Bureaucratic nightmares

Today I got convinced that this part of the world has already been converted to some sort of open citizen prison, Victoria Police acting as prison guard defending national security by harassing whoever appears to cross their path the wrong way.

I found a tiny card next to the penalty notice in my mailbox, which I nearly threw away as advertising. The card informed that L/S/C Mlikota paid me a visit, and asked to get in contact. After the second call to my local police station I got informed that some documents were waiting for me.

The police woman that gave me my charge (by contesting the penalty I now get charged in front of the Magistrate Court) acted very helpful, and didn't even ask for my ID before handing out the paper work. I'm not too sure whether police sees (and checks) incoming numbers, I'm sure she was convinced that I spoke to her about this charge on the phone earlier.

I browsed quickly through the papers, and found the same outdated legal definition from 1999 I saw already as attachment to $464 worth of fines. So I smiled at her and asked whether it is common to get charges delivered in person, as I contested a number of similar fines, and thus will get more charges soon. I pointed out to her that the current Road Code, as of 2009, has a different definition for bicycle.

I pulled out the printout of the current version, showed it her and said that this is the reason why I contested all that fines. An older police man joined the conversation, and tried to reach the constable in question. I mentioned that I don't mind to go to court to make my case, having the written law on my side. 'But he only wants to help...', unfortunately, he didn't.

Of course, as its my local police station, sun was shining, and it's a pain in the ass to drive a car along Sydney Road on a friday arvo and find a park, I had my trusty unicycle with me. The copper wanted to make me wrong, and started the usual false argumentation. Danger of cycling without helmets, which I countered with the lack of compulsory helmet laws in Europe. 'You'd better get back then', and I squeezed a grimaced 'Thank you, sir' as reply, took my papers and left.

It took maybe four or five statements back and forth before this happened - I usually insist on quoting the definition, and pointing out that a unicycle has ONE wheel, no gears, chains or belts. Meanwhile, the police woman looked like checking my printout online on her phone. At a distance, it looked like good cop, bad cop, luckily with a counter between us.

The accused at Parkville on Monday the 5th of December 2011 did fail to wear a securely fitted and approved bicycle helmet at Royal Parade whilst riding a unicycle. Does anybody else notice the bit of Orwellian Newspeak in this charge?

When people in uniform don't like the word of the law if you hold it under their own noses, and still insist that you must have done something wrong, because they don't err, the police state has arrived. They follow orders, not the law. I mean, with the legal situation whether I'm 'guilty' or not bases on the ability to count. Does a unicycle have two or more wheels? Does it have gears, belts or chains?

Not mine :( Yet identical in its setup: One wheel, no belts, gears, chains

Coincidentally, each time I got done on the unicycle I was on my way to Occupy Melbourne, each time to different locations: Flagstaff Gardens, Father Bob's and City Square. In comparison to my harassment I witnessed much more bewildering and violent police activities in each of those (and other) locations.

Occupy inspired me to film one of those encounters with Melbourne Bike Patrol (there to fight BIKE CRIME). I failed to connect to Constable Miletta from human to human, and have already a new strategy for the next time he or his fellow bike crime fighters infringe on my right to freely move through Melbourne's public space.

Now I can rehearse my defence in court, and investigate how to turn the pages by asking for compensation for the continuing harassment. We don't need police to enforce laws that protect people from themselves, even if they don't exist. We rather need protection from people in uniform making their own laws.

Strange consequences

The problem is, if god is dead, then you lose the most important word in your language and you will need a substitute. God was one end, one extreme, and when one extreme disappears from your mental vision the necessary and inevitable is that you will fall to the other extreme, and that is what has happened... Instead of god, fuck has become the most important word in our language.

In between

Since all phenomena (or phenomenally appearing things) which arise, present no reality in themselves, they are said to be of noumena (in other words, they are of the Voidness, regarded as the noumenal background or Source of the physical universe of the phenomena). Though not formed into anything, yet they give shape to everything. Thus it is that phenomena and noumena are in unison, and said to be of one nature. They are, like ice and water, reflection and mirror, two aspects of a single thing.

Cloudseeding

Humanity has always invested heavily in any scheme that offers escape from the body. And why not? Material reality is such a mess. Some of the earliest "religious" artefacts, such as Neanderthal ochre burials, already suggest a belief in immortality. All modern (i.e. post-paleolithic) religions contain the "Gnostic trace" of distrust or even outright hostility to the body and the "created" world. Contemporary "primitive" tribes and even peasant-pagans have a concept of immortality and of going-outside-the-body (ec-stasy) without necessarily exhibiting any excessive body-hatred. The Gnostic Trace accumulates very gradually (like mercury poisoning) till eventually it turns pathological. Gnostic dualism exemplifies the extreme position of this disgust by shifting all value from body to "spirit". This idea characterizes what we call "civilization".

Sinking

The people travel

from here to there

coming 

going

Their destination

reverses itself

over and over again

The Tao remains firmly

planted in one place

and yet cannot be left behind

Four kings guard

East, West, North and South

The paths they guard

are precious

and cannot be separated

Each has a colour

that can't be blended

Each has a sound

that can't be imitated

The center remains still

It has no colour or sound

yet the rest could not exist

without it 

Occupied world

The last battle has just begun,

the lost battle cannot be won,

an endless fight to the death,

until the very last breath.

If we kill what we don't know,

we'll miss the best of the show -

what our hearts are yearning

are healthy steps of learning.

So for an exciting start

learn to open your heart

and let it speak through you.

Don't try too hard,

don't be too smart

and you'll know the next thing to do.