Rally

The smartphone, our second brain, and what some would consider one the many added banes to our existence, are here to stay. Emerging at the turn of the millennium the smartphone has change the social dynamics of the human connection, pulsing society in a direction of uncharted territory. One thing that is for certain, the smartphone has added itself to the list of conflicts erupting all over the world.
I remember when I asked for my first smartphone. I was twenty years old. Before then I had use a standard cell phone, the type that only texts and makes calls. Approaching my parents on the matter was difficult, however, using my then upcoming birthday as leverage for my case, I asked for one.
Initially it was my mother who said first and foremost, “Shame on you for asking for such a thing. You don’t NEED it.” This was all said again a few days later when she handed me a cut out of a comic that depicted a Darfur child holding an iPhone. The speech bubble captured the boy saying, in what I imagined an impaired and hopeless voice,“But, can I eat it?”
I respected my mothers attempt at diverging my consumption of the smartphone through humane sympathy. Even though I eventually got one, a seed had been sown. Now that I am twenty three the seed has begun to sprout. I nourish the growth by providing myself knowledge of what goes in to the things I buy, who is affected by the things I want, and unfortunately, the things I need. The smartphone is just one of many tainted social artifacts that is a product of death, destruction, famine, rape, basically the upheaval of entire communities all over the world.
Heavy mineral extraction from nearby mines has forced communities of Congo and Kenya to go through tremendous personal and social distress. Tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold are fuel to the fire. They are necessary components to the treasured consumer electronic heavy weights, the smartphone and video games consoles. The exploitation of these precious minerals exploded when greedy black elite took over ranks after the deliverance of white foreigner colonizers, forming dictatorships financed by the minerals. The dismantling of the government brought forth proxy wars between militia who smelled out the importance of the minerals, thus creating a vortex of conflict and power struggle that has taken an estimated five million peoples lives since 1998.
Multi-international corporations are repining the benefits of the confusion and despair that has casted itself over the regions of Congo and Kenya. What is more unfortunate is that as consumers we give them the green light. We make the businesses do their business because we demand the product that they offer. Those products require those minerals. So where does that leave us?
Earlier this year in July congress passed the Wall Street Reform bill. This bill was President Obama’s attempt to bring protection to the consumer and order and security to business. Nestled in bill was a key provision aimed at enforcing companies to comply with securities and exchange commission to audit files that disclose if minerals that a company uses in their products are conflict free. Some analysts see this as a big step in wedging open the dialogue incumbent on all to discuss.
Words are captivating if said right, but in the age of information, dialogue can become buried by the continuous facts that pour out of the faucet of “truth”. Truth has come to be arduous to understand when the exposure rate to secular knowledge delivers too much to sort through. Comprehension of the broader issues is diluted by memes of cultural relevance delivered through the very products that we as society consume. Physical action must proceed from dialogue. The very need to form dialogue outside clouted discourse must find a way.
Perhaps this is period in time where technology has done humanity a disservice. Or is just generation Y and the United States? Regardless, as someone who is apart of a generation balancing two perspectives of society, pre and post millennium, we should move forth by grasping the idea that the nation state is crumbling. Our generation has to understand the concept of human changes that come with a changing societal structure. Being that we now have entered a globalized era in which the rate of contact between other human beings is at a all time high, a psychological over turn of human perception has to take place. Casting aside proxy cultural wars the human is all that is left, we are more the same than different. We can be a generation that leads the rally cry of the human spirit on the fronts of a battered and broken country. The shards of our message shall disperse a spirit that will knead in to the folds of a listening ear. Together we can rekindle the cognitive senses and draft ideas for the future to prepare and eradicate conflict minerals and luxury consumer products as fuels to the human rights fighter.
Nothing can be done without the willingness to sacrifice comfort and routine. As Henry Van Dyke said, “As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge”. There is no single way of changing the routine if we say to ourselves who cares? Not my problem. It happens. These do not benefit steps towards change. It is time we open our minds to the future and where we as a generation will stand. Together we can create a generational legioned that will stand the test of time, a generation that evolved humanity. The social institutions have begun to change. We must change and adapt. We do not NEED as much as we think. Standing behind the lines of an export nation we can no longer be pelted by consumer products packaged with ghosts of neo-colonial slaves. Our generation must leave deep cuts in the vortexes of conflict around the world by putting down our consumer toys and picking up our voices. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Every generation needs a new revolution.” There must be a reason why this guy has lasted so long in the history books.

Dylan McFatrich

A Point of Clarification

As many of you probably do not know, because you do not read my blog, I have decided to change the angle of my posts. Recently I have had many personal revelations in regards to the direction I need to take in my life. Those revelations are the product of trajectories that transpired from my education at the University of Missouri.
Although it is hard to consider that intellectuals still exist outside of an institution, I would like to take the opportunity that exists in having a blog to make that a reality. Being a recent graduate in an economic nightmare that exists today is hard. Putting that into context of other ordeals that take place around the world however minimizes my challenges proposed by an unrelenting reality. With the access to knowledge, in this instance the knowledge I have been given by my own education, in conjunction with technological outlets, I can and will create for myself a job. Although there will be no pay, this job has merit and value that my current job does not have. The job I propose for myself is to take up a role that questions, connects, and projects trends and patterns assembled in society. In doing so, an understanding of society can and will be formulated. I ask of those who may one day look and follow my blog, please be patient. I am new to the blog world, or rather, the serious blog world. I aspire to take on challenges that muster up potential changes. What changes you ask? Realistic changes. The kind of changes that can actually occur. Progress has to breed with reality.
This blog is posed so that small changes created and strung together by "some guy" can find their way in to public discourse and generate leverage for the necessary alterations that society needs. My proposal is very ambitious, even for someone who is very passionate about social institution and the frictions that they create. Although I am not the only one with this passion, I do add another standpoint that only contributes to the fundamental perspective needed to monitor, tract and evaluate societies challenges and changes. The more of 'us' out there, the better. Critically analyzing the world in which we live is crucial. It is a job that every citizen of a nation state should take up. Paid or unpaid, ignoring such a vital position has far bigger repercussions. The economic down turn reveals more opportunity then disaster, at least in my eyes. Now is the time more than ever to turn over a new leaf, not just for myself, but for society at large.

Fresh

Continued, the flesh of a new idea is given to the ones that harness a farm that feeds on innovation.
Pulsing, like the heart beat of a wild dream.
Pumping the blood, only to serve a balled up emotion of lust.
Trite, stabbing the vein of an ernest victim of guilt.

Fickle Fetish

Making the unseen transpire for the sake of leaving room for cream.
Strong and black too dark for a reflection that douses the eyes before the race.
Winning three years ago does not count like a preschooler finishing his shapes in time for a nap.
Baby dangles from a mobile. PICTURES! loving the life created together.
Published for every entity to eat, shit out the reminiscence of innocence.
Shipped over cobweb of obsession, wrapped and given to an indian at a computer.
Do not log in so quickly. Forgetting to say please turns at least one sense into stone.
Sagging, dragged heavily on the ground. Scrapping, graveled N' blood. Crinkling forehead shows the age that has been invested in showing a reaction.
Muscles flex showing the veins of good intention. The after math brings the young to the walkers that usher a cause.
Vintage sounded good until waves of grain eroded the varnish. Can not taste anything but metal, the hippocampus shrinks.
Spells of depression compress more than just a finger in the door.
The cat slides into home plate. High fives of satisfaction trigger a night's sleep.
Goodnight pillow, calling in the morning, the sheets stretched further west than expected.
Splashing together a kaleidoscope of doubt envelopes the stench of comfort.
Driving off the side of a cliff, optimizing transgression in the form of a pencil.
Used as an instrument for party favors.
The clown was late, chocking on balloon did not end in a fifty dollar check.
Rent is behind, even the literal rat as a landlord can be unfair.
Points off, A plus, assertiveness only gets the fix for a second.
What happens when that seconds does not reach the potential that it could?
Disappointed in the show that was put on by stuffed animals pulled by lines of floss.
The teeth are white, but in between the brown residue bonds, causing a "fall" like season of the mouth.
Information center, located in the epicenter of the left kidney, excreting wasteful knowledge, applied for a single letter, flushed.
Forgiven only by thoughts of yesterday.
Trying.



He stared for a few seconds, hoping that his gaze would be snatch up by the woman he was looking at.
Most people had hobbies that worked for their needs of being productive, not him. If he had kept tally marks of all the times he had stared at people in the name of a hobby, there would be entire note books filled. What a wastes. Even the trees made him feel bad about his hobby, or was it an obsession? Fixated on forms, physically drawn to or not, assessing the shapes that create mass in open space. Perhaps the continuous episodes of infatuation were Freudian attempts at living vicariously through others. Happiness did not lack in his demeanor, the replacement came a couple of weeks ago. What science needed to work on was a pill that extinguished or at least curb curiosity. Channeled towards the wrong areas of interests, curiosity was the time waster. Only to be coupled with actual categories could curiosity then be useful. He imagined a day when people, the very entity that he saw everyday, would not bring an avalanche of inquiry so strong that it made him fall mentally to his knees. Scraped pretty bad, state of art band-aids did not help the clotting of thoughts directed towards people, women, physical forms.

When going about analyzing the very configurations that brought the down fall of his days, there was really only one tactic. Being relentless. Being relentless in gaze. After doing this for quit sometime, he began to find that a gaze hides more than it shows. Many people that he would try and trance would only pay attention for a second, then look away, never contributing to the exchange in unspoken infatuation. Maybe it was only he whom invested more in the activity than anyone else. After all he did feel that it was his hobby alone.

Most of the time when he stared, the glances fell on people that were distracted by other things in their world. Most common as of lately had been cell phones. He never had a problem with cell phones. Owning his own, he saw the phone as facilitator of his hobby. The phone in the possession of others alleviated moments of opposing gazes. He was never a competitor. Remembering back to a time when he played sports, he would clout the very efforts of his teams attempts at winning, just to bypass the celebration of conquering others. Interaction should never have an end. He saw it only as means in understanding the existence of senses. Not to others. Some things had to be gained in order to appraise the value of exchange. His hobby never asked for anything in return. There had been routine occasions where hope exceeded expectation in the reciprocation of shimmering eye contact, but after awhile the calling of quits for such deliverance took seat at the table of prediction.

In most cases, it almost felt like a reflection of needed attention. Never discussing the interpretation of his habits, he kept them to himself. To him, they were the last thing that even the most closes of kin could not break down and digest. He considered it treasure. The kind that many people kill for, but only after the person who owned it, died. Regardless of its worth, he kept his own because at the end of the day he could make a highlight real, showcasing the things that made the day have merit. Each person he attempted to fixate his attention on became a player in his ever growing play. He wrote the script with each sigh he made for the person that would not return the ever longing glimpse he pictured at the turn of ever head.

Looking back on the meddled images of himself, uncovered the low self esteem he fed through trying to gain every glance. People had mentioned to him of having strong features. Unfortunately that engendered an ego that fueled a desire to make big advancements in his life. Taking bigger and bigger strides in the direction of fake success, he tripped, breaking his nose of the curb of reality. No one, but himself, was around to see the mishap. That disappointed him. His fifteen minutes of fame were eaten up by the present of same person who had become obese on the experiences pulled all his life. He urned for more of an audience. Applauding with out the lit up sign, were the actor can not see. He had more to offer. He could juggle chainsaws, in a literal sense of course.

Situation after situation led more lead into an already heavy heart. As soft as cotton ball, his feelings towards affection became soggy with each drip of snot from the up turned noses of the people he watched. Unlike television's version, his reality shows existed in his head, directing him to more day dreaming. Worse than loosing all stock in one day, he lost hope every time a name was not asked for. Echoing, sneers blasted from a distant feeling of regret. He knew that churning out the same feelings everyday for himself would make him older than he needed to be, especially when he already felt eighty four.

Messy.

Flashed with lights of greed, unconscious de-robe, uncovered.
Shivering, the blankets have not made nest.
Fainted with a mist of sweat, skin stains the sheets.
Shelved coherency substituted for injected pulses.
Flitting across the human terrain, vast and open for rummaging.
Selected tones for pitch hit a mark tucked away in a fenestra, labeled preference.
Fiscal in dialogue liberal in touch.
Salivation builds in the mouth of a mind hungry for a portion zeal.
Functional formations mold into privy reunions of imprints left from before.
Sleek but dented with character creates the fabrications for vision.
Faded, blind, a side of limit comes with a course as fine as that being given.
Subdued, a red run rushes, pillages, still.
Flustered by the feeling, by the flower.
Silk, and wilted.

Deep in the Pocket

Not flowing.
The lines do not draw themselves.
Expecting for a gift.
Talent knocked up time.
Figures exacerbated by dreams.
Jelly filled thoughts giggling to a tune.
Turned up too high for an ear to the outside.
Skid marks of mockery and cynicism.
Fueling the future fuels, syphoned from the vein.
Connecting to silicone bubbles make clocks wine.
Stop, No means No!
An entity mauled left naked.
Dusty trails lead to an idea.
Finding the naive box was different.
Fickle loyalties change like a channel.
MY TURN VISIONS.
Playing the role of a tail.
Whole end of the animals ass.
Breezes of fart waking up.
Three loads washed.
Radio active washcloths wash the genitals.
Mutating children of the future.
Walking dead. Retarded.
Eight balls rain from the sky.
Cluster fucking, deep in the pocket.

Get Ready. Start!

Testing. Testing on a new product.
Christmas gives the excuse to waste time in the name of a spirit that does not exist,
not anymore.
Knocking. One. Two. Three. Stop. No use.
Wrapped in a blanket stained with grape juice. Wine and cheese crumbled and smashed
in the carpet.
This product takes IT away. IT away, to another room.
No windows, IT sure is bright.
Product number Twelve inspected by Six.
Two. One.
Cast iron daydream interrupted by corrupted passion.
Felting brushes sit in pockets of toxic runoff collected for the tourists.
Never in a cave could the draft touch the wet paint.
Sat down, the suite is ruined for the rest. Not beautiful. Not ugly.
Down, up, down, down.
Set still with a leg in motion.
The test is nearing done.
Done. Almost.
Done.



Function for the automobile that drives to the edge of a wall
Blushed over the bedpost, a pillow works as a prostitute for the leg.
Tired, if everything stayed the same,
Flung

Follow
Leap
Cheer
Blush
Extend
Measure
Believe
Fabricate
Induce
Fester
Mildew
Drop
Glad
Bigger than the flea that stands on top of a poll.
Making the senses freeze, a tongue needs cold water to let go.