, when nobody backs down, and nobody really feels it worthwhile to take things to the next level, shit can get a bit wild. Like in this post by Java Jones.

The bus guy and the cycle guy kept arguing until they both reached a level where each of their threats started cancelling out the others'. And with a final 'kariya!' and a 'huttho!' the cycle guy and we (the bus) buggered off, almost friends, but not quite.

Bus driver, to pal sitting next to him;

'Balapangko, munta giya rata, apine Sinhala'

'look at that bugger will you, acts like he owns the country, huh, we're the sinhalese'

That bike guy was a Muslim. And he was probably exchanging similar slurs with his friend. I didn't hear.

Are we built like this, always arguing in seemingly irrational ways about rational topics? or is the way we argue the way we are meant to do things as always, maybe the most indirect approaches are the most direct. Thought fodder for a monday morning.

Not another religion post

The monetary system of the world is its unofficial religion. Everyone works for money that’s agreed? Everyone also builds their lives around money. yeah you can deny it. What? Me? a slave to money? are you crazy? I’m just doing this cos i like the job and the perks are not bad either. A bowl of free basmathi rice everyday and a piece of fried fish is no laughing matter.

Not if you're not Shanthiram, a hermit in Uyankelle, it isn’t.

The money is created through the fractional reserve banking system. Where its supply is expanded by ongoing lending. Basically money is printed. And that's how it’s created right? We all know that. So wtf is this moron talking about you may be asking. Yes money is created through printing. The government prints the money. Then they deposit it in the banking system. The commercial banking system. And now the magic starts.

See what happens is banks operate on a Fractional Reserve system. Meaning that they just have to have a given fraction (or a part say, 20%) of the total amount of money they have lent out. Which also means that, once, say you or me, deposit 1000 bucks in the bank, the bank can keep 200 rupees and lend out 800 without creating new money, OR, they can keep the 1000 bucks with them and give out an additional 800 rupees cash on top of that as new money. So theres 800 rupees in the system that didn’t exist before. And that’s how banks increase the quantity of money.

So the chap who borrows the 800 rupees goes and deposits it in another bank, or buys a pizza from Dominoes and Dominoes deposits that in their bank account. This bank then repeats that procedure and creates 640 rupees on top of the 800 rupees in its reserves and lends that out. Typically after some complex mathematics it is possible to deduce that the eventual amount of money created by that initial 1000 rupees is somewhere closer to nine times as much.

So how is the money printed? I mean you and me know that only Central Banks can print money right? Most money is actually electronic (its the new plastic apparently) There need only be that initial amount of actual cash physically present in the system.

This is why a bank run is potentially so disastrous. If all of us wanted to cash all our funds at the same time; CRASH!.

So anyway, what does all this have to do with us being slaves to money? About money being religion and about worship at the altars of cashier counters? Ah, one word; Interest.

See the banks control money. They make it and they distribute it. And they charge interest for lending money. Every single dollar or rupee that goes out of a bank needs to be returned with more money. So where does this money for interest come from?

Nowhere. It doesn’t exist.

So where does it come from? I mean, how do people pay their loans if the money for interest doesn't exist? How can the banks demand more money than they have lent out? They are the ones who create the money. All the money in the system/ economy has been created by the banks. The system outside the banks cannot create money. So how can the system essentially pay the bank back with more money than the banks have given it in the first place? They can't. There’s only a limited supply of money. So the system or an economy as a whole cannot pay all its debts.

Therefore foreclosures, bankruptcies etc, are inevitable where the system as a whole is concerned.

But where individuals are concerned, paying back their debts becomes their primary concern. They start businesses, work 8 hours a day, grow crops etc so that they can support their lives and pay back their debts. Basically they have to slave to earn money in order to feed and clothe themselves. This drives greed and need. it turns into the law of the jungle out there. If the system as a whole owes more money than the actual quantity of money available, then the people in that system will have to fight each other to get that money. And there is born what we refer to as the rat race.

The weak get left behind, as the strong fight them for the amount of the limited resource that is money. For money is always limited, because the requirement for it is always greater than its actual availability.

So the marginalized, the poor, the oppressed grow in numbers as they get pushed out of the race. The world plunges into more despair while being embroiled in a 'system' of money so sacred that all its citizens want, is more of it.

We are all trapped. The world is a hamster wheel and we are all running as hard as we can to get as much money as we can, for we need money to survive. We are slaves, yet we believe we are free. But even Mr. Bill Gates isn’t free, he's only got someone else to carry him.

Apologies for the long post. It was inspired by Zeitgeist: Addendum which i watched recently, but information on the fractional reserve system can be found on wiki. Information on the whole monetary system and its evil influence may be less hard to come by, i haven't checked. But its nowhere that logical reasoning cant get you. So is religion money? Is money religion? Are any of us actually free from religion? Are we not all hypocrites?

Btw, listen to the tracks from Slumdog Millionaire, good stuff for a Monday morning!

Pax.

Dawn...

..and the empty sun
rose above the horizon,
to find an empty world,
empty of reason.

Morality itself
was out of season.

Even the swish of its rays
as it swept along the grassy plains
chasing away the darkness,
was muted in enthusiasm.

For the sun felt that
on this day,
the mere presence of it's light
simply would not make the world bright
or clear away the remains
of a shadowy night.