are you sleeping?

I sometimes have this perhaps unhealthy hankering to make money effortlessly while I sleep. Or while awake but still effortlessly. I imagine: you do too. To a degree. So, if you are inclined to aid me in this dream, goal, hankering, vision, fantasy, or reality, these links will help you (no, none of them are spam or malware or anything like that; that's how the clever or amoral or immoral folks make money while they sleep):

http://bit.ly/1dGlbfp

http://amzn.to/1iP9Hd9

http://amzn.to/1fxLyWN

http://amzn.to/R67mQ7

http://amzn.to/SH5yPu 

http://amzn.to/Z3Wse1 

http://amzn.to/YSBIEb 

Thank you.

Pleasant dreams.

 

Say the Word . . .

Remember the Beatles song that had the lyrics "say the word love"? Although I didn't know it at the time, the song was arranged as a Gospel tune (perhaps faux Gospel would be a more apt description). In these waning days of the almost-eternal U.S. presidential election, we now hear several variations on this chorus (i.e., mantra); one of them is "say the word socialism." Hearing the word socialism, we are supposed to make a face of horror, like Macaulay Culkin in "Home Alone," scream, grab our wallet or purse, reach for a weapon of minor destruction (rifle or pistol), and call 911, not necessarily in that order. When we hear socialism, we are supposed to conjure up sepia tone images from newsreels of the Stasi and East Germany and the color gray (spelled g-r-e-y in the welfare state of the U.K. until Margaret Thatcher "cleaned things up" -- so goes the neocon mythology) or listless mine workers or assembly line drones or alcoholic couch potatoes living in cement blocks or Quonset huts or Swedes sitting around, well, looking blond and bored. Of course, if you mean distribution of wealth, a more genteel term, you have the uber-capitalist Adam Smith (no relation to Anna Nicole Smith, that I know of) backing you up as well as the entire history of the Internal Revenue Service code. You can look it up. No, the word socialism is pink-baiting, meant to scare, meant to bring fears of The Other (although Those Others in, say, European socialist countries did not start this mess), meant to thump one's capitalist chest. Well, um, comrades, the words capitalist and socialist -- whatever they said in the textbooks or dictionaries -- just got a rewrite inthe last several weeks. They mean zero, zilch, in traditional terms, unless you are pressing an emotional hot button. They mean n-o-t-h-i-n-g. Unless you are into good, old-fashioned political propaganda (but at least admit it and then enjoy the ride).

Oh, we have a word for that button-pressing: demagoguery. (I learned the word, long ago, from William F. Buckley, Jr., the recently deceased high priest of American conservatism.)

While we're on the subject, Catholic voters are hereby reminded that popes have repeatedly warned of the dangers of pure capitalism or pure socialism. That's my point: they don't exist. Except in Utopia. And I remind you that Utopia, as expressed in Thomas More's wonderful satire, is Greek for "nowhere."

There are some other choruses that we are tirelessly hearing. One of them is "lower taxes." It is trite. Do I want more money in my pockets? Of course I do! After all, I live in highly taxed New York State. Is our money wasted? Yes. Are there "earmarks"? Indeed. And everyone loves the bacon when it comes to their district. Then Congress is doing a great job! But I ask you: where is the end of that arc? No taxes? none? All money kept by solipsistic me me me me? People in California may recall Proposition 13 about 30 years ago. They got lower taxes. Then they cried because the library was closed two days a week or because health care was not available at a public hospital or the DMV was closed every other day, et cetera ad nauseam.

Now, "Say the word endum," um, sort of like addendum, but not quite.

Moonday Moonday

Monday, the first day of the week, at least according to ISO 8601, of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Stubbornly, unlike the ISO, the United States still holds that Sunday is the first day of the week, despite the cyclical symbolism of mini-Easter drowning in a sea of secularism.

But, let's face it, Monday is for most of us the first day of the week, the first whirrings of human anxiety over the labor pains mandated by Adam Smith and his Captains of Commerce.

Is this what St. Benedict had in mind with his "laborare est orare" ["to work is to pray"]? I believe he symmetrically balanced the phrase with "orare est laborare" ["to pray is to work"]. Yes, sometimes it takes work to pray; other times it comes as easily as

H

E

L

P

!

as one dangles from one's fingertips from the ledge of one's unmaking.

But back to Monday. Or, if you prefer, Moonday.

I wonder why we have this moon thing going on. I invite your lunar musings. Monday means the day of the moon, Moonday. (Of course, right after the day of the sun, Sunday.) The inevitable comparisons to the moon's feminine attributes will be invoked, but what are we to make of them?

On Mondays I typically must invoke ever-more-powerful prayers and incantations to pry myself from under the canopy of cozy sheets. Translation: God! It is hard to get up!

Am I trained to dread Monday with its quest for the almighty quotidian, its maelstrom of management and duty? Or, am I out of training for the travails of work? Does Friday and Saturday catapult me away from the rigors of capitalism?

Maybe that's it: workaholics are so afraid of losing stride, so neurotic about getting out of workshape, they never stop working. Feck 'em.

Or is Monday no worse than any other day, except in my weekend-laden mind?

Perhaps Monday is perfectly named, with its moonish craters and cravings, its hotness and coldness, its unearthly airiness, its moonday Mondayishness.

In all honesty, it wasn't too bad today. I got through the day. I didn't invoke Saint Monday and stay home. I'd say Mondays are dangerous and potentially subversive, in the same way vacations are. That's it! That's where the powers of the moon come in! Beware of anyone making a life-changing decision on a Monday or during or right after a vacation. ("Marge, I think we should stay here in Aruba. We can find work. We'll love it. It'll work. Really!")

Well, at least I didn't book a flight to Vegas, just to escape the pressure, as Tony Soprano did in last night's episode.

He just might stare at the Vegas desert sun forever, and never see the moon again, anywhere, day or night, Moonday or Monday.

How was your Moonday?

P.S. Incidentally, come to think of it, the French don't mince words: Work literally is travail!