(Scene: two men pause by the allegorical roadside. They stand having a heart to heart chat about pedestrian things. They swap billion dollar ideas that neither one of them has any intention of pursuing. They gossip about the membership. Then they get to talking about the Mentor Program.)

BOB
Ya know Joe, there’s something I have been meaning to tell you. It’s about you and why nobody gives you feedback about the ideas you write about.

JOE
Please, speak whatever is upon your mind.

BOB
Let’s take this Mentor Program idea. You bring an idea worked out to such levels of detail upon detail that, if somebody like me even reads it in the first place, I end up feeling like there’s no way for me to even get in a simple idea.

JOE
For example?

BOB
You keep talking about us old timers mentoring those who are beginning to enter the workforce. What about us old timers mentoring one another? For example take me and Slim. There’s things Slim knows such that I’d like to have Slim as my Mentor. He’s got plenty of things to teach me that I want to learn. Slim can be my Mentor and I can be his Affiliate. Just a simple idea like that feels like it has no place in your Mentor Program framework. You appear to have everything worked out to the nth degree.

JOE
Every human in the Mentor program is a registered Affiliate. You are both Affiliates. If you want Slim for your Mentor just ask him. I am sure he’ll agree. He’ll help you define a 24Hour work product you can produce and deliver.

BOB
There’s something else I have been meaning to tell you. Years ago a good friend of mine and I pondered the question “What Is Enlightenment”. Most people think enlightenment is some mystical state brought on by meditation. For me enlightenment is no more complex than my daily ritual of letting go of thoughts and feelings that are burdening my soul. For me it is the simple daily enlightenment of the soul. I made my peace with the question “What Is Enlightenment” years ago. So how is it for you?

JOE
Guilty as charged. I have this whole theory about the human necessity to program itself with frames of reference for dealing with life. The theory is complete with mathematical, visual, and linguistic voice and song models of how the soul interacts with the body and how the soul interacts with other souls and how the body forms bonds of love in the brain and had best spend its life hanging onto the bonds of love and letting go of the bonds of hate. Things like that. Dad and I used to talk about topics like this.

The Comic Zone: A sure-fire solution for our economy

http://www.clarkforkchronicle.com/article.php/20110306225034239
by Parris ja Young

Let’s face it, all that money spent on Social Security, for example, could be much better spent for another bomb, for ammunition and more agile and faster fighter jets in foreign lands to defend our way of life, and for better surveillance instruments here at home. Besides, old people are no longer productive; they don’t work and they’ve already reproduced. They require caretakers who could be serving in other ways. It would be far cheaper and more humane just to let them die quietly. And besides, the way social security is set up, the financial forces of our great country will not make money until the system is privatized properly.

Reflections

How dare anyone blame the orgy of capitalist excess we witnessed in the latter half of the first decade of the third millennium of the birth of brother Jesus, upon the heads of the children needing an education, the vulnerable adults who are the Leviathan’s prey, the sick among us, the gutter trash among us, the junkies, the mentally ill on Social Security, the elderly whose aged bodies hold fine minds and a mighty big heart, and a lofty pen, a man like Parris ja Young, who doth now whisper of the Truth.

Just a few days before he had been told by his boss that that he was being moved to the afternoon shift which meant that he would be traveling home well after dark. He confided to his friend that he was filled with fear over what he must face. His friend was amazed that a Zulu warrior would know such fear for, when Zulu warriors went to war, they knew no fear. He had explained the source of his fear to his friend. It had helped somewhat but tonight here he stood.

The Zulu warrior stood, at the head of the street he must walk down. He was feeling deeply afraid. He must give himself a few moments to still his fear, as he had been trained to do. Then he must make his way carefully down the street ready to defend himself or run for his life at any moment.

The Zulu warrior was afraid of them. They ran in feral packs at night and hunted for humans whom they might overtake and rob. During the day they begged upon the streets of the city. Some as young as five years old sniffed glue during the day and at night they ran in packs, these homeless children.

At night they sometimes laid in wait for helpless people to rob. They hid under cars and over walls and they would swarm out and attack. They would stab with anything sharp. They would bring their human prey down to the ground and rob them. They might kill them. The pack of children would leave them for dead.

Where had these feral children come from?

Some of these homeless children had been turned out of the house by their parents and told to go make their own way in the world.

What must be done to rescue these children?

Do not give them money it only perpetuates their misery. Their best hope is to make their way to the shelters setup for the care of these homeless and parentless children.