Ancient Rumors of Evil

Well, Pretty Lady is glad that somebody pointed out the obvious:

Many white Americans seem concerned that Mr. Obama, who seems so reasonable, should enjoy the company of Mr. Wright, who seems so militant, angry and threatening. To whites, for example, it has been shocking to hear Mr. Wright suggest that the AIDS virus was released as a deliberate government plot to kill black people.

That may be an absurd view in white circles, but a 1990 survey found that 30 percent of African-Americans believed this was at least plausible.

“That’s a real standard belief,” noted Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a political scientist at Princeton (and former member of Trinity church, when she lived in Chicago). “One of the things fascinating to me watching these responses to Jeremiah Wright is that white Americans find his beliefs so fringe or so extreme. When if you’ve spent time in black communities, they are not shared by everyone, but they are pretty common beliefs.”

Pretty Lady is not herself an African-American, but she clearly recalls reading a most shocking and convincing article, circa 1990, in an alternative Austin paper, which laid out the case for a calculated and deliberate infection of blacks, gays and drug users with the AIDS virus, under cover of a government immunization program. She did not know what to think; the evidence as presented seemed rather compelling.

A good friend of hers, a white gentleman who dressed habitually in suits, and made a name for himself in later years as a Jeopardy contestant, summed up her views: "I sure hope it's not true, because then I'd feel a moral obligation to do a number on those responsible."

Pretty Lady and her friends not being, by skill or inclination, hit-persons, there the matter was allowed to lie.

So when Pretty Lady heard Mr. Wright's incendiary sermons, she was not inclined to believe that he was a liar or a racist; she believed that he believed he was telling the truth. She cannot fault him for that. She doesn't know the truth, and neither does anybody else.

For the fact is, Evil exists. It is, by its nature, shadowy and cloaked in lies. It can exist everywhere, and most particularly in the corridors of Power. Its enemy is Truth, Transparency, and Honest Discussion, not hasty denunciations based upon superficial impressions.

This is why it is dangerous to simply repudiate incendiary rhetoric, instead of closely examining it. Sweeping Evil under the carpet only makes it stronger.

Picking One's Battles

Chris writes his own Authority Problem essay:

...Wilson's conclusions are somewhat different from yours, though. Rather than being somewhat confused and horrified at how difficult most people find disobedience, he found it quite natural and understandable. More importantly, he recognized -- which you, Pretty Lady, apparently do not -- the potential within himself -- within all of us humans -- to do the same.

To me, too, that's the most important lesson of the Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments: Almost everyone, given the chance, would be a concentration camp guard. Maybe we all wouldn't be the most sadistic guard at Treblinka; but neither would most of us be the most compassionate, either.

A small example from my own life. I believe, and will quite passionately argue (with very little provocation), that the so-called security routine Americans submit to when traveling by airplane is not only not helpful but actively harmful. I believe that the humiliation of taking off our shoes and belts, and forcing people to carry liquids in quart-sized (not gallon or pint) clear plastic bags, is at least a waste of effort and at most designed to soften American citizens up for the next assault on privacy and freedom.

I further believe -- cribbing again from Robert Anton Wilson -- that the only truly inalienable human right is the right to say no and take the consequences. I believe that the only way to stop the nonsense of so-called airport security is for us, the people, to stand up and say no. To refuse to submit to it.

I almost never take an airplane anyway, so this is an easy stand for me to make. Except just last week my wife and I traveled to Las Vegas so she could receive a prestigious award. I agonized over how I would handle the security issue. And when the time finally came...I took off my shoes. Because...

Because. I can invent a lot of reasons. But, ultimately, there are always reasons. The human brain is absolutely unparalleled in inventing reasons for the things it does. Why sit idly by as your Jewish neighbors are arrested and sent away in cattle cars? Why administer deadly electric shocks on the orders of a man in a white coat? Why pile up naked prisoners and take a picture? Why take off your shoes at an airport checkpoint?

To me, enlightenment -- wisdom, whatever you choose to call it -- is understanding, truly understanding, that you yourself are not above this. Yes, there are always times and places where some individuals find the courage to stand up, and we'd all like to hope that we'd be like those people. But that's just hope.

Clap, clap, clap. Woo-hoo!

Pretty Lady has a few teensy little comments:

1) Pretty Lady's ego-self is, by definition, not above this. That is the definition of ego-self. As long as we identify completely with frangible little bodies, running around at odds with other bodies, we are not above this. This is why Pretty Lady works so committedly, if lazily, to transcend her ego-self.

2) There is such a thing as choosing one's battles, and degree of exigency, and seeking one's Tipping Point moment. It is unreasonable and hyperbolic to equate the taking off of one's shoes--so that one's beloved wife may have her well-deserved Fun Time In Vegas, instead of committing a futile one-man-stand against tyranny, getting jailed, and ruining her weekend--to the wanton torture of, perhaps, that same wife, or someone like her. As Milgram and Wilson point out, we are social, relational creatures, which is the very reason for the Authority Problem in the first place. If we were all self-aggrandizing narcissists, who threw gratuitous temper tantrums in airports for moral ideals which nobody around us is likely to understand or be influenced by, there would be no society to give rise to unjust governments, or, in time, to us.

2) a) Remember: contrary to popular myth, Rosa Parks planned her moment very, very carefully, buttressed by an entire Organizational Movement waiting in the wings. These Quixotic Individual Standing Up for Freedom myths do more harm than good.

3) It is quite probable that the simple wrestling with the shoe question, and contemplation of the issues thereof, would make you, Chris, a fraction less likely to sign off on concentration-camp warrants, should they cross your desk; which brings us to:

4) Once we know that such Authority Problems are a universal danger, how do we train our minds to recognize and resist them?

Well, it is said that the few German youngsters who found the notion of Hitler Youth to be boring and silly beyond belief, were home-schooled by permissive but intellectually rigorous parents.

And having an independent income helps, too.

For we cannot become enlightened all at once. First, we learn to Obey. Then we learn to understand the reasons for obedience. Then we learn to discern the circumstances where mindless obedience does not match up with those transcendent reasons; then, with much struggle and failure, we learn to act in accordance with those meta-standards, rendering obedience obsolete.

There is a lot more to this than mere Hope, Chris; frankly, it involves a lot of work.

Outlaw!

Appearances suggest that Pretty Lady's commentary has been aggressively and pre-emptively censored, over at I Blame the Patriarchy. She is still willing to entertain the notion that this could be a tragic and accidental oversight, but so far her private inquiries into the matter have gone unaddressed.

Pretty Lady will gloss over the obvious ironic implications of the fact that an individual who professes to be championing the free and unfettered expression of the Female Voice would stoop to such totalitarian tactics. In fact, if this wounded person feels threatened or violated by Pretty Lady's method of discourse in any way, such uncompromising maintenance of personal boundaries is to be commended, rather than otherwise. It would have been courteous of her to inform Pretty Lady of her decision, but not necessary.

No, Pretty Lady is bringing this up because of a free-wheeling and tangential observation that she has made, many a time, when she has enthusiastically bounded into a group of Suffering Persons, and openly shared a Healing Experience of her own. There is nothing which offends the sufferers more.

Again, Pretty Lady can understand this. Nobody knows better than she does that Boundaries are Paramount, and one of the things that chronic Sufferers suffer from is chronic, well-meaning assaults by oblivious Do-Gooders. Pretty Lady herself, as a penurious artist, has long experienced the parallel phenomenon, of such persons informing her of how she might solve her financial woes by merely adding another sixty hours of Mortifying Drudgery into her already overloaded weekly schedule. She has only one question for these people, and it is a sincere one: "Why do you imagine that Pretty Lady has not already thought of that?"

However weary she becomes, however, her annoyance with the whole issue does not extend to the rejection of Money, Period. Despite the fact that, having thoroughly considered the issue, she declines to open a side business selling homemade salsa, with cute little labels she designed herself, Pretty Lady would not go so far as to reject a person who offered her a big whopping check for, say, a painting of hers. Nor would she rudely interrupt an individual who might be on the verge of recommending her to their high-profile art dealer; she'd cock a courteous ear and wait to see how the conversation panned out. You never know.

Thus it strikes her as distinctly odd that many, many, many people who live their lives, according to their own accounts, in Unabated Misery seem to be constitutionally allergic to the word 'healing.' Use it once, and you might as well have cut the power to the building.

(This allergy does not extend to the notion of 'fixing things.' Fixing is A-OK, as long as the fixing does not involve any action on the part of the sufferer, except of course for the Issuing of Impotent and Draconian Orders to the Indifferent Masses. Other people must fix things. That is non-negotiable. Which, of course, ensures that nothing, nothing, nothing will change, because of the Cardinal Rule of Responsibility; you cannot change another person. You can only change yourself.)

Pretty Lady will not now go into a Treatise on Healing, because she is due to hit the road in a few hours, and interested parties are agitating for her company. She will merely ask a somewhat rhetorical question: What's that all about?

Well, duh

Pretty Lady just received a phone call from a dear friend who is on a Detoxing Mission. This friend has recently done some research into commercial cleaning products, and discovered that the vast majority of them are corrosively, cumulatively, insidiously toxic. She has made the switch to cleaning with baking soda, white distilled vinegar, castille soap, washing soda, and Borax for the really tough jobs. She reports that her home is as shiny as ever, and she is not dead yet.

Pretty Lady feels vindicated. She has instinctively avoided most commercial cleaning products since childhood without giving the matter too much thought; her feeling is that anything which produces headaches, dizziness, breathing trouble, nausea, or Bad Smells has no business being slathered all over her home, body or clothing. Nobody needed to tell her that Lysol, Comet, Simply Green, Tilex, Windex and the like are Evil Poison. She guessed it all on her own!

You will all be pleased to note that Pretty lady's bathroom cleaner of choice passed the toxicity test with flying colors. It contains purified water, coconut derived surfactants, tea tree and lavender oil. Pretty Lady actually looks forward to cleaning her bathroom.

Efficiency in Problem-Solving

Pretty Lady is feeling pretty darn pleased with herself. She will go so far as to say that she is feeling Smug. She just 1) scored a bicycle off of Craigslist, suited to her specifications, for $100 cash (instead of the $500+ retail for a lightweight hybrid 12-speed, her steed of choice); 2) ordered The Swimsuit from J. Crew, at half-price (she had to be flexible as to color, but she got the St. Tropez! With the bamboo ring!); 3) discovered that, perhaps for the first time in her life, she made a transposition error in her checkbook last March which resulted in her being $900 to the good, instead of Not Quite Scraping By, as she had previously thought.

Which means she will be able to renew her yoga class card, bike to the beach all summer, and generally Romp Around, instead of bloating up whitely indoors, due to Extreme Poverty.

Thus buoyed by a sense of Good Health and Plenty, she will bravely tackle the seemingly intractable problem, presented to her by her bad-ass buddy, JWYW:

Bullying was a finely honed weapon. There were many emotional casualties. Those that could fight, did, by any means possible. Those that could not did not have their parents, nor the school administration behind them....PL- can parents without those skills really help their children? It seems those without enablers to sue their way out of the school system are doomed to fight or flight, just as when I was younger.

Pretty Lady has a bit of experience with attempting to teach and mentor inner-city Youth At Risk, who were besieged by Horrible Problems on every side. She failed miserably. Pretty Lady is now the first to admit that she is not equipped to deal with situations like this; she simply hasn't the background, the credentials, or the attitude. At this point she has pinpointed a certain brand of cynical, evil sadism in the Powers that Be, who take the best and the brightest of sweet, sheltered, idealistic, bright and enthusiastic young college graduates and lure them unsuspectingly into such travesties as the New York Teaching Fellows program, where they get eaten alive.

For idealism, energy, intelligence and Good Intentions are simply not sufficient to overcome the gargantuan problems facing the underclass of our society. When you take a core group of idealists, provide them with minimal training and hurl them into the most incorrigible, underfunded classrooms in the Bronx, the ones that the professionals will not touch with a barge pole, you may get a minor miracle or two, but mostly what you get are shell-shocked idealists, who morph quite rapidly into burnt-out cynics.

Ahem. So why is Pretty Lady addressing the issue at all, if all she has to offer is burnt-out cynicism?

Well, the fact is, that Pretty Lady is not in a Special Education classroom in the Bronx. She is comfortably in her Home Environment, where her Special Skills may shine. One of her Special Skills, as it happens, is that of a Librarian. And the one thing a Librarian knows is that if a person does not know the answer to a dilemma, that person can still do Research.

Yes! The secret to being an effective and efficient Librarian is to be as lazy as possible. One does not have to solve everything oneself; one does not have to Know All, Do All, or Be All. One merely has to know who to ask, or where to look.

So, even though Pretty Lady is pretty helpless when it comes to bullying, she offers a few generic steps to take, when confronted by a seemingly insoluble problem.

1) Identify the problem.

One primary skill any good Librarian must have is in getting the petitioner to state the issue which is actually concerning them. All too many people become stressed-out and confused when approaching the Lady Behind the Desk; they try to second-guess her, or play games, or leapfrog to a premature conclusion. When attempting to assist these people, Pretty Lady had to first patiently tweeze out the true nature of the problem, using such repetitive statements as, "What is your question? What is your concern? What do you need? What is the real problem? What are you trying to do?"

In the extreme example above, the Primary Concern is that the child get a good education, free of excessive bullying. This may seem obvious, but all too often, people lose sight of the Main Issue. They go off on wild tangents involving the expense of lawyers, self-defense training, or the evils of Administrative Stonewalling, without even thinking to check the phone book for other educational options in the vicinity.

2) Brainstorm about different angles to take in approaching this problem.

All too often, persons under stress fall into False Dichotomy mode, with the resultant spinning-in-circles and Hopeless Despair. "Well, I cannot do This, and That is completely out of the question, so I am Definitely Screwed," the petitioner is wont to state, stoically. The possibility that one of their options might very well be None Of The Above has never occurred to them.

3) Perform exploratory searches.

Oftentimes we don't know what we're looking for, because we have no idea what is out there. Getting a notion of what sort of resources exist, and how they are categorized, can often lead to a sudden insight as to a possible trajectory.

4) Network.

When you have a problem, tell everyone. You will have to fend off a great deal of useless advice, but there is always a possibility that one person, usually the least expected, will say something like, 'Oh, I have this friend who homeschools in exchange for yard work...would that be of any use?'

5) Sleep on the problem.

You do not have to fix it Right Now, usually. And many times, the best thing to do is nothing at all; then a week later, the solution descends in a blinding flash of light. The subconscious mind is an extraordinary thing, as are the workings of Grace, when it is allowed to tackle the task, unmolested by panicked attempts to control its methods.

6) A truly, truly insoluble problem is God's problem, not yours.

Pretty Lady is never one to advocate divesting oneself of Personal Responsibility. But when you have tried, and tried, and approached things from every angle, and gotten advice, and gotten help, and worked and tweaked and prodded and sewn, and studied, and trained, and advertised, and applied, and gone to therapy, and done yoga, and seen a doctor, and prayed--then you have done pretty much all you can do. If it is still not working out, that seems to her to be a clear indication that it is time to Let Go.

And Letting Go, Pretty Lady has it on good authority, is the thing which induces miracles.

Ingredients of Evil

Regardless of its illustration of obvious fact that if a person possesses a hammer, the whole world begins to resemble a sticky-outy nail, Pretty Lady quite liked Cintra's article:

Malignant narcissists seek a "narcissistic load" -- their drug of choice -- which is ATTENTION. Positive attention and negative attention are one and the same -- attention is attention. People suffering from this disorder tend to blame others for their difficulties, fly into a "narcissistic rages," and seek revenge as their due. Attention is the drug, the victory, the raison d'etre -- the narcissist simply needs to be the center of attention, and will get his fix by any means necessary.

Cho's successful domination of the news cycles condones, justifies and rewards his behavior... and encourages it in others who suffer from this affliction. Infamy is the same thing as Fame, for the malignant narcissist.

She wonders, though; is it genuinely, thoroughly true that an essential component of Evil (and Pretty Lady will not entertain the notion that Evil is merely a semantic construct, and is prepared to pulverize those foolish individuals who seriously propound it) is a need for Notoriety? Are those evil people not equally dangerous who hide in the shadows, fearing and loathing the light beyond all else?

She must think on it.

The Path to Freedom

Pretty Lady, in her wild, untrammelled, Bohemian life, often meets fascinatingly Progressive Thinkers. Pretty Lady being who she is, is always charmed. There is nothing she likes better than a late-night conversation about oft-misunderstood doctrines of seventeenth-century philosophy, and the tragic results of these misinterpretations extrapolated into the present day. She can really get her teeth into a good discussion about the Problem of Evil, the glamorization of misanthropy, and the crumbling edifice that is Modern Society.

Pretty Lady's fundamental problem in forming long-term friendships with these sorts of people, however, stems most unfortunately from these same roots. A person who views the flaws in Modern Society with a clear and jaundiced eye is inclined to reject all of its conventions wholesale. And Pretty Lady is pretty darn tired of supervising serial attempts to reinvent the wheel from scratch.

Because a nearly universal hallmark of this sort of Progressive Thinker is a categorical rejection of the notion of Commitment. 'A Trap!' he naturally, progressively thinks, as soon as he shudderingly considers the hellish tangles woven by Family, Society and Culture; 'I shall avoid it, and then I shall be Free! Free to Improve the World, living by my own inner guidance and unfiltered notions of Right and Wrong!'

Oh yes, Pretty Lady has heard it dozens of times before. And she sighs, hangs her head, and continues upon her unwilling and solitary Bohemian path. For the only true entrapment is the pathological need to keep all of one's options eternally Open.

This notion is, to the Progressive Thinker, so counterintuitive as to be utterly unconsidered. But to Pretty Lady, having been a dancer, it is and always has been obvious.

For freedom is Movement; Movement is Change; and to move and to change, a person has to put one foot in front of the other. Then--and pay attention--a person has to commit her entire weight to that foot in front, in order to lift the foot in the back, and move it to another place. In other words, without commitment, no movement is possible.

Pretty Lady felt this fact most acutely during the years she was hobbling around with an injured ankle. It is very difficult to keep putting one foot in front of the other when one foot is not holding one's weight; progress is miserable and slow. During those days, Pretty Lady often thought of her unipedal condition as a metaphor, for being in relationship with a person who is permanently Undecided as to whether or not this thing is for him. Nothing could happen, nobody could go anywhere, because any new logistical situation required the re-negotiation of the entire affair.

This is not to say that a Free Thinker ought to commit her entire future on the basis of one late-night conversation, or even several. A true Progressive makes her commitments cautiously and carefully, after due consideration, plenty of time, and assembling of Facts. But then she must leap, she must spring, or she will never learn to Fly, which is the only reason anyone should ever take up dancing. A leap into the air requires trust, and a relinquishment of control. The commitment-phobic would-be Progressive never gets that far.

Furthermore, the fact of categorical commitment-avoidance does not mean that commitments are never made; it merely guarantees that such commitments are of the lesser-of-two-evils-at-gunpoint variety. For a refusal to decide is a decision in itself, and one that Pretty Lady inevitably will fly away from.

The Evils of Feng-shui

Since this appears to be the week where Pretty Lady is allowing her Darker Side to show, hairy eyebrows and all, she might as well go the whole hog and confess her innermost sins. Pretty Lady, darlings, is NOT the wholesomely economic housekeeper that she has led you to believe. She is Frivolous and Wasteful, and should any poor sot be foolish enough to marry her, she will surely bankrupt him.

Yes, tragically, it is true. Pretty Lady is consitutionally incapable of buying an ugly Kleenex box.


This addiction to attractive tissue-dispensers at all costs has persisted for years, and has cost Pretty Lady a pretty penny. She is unable to calculate the precise rate of financial drainage, actually, because her mania extends to an utter disinterest in even checking the prices of ugly tissue. It simply does not matter if Kleenex goes on sale for ninety-nine cents per box of 250; she will continue paying $2.59 for an impractical 85-count ovalesque frivolity, no matter how desperate her financial circumstances.

You see, back at an impressionable age, Pretty Lady skimmed a book on feng-shui. Most of the business about compass-points and such was wholly uninteresting to her, she having little luxury to consider such things, but one phrase in particular rather stood out. "Have nothing in your home which you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

Pretty Lady took things one better, and cast out everything which was not both useful and beautiful, as far as practicably possible. And Kleenex, in Pretty Lady's line of work, is not a dispensable item. One never knows when one's client will suddenly sneeze, or experience a Toxic Drainage of some sort; one simply must have a goodly supply of disposable serviettes ready to hand. Since Pretty Lady's office is also her living room, this guarantees that, like it or not, the Kleenex remains a consistent, minor point of aesthetic focus.

And Pretty Lady confesses that it gives her a profound soul-satisfaction to glance at the top of the microwave, or the corner of the desk, and glimpse, not some horrendous kitschy cardboard box with some floral banality printed across the side, but something with Art and Taste to it, which harmonizes, more or less, with her eclectic decor.

Of such tiny things are the makings of Disaster born.

Emotional Outburst

Pretty Lady must tell you that the vast majority of you Have No Clue. You Have No Clue about so many things, that she does not know where to start; thus she has not started at all, today, with the snow silently blanketing her windows. She has been involved with Other Projects.

But she promises to give you people the sound metaphysical thrashing that you deserve, just as soon as her thoughts crystallize out of the postmodern muck within which she is currently floundering.

The fact is, Pretty Lady is putting her soul up for sale, and the process is a brutal one. It is making her Cranky. She is putting her brain through the funnel of Artspeak in the hopes of obtaining a Whopping Big Grant, and lest any of you decry this as Evil, she will send YOU her credit card statement and ask you how it is to be dealt with. The answer to that question should definitely produce enlightenment, as there is no way, in this physical world, that a logical answer will be forthcoming.

A Casual Musing upon the Lighthearted Subject of Murder

This being a Saturday evening, and Pretty Lady having laboured a strenuous afternoon, and well along into the evening; and Pretty Lady having passed by the wine shop and picked up a little bottle of very reasonably priced vin Francaise, to go with the marinara marinating in the fridge; and this wine having made her moderately maudlin, she has decided to forthrightly essay the topic of Murder. Murder of Innocent little Unborn Babes, that is.

Upon the investigation of any Felony Crime, the question of Motive inevitably arises. Indeed, the vast majority of Plots and Dramas hinge upon this issue; without them, Agatha Christie and her ilk would devolve into so many jigsaw puzzles. Casual, suitable for a desultory fireside evening, but unlikely to envelop the reader in any compelling Need to Understand. There would be no Dramatic Denoument, else.

(Pretty Lady has the uneasy feeling that perhaps she is murdering her French references, but has decided to let that pass. She is working early tomorrow, as well.)

So. Without hurling Wild Accusations, without even confessing to a crime--indeed, Pretty Lady has no crime with which to confess, unless it be a crime of Thought Only. For Pretty Lady has never, in fact, murdered any unborn babe. She has never had this opportunity. And at this point in her existence, she is genuinely uncertain as to whether to be thankful or regretful that such an opportunity has never come to pass.

Because Pretty Lady, at this point in her life, is categorically opposed to terminating a potential, personal pregnancy. This is Pretty Lady's personal view, and is not intended to be construed or extended as a moral judgment upon others.

But there has been a time in Pretty Lady's life when, in the wild throes of Abandonment and Despair, that the incoherent thought flooded through her brain: 'if I were pregnant now, I would definitely have an abortion.'

Pretty Lady cannot deny it. If sin originates within the mind, Pretty Lady is guilty. Guilt is clear; it is incontrovertible, it is punishable to the fullest extent of the law. Motive plays no part. It is mere self-indulgence, then, and possibly entertaining and educatory to her readers, that Pretty Lady feels compelled to explain the motive behind her crime of thought.

You see, when Pretty Lady bestows her heart, she may not bestow it wisely, but she does bestow it utterly. And the more time passes in relationship, after the fact of this bestowal, the more utterly does she absorb, attach and envelop herself within the Beloved. This is not a Flight of Fancy, either. With Pretty Lady, Intimacy encompasses the intellectual, the emotional, and the spiritual, as well as, and eventually, the merely physical.

So that when she gets to the point of saying to herself, "Perhaps I will bear this man's child," it is not a Casual Thing. It has taken her years to arrive there. And Pretty Lady, odd and quirky as she is, does not believe that she is unique among her gender. She rather suspects, in the deeps of her mind, that other ladies arrive at this place as well.

So that when she is there, when she is Intimate, when she is viewing the man before her and thinking this thing, which took her years to accomplish, and the man in question casually declares, "I'll be leaving town this evening; thanks for the hospitality," the meltdown in Pretty Lady's mind approaches the Apocalyptic. It is accompanied by the Rending of the Intellectual, the Emotional, the Spiritual and the Physical; it induces a temporary state of Utter Nihilism and Despair.

This is the point, after the van has departed, after the bathtub has drained, after the dishwasher has run, when the only sound is the sound of the sparrow chirping in the eaves, this is the moment when the Evil Crime is committed, in Pretty Lady's mind. If her Mate, her Beloved, her partner of heart and soul and mind, can so casually depart, leaving the tip on the table, then obviously this world is not fit for living. It is not fit for innocence. It is not fit for babies, however theoretical and potential and doomed.

For Pretty Lady believes that Crime is rarely committed by the individual. It comes about, rather, as a concatenation of circumstance; of a thousand thousand tiny wrongs which are never set right. It is perpetrated by daily, casual indifference, habitual indifference, indifference which is hardened into self-righteous egotism, indifference which is wilfully blind.

Pretty Lady is not defending anybody; she is not extending her own experience to that of the world at large. Motives vary with the individual and circumstance. We are all sinners.

However she asks, she merely asks, that any man who casts stones at Women who Murder Unborn Babes, that he ask himself--have I ever been casual? Have I been indifferent? Have I in any way contributed to the mountain of cruelty and irreverence that makes up the physical world?

Because if you can answer 'yes' to any of these questions, then you have your labours cut out for you. And those labours do not include the casting of stones.

Oh, good heavens

There are moments in Pretty Lady's life where she comes smack up against one of the more unfortunate aspects of Human Nature, and is Appalled. She seems to see Neurosis and Superstition in all its chaotic, solipsistic muddle, with a crystalline clarity that staggers her, and leaves her momentarily speechless.

She is speaking, of course, about the tendency of humans to believe that they can control the weather, by judicious choice of dishwashing detergent.

Friends, this is not a single, isolated instance of OCD. It is a Movement. Hordes of persons are writing in, even as we speak, to contribute their own serious notions regarding the issue of weather control by detergent selection.

To her, this is evidence that our educational system has completely, but completely, failed us. Schools no longer appear to be teaching basic mathematics. What part of 'one part per six point seven billion' do these people fail to understand? Do they honestly believe that their one-six point seven billionth non-contribution of phosphate or chlorination to the terrestrial environment will be the butterfly wing that tips the balance, that causes the glacier to retreat or the hurricane to subside? To say nothing of the fact that the phosphates and the chlorine were ALREADY THERE TO BEGIN WITH?

Furthermore her hero, her old buddy Cary, has failed her. Cary suggests that instead of focusing on weather control by detergent, Good Citizens everywhere ought to re-direct their energies toward weather control by Politics. That is, in extending their own neurosis forcibly worldwide.

Pretty Lady has made her opinions upon Global Warming very clear; she is convinced, by disinterested and retired scientific authority, that Global Warming is Not So. One has only to look at the graphs, so thoughtfully produced by the reigning Scientific Establishment. These graphs demonstrate an exponential rate of climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, occurring in the years after which, by their own account, there will no longer be any fossil fuels to burn.

(If anyone wishes to engage in a private discussion with an expert on the subject, please contact Pretty Lady personally and she will provide you with her Daddy's email address. Dear Daddy, being linearly-minded, has been too preoccupied with his researches to get a website up and running.)

No, to Pretty Lady's jaundiced eye, the whole international Global Warming flap smacks of Lies and Corruption. And where there are Lies, in Pretty Lady's experience, there is Evil.

The question then becomes, where is the Evil coming from? Whose agenda do these lies benefit?

This is an open question; wiser heads than Pretty Lady's may speculate upon it. What has distracted Pretty Lady's pretty head at the moment is that 'world population' figure she so casually referred to above. It triggered a sort of connection--many of those neurotic dishwashing persons testified to a sort of tangential concern about planetary overpopulation, she seems to recall.

Pretty Lady, shockingly, is not greatly concerned about this issue, either. For it strikes her that the best way to curb global overpopulation would be to kill everybody, and global populations seem to be moving right along with this task, judging by the news reports that penetrate her sanctum with distressing frequency.

No, what truly concerns Pretty Lady is a lack of Love in the world. For if one truly loves oneself, one will treat oneself well; one will not utilize toxic substances in one's home with determined regularity, or dump noxious fumes into one's air. If one truly loves others, one will stop and smile, wish them a good day, and listen to their personal concerns, before moving to either control or murder them. And if one loves one's planet, one will plant a garden.

Because it came to Pretty Lady's ears, through the radio the other day, that somebody has actually offered a large reward to the scientist that comes up with a mechanism for removing greenhouse gases from the air. And Pretty Lady has done so. Plants! Plants remove greenhouse gases from the air! Greenhouse gases are splendid for plants! That's why they're called 'greenhouse gases'! What an ingenious thing!

Pretty Lady can't wait to get started.

Pretty Lady's Ten Best Dates of All Time

Pretty Lady just received the unwelcome reminder, courtesy of a client of hers, that Valentine's Day is almost upon us. This particular client has been known to Get Fresh, and Pretty Lady was forced to cut him down pretty sharply. She has never been a big fan of this 'holiday,' corporate construction as it is; she once drew a comic entitled "The Evil of Valentine's Day" which was published in an obscure 'zine called 'theoryslut', back in the mid-nineties, and her opinions have not significantly altered since.

However. It occurred to her that this is an unproductive attitude. Valentine's Day is not inherently or exclusively evil; it is, like most things, what one makes of it. Pretty Lady was then going to make a large and glorious Valentine, which she intended to distribute impartially to everyone in the world, via the Internet. But this plan was dashed when the grocery store proved to sell only the most inferior sort of paper doilies.

So instead, Pretty Lady has decided to wax nostalgic, and present you with her personal recipes for her ten best dates ever, more or less. It is to be hoped that you will then be inspired to share such blissful occasions with your own personal sweetie, and Pretty Lady will sleep in peace, knowing that she has not heaped another whopping dose of negative karma upon this benighted holiday.

10. The Valencia junk-shop troll.

Ingredients: Valencia Street between 24th and 16th.

Start at 24th; peruse every antique, thrift, junk and used bookstore until 16th. Discuss which items of exotic furniture would be appropriate for the theoretical industrial loft warehouse you intend to occupy, in the uncertain future. Conclude with tapas at Picaro's.

9. The all-night avant-garde film dialogue.

Ingredients: Two-dollar balcony seats for pretentious film at Hogg Auditorium; skateboard; all-night coffee shop.

Make sure you get the front row balcony seats, so you can prop your feet on the ledge and watch the bats fly around. After the film, skate downtown and order a bottomless cup of decaf and cheese fries to share. Argue about esoteric philosophy until 3 AM.

8. The Manhattan Jazz Standard.

Ingredients: Round corner table by the piano at Small's; one bottle Booker's.

Be sure to consume the Booker's at a rate wherein the experience of the jazz is slowly, gracefully heightened, not brutally obliterated.

7. Manhattan: The Works.

Ingredients: Whoa, nelly.

Start with Ethiopian food at that place in the Village which is below sidewalk level. Get a carafe of honey wine to share. Move along to that bar in the Village which has couches facing the sidewalk; have a Manhattan or two. Take a cab to the Algonquin, and have a couple of apple martinis while hammering out the plot and cast of a screenplay entitled "Drunken Angel." Take a cab to Chelsea and visit an impossibly hip club, just so you can say you did. Leave after half an hour, because that last bit was really Too Much.

6. Tahoe ski weekend.

Ingredients: Two weekend lift passes to Heavenly Ski Area; reservations at the Lazy S; cooler full of goat cheese, caviar and Jim Beam.

Drive three hours, get onto the slopes even though there's not really enough light left in the day, return to motel, consume goat cheese, caviar and Jim Beam, swap massages. In the morning, enormous breakfast at Denny's, ski blue slopes until dark, go for cheese fondue. Repeat the next day; drive back to San Francisco and collapse. It is very important that this be undertaken without much premeditation.

5. The New York winter unemployment special.

Ingredients: two bicycles, motley and faintly ridiculous warm winter garments, one trans-East-River bridge (Brooklyn and W-burg most aesthetic.)

Awake at the crack of a bright winter noon. Don long johns, jeans, sweaters, boots, wool thrift-store jacket, scarf, hat and gloves. Mount bicycles and cross to the East Village. Park outside the Lotus Cafe and order coffee, orange juice, and bagel with cream cheese, olive paste, and roasted red bell peppers. Nab corner table between window and bookshelf; select reading material. After 1 1/2 hours, re-traverse bridge and go back to bed.

4. South of France food tour.

Ingredients: two round-trip tickets to Paris, one rental car, 1 pair running shoes, 1 swimsuit, family in the Midi-Pyrenee.

Fly to Paris, stay with Herve 4 nights. Consume Pastis, go out for Moroccan food, crash. Wake after 4 hours and repeat. After 4 days of this, rent car and drive toward random adorable village; find best restaurant and order local cuisine. Go running every morning, or swimming in local rivers, so as not to gain 100 lbs. Repeat every day for 1 week. Stay with family 1 week, spending vast majority of time á table under the tilul tree; drive to Montpellier to visit friends, then Nice, where Reg has his cottage, that bounder. Return via Paris after 3 weeks. Or not.

3. The Home Depot.

Ingredients: 1 trashed, vacant storefront; 1 van; Home Depot; sushi.

Get in van, drive to Home Depot. Purchase caulk, caulking gun, primer, paint, tinting colors, rollers, sandpaper, tools, light fixtures, hardware, houseplants, and planters. Return to vacant storefront, deposit purchases. Go out for sushi.

2. The post-tequila-binge hangover cure.

Ingredients: two tequila hangovers, 1 van, 2 mountain bicycles, mountains, 1 hole-in-the-wall stew joint, 1 video.

Drag selves blearily out of bed, pack bicycles into van, head to hole-in-the-wall and order beef stew, tortillas, hot salsa, Pepsi and lime. Consume. Drive van to 20K mountain biking trail, deserted except for hungover selves. Complete entire trail to Santa Rosa and back. (Alternatively, hike deserted Spanish ruins in rain.) Return to bed, play video, take naps.

1. The all-night music exchange.

Ingredients: 1 bottle Chivas, 1 pack cigarettes, 1 record collection.

Take turns playing favorite tracks while consuming Chivas and cigarettes. Talk about everything, everything, everything. In the morning, proceed to #2.

Bonus: Go to grocery store. Buy ingredients. Go home and cook them, while drinking good wine and talking about everything, everything, everything. This can be repeated indefinitely, anyplace in the world.

How to Be Safe from Demons

Pretty Lady never ceases to be shocked at the amount of ignorance, superstition and misinformation she finds, surrounding the subject of Demonic Possession. In this day and age! For shame! She cannot understand why there seems to be such a popular dearth of basic, practical information on how to cope with your standard negative entity, whether it be a full-fledged demon, a pissed-off Displaced Soul, a random thought-form, the slimy, tentaculate extrusions of a Possessive Roommate, or Satan himself.

Moreover, the amount of fearful disinformation being spread on this crucial issue is nearly as harmful as the entities themselves. Imagine, that some persons actually shy away from the demon-banishing practice of Yoga, under the mistaken delusion that this wholly benign and helpful exercise actually summons demons! Or, worse, that demons themselves are a fictive superstition, not worthy of even so much consideration or precaution as one would take to guard one's home from, say, mice, or cockroaches.

Although Pretty Lady herself is by no means an expert exorcist, or a regular traveler in the Occult, she sees clearly that it falls upon her shoulders to rectify this abominable cultural oversight, until such time as practical techniques of psychic self-defense are taught in kindergarten, alongside the alphabet.

Now, Pretty Lady confesses that she has stumbled upon many of her theories by experiential anecdote, which, indeed, given the psychically ignorant society in which she was raised, was nearly her only means of acquiring such information. Thus, a great many of her points are ad hoc and observational. If any of her dear readers have advice to the contrary, please do not be shy about calling her out.

At any rate, these are the primary principles one must take under consideration:

1) Remain within one's own body at all times.

To some individuals of 'scientific' persuasion, this may appear to be a tautology. It is not. If you take the trouble to observe the persons around you, you will quickly notice that many of them have a tendency to absent their souls from their physical manifestations, whether it be to avoid guilt, pain, trauma, social interaction, or mathematics examinations. These persons may have a 'blank' look in their eyes; they may make inappropriate, disconnected comments; they may continue casually chatting about fashion design while their four-year-old is making mud pies on their neighbor's brand-new grand piano. They may go hiking on treacherous terrain without appropriate footgear. One notices that these individuals appear to float above the earth, rather than walking upon it.

It is crucial, then, for any person who wishes to avoid an unwelcome demonic intrusion into their corporeal space, to occupy this space at all times. The primary technique for occupying one's own body is called grounding.

To ground:

Feel the earth under your feet. Feel that this earth is holding you up. It will not allow you to fall. Allow your weight to rest entirely upon floor, upon soil, upon bedrock, upon molten magma extending a thousand thousand fathoms deep. Feel that there is a line connecting your core to the core of the earth; feel that this line is made of light. Feel that the fire in the core of the earth connects to the fire at your core; feel that these two fires are one. Allow yourself to be supported.

This is not a joke; this is not a load of horse droppings. One of the ladies whom Pretty Lady knew personally, who was most distressingly possessed by the displaced soul in Pretty Lady's house in Mexico, was unable to do this. Her body, when Pretty Lady went to do a healing, was a mass of hysterical knots which only tangentially resembled the human anatomy; Pretty Lady told her, gently, "Sophia, the earth is holding you up."

Sophia replied, incredulously, "Really??!!" She genuinely did not believe it so.

2) Avoid extreme drugs.

Methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, morphine, angel dust, acid, and enormous doses of marijuana are Right Out. All of these substances are toxic, negative, and leave the aura wide open for evil influences to enter. Large amounts of hard liquor are ill-advised, as well. Pretty Lady is sorry to say that her own personal habit of downing straight tequila and listening to American Music Club, in times of great emotional duress, is an extremely risky one. But being an exceptionally grounded soul, Pretty Lady occasionally walks that line. She survived the house in Mexico with soul intact, when many lesser persons fled, at any rate.

3) Visualize a tough eggshell of white light around your entire body, extending into the ground.

When one sees this eggshell in one's mind, one must really see it. One must be grounded, first; otherwise, one's energy system is inadequate to mount an effective barrier. When you are good and grounded, visualize the eggshell. It allows good things in, but mean, nasty, spiky or slimy things bounce right off of it. Get your eggshell very firmly established; examine it for holes or thin places. If you cannot get this solid in your mind, it is not protecting you. If you have breaks, blocks, patches, or weak places, you will be able to sense them.

Pretty Lady has used this simple defense to great effect upon innumerable occasions, most notably when her roommate was psycho, and her antiquarian co-worker was irrationally obsessed with her. It is your basic all-purpose psychic shield, and is effective on all forms of negative energies, whether they emanate from the living, the dead, or the in-between.

A very strongly grounded individual may be able to place a shield of this nature around family, home, child, or car, as well as self. This can be very useful in avoiding parking tickets.

4) Yoga, prayer, and martial arts help immeasurably with this sort of thing.

Grounding and defending should be Step 1, in any decent yoga or martial arts instruction. Any good Christian who avoids these disciplines out of provincial religious squeamishness is an effete yahoo, who more than deserves the burden of those negative entities who will undoubtedly attach themselves, taking advantage of both the physical disconnectedness and psychological evasion that such notions encourage.

5) Chanting and vegetarianism, however, not so much.

Pretty Lady is All For meditative and purifying practices--in moderation, and under the supervision of an adept. However, she has noticed that the vast number of friends of hers who have ended up passing out or screaming obscenities in the streets, under the influence of greater or lesser demonic entities, have nearly all been ungrounded vegetarians who chanted to excess and smoked recreational marijuana.

Pretty Lady rather suspects that she survived her two-year stint in her House with Ghost unscathed, largely upon the strength of her cooking. Steak quesadillas, pea soup with chorizo, goat cheese sandwiches with grilled veggies, and huevos mexicanos were all mainstays. She hiked, she jogged, she swam in muddy dams, she biked round the panoramica, she performed aggressive dance aerobics; this, and her basically phlegmatic temperament, all seemed to keep her resident surly Inquisition ghost more or less quiescent, except for the time he set fire to her altar.

When the vegetarians moved in, however, all Hell broke loose, quite literally. Eventually the local clairvoyant got rid of him, but it was not an easy battle. Much simpler to keep that barbecue grilling, and the stereo cranked.

6) Sea salt, baking soda, sage, and ethanol--all good.

Pretty Lady once exorcised a Cursed Apartment with four bowls full of rock salt burning in ethanol, four candles, and Arvo Pärt at full volume. She re-painted the apartment after the exorcism, to make it habitable, but she is certain that she would not have even been able to remain in that place long enough to rinse her rollers, if it hadn't been for the initial cleansing.

Sea salt baths for one's person, and sage smudges for one's surroundings, can never go amiss. If one's house happens to be inhabited by an exceptionally stubborn Inquisition victim, the sage will not get rid of him, but for clearing space of residual toxicity born of grief, arguments, poverty and drug abuse by prior tenants, it is a tool of standard efficacy, obtainable at your local spook shop.

7) Toxic emotions and attitudes attract their own kind.

If you are addicted to rage, misery, paranoia, blame, suspicion, ill-will, aggression, narcissism, manipulation, parasitism, passivity, and egotism, and you wish to keep your personal space clear of negative entities--well, good luck with that.

8) If you suspect you or a friend may be possessed, seek expert assistance.

Catholic priests and gypsy psychics, in general, will only make matters worse. The priests will officially deny you have a problem, while unofficially quavering in their vestments; the psychics will try to charge you a large sum of money for passive-aggressive assistance. What you want, ideally, is an adept with the practical skills of a midwife and the aura of a linebacker, who has no personal axe to grind. Make discreet inquiries round your local community; if a prospective exorcist gives you hives, run away. Trust your intuition, and not glib rhetoric or psychic perspicacity. Remember, 'psychic' does NOT equal 'benevolent.' Character is All.

And Pretty Lady is very sorry to tell you that garlic and crucifixes, in her experience, have no anti-demonic efficacy whatsoever.

Pretty Lady Gets Controversial

Friends, Pretty Lady is feeling so cheerful today, what with the unwonted sunshine, the Hildegarde of Bingen CD generously provided by Paul and Rebecca, and a progressively de-cluttered apartment, that she has decided to Plunge into a Sea of Controversy, and discuss Rape Politics. She confidently expects there to ensue a sobering Hue and Cry, but then, her life has been remarkably trouble-free lately.

As a jumping-off point, Pretty Lady provides the following Comment, taken at random from Rape Politics Central:

My office is prepping for the big electronics show in Las Vegas, which always coincides with the Adult Entertainment “Oscars”. I overheard one of the other women saying how much she hated working the later shift at the booth because she gets “creeped out” coming back from the convention center by herself. Her main “creepy” experience was the “sleazy” cab driver chatting her up about the adult entertainment expo; “why is this stranger discussing porn with me? This is scary!” Listening to her other examples of “creepy” experiences, I was suddenly strucked by the idea that they all boiled down to “I’m afraid I’ll get raped.”

She was annoyed at the person who wrote up the booth schedule, the sales men who had to leave early and couldn’t escort her back to the hotel, the AE industry for scheduling their convention the same time as the electronics show, etc. etc. She was fighting against the circumstances that evoked the fear of rape; never once did she–or anyone else in the conversation–consider how unfair it was for women to have their freedom so curtailed by the constant, subconscious fear of rape. It was just…normal. Obvious. Just the way life is.

Now, before anyone accuses Pretty Lady of being a sheltered little lamb, one of the ignorantly favored Pets of the Patriarchy, let it be known that Pretty Lady has, in fact, been the 'victim' of at least one attempt at violent rape. At least, that is what she figured out some time later. At the time, she vaguely wondered why the large gang of strangers was taking all that trouble to pound her head against the ground, without even checking to see if she was carrying any money; they didn't even seem interested in her watch, which was, in fact, quite a nice one, and which she was mildly pleased not to have lost in the fracas.

No, even at the time, it did not occur to Pretty Lady to be afraid of rape. She was concerned, of course; concerned that she might die and upset her family, concerned that her dear friend who was also getting head-banged might meet a similar fate, concerned about getting upright and getting away from this unfriendly crowd of persons. These seemed to Pretty Lady to be the primary issues, requiring her immediate attention; 'fear of rape' was such a distant irrelevancy that it did not surface upon her radar.

Thus, it was that Pretty Lady came out of her experience of violent victimization by the Patriarchy, relatively unscathed. In fact, she did not even dare to inform her dear brother of the event until some time had passed, for fear that he would rush out to her neighborhood, vigilante-style, and perform some regrettable acts of retaliation, thus jeapordizing his own inner peace and well-being.

Pretty Lady understands that this incident does not quite establish her bad-ass credentials. In order to write upon the subject with True Authority, she realizes that she ought to have been repeatedly molested by her father, her brother, her cousins, and a handful of random strangers, every week since the age of two or three. She knows that there are many women who can, indeed, say that this is true; she defers completely to these individuals, in matters concerning the Subjective Experience. Pretty Lady's further views are that such individuals require the utmost love, compassion and protection from all of us, and she will not countenance any dissenting opinion on the matter.

However, Pretty Lady wishes to let all potential and future rape victims in upon a little secret: fearing rape does not prevent rape. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the opposite is true. What we dwell upon, we attract. A person who flinches whenever addressed, no matter how gentle the tone of the addressing, sooner or later is likely to get swatted.

This is because, as humans, we are relational creatures. We do not act and react within a vacuum; we pick up on cues, social gestalts, scripts, and Subtle Drifts. Each of us is wandering around in a sea of conflicting or assenting projections, glomming on to whichever of these fit our preconceived notions.

Thus, any interaction between two persons, no matter how skewed in matters of physical or psychological power, requires that both persons be reading from the same script. Fear is a powerful projection, and thus writes a most compelling script. Evil and violent persons feed upon the fear of others; this is why it is so vitally important not to cultivate fear in oneself.

For, when you consider the matter, there are an infinite number of things to fear, at all times, and in all places, none of which it is possible to fully control. One may fear earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, atom bombs, global warming, unemployment, economic collapse, illegal immigration, drive-by shootings, break-ins, train wrecks, car crashes, plane crashes, pit-bull attacks, thunderstorms, hotel fires, floods, cancer, old age, rattlesnakes, scorpions, and spiders. All this, and sleazy cab drivers too? How exhausting. It is a wonder that any of us ever get anything done at all.

Given the infinite possibilities for crippling fear, then, Pretty Lady prefers to say 'no' to all of them, as much as possible. Rape in particular seems to be a very poor investment, fear-wise; either the gentleman coming toward her on the street is an Evil, Violent Rapist, or he isn't. Pretty Lady prefers to assume he isn't, and treat him with the friendly courtesy attendant thereupon. In all likelihood, he will plug in to her 'friendly courtesy' script, nod, and walk on.

Pretty Lady Wastes Her Time

Sadly, it is true. Pretty Lady has spent an evening and a morning reading about a lunatic.

So that none of you will waste an equal amount of time, reading the entire biography of this deluded, quixotic individual, Pretty Lady has taken the trouble to pick out a few of the best bits.

In the Middle Ages the pilgrims went out as the disciples were sent out--without money, without food, without adequate clothing--and I know that tradition. I have no money. I do not accept any money on my pilgrimage. I belong to no organization. There is no organization backing me. I own only what I wear and carry. There is nothing to tie me down. I am as free as a bird soaring in the sky.

I walk until given shelter, fast until given food. I don't ask--it's given without asking.

Once I was hit by a disturbed teenage boy whom I had taken for a walk...He was a great big fellow and looked like a football player, and he was known to be violent at times. He had once beaten his mother so badly that she had to spend several weeks in the hospital. Everybody was afraid of him, so I offered to go with him.

As we got up to the first hilltop everything was going fine. Then a thunderstorm came along. ...Suddenly he went off the beam and came for me, hitting at me. I didn't run away although I guess I could have--he had a heavy pack on his back. But even while he was hitting me I could only feel the deepest compassion toward him. How terrible to be so psychologically sick that you would be able to hit a defenseless old woman! I bathed his hatred with love even while he hit me. As a result the hitting stopped.

He said, "You didn't hit back! Mother always hits back." The delayed reaction, because of his disturbance, had reached the good in him. Oh, it's there--no matter how deeply it is buried--and he experienced remorse and complete self-condemnation.

What are a few bruises on my body in comparison with the transformation of a human life? To make a long story short he was never violent again. He is a useful person in this world today.

On another occasion I was called upon to defend a frail eight year old girl against a large man who was about to beat her. The girl was terrified. It was my most difficult test. I was staying at a ranch and the family went into town. The little girl did not want to go with them, and they asked, since I was there, would I take care of the child? I was writing a letter by the window when I saw a car arrive. A man got out of the car. The girl saw him and ran and he followed, chasing her into a barn. I went immediately into the barn. The girl was cowering in terror in the corner. He was coming at her slowly and deliberately.

You know the power of thought. You're constantly creating through thought. And you attract to you whatever you fear. So I knew her danger because of her fear. (I fear nothing and expect good--so good comes!)

I put my body immediately between the man and the girl. I just stood and looked at this poor, psychologically sick man with loving compassion. He came close. He stopped! He looked at me for quite a while. He then turned and walked away and the girl was safe. There was not a word spoken.

Now, what was the alternative? Suppose I had been so foolish as to forget the law of love by hitting back and relying upon the jungle law of tooth and claw? Undoubtedly I would have been beaten--perhaps even to death and possibly the little girl as well! Never underestimate the power of God's love--it transforms! It reaches the spark of good in the other person and the person is disarmed.

During my travels a saloon-keeper called me into his tavern...As I rose to leave I noticed a man with a drink in his hand was also on his feet. When he caught my eye he smiled a little, and I smiled at him. "You smiled at me," he said in surprise. "I should think you wouldn't even speak to me but you smiled at me." I smiled again. "I'm not here to judge my fellow human beings," I told him. "I am here to love and serve." Suddenly he was kneeling at my feet and saying, "Everyone else judged me, so I defended myself. You didn't judge me, so now I judge myself. I'm a no-good worthless sinner! I've been squandering my money on liquor. I've been mistreating my family. I've been going from bad to worse!" I put my hand on his shoulder. "You are God's child," I said, "and you could act that way."

He looked with disgust at the drink in his hand, and then hurled it against the bar, shattering the glass. His eyes met mine. "I swear to you I'll never touch that stuff again," he exclaimed. "Never!" And there was a new light in his eyes as he walked through the door with steady steps.

I even know the happy ending to that story. About a year and a half later I heard from a woman in that town. She said as far as anyone knew the man kept his promise. He never touched liquor again. He now has a good job. He is getting along well with his family and has joined a church.

When you approach others in judgment they will be on the defensive. When you are able to approach them in a kindly, loving manner without judgment they will tend to judge themselves and be transformed.

I remember a time of the year when it got very cold at night. It went below freezing, but then it warmed up a little in the daytime, so the days were fairly pleasant. It was in the fall, and there were dry leaves on the ground. I was in the middle of the woods and there wasn't a town for miles around. It was sunset and it was a Sunday. Someone had read a thick Sunday newspaper and tossed it beside the road--like they shouldn't, but they do. I picked it up and walked off the road and found a thick evergreen tree. Underneath it was a little depression where some leaves had blown. I pushed a lot of leaves into that depression. Then I put some paper down and placed the rest of the paper over me. When I woke in the morning there was a thick white frost over everything, but the evergreen tree had kept it off of me, and I was snug and warm in my nest of leaves and paper. That's just a tip in case you get caught out some night.

Of course, I love everyone I meet. How could I fail to? Within everyone is the spark of God.

Let me tell you a story of a woman who had a personal problem. She lived constantly with pain. It was something in her back. I can still see her, arranging the pillows behind her back so it wouldn't hurt quite so much. She was quite bitter about this. I talked to her about the wonderful purpose of problems in our lives, and I tried to inspire her to think about God instead of her problems. I must have been successful to some degree, because one night after she had gone to bed she got to thinking about God.

"God regards me, this little grain of dust, as so important that he sends me just the right problems to grow on," she began thinking. And she turned to God and said, "Oh, dear God, thank you for this pain through which I may grow closer to thee." Then the pain was gone and it has never returned. Perhaps that's what it means when it says: 'In all things be thankful.' Maybe more often we should pray the prayer of thankfulness for our problems. Prayer is a concentration of positive thoughts.

Tremendous energy comes with anger. It's sometimes called the anger energy. Do not suppress it: that would hurt you inside. Do not express it: this would not only hurt you inside, it would cause ripples in your surroundings. What you do is transform it. You somehow use that tremendous energy constructively on a task that needs to be done, or in a beneficial form of exercise.

I

have been asked if a certain amount of fear is healthy. I don't think any amount of fear is healthy. Unless you're talking about the fact that if you have fear about a street, you'll look up and down before crossing the street. But you see, I believe we are required to do everything possible for ourselves and therefore when I walk out onto a street I always look up and down. But I don't think that's fear. That's just being sensible. I don't connect that in any way with fear. For instance, I know that if there are little pebbles scattered over a smooth rock, I'm liable to slip if I step on those little pebbles, so I'm careful not to. I'm not afraid, it's just the sensible thing to do.

I have a sense of definite protection. Twice I have felt the need to get out of cars I was riding in, and once I saw why. Now, I didn't get out of the car when I was coming down over the "grapevine" into Los Angeles with two high school students. They were seeing how fast they could get the old Chevy to go down hill. I was in the back seat and I felt perfectly all right.

But one time I was with a man who was drinking whisky, and I offered to drive for him. I showed him my driver's license, but he wouldn't let me drive, so I asked him to let me off at the junction. Then I was picked up in a little truck, and we hadn't gone even five miles before we saw the other car. It had gone down into an arroyo and sideswiped a cottonwood tree. On the side where I had been the glass was broken and the roof was bashed in. So at once I saw why I felt the need to get out. The driver wasn't badly hurt. He was cut some but not really hurt.

This time I was driving somebody else's car over a road that was not finished yet. Coming down an incline, there was a traffic light at the end of the road where you had to turn either one way or the other. Cars were turning both ways, and turning up on to the road past me. I naturally put my foot on the brake when I saw the light was red, but I had no brakes! I grabbed for the emergency. I had no emergency. I thought if I could put the car into reverse it would stop, although this would tear it to pieces. I attempted to get it into reverse but it wouldn't go. Ahead of me I saw a station wagon with two little children looking out of the back window. I had to stop the car! I couldn't turn to the left--there was a rock wall there--and cars were coming up thick and fast. There was a rock wall to the right with a ditch, and my little finite mind said, "Take to the ditch, sideswipe the rock wall. It'll stop the car. It'll tear it up, but it will stop it." I was not able to do that. This was the only time in my life when a car was taken out of my control. The car turned to the left, went between two cars, and went up a little dirt road on an incline, which of course stopped the car. I didn't know the dirt road was there. I couldn't possibly see it.

You will note that Jesus says, "Why do you call me `Lord, Lord'and do not what I say?" He expresses this thought more than once. Therefore, it seems to me that a real Christian would be living by the laws of God that Jesus taught. Jesus also says, "Say not,`Lo here' or `Lo there', for behold, the Kingdom of God is within you." In so many illustrations he tells people what they are capable of. Real Christians would allow their lives to be governed by the Kingdom of God within -- by the God-centered nature -- which is sometimes called the indwelling Christ.

Many people profess Christianity. Very few live it -- almost none. And when you live it people may think you're crazy. It has been truthfully said that the world is equally shocked by one who repudiates Christianity and by one who practices it.

The Godly way is one of the few simple precepts that even a child can understand. Truth is simple--it's just not so simple to live it. Therefore, immature people tend to hide behind complicated interpretations in order to avoid living simple truth.

When you look at things emotionally, you will not see them clearly; when you perceive things spiritually, you will understand.

Although others may feel sorry for you, never feel sorry for yourself: it has a deadly effect on spiritual well-being. Recognize all problems, no matter how difficult, as opportunities for spiritual growth, and make the most of these opportunities.

There is no greater block to world peace, or inner peace than fear. It has led us to manufacture implements of mass destruction. What we fear we tend to develop an unreasonable hatred for - so we come to hate and fear. This not only injures us psychologically and aggravates world tensions, but through such negative concentration we tend to attract the things which we fear. If we fear nothing and radiate love, we can expect good things to come.

What people do not realize is that nonviolence can be applied in all situations, including World War II. I met four of the Danish people who used the way of nonviolence and love in World War II, and it was a wonderful story.

Now, when the Germans occupied France, the French would often kill the German soldier who was patrolling, and then the Germans would wipe out the whole block in retaliation. When the Germans marched into Denmark, the Danish people began a program of non-cooperation. You know, they say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach - many Danish people actually used that way. They would say to the German soldier who was patrolling, "As a representative of the Nazi Government, you have no right to be here anymore than we would have the right to be in your land, but you are also a young man far from home. Maybe you're homesick, and if you as a fellow human being would like to take off your gun belt and come in and share our evening meal with us, you are welcome." It usually didn't take more than one try. After that the German soldier would get to thinking, "Gee, these are nice people. What are we doing here?"

The basic cause of all our difficulties is immaturity. That's why I talk so much about peace within ourselves as a step toward peace in our world. If we were mature, war would not be possible and peace would be assured. In our immaturity we do not know the laws of the universe, and we think evil can be overcome by more evil.

Your lower self sees things from the viewpoint of your physical well-being only--your higher self considers your psychological or spiritual well-being. Your lower self sees you as the center of the universe--your higher self sees you as a cell in the body of humanity. When you are governed by your lower self you are selfish and materialistic, but insofar as you follow the promptings of your higher self you will see things realistically and find harmony within yourself and others.

The body, mind and emotions are instruments which can be used by either the self-centered nature or the God-centered nature. The self-centered nature uses these instruments, yet it is never fully able to control them, so there is a constant struggle. They can only be fully controlled by the God-centered nature.

When the God-centered nature takes over, you have found inner peace. Until that time comes, a partial control can be gained through discipline. It can be discipline imposed from without through early training which has become a part of the subconscious side of the self-centered nature. It can be discipline under taken voluntarily: self-discipline. Now, if you are doing things you know you shouldn't do and don't really want to do, you certainly lack discipline. I recommend spiritual growing--and in the meantime self-discipline.

God's laws can be known from within, but they can also be learned from without, as they have been spoken of by all great religious teachers. God's guidance can only be known from within.

We must remain open to God`s guidance. God never guides us to break divine law, and if such a negative guidance comes to us we can be sure it is not from God. It is up to us to keep our lives steadfastly in harmony with divine law, which is the same for all of us. Only insofar as we remain in harmony with divine law do good things come to us.

Pretty Little Isms

In order to forestall any potential controversy which may arise from Pretty Lady's idle musings, let it be stated up-front that Pretty Lady is exceedingly racist. She is also elitist, classist, sexist, and homophobic. This said, she is not particularly prejudiced in favor of White Male Patriarchs, either; she is disposed to regard most complete strangers with a hefty dose of jingoistic suspicion. Pretty Lady, in fact, is a veritable monolithic amalgamation of stereotyping, pigeonholing, bigotry, and ignorance. She admits these facts freely and without shame.

Horribly, it is also true that Pretty Lady rather likes herself. She rather likes other people, too. The other people she likes tend to be a colorful lot. They Run The Gamut, in fact. Pretty Lady likes extremists, moderates, left-wingers, right-wingers, gay people, straight people, confused people, religious people, atheists, agnostics, liberals, conservatives, black people, white people, brown people, men, women, children, bigots, racists, sinners and saints. As a partial and highly incomplete list.

The people she doesn't like--if she may get confessional about it--fall into two rough categories. The first, of course, is Evil People, whom are not the topic under discussion today--the Alpha cat had a nasty attack of diarrhea this morning, and it reminded Pretty Lady all too clearly of her look down a festering sewer of...well, let us leave that alone.

The second category was inspired by a lengthy and poetic diatribe by La Belle Dame. Althought Pretty Lady did not understand many of the references, not being one to embroil herself in endless, circular bouts of name-calling (owning up to all the Names herself), she extracted a nugget of wisdom which perfectly expressed her ongoing feelings upon a certain issue.

What I can't stand is incuriosity.

Because if you're not even interested in the Other Person, then how can you possibly expect to be genuinely empathetic? You can't. Instead, you end up playing "let's pretend."

Ah! Pretty Lady was astounded. There it is! So clearly articulated! So simple! The source of the vast majority of her Extreme Discomfort around certain individuals.

Now, darlings, let it be known that if you are reading this, Pretty Lady is not speaking to you. Indeed, she feels profoundly fortunate to know so many deep, fascinating, wondrously Engaged persons. Not for Pretty Lady's friends, the endless, solipsistic spinnings, the hurling of ill-considered epithets, the knee-jerk defensiveness, the unexamined inner conviction that it's All About Them. No, Pretty Lady's elite group of associates will have none of that. They go in for ruminative fireside chats, perspicacious observations, whimsical asides, and a rather conspicuous lack of interest in deciding Who is Racist, Sexist, Elitist, Homophobic, or a Bad Person.

Because Pretty Lady's elite, wise friends know, from wry experience, that all of us are a bit like that. It is part of our fallen nature. We have resigned ourselves to being the incomplete and imperfect souls that we are, and, in awakened curiosity and humility, we go forth to remedy a small portion of our ignorance.

Sheer ridiculousness

It has come to Pretty Lady's attention that Interfering Persons wish, interferingly, to BAN, that is, to make ILLEGAL, a certain video game that, to Pretty Lady's highly inexperienced eye, looks like a great deal of good clean fun.

Like Holden Caulfield, Jimmy Hopkins, the game's blank-faced teenage antihero, is a mess of internal impulses. He's a bad kid. Your job, unexpectedly, is to help him do good. In a typical early mission, for instance, Algernon, one of the neediest nerds at school, has been set upon by a gaggle of bullies. Rotund, whiny and afflicted with an overactive bladder, Algernon is the archetypal outcast. You've got to escort Algie to the bathroom before he wets himself, fending off all the bullies who want to harm him along the way. If you get the fat kid safely to the john, you'll gain some respect among the nerds and your standing in school will climb.

Does this sound like a task one might find in a game that critics have taken to calling a "Columbine simulator"? "Bully" was released to the public on Oct. 17, but it's been the subject of raging debate for more than a year now. The debate illustrates the precarious political and cultural position that the video game industry finds itself in. A bipartisan gang of politicians (from Hillary Clinton on the left to Sam Brownback on the right), school officials, child-rearing experts, and family-values types blame games for inducing all manner of delinquent, antisocial and dangerous behavior in children. It's an old claim, and there remains scant scientific proof for it -- but that seems to matter little in the fight over "Bully."

Pretty Lady is disgusted.

She can attest, from personal experience, that the thing MOST likely to cause disaffected, alienated, nerdy high-school students to suddenly Snap and pull a Columbine on their unsuspecting peers, would be to take away their last shred of deeply satisfying escapist fantasy. Have these self-righteous, interfering, Mommy-knows-best Senators never read 'Harriet the Spy'? Do they not recall the precise moment when Harriet, beleaguered, ostracized, beset with betrayal and abandonment on every side, crosses the line and becomes Mean? When she trips Pinky Whitehead, chops off Laura's hair, throws a pencil at Beth Ellen and tells Rachel her father doesn't love her? When she, in short, starts behaving like a sociopath with Nothing Left To Lose?

It was when they took away her notebook.

Yes, friends, this was the heinous atrocity that pushed Harriet over the edge. She withstood every trauma that went before--the departure of her eccentric governess, the exposure of her innermost secrets to the hoi polloi, the subsequent hostility of her peers--through all this, she remained stoic, stalwart, hermetic. But when the Evil Authority removed her Notebook, her self-created universe, her confidante, the repository of her vast creative spirit, they removed Harriet's soul. And Harriet turned upon this cruel indifferent world with righteous vengeance.

Pretty Lady herself, though not nearly so brilliant as Harriet, utilized a similar mechanism to navigate the shoals of a hostile pubescent universe. She camped out in the library, reading Penrod. Also the complete works of--well, come to think, she started at 'Aiken' and proceeded through "McKinley" and wound up with "Tarkington." Some of it was classic, some of it was crap, all of it was preferable to the ocean of blandness and indifference where she was marooned. Even now, in times of extreme stress, she heads for the nearest library, finds a secluded corner, and does not emerge for four hours or so.

But just because she read, obsessively, of dragonslayers, and wizards, and orphans, and vagabonds, and reprobates, and heartless flirts, does not mean that she went forth into the world to slay dragons, create orphans, seduce thousands, and vanquish the oppressor. No, she may have gone forth with a dreamy, knowing smirk upon her lips; she may have gazed thoughtfully upon her vapid cohorts and Imagined Things, but she kept those imaginings strictly to herself. She was not pushed to the wall, like Harriet; she was allowed to drift through her days, safely anaesthetized with her fictive drug of choice. And a good thing, too.

Pretty Lady suspects that this entire video-game-banning hooplah is a giant Red Herring for something else; she suspects that these nefarious politicians are trying hard to Prove Something. What they are trying to prove is anybody's guess; what is certain is that these persons have no recollection of ever being children. They seem to regard young people as dangerously suggestible beasts that must be herded together, isolated, restrained, beaten and suppressed for their own good, until they grow up into Responsible Citizens. They must never be allowed to let off steam, or indulge their imaginations; evidently these politicians do not credit the youth of today with enough intelligence to distinguish between fact and fantasy.

Bellicose Activities

My, my, my! Pretty Lady is feeling veritably Flushed. The thrill! She has been so daring as to get herself Banned. Banned by Bane! What a distinction! It is quite a milestone. She feels almost as chipper as she did the time she managed to overcome a lifetime of craven Good Girl behavior and get herself arrested.

On that momentous occasion, she was caught, literally red-handed, spray-painting her signature emblem upon an inner-city construction site. She was accompanied by her partner-in-crime, the Masochistic Socialist, who was plastering the selfsame construction site with posters demanding six-week vacations for all American wage slaves. The arresting officer took one look at her partner's informational material, complete with erudite research on civil structures in Germany, and let him go; Pretty Lady he handcuffed and escorted to the station.

This arresting officer was a patriotic subscriber to Establishment Mores. He shook his head and wondered where Pretty Lady had gone wrong. His pedestrian brain was unable to comprehend why anyone would want to Rock The Boat by decorating disposable private property with enigmatic calligraphy. Self-expression, introspection, reflectivity, and general puckishness meant nothing to this man; he regarded Pretty Lady's impulsive offer to paint a mural on his station wall with blank impassivity.

The other cop on duty was more amenable. After exchanging good-natured banter for a few minutes, he inquired, "I know this is not my prisoner, but can we take the cuffs off, now? I don't think she's dangerous."

Little did he know.

Boys, you may fight your little wars. You may go to War in Iraq; you may wage a War on Terror, on Drugs, Poverty, and Inner-City Vandalism. Pretty Lady will watch from the sidelines with respectful and disinterested curiosity. But when you infringe upon her cause, when you cross that line, be prepared to face her wrath. For Pretty Lady is a high-ranking officer in the timeless and international War On Kitsch.

For Kitsch, my darlings, is the most insidious evil of them all. It rots the soul from within. It maintains the superficial pretense, the vile and consuming Lie, that all that is not namby-pamby, cutesy and corny is rejected of God. It flattens the rough, the difficult, the quirky and mysterious; it obviates adventure, struggle, engagement and discipline. It is a totalitarian hand which steamrollers Truth in its gangrenous path of the Banal and the Bland.

But Pretty Lady! you cry, from the depths of the trenches. Pretty Lady! Why? Must we let go of every last scrap of Untrammelled Beauty in our lives? Must you rend this last, most precious fantasy? Must you muddy the small, clear puddle of the Sacred in our lives, which we have carved free of excrement with the most Herculean of labors? Must you tear from us our Thomas Kinkaid houses, our Jesus With The Little Children posters, our Kenny G albums and our Mary Janes with ribbons on top? Must you replace them with Francis Bacon-esque portraits of the very struggle we are trying so desperately to transcend, in the name of your degraded and abusive notions of Truth? How, Pretty Lady? How can you be so cruel?

Be not despairing, little ones. There is light on the other side.

Listen. When Pretty Lady sat down in her scribbling chair to share with you her thoughts on Kitsch, she went to the stereo and selected a piece of Sacred Music with which to fortify and inspire herself. This piece of Sacred Music is Tabula Rasa, by Arvo Pärt. Pretty Lady has been a major fan of Mr. Pärt's music since her thirtieth birthday, when a bassoonist friend of hers very kindly made her a tape of 'Miserere.'

It is, in fact, somewhat difficult to listen to Pärt in a recorded context, as the dynamic variations are so extreme that if you set the volume knob so that the music is audible at the start, it will presently escalate to such a pitch that the furniture begins trembling, and coherent thought becomes a challenge. Thus, Pretty Lady imagines that Pärt is best experienced in the context of either concert or Mass, when one's attention may be unwaveringly devoted to the experience of being wafted, tickled, seduced, plunged within, shaken, tossed, dismembered, reassembled, and finally elevated to an unimaginable transcendence, by the stark harmonies and pure dissonances of the Pärt phraseology.

No, friends, Pärt does not tweedle. He does not croon, tinkle or elide. His music speaks of the furnaces in the heart of the Sun, mirrored and echoed by molten upheavals in the core of the Earth and of the soul; it passes through earthquakes, through tsunamis, into the sparkle of sun on a wave, and all the forces which allowed this miracle to come to pass. It plumbs the depths of wisdom and of experience to achieve its sublime authority, and thus may not be challenged by anything less than the whole, but merely answered in kind.

This, loves, is Art. It does not live flatly and tamely upon a wall. It participates; it looks not merely upon your clean Sunday faces, your battened-down prudish lisping of platitudes, but equally upon your scars and the dirt under your nails. It looks with the unflinching eyes of God; it accepts, forgives, and reveals the holy perfection that underlay all of your bloody endeavors.

For do you truly prefer, my darlings, that God live in a little sanitized corner of your lives and houses, only smiling approvingly upon your most false and strained attempts at conformity? Or would you rather welcome Him everywhere, in every moment, into the most private and personal, into the very core that is You, where you have exiled him out of a false sense of unworthiness and shame?

Perhaps you do prefer. But until you love yourselves, all yourselves, Pretty Lady must do it for you. Even unto being exiled, jailed and Banned.