Moonlight, and The Price is Right

By Johnny D. Symon

So much interesting water has flowed under life's bridge during the past fortnight that I experience a little difficulty in choosing my favorites, the ones I find to be of greatest interest. I finally chose a selection that's part of a set really.

I've always believed that the world, and life itself, is a type of open university, with one long and unbroken tutorial. We have the choice of sitting in class to either gaze out of the window blankly, or study that which is presented to us. Our world, by which I mean the world that we form part of and build, is in truth a place of contradiction, but many of those contradictions require careful study to determine their true nature. We have legal systems where, in most cases, the answers ought to be cut and dried. Food and hygiene laws that most times make good sense, yet we find the occasional man-made clause. Tartar steak is a good case in point, especially in Europe, because the EU are most strict concerning raw meats and unpasteurized milk products. Tartar steak is something that most likely contravenes European law, yet it's available in restaurants throughout Europe.

Now the interesting thing for me about this dish is the fact that its origins belie its present condition, for you see the originators were a race of supreme warriors, and superb horsemen, who were also men of sound mind and judgment. Their victories in battle are legendary, and as for their sound judgment, the fact that they chose to invade Russia back in the 13th Century proves, at least to me, that they were sounder of mind than our leaders were and are from the 20th Century to the present day, with the exception of a few spiritual bright sparks such as General Patton, who wished to clean up Russia at a time when Russians needed it most.

Though I digress. The Tartars did not eat raw meat, but due to always being on the saddle they had little time to cook. Furthermore, since they were most times inside enemy territory, camp fires were out of the question. Their solution to this problem was most likely the origin of microwave cooking, because they'd simply shove a raw steak under their saddles at day break, then ride on it until dusk, by which time those raw steaks had become drained of excess blood and fluid, and with all that friction and heat in an enclosed space had become slow-cooked and soft as butter. Modern-day tartar steak, therefore, could not be further from the original, safe, and authentic article. For those doubting Thomas's out there I suggest that you try it for yourselves ... it's a neat trick.

But as for the contradictions I've mentioned, they always seem to come in sets. I've met people who claim that they're like myself and believe in freedom and personal responsibility, then when push comes to shove they change course.

This week's scandal in Austria concerning a 42-year old woman and her incestuous animal of a father (and most likely a crazy mother,) is another case in point. Several of those who claim to believe in the same things I do, took an about turn with this subject and said, "How could the Austrian authorities not know that something was amiss all these years?" and this is not the question I ask. My question is, "How could his wife and relatives, and even neighbors, not know about this situation?" Personal responsibility places the ball in our own court. The authorities should not enter the picture until we've uncovered the truth and reported it. The authorities, so to speak, are then responsible, in theory at least, to decisively charge and sentence the bad guys.

How can true freedom lovers about turn so easily with grave isolated cases of that nature, to then invite Big Brother in to exact and regulate greater overall control of our private family affairs? Politicians can barely be trusted with the Affairs of State, so why should we entrust them with authority over Family Affairs too? Well I guess the answer lies in Daniel's "end of days," and John's Apocalypse.

For you know? Those same types contradict themselves in other ways too. A recent scare in Europe over contaminated sunflower oil is a further example. Apparently four European countries found themselves with sunflower oil on supermarket shelves that also contained toxic industrial mineral oil from the Ukraine. How this cocktail mix took place is yet to be determined, but what is already clear is an embarrassing fact that non-EU oil appears mixed with EU edible oils.

We've just passed the 22nd anniversary of Chernobyl, a disaster that could take more than a hundred thousand years to clear, yet we're finding toxic non-edible oil in European supermarkets that came from a nearby region. This is a situation that can only be handled by the European authorities, but the problem is that the authorities seem to have turned a blind eye themselves, a blind eye to their own stricter than strict food hygiene laws. I've noted several embarrassed looks on top EU politicos' faces over this, and I strongly suspect that it could be due to, or a spin off from, an end of days Satanic miracle named "biofuel." I believe that this dreaded Ukranian oil was en route to a European bio-treatment plant when several greasy palmed souls formed other ideas concerning its fate.

Our own personal sense of responsibility, to our family, our neighborhood, and our country, is something that should be out-with the interest and the duty of our authorities, but the integrity of what we pick up on our supermarket shelves is beyond our reckoning. I guess we've lost sight of who's responsible for what in life. Big Brother politico wishes to control not only our every move, but our every thought too.

I remember years back, watching a relative opening his birthday presents, and one of them was a jar of honey from New Zealand with a big honeycomb in it. He was mighty impressed with this, until I read the label's small print, which said, "Product of more than one country." I guess the idea behind this product was to make folks think that both the honey and the comb came from the same hive, when in fact they didn't even come from the same country. EU law is strict on this. Products sold in the EU are either marked as "Produced in the EU," or produced in a specific EU member state. So with the latest scare on sunflower oil, I had a careful look at some of the packaging, and nowhere did it say "Product of the EU and the Ukraine."

To those who have read some of my past eds, or at least those eds still on view, you'll know that I hate the whole concept of biofuel, and the above event threatening the health of many Europeans is a case in point. But there's something else behind that stuff, something far more sinister, and I guess by saying this I'm making a prediction concerning the near future. For you see, the recent arrival of biofuel on the world's energy stage has caused a huge rise, and a rising still, of basic foodstuff prices, which is only natural when the laws of supply and demand are in force.

There are very few world leaders that are not in part responsible for this unholy injustice, yet those selfsame world leaders ... the EU, the UN, and all major Eco-illogical pressure groups, who heralded in this disaster ... the very ones behind the harebrainstorm-child scam, are pretending to be concerned about the problem they alone caused. They're responsible, yet we're all expected to trust them with the solving of it, and that's where my prediction enters the scene. And again I invoke Daniel's end of days, and John's Apocalypse. For in order to set right the food chain problem behind biofuel madness, world leaders and their hangers-on, will shortly propose that a Single World Body be formed to control and regulate the earth's resources.

A promise will be made to the people, that this Body's efforts will bring down the price of raw foodstuffs again, which will serve as an irresistible carrot on an irrevocable political stick, and you know something? Most of our self-professing liberty lovers out and about dear old planet earth, will fall hook, line and sinker for it. Yet in a near perfect world, where folks value their freedom, and uphold the truth, those politicos and their hangers-on would find their proposal to be a swift invite to a dawn execution. How far have we fallen? I wonder.

I stood in a busy café full of high-talking Arabs a couple of days back, gargling down a fast black coffee, when I noted high up in one corner of the room an old (sound off) TV. What was happening on in it reminded me of something my wife said several days before, "The world's going mad!", mainly in reference to the rationing of rice and the biofuel thing. And at first glance what I saw on this Arab TV channel also appeared to be a little crazy, for it displayed some dude in a Berber outfit parasurfing. There he was in plain view, soaring over the foaming waves, wearing a turban and billowing, sodding wet, blue kaftan! The camera work was excellent, following along in perfect unison.

I personally have never parasurfed, leastwise not yet; parachuting, sure; surfing, sure, nonetheless I could tell that the boy was at least fair to middling, good even, but the garb changed the effect from a great sport into a surreal sport. I guess that this TV clip lasted no more than two minutes or so, but in that short time my view of it changed from something crazy to something free, and I can't explain why, at least not yet. It's something I'll no doubt continue to mull over for some time, till the answer bites.

For around 4 years I've mulled over the Arab youths adoption of Gangster Rap. They rap in Arabic and sometimes French, wear the same clothes and similar jewelry, the same dancing and hand movements, and that's where the resemblance ends because I've yet to hear any of them using foul or sexually explicit language, nor have I heard them refer to drugs. Okay, I've heard the odd weed term, twice or so, but that's it.

Several months ago I saw a Moroccan Rap Crew doing their thing with the backdrop of a famous mosque in Rabat, but after several years watching and listening to this Arab-style phenomenon, somehow the mosque seemed to fit. But truth be known, rap is a logical medium for North Africans, though not so logical for Islamic ones. I reckon the world to be more full of contradiction than ever, or maybe it's just apparent contradictions, things that we see and do, then mull over for a period of time until the answer bites.

Shortly after the terrorist bombing of March 11, 2004, in Madrid, Spain, I found myself in a parking lot. I was sitting in the car ready to drive off when a Moroccan family disembarked from their own French made thing. Dad was holding his young son in his arms, then his son turned his head around and stared fixedly through my windshield at me. It was almost like someone had superglued his eyeballs to my screen ... nothing could distract him. Then his mouth curled up to produce an epic world-shattering grin. It was a smile that not only reached the eyes ... it reached the stratosphere, and near defied the laws of time and space. Then his mom and dad turned to see what exactly had interested their boy so, and there I was ... the smile victim.

As they all sauntered off, with that smile in their arms, I tried to imagine what this smile would become in the future; A comedian? An engineer? A pilot? A farmer? Or a politician perhaps? But with the recent memory of the events surrounding March 11, 2004, I further considered this kid to be a possible future terrorist victim. Heaven forbid!

Now I've read the Koran, and I know fine well what are it's gists, sum and substances, and I know firsthand some of its leading proponents. But I also know firsthand a myriad of Muslims, friends of mine, who live life in a simpler way. They can't understand or relate, let alone connect, with the radical few who present Islam in all its explosive details. And the funny thing is that Christianity and Judaism share the same condition. Gay Christians appear not to see Romans 1:27, and many Jews fail to observe a Kosher diet.

Years ago, on the rock of Gibraltar, I was introduced to a family who said they were "Noahites." I asked them to explain what it was, and they said Noah did not observe the Jewish Kosher diet because the Law came much later with Moses, to which I replied that Noah observed the Law himself because he heeded the command to divide up the clean and unclean creatures by sevens and twos as they entered the ark. So plainly an understanding of what was permissible in his diet was already present, and if it wasn't, we'd find references within the Bible of his epoch to the roasting of pig or dog. Therefore, in my opinion, my newfound friends were in fact practicing the art of "epochracy!"

I met another Jewish guy in Gibraltar at that time, who told me that he ate soy substitute prawns, produced in Israel and according to him, passed by the Rabbinate. I wondered if he meant that it had passed them by without them noticing, or whether they'd rubber-stamped it, or even if it was his try at toilet humor. But in actual fact this foodstuff was recommended by the religious hierarchy of Israel. I'd never heard of it before, and I got to thinking about it's possible wider aspects. For instance, soy substitute human flesh for the cannibal-minded humans amongst us. Is there a market for soy protein, human flesh textured and flavored, human substitute? And if so, would it be passed by the Rabbinate? But here's the question; If strict Kosher Jews have managed to produce an authentic prawn flavor, how would they know without tasting the original?

Though surely the moral is this; If you're a Catholic priest and therefore can't marry, is an inflatable substitute permissible? If cannibalism's wrong, is a substitute okay? And what about murder, or the rigors of terrorism?

Try as I might, I still kept returning to the same answer ... There's no subtle or lawful substitute to replace that which is forbidden or wrong, for even a mental or physical substitute will represent the same thing. To covet your neighbor's wife can be an inner desire, yet it's forbidden. To bear false witness is a fantasy concept of the mind, and that's wrong too. Therefore both the physical act of anything wrong, versus mental substitute mechanics, shall always compute as one and the same.

Mild-mannered Muslims world-wide just get on with their lives, and they share the same revulsion at terrorist acts as Jews, Christians, and those of other faiths, together with the faithless. Most of them know what's in the Koran, and much of it they take with a pinch of salt, as do many Christians concerning the Bible, and Jews with the Torah. A bunch of Christians down in Texas fell foul of the law lately, due to the fact that they chose to ignore New Testament advice by practicing unprohibited Old Testament polygamy. Many Jews choose to ignore the territorial boundaries afforded them in the Torah, by turning to spiritually sick politicos who care to differ with God Himself.

Yes indeed, we all form part of the world of contradiction. We say one thing and do another. We do something and claim it's another thing. Josef Fritzl created a parallel world for himself and his family, then it grew onwards and upwards, spanning a quarter of a Century, till his world and his alternative reality became known world-wide.

But I wonder also about the alternate realities and alternate world that our spiritually sick world leaders have formed for us. Maybe through accepting their evil realities, we ourselves are therefore becoming part and parcel of their wicked ways. We know the truth, and we know reality. We know what the world should be, and we know what basic foodstuffs are for, yet still we trust those who have proven themselves to be the most untrustworthy of all. They all deserve a dawn execution or to be targets at a wild turkey shoot, but come sunup tomorrow they'll still be performing their version of the Big Fritzl, and the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

© Johnny D. Symon