RAVEN MACK is a mystic poet-philosopher-artist of the Greater Appalachian unorthodox tradition. He does have an amazing PATREON, but also *normal* ARTIST WEBSITE too.

Wednesday, April 13

internet reading list of late

(triplicates of links that occupied my idled mind while at *work* recently)

What the Hell Happened in East New York by Kevin Heldman
An interesting but also depressing as fuck read about a part of New York City left behind, and even if it did get gentrified, it's not like the fuckers who live there now would be the ones who benefit. Where do they ship off all the poors as they gentrify all these urban downtowns across America? Who the fuck has the money to afford these newly gentrified areas? I am by no means a destitute person at this point in my life, but I seriously got no idea how these things are afforded, and why it is happening. I feel like a fucking alien many days - and I am a fully employed and comfortable enough person. The pyramid scam has us all looking up at what the ones above us got that we don't, without seeing all the people below we're stepping on. All any of us see, all the way up to the 1% at the top, is "Look at that motherfucker up there, with all his success. He ain't shit." Sigh.

The Throwaways by Melissa Chadburn
A couple years back this piece came out, but in true internetting fashion, it just crossed my stream of digital consciousness early this week. Obviously, there's some shit that I can't relate to (I have not been raped, I would be considered by society at large as a white male) but there's some parts I relate to so fucking well it literally made me want to cry. Poverty, and the instability that goes along with that, can make motherfuckers crazy, for the rest of their lives. For me, this was a very beautiful essay to read, and a good thing to hit myself with on a Monday morning. Also, despite shit being totally fucked, and those who have mostly fucked it being completely unwilling to even admit any part in this, much less actually change, there is always hope. Perhaps not through the system (lol, y'all voting ass motherfuckers always thinking that shit's more important than real life actions) but around the system, in the tall grasses at the edge of the system, like dandelions sprouting through cracks in the sidewalk. There's some haiku that came from my brain that I used to love to paraphrase at haiku events about "cracks in the system / always need middle fingers / inserted, wiggling". That's the only way.

The Sugar Conspiracy by Ian Leslie
A very different bent on this article, but also not really. I have complained to many people beyond their tolerance for my diatribing about the inherent shortcoming of Science. We live in an era of scientific worship, and still seem to apply those antiquated "dominion over the earth" philosophies that came from Christianity, but we now filter them through science. Like, "we'll fix global warming, because Science!" Science is fucked, and corrupt, like all other human institutions. This article is a very good explication of that. And beyond that, on the specific level, it's a very real and interesting chunk of information on our diet, and how we may be (lol, "may") completely fucking ourselves up. Of course this article is at the Guardian, so it doesn't say it in such crude manners, but the historical account of saturated fats vs. sugar in making us all obese fucks causing our heart to clog into emergency brake one day is a solid enough read. My wife the herbalist has talked about a lot of this shit to me a lot, diatribing very much like I do about science, but only to me, and I got some yogurt after work because I'm on a yogurt drink with my adaptogenic herbal powders and some cayenne (keep the shit unclogged internally with the cayenne), and I always get whole milk because, well because. But the whole milk yogurt at stupid Trader Joe's (where what I thought was "good" yogurt is affordable) is full of sugar. The lowfat yogurt had sugar as ingredient too, and actually had more grams of sugars than the whole milk. The Greek shit had no added sugar, and like a fifth less of sugars on the nutritional label, but also was a dollar more. Why the fuck would we have a world where the less healthy shit, in fact destructive over time shit, is cheaper? Like, what is the thinking of "Well, you can get food to survive off of, I mean it's gonna give you cancer, but you got food, right?" Like why even make that shit? Oh yeah, money. So this third article does relate to the other two.

Deny, destroy, deface all devils.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't know how people can afford things either. I suspect that senior skip day in high school somehow plays a role.