July - December 2002

July 30, 2002

An ill-fated climb of Mount Chimgan in early May left me with an ulcer and prostatitis, and after too many antibiotics, dysbacteriosis. It's been a culmination of nerves and poor quality food (see my cris de coeur "At least they're our bastards!" http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=880).

Almost no interest in sex anymore. That last trip to the banya, with a drunk, aggressive gay forcing himself on me as I was dressing to leave (he pushed us in the cubicle and performed some gymnastics, without coming, of course (drunks - yuk!), was slight arousing in a very masochistic and humiliating way. I don't think I can face the mild mannered attendant, who knew perfectly well what was going on. But no more. It was like the cure for smoking a wacky former housemate told me she used: "I licked out a dirty ashtray with a hangover after a heavy party." Reading Dante's Purgatory now. The medieval belief was that the best punishment for your sins is to make you repeat them in eternity. How that truth came home to me that day in the banya!

In fact, the ghost of the creepy cop from 1 1/2 years ago came back to haunt me. I sauntered past the can at Pakhtakor - the old flasher was there and ruined a potential fling - on my way to the work. A sickly looking fellow was in front of me as I crossed Uzbekistan St, as I headed for the reception building.
"Hey, you," I heard a gruff voice, and was confronted by the swarthy, cruel, rather nondescript face of a cop. There are so many thousands of these brutes prowling the streets, I hadn't even noticed him. "What were you doing with that guy?"
"What do you mean?" I said in a huff, "I'm here on official business," hoping he was just being a typical asshole cop, and would back off at the sound of the magical K.
"Sure," he said thickly. "What - did you suck him or take it in the ass? … Remember me now? I remember you. You work at the CabMin and live at X metro, right?" Slowly, my nasty encounter with this predator came back to me. I said nothing as I handed him my ID. "I can take you and have you 'tested' right now, you know."
"Stop insulting me," I said, barely controlling my anger. "That was more than a year ago, and I haven't done anything since you warned me last time."
He told the meek and terrified Russian to scram and came back to me, his eyes glistening. "I haven't told anyone about you, you know. I keep my word, like a real man," he growled, as he led me behind a bush, presumably out of sight of other cops buzzing around. "Where do you live?" he asked.
I dissimulated - "I live with a landlady, renting a room." I guess he figured it would be unlikely he'd get access to me in private without a scandal, which could backfire on him. I had scrupulously avoided referring to the fact he had stolen all my cash on the two occasions we had met. Lesson number one with corrupt cops: do NOT try to threaten them. "Do you need a bit of help?" I asked, in a casual, friendly way, reaching for my wallet. Though perhaps a bad precedent, I was ready to cave in on a small bribe, my wallet, as usual, holding not more than $2-3. Tempted though he clearly was, he demurred, as we were only a few meters from the political Holy of Holies and that was probably tempting fate too much. I made it clear I was not scared and I was already late for my meeting.
"Next time," he said, with a glint of a smile as I observed the ghost of Dante over his shoulder.
Perhaps I'm crazy, but I felt sure he was even coming on to me a bit. These cops are notorious for raping, either just to get their rocks off or as part of their sadistic pleasure of playing hide and seek with scared rabbits like myself. It's as if he were telepathic: I had just passed the only pick-up stop left - the toilet at Pakhtakor, tho' it's 15 minutes from work and my insistence that I was coming from the metro was 100% correct. As the economic situation deteriorates (and repression from on high increases) I suspect there's a growing cohort of these worms who frequent the pitiful pick-up spots looking for bribes or maybe just outlets for their sadism. Brrr.

That unpleasant encounter makes me realize that my obsession with swallowing anonymous cum is pretty sordid, or is made that way by all the hatred and opprobrium which society surrounds it with. My being gay, however, does not give me much of a sense of solidarity with others similarly obsessed. It certainly does not make me identify with the burgeoning right wing gay movement of assimilation. G's like my brothercan be just as much enemies of social justice as str8s, and I can't say I like any g much besides M, with whom I have been through a rocky love affair. I still prefer respectful relations with str8s (or g's) who are progressive, i.e., independent of their sexual orientation. Sex seems to be a fantasy occupation which has little hope of stable long-term happiness. One difference, tho', since my relationship with M, I don't want to be unloved again. My str8 friends in America have more or less put their relationship with me on a distant back burner. I've lost Lyonia, but still have Denis and M as people to whom I am dear. I must try to preserve and merit their love, if only to preserve my sanity.
I can see physical deterioration happening very easily if I'm a moral wreck. You don't need AIDS to induce that, tho' that's a threat that hangs like a sword of Damocles at every moment. I must get back to mediating. It quietens my c, and allows the u to dominate, to help heal my underlying, repressed torment.

New Labour guru Peter Mandelson (gay to boot) announced at their recent convention "We're all Thatcherites now when it comes to the economy," which prompted cries of protest from 'old Labour', including Glenda Jackson. Right on, Glenda! Profit is only one of the considerations in determining what is best in society (of which the economy is only one element, one which affects all the others, and thus requires special care). Social, cultural, and ecological considerations, not to mention psychological/ spiritual ones, are far above and beyond cold number-crunching. How have we got ourselves into this devil's pact with filthy lucre? A meta-economics is long overdue. Of course, that's what 'political economy' was, and why it stills inspires and threatens the soulless worship of the market.

It's back to Marx, though with the pristine clarity of the dialectic of production of purely physical commodities muddied by the insubstantial nature of the service economy, and technological advance far beyond the scope of a theory based on 'labour embodied.' Marx's intellectual gymnastics concerning the arts as nonproductive labour, beyond the scope of the labour theory of value, now leaves intact only his intellectually rigorous expose of capitalism as inhuman and soulless. Our economy is engulfed by this ‘nonproductive labour’. We long ago left behind the problem of physical production (we could easily provide the entire world with a subsistence living with present capacity and technology), but the imperatives of capitalism - private property and a mentality of exploitation and unlimited amassing of wealth - has meant ignoring this worthy goal for one of mindless pursuit of wealth, where massive corporations fritter away the huge surplus in society by burning it up (advertising, marketing, mergers, unlimited military expenditures…).

Capitalism survived the socialist challenge of the 20th c through overcoming nationalisms and overt war among the developed powers, and just as important, through successful indoctrination of an ethic of greed and the triumph of private, material wealth over social, spiritual wealth. "Workers of the world unite!" became "Capitalists and politicians of the world, scheme together!" Corporations have been elevated to the status of persons in the US legal code, and a reasonable limit on personal wealth has been rejected as a moral standard.
Just as we must control an out-of-control cancer or virus which threatens the physical well-being of the host, we must control the physical and moral predations of capitalism which now threatens the future of the physical and moral world.

My physical healing process over the past few months reinforces what I long have known: our body is regulated by our spiritual health. My neurologist here, a gentle and altruistic Armenian, urges me to follow my Christian roots: "Not just fasting, but observing Christian lent is important for your physical health. Abstinence observed by monks did not lead to prostatitis because their ascetic regime was in the service of God." I am still a religious dilettante wrt Buddhism or the faith of Ivanovites. When I was madly in love with M, I was as healthy as a horse. Now I have lost this spiritual high, as has M, and we both are sickly physically.

I'm assessing my life path these days. I note that all my male friends are quite a bit younger, and all are without father figures. Sure, they 'borrow' money from their rich foreign friend, but sometimes even pay it back. They enjoy the selfless love they find in me, treating them, providing a shoulder to lean on, a voice of reason. Mahsud is building a higher wall around his home, Murat is struggling to buy an apt, Yuri is just trying to keep one step ahead of various other creditors, M is just hanging in…

Another pattern that I can see in perspective is that my whole life - my physical ailments, my overarching pessimism, my writings here and YellowTimes - is recapitulating the slow march of history, as we descend into a frightening morass of violence, cruelty and ecological apocalypse. I marvel at those with enough optimism and energy to continue the fight. I feel worn out and ashamed of my lack of influence to make the world better. One older contributor to Yellow Times says in his declining years, his most potent 'direct action' is to perform kind acts to strangers - complimenting parents on their well-behaved children, giving alms to beggars. Surely there's something more substantial that I can do (though his method is not to be belittled). Beware Simon: Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul. (Edward Abbey)

The Indian language Mingo is a language of prefixes and suffixes. Nouns are classified as agent (manmade with prefix ka) and patient (natural with prefix u). Verbs have different prefixes for agents, patients and to show their interaction: k (I do to it), sk (you do to me), ak (it does to me) and hak (he does to me) etc. Food for thought.

September 17, 2002

A striking dream - I'm leaving Guelph for Uz. PB will drive. It's late - 4:00. The plane at 6:30. I must get another $100US at bank for others here in Uz. I hurriedly go to upstairs loo to shit. It's an apt, and tenant is eating in loo, with bathtub leaking and water running. Want to wish Sharon good-bye but she's sleeping. Ask her for 1 of 2 rucksacks there because can't find my bag. She won't give it to me, but I find my bag. Hug mother then father good-bye. Father won't let go. I want to say 'I love you.'

The dream summarized my life over the past 20 years, with PB (or what he represents in me) as the 'driving force' to break with my neurotic family attachments. But it's not an easy process, involving anxiety of being late (in life), of purging myself of the accumulated shit. The money (what's valuable to me) is my obsession with the US and others' needs(?). The tenant eating is sexual, the leaking tub is a messy cleansing. My ambivalent relations with Sharon (codependence?), my deeper love for father are there. At least there is a formal reconciliation with mother. My dead father's refusal to let me go is a bit frightening.

Clearing out all my stuff back in America in August opened a floodgate of memories, and no doubt prompted the dream. I broke down in tears looking at pictures of myself, full of zeal and joy, at demos against Reagan, at the Moscow youth festival, wandering through Moscow with Denis in 89, as if it were all yesterday. When I see how my dreams have been shattered, it's hard to carry on. The world's becoming a place hardly worth living in anymore.

While the SU existed, capitalism showed some grudging respect for socialism, like a cowardly animal protecting itself. Once it collapsed, socialism was officially relegated to the dustbin of history. Capitalism was on the defensive and social democracy was on the offensive. That situation has now been reversed. With the disappearance of a global enemy, capital can now concentrate on the "enemy within" and all the concessions it was forced to concede can be clawed back. In other words social and democratic rights will have to be fought for once again against the might of a triumphal capitalism. An article in the FT casually referred to socialized health care as a product of a different 'more collectivist' era. Interestingly, it has been reactionaries who have shifted most - from a grudging acknowledgment of the need for social welfare measures, to a glorification of the market as the answer to all our needs. Tariq Ali hopes that this renewed need to fight will unite the (nonUS) rest of the world. It's hard to drum up enthusiasm for this daunting battle. Maybe I'm just too old. Two of Marx's daughters committed suicide. I think I understand why.

I had lunch last week with David Kotz, a US Marxist prof who co-authored Revolution from Above (Yeltsin etal as the real putschists) with Fred Weir. He insists there should be no profit mechanism in the economy. Needless to say, he hasn't found any sympathetic ears among the economists here he is working with (writing a (yawn) report for the UNDP). He gets a modest $400 per day, and came here business class, courtesy of the UN. He suggested (I presume ironically) he save his per diem ($200+) and donate it to the UN as humanitarian aid. He was recently lecturing in China to the 'new left' as he dubs it - young Marxists who are critical of the CCP's embrace of capitalism. Some come to study with him at UMass, as it is impossible to study Marxist economics in China (!). He also related how he saw Fidel and the Central Committee play a high school basketball team back in 1968 (Fidel sank the winning shot).

I had him over to dinner later, and he gave me his book. Briefly, a large part of the nomenklatura decided Gorby's reform plans would mean loss of their privileges, and they realized that the only way to benefit from the crisis was to introduce 'capitalism' while grabbing whatever property they could in the chaos. 80+% of the people I talk to here bemoan the collapse of the SU and have no use for capitalism. Ah, the politics of greed.

I feel like I'm going to burst with the madness swirling around us. CNN called former US marine and chief UN inspector Scott Ritter "misguided," "disloyal" and "an apologist for and a defender of Saddam Hussein" for denouncing Bush's plans to launch a war against Iraq on trumped up accusations. He was then described as having "drunk Saddam Hussein's Kool-Aid" and later compared to "a sock puppet" who "oughta turn in his passport for an Iraqi one." The nadir came later when an interviewer implied that he was being paid by Iraq and all but calling him a quisling. "Ha! Excuse me; I went to war against Saddam Hussein in 1991. I spent seven years of my life in this country hunting down weapons of mass destruction," he replied. I know exactly what Ritter's going through, having been a 'Sov symp' (not to mention gay) and having to endure taunts of Quisling etc. Don't the brainwashed idiots realize that there's no profit to be made in supporting unpopular (but just) causes? Why not call us Jesus-complexed or something, if they want to belittle us?

BBC showed a chilling documentary on the anthrax attacks last week - it's clear that it was a conspiracy - a high level CIA-type that did them and there is clearly a cover-up. Fine pre-11-9 stuff. Their motive was clearly to carry out a controlled terrorist attack to 'wake up' America. However the commentator didn't extend that motive to the possibility that 11-9 itself may have been such a conspiracy. She stated that the attacks must have required months of preparation, and then concludes it was only a coincidence that they took place a few days after the plane spree. EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES was screaming at me from the boob tube as the credits (and spooky music) rolled, as goose bumps went up my spine. I can still feel them.

Dear Paul,
A rather arresting dream prompted me to get off my ass and write. I decided to start my next 'chapter' and go find a printer to send it to you right away. Your bombshell (taken positively!) a few minutes before leaving Sara's also has been in the back of my mind: "You're addicted to sex." How true. I wish we could have gone a bit deeper with that, tho' it would have been painful for both of us.
There was a reference in an article about 9-11 to PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) that made a lot of sense - it involves dual states of emotional numbing and hyper-arousal. You experience intrusive memories and feel a sense of dissociation (being outside your body). You can be panicky, sweaty, quick to anger. You're less than fully functional, which can lead to heart disease and diabetes. One year after 9-11 in NY, this was 3x average, in Washington - average, since NY involved more civilian deaths/ destruction and it was more central.
Maybe everyone has all of these symptoms. I don't know. I do know I often feel the dissociation, intrusive memories, panic and lightning anger. Are they more or less these days? What to do? My only answers have been intellectual pursuits, dream analysis, meditation … OK and addiction to sex (tho' I have far less of that than many people I know, and less these days than ever).
Not true - I'll push through the Bradshaw material again, starting now! The unconditional love of your inner child, tolerance of mistakes without fear of punishment, taking responsibility, respecting others' feelings and needs (except for the Bushes etal!). I'm trying to apply this to my relation with M too, tho' there's no passion left there and he's unemployed and not doing much about it, which is not helping much. "Forgiveness allows us to leave our parents," says Bradshaw. Maybe my dream shows that I've at last got some closure with them. My (very) dead father clinging to me may be just the positive energy I continue to derive from him (vs my neurotic sexual needs, or a death wish - hmmm). The 'intrusive memories' of PTSD are tied in with lack of forgiveness of the past.
For all my long-term addictions, I really feel August (combined with the ongoing aging process) provided a bit of a turning point. I've re-established 3 old friends from the 80s, tho' I can sense that they are not terribly vital - it was more just the fact that I could get in touch with them again, and with what they represent in my past. Bernard Duchesne (a Quebecois boarder with my parents in the early 80s, that mother hated (he didn't use deodorant) and who I liked and had as a guest in Toronto several times), Dorothy Houston (a tall, skinny Yank Greenpeacer who fell madly in love with me in Moscow and hired me (and plagued me)), and Volodya Ivanov (Russian gay who I met in 1979 and who emigrated with his artist lover and now lives in San Francisco). You've probably got some more 'return to senders'. If they're just dead letters, that's also closure. PS The Bach cantatas with words and brief analysis are heaven. 'One a day keeps the doctor away.' Actually I spend about 3 days per cantata with a few gaps, which means a year's worth, unless I become surfeited by them. In that case, I'll revert to Beethoven quartets.

December 25, 2002

I have lived long enough to sense what my sex life is all about. Despite attempts to broaden my sexual style, I find myself reverting to what first thrilled me in my teens: jacking off, tasting precum, even piss, giving head, with occasional, intense anal sex, some metro feeling. For all the banya and Gorky can can offer, the occasional hit of anon sex at Pakhtakor is most satisfying - it's nice to be able to walk away with a mouthful of cum without the interpersonal complications. Conditions that let me fantasize the perfect partner without having to find out that he's a jerk, has only disgust for me, etc. That's the end result of 50 years of angst and experiment. I had not a whiff of turn-on in America in August. Bland, NA society is just not sexy. I see the evil hand of priggish capitalism everywhere, which takes all the mystery, spontaneity and otherworldliness out of the act. I fear sex with M is over. It only disgusts or demeans me anymore, though I feel he's part of me, and for all his (and my) irritating characteristics there's something mutual there worth cherishing. If nothing else, we take the edge off existential angst for each other.

One day a handsome teen showed his cock at Gorky can, didn't seem to piss, flexed his cock a few times and left. I followed, even retrieving money which fell from his pocket as he paid for a cigarette, but still couldn't muster the courage to try to pick him up. In frustration I went to the Chorsu banya where an old flame from Pakhtakor, one of my first Uzbeks, came onto me. He had put on close to 20 kilos in the meantime and was disgusting. Also drunk as his cum revealed. Ugh. As I was dressing, a Russian teen came to cadge a cigarette. He began to chat and made it clear he wanted to get acquainted. Unfortunately, he was with a friend and I left without establishing a relationship. No doubt a hustler, but seemed harmless enough. Though I may have figured out my sexual needs, there's a lot to be desired about my technique of picking up. In City of the Night Rechy's hero claims he can score any guy he wants and on a wager does so, to the author's impressed surprise. Is that true? At least he could score my handsome teen at Gorky. Oh well.

My forays in toilets and on the internet have much in common. Both work best when anonymity is maintained. The post-coital rejections of my overtures or my own realization that the perfect fantasy is a real disaster, now hard to dispose of, have taught me that, as has the superficiality of relations maintained through email. I'm rather relieved that PB is not online. Better a long, heartfelt letter once every few months, than tens of unanswered emails. Also, Rebecca's silly tirade last year at this time has taught me never to use email without careful editing.

I also feel my body aging noticeably these days. My x-country ski injury has started acting up out of the blue, requiring physiotherapy and an exercise regime for my shoulder. I am gearing up for more crowns. My memory just doesn't hold things in the short term, and carving out long term memory (Uzbek) is Sisyphean. I've lost all interest in rock music, tennis, fancy food, late night adventures, I dare not drink much alcohol, and only good stuff - in short the body is wearing out. Teenagers often offer me their seat on the metro, much to my embarrassment.

And then there's relationships. I suspect you are either a child or a mother (maybe father) in all relationships. Look at Kitty and me. I am clearly her mother to her and she - my child to me. With M, I am kind of a mother/ father. With PB - a child. But with Mills, I am more like a rival sibling, which makes our relationship rather mercurial.

I'm hungrier than ever for knowledge. That and music are my great loves. Bach's cantata #31: We were wrong not to see him as the alpha and omega, and lost him, but he came back! We killed this gift of love, but it has been redeemed.
With the sublime music, such words console. Even in my sexual hunts - 'the one that got away' is redeemed if only in fantasy. Are these sentiments true? If they provide comfort, that's what counts. They are true to our spiritual well-being. I'm up to #38 now and have found many gems. So many paths to beauty and truth. That is what my life is about - finding truth and beauty in history and the Now, through music, baths, languages, philosophy, puzzles, skating, skiing, sailing… So little time! Beethoven said that if you could appreciate his music, you would not be cowed by the cruelty and injustice of life. I heard his Fantasy for piano, orchestra and chorus at the close of the Beethoven anniversary (175th anniversary of his death!) festival at the new conservatory, and wanted to jump up on stage to join in the ecstatic singing, to shout for joy. How true are his words (and music).

Oops. My other great love - the SU. Part of me died back in 91. My mourning continues and my feeling of loss seems to increase over time. What a tragedy. What a civilizing role it played for us, keeping the rabid US somewhat in check. Life now is like a bumpy, terrifying roller coaster ride which can only end in disaster, or rather, one disaster after another. Some of us crash or fall off sooner than others. 'Back on the USSR: You don't know how lucky you were.' There seems no effect antidote to the boorish, malevolent pop culture spreading out from the US like a cancer. And here, the new petty dictators are burning books and tearing down all that they can, claiming the successes of the SU for themselves.

The horrors that Israel is perpetrating now on the Palestinians and the impending war in Iraq have inspired a new peace strategy: voluntary human shields of peaceniks from the imperialist West, risking their lives to show solidarity with the latest victims. We will be taking the place of the Red Army, though pacifists. We can both act as witnesses to the faith a la missionaries, though the faith being socialism (real human rights). That brings me back to my increasing awareness of what my (not only sex) life is all about, i.e., why am I here these 13+ years. I am bearing witness. To what is not totally clear, but it involves socialism, human rights, the positive values of the West, my desire to be an active pacifist, to deny the implicit superiority of the so-called 1st world, to testify to its injustice and inhumanity, despite its superficial appeal.

There have been fascinating developments in brain research. An area of the hippocampus(?) is the focus of music recognition, emotion and learning. Bush junior is dyslexic and a poor learner. He was filmed during an xmas party with everyone except him singing Jingle Bells. He clearly didn't know the words and was unable to even hold the tune. A lefty critique posited that he is only articulate when talking about hate, killing, and war. That when he must empathize or show tender emotions, he immediately falls apart verbally ('want to help put families on the table'). Perhaps he's missing this part of the brain.

Ivan Illich died recently and I found many of his writings on the internet. Unfortunately Gender I couldn't find, but from other writings, it seems he bemoans the trend towards erasing gender differences, that clear gender roles in primitive societies act to regulate mutual exploitation. I would add that within the individual, finding an inner balance of m/f is important to a healthy ego formation. This goes for physical development, cultural (arts vs work, abstract vs concrete), and even Jungian psychological archetypes. I like Illich's sense that our modern 'civilization' is in fact barbarous, that culturally we are in decline, that technology has got out of control. I bet his last year or so was terribly depressing, seeing his Cassandra-like prophecies taking on more flesh with each passing day.
He even condemns the well-tempered keyboard, saying that the piano, with its forcing of natural intervals (ratios of notes) into artificial, mathematically determined frequencies (not ratios of notes, of string lengths) to allow complex but overly abstract sound combinations. Before, a string would be divided, and a note sounded as a ratio of natural elements. Each culture had its own modes, instruments, tuning system - all intimately relating to nature and the society. Now music is cutting through these cultures, leaving behind a pseudo-monoculture produced by capitalism and technology. I would protest a bit here - what about Bach and Beethoven? Bach's music probably would suit Illich more, as he was writing when the modal traditions were still alive.
But Beethoven's wild experiments, his unbridled genius, I refuse to see as a negative. In fact, B wrestled ineffable music out of the new system, arguably the greatest music of the revolutionary well-tempered scale. Playing a B sonata, listening to the Fantasy in person - this experience awakens something both primordial and uplifting, unlike any other music I know. It touches something deep within and invigorates you, much like traditional music on traditional instruments does for individual cultures. B does this for world culture. Coinciding with the triumph of capitalism and the abstract socialist ideals of the French revolution, his music demands that we take control of our fate and create a universal system of justice. Sadly, humanity let B down badly, and we eventually got Schoenberg and further, dissonant and tortured. Still, there is wonderful catharsis in the complex tonalities and discords of modern music in this permanent Age of Anxiety. We can't close Pandora's box. We must forge ahead to conceive of a 'science of music' that understands how music affects the small bow-shaped bit of the hippocampus and figure out how to use music to help us, soothe us, with self-awareness and understanding, vs the blind, instinctive approach of traditional cultures, which is limited and in any case losing its magic as pop culture sweeps the globe. There's something romantically appealing about the pre-capitalist cultures, and I'm certainly not ready to place my bets on anything produced by our insane, over-technologized capitalist 'culture'.
That brings me to Illich, Michael Ignatieff's Scar Tissue, and my little finger, injured foolishly opening a keg of beer with a knife at Cambridge, crippling my piano playing ever since. Ignatieff wrote about dying, about when to stop fighting and accept death. The delicate balance between struggling to live and finding peace as the end draws near. Illich bases his work on proportion, be it m/f, making music, or deciding on how far to technologize ourselves. This proportion is by definition not fixed. It varies among societies, people, tastes, and changes over time. I must accept my growing physical limitations, as little bits of me 'die', while using my physical body to 'the limit'. What is important is to maintain 'golden means' to provide real freedom, which must allows be a balance, a trade-off.

One more bit of theorizing. What do I have such a strong visceral dislike for TV? It's because the talking images are alien, outside us, forcing their way into our minds against our will, enveloping us in a mental straightjacket. In the case of commercials, it is downright evil in intent. TIME IS SHORT! Each of those precious minutes of brainwashing could be moments of bliss, transcendence, self-creation. Each moment spent watching a commercial cheapness and disarms us, reduces our creativity, and takes away bits of our lives. OK, there are educational programs, but most TV cheapens reality, steals our creativity. In contrast, consider paintings. These are images, but the viewer controls his experience with them, using them to exercise his creativity. The process is from the inner outwards, unlike TV watching.