Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in The Reverend Dion's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, April 5th, 2007
1:08 am	Why it SHOULD matter. Here I am talking about what other people think of us, on a personal level. I am a firm proponent of the "ultimately we answer to noone but ourselves" school of thought. Have been for most of my life really, once I realised the majority of the world at large were bigotted fools, and that I was no excepetion to that. However, concern over the opinion of others in no way contradicts that philosophy. Au contraire, it in fact supports it, and does so thusly. I don't know about anyone else, but I have people that I love. Some of them a great deal. Some of them rather insanely. I have to answer to myself, the opinion I have of myself forms how I feel about things. Now if someone I love despises me, how will that make me feel about myself? Not bloody good I'll tell you that for free. And that will ultimately affect my feelings about myself. Pfft, like they could be any worse (compulsory emo contribution brought to you by concern over her being in the solomon islands for six months whilst fucking earthquakes and tsunamis abound). It might be why one of things I am most proud of in myself is my courtesy. Whilst not always successful, I do try to be polite, or at least civil, to everyone. No matter how boorish or obnoxious they may be. This then affects people's view of me. "Oh he had a nasty streak that one, but he was unfailingly polite" sort of thing. In part this sort of awareness of the opinion of others, particularly those we care about to varying degrees, helps us to keep a check on our worst excesses, the perhaps more unpalatable traits that many of us have (and by us I mean me). Hell, I have even been polite to a guy whilst hospitalising him, telling him calmly and concisely as I did it the reason that I was breaking his jaw and his arm (slapping around a person smaller than yourself, particularly a woman, is bad enough. To do it to my girlfriend at the time could be construed as suicidal, and if that seems slightly chauvinistic, guilty as charged). Now the lady I was ostensibly protecting was not happy with my actions, and it in fact lessened me in her eyes. It was her ex-husband and the father of her child after all. I was confident of the rightness of my actions, but due to her lessened opinion of me had to examine whether or not my actions on that occasion had been warranted, and in fact appropriate. I believe they were, but it also made me cognisant that not everyone would share my view of the things I personally did, or even of life in general. And thus I grew in knowledge to at least a small extent. So it should matter what others think of us. We don't have to agree with them, or even incorporate their views into our own. It is meet though that we be cognisant of them at the very least. For as lonely as some of us might be (= me :P) we are not actually alone, and what we do often affects others. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
12:44 am	Ok journalists are normally scumbags anyway.... but this whole Knut polar bear cub thing has got to be a new low. They have endangered the lives of two men by misquoting and telling outright lies about them, but where are the retractions? Where is the responsibility? Freedom of the press is such a load of shit. With freedom comes RESPONSIBILITY! Lets see some of that. Neither of the quoted activists condoned the euthanising of the cub. In factone of them, himself a zoo-keeper, didn't even comment! He was just attributed with this malarky. Now they are both receiving death threats and hate mailo. Journalists are criminals, that is all there is to it, and people are stupid. And yes, that includes you and me. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
3:19 pm	Things I have said before, but will say again. There is beauty everywhere, I mean everywhere. What bites my biscuits though is people who think they can know beauty without knowing ugliness. BZZT wrong BZZT wrong! There is no beauty without ugliness, its not just that one is the balance of the other (and there MUST be balance) but that they can literally not exist without each other. There is beauty in ugliness and oh my stars is there ugliness in beauty. I can't even start citing examples, I would be here all day. I am not even going to talk about what kicked that one off, I swear to random deities that it makes me so mad, if I keep talking about it I may have to go out and kill bunny rabbits just to regain perspective, not even kidding. Speaking of balance, I was rereading the dune cycle yet again (holy crap Herbert is such a genius it even rubbed off on his son) and it got me thinking about Star Wars. The only real similarity is that whole messiah thing, but it set me too watching the star wars movies again with an objective eye. I had truly not realised what an utter hack Lucas is. He is an AWFUL storyteller, and he has no idea about elements and facets that tell a good story. Seriously, if it wasn't for the special effects genius of his movies, and the cool concepts, he would be laughed out of entertainment entirely. His stories are so out of whack it boggles my fairly unboggleable mind. There are only three characters with integrity in the entire six movies. Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan, and weirdly enough Emperor Palpatine. There is also one other character with redeeming features, and that is the only true victim character in the whole six movie marathon torture of bad story telling, Darth Vader/Annakin Skywalker. Thats right, Annakin is the only real victim character in the lot of them, the one hard done by guy out of them all, the only one who's life was ruined deliberately by outside agencies. Most of the rest of them I would cheerfully execute if I saw them on the street, and don't even get me started on what a whiny moron the Luke character is, how deserving of obliteration and contempt. But all in all what is really lacking is balance, and that is what completely ruins the story for me. Nowhere is it established that the dark side is evil, or the light side good, yet these seem to be central tenets of the whole thing. What the hell? Yoda is cute, sure enough, but he is also shown to be a scheming dishonest politician with a penchant for keeping vital information from those who have a true need for it. Obi-wan is a noble character I will not deny, but when the only other character who shows real affection and concern for the major victim of it all, Annakin, is the supposed bad guy, then what the hell? I have no idea why this upset me so much. I have never been a star wars nerd, I was more into Heinlein and Wilbur Smith, but man, it shocked me to realise how bad this story is. SO much so that I completely went off-tangent on what this post was to be about. Better make anothery. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006
12:56 am	Some things lead to bad poetry. The same things can lead to great poetry as well. The thing is, I hate poetry. Don't get me wrong, there are specific poems I do like, even love, but poetry, the whole concept, I hate that. I am good with words, always have been. Written words anyways. I did not speak so well as a child, mumbled a lot, but that fixed itself. I became a very good, sometimes excellent, speaker in public. Not the best one on one, because I am one of those socially awkward souls that can't get a handle on the concept of small talk. Words have too much effect you see, to waste on trivialities so much. I don't normally speak unless its to actually say something, and then its normally fairly specific. I am comfortable with silence, hell most of the time I relish it, don't see a need to fill it with words that don't serve a purpose. Ah but when there is conversation, thats different. To actually talk about something, discourse, that I do enjoy. And thats why I hate poetry. Poetry is trying to paint a picture with words. What I mean here is, art, real art not this pseudo-spreadgutsaroudncallitart-art crap, I mean real art, evokes a reaction within. The picture creates emotions, or conveys a feeling. Thats what the image(s) do. Poetry is words trying to do that. In a vague, imprecise sort of way. Which just isn't what words are about. Words convey meaning, that is their whole design and purpose. Its why we don't grunt and gesticulate at each other as much as we once did. We developed language, words, to overcome the gulf of communication. So now, when we want say something, we can say it. With words. That is why they are important. Poetry is deliberately vague. It dithers, it wastes words. Its a pose. Prose however, that is another matter entirely. Prose is the whole purpose of language. That and songs. Prose and lyrics, these things are art. Don't abuse them by calling them poetry. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 8th, 2006
11:14 pm	Insanity and geopolitics, the exploration of a new synonym. It is you know. Insanity is an excellent synonym for geoploitics, and I am going to elucidate by throwing in my two cents about the whole Israel/Hizbollah thing. Now not for a second do I think the persons on either side of this conflict (and there are no good guys here folks, lets keep that in mind, not even the Lebanese, because they are the ones that allowed this taint to grow in their own nation, and continue to countenance it) actually want their mothers sisters and daughters or fathers brothers and sons killed in screaming agony of shrapnel ruptured flesh or explosion scorched skin. Yet on both sides (and yes, hizbollah started this round, but the escalation belongs at the feet of Israel) the continuing actions are geared to nothing more than the engendering of further hatred and conflict. Hate based on race is nothing more than the weak-minded addle pated refuge of the dissolute, and hate based on something as logically tenuous as religon is worse, yet at base much of this continued bloodshed and idiocy is about nothing more than these two factors. World-wide we see a polarisation of opinion with support to either side, rationalisations by "learned" commentators on the actions and motivations of the protaganists, and even within nations, especially hemegonies like Australia, a diversity of opinion and support. Does everyone miss the fact that people are dieing over some numb-nutted ideology (and that applies to both sides)? That an emerging nation, who shares fault yes in the nuturing of the snake at the breast but not to an extent punishable by annihilation, is being "bombed back to the stone-age" as the more war-minded of our American friends so colloquially phrased it in referring to the conflict in Afghanistan. I like to look at catalyst events. And yes I am still on topic. Lets look athe the "9/11" event. Around three or four thousand people perished. Noone can argue this was not a truly terrible crime. Perpetrated by a relatively few radical extremists of one of the worlds major religons (oh man I despise religon, but I'll cover that another time). So far that has lead to the invasion of not one but two sovereign nations. Regardless of the "oppressive" regimes toppled, these were both nonetheless sovereign states. Numerous tens of thousands of "innocent" civilians have been killed, lives sacrificed on all sides, and all for what? Is the world a safer place? Palpably it is not. Are the lives of those "liberated" better? Apparently they don't think so. Is anyone actually better off? Maybe a few corporations in the business of funding war machines, but thats about it. Much needed money for social infrastructure in all nations concerned has been poured into fighting these very dubious "wars on terror", with little to no effect in achieving their stated aim of making the world a safer place for the ordinary person. And therein lays the insanity. Destruction of our fellow man, war-mongering for what seems to be very much its own sake, are not sane actions in the light of supposedly mature societies. The motivations involved are not even as sane of those of ancient tribes, who at least fought for the (to them) valid motive of liebensraum, which is not something that can really be claimed here. No, geopolitics I feel has entered a very much insane phase, and by our continued countenance of its perpetration we each one of us bear responsibiloity for its idiocy. Sometimes I don't think being a human is a very good thing for the soul. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 18th, 2005
11:25 pm	So Tamiflu kills people? Read this thingwhereby authorities are "concerned" about a number of deaths in Japan linked to Tamiflu. The link being that the people who died took Tamiflu. It then went on to explain that of the twelve cases mentioned, four were suicides, a couple were pneumonia, one had cerebral bleeding, yadda yadda. The link to Tamiflu was what? And why would we care? NEWSFLASH!!!! THERE IS NO FUCKING BIRD FLU PANDEMIC! All the cases so far have been transmitted from birds to human. Because it is avian flu. More people die from the human flu strains for crying out loud. What a bloody beat up. Then I got to thinking, as you do, about this miracle wonder drug Tamiflu that everyone is stockpiling. How cool would it be if there was some kind of outbreak, and they started dosing folks left and right with this Tamiflu crap, and people started dropping like flies. The killer saviour. Hilarious stuff. Now THAT is my kind of Jesus. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 31st, 2005
11:13 pm	Oh yeah. Happy walpurgis and all that. Yes I am aware that it is in may, but that for the same reason I celebrate the feast of the pig on 25 December, happy walpurgis. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 28th, 2005
3:30 am	I had forgotten how nice her mouth tastes. Like strawberries. She still uses that same lip balm, who would have guessed? Don't get your panties in a bunch, it wasn't like that. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 25th, 2005
11:44 pm	Oh and an addendum to an old rant. In the interests of fairness I have to bring up that although I have done some bashing of islam myself, in response to the muslim bashing I see in the press we need to remember that perhaps the most enlightened military conquerer in all history was a commander of Muslim armies. He tried to build an enlightened empire in the middle east, and largely succeeded despite the constant depradations of the "crusaders" (read greed besooted adventurers and rapist murderers) from the supposedly holy christian west. I speak of course of Salah ad-Din Yusuf, whom the west in their normal crass disrespect for other cultures and history call Saladin. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
11:20 pm	It is a natural permutation of an old ideal. An empathic extension would theoretically lead to a decrease in sociopathic behaviour. That is if greater empathy could be achieved then consequences could be understood, and understanding of consequences would lead to reluctance to inflict pain. The theory of course ignores the basic fact that we are applying this ideal to humans, and humans are inherently craven. A suicide bomber is not a brave matyr freedom fighter. He or she is the worst kind of mewling coward, unable to face the consequences of the horror they have purveyed. I do not fear such, I detest them, I feel contempt for them and all their ilk. All fanatics, the "leaders" of governments and corporations hiding behind distance and structure to ameliorate the backwash of pain from their greed, from their craven folding to the basest desires to force their ideals on others, to try and be big, be something, because at root they are shallow holes where spirit should be. I despise the lawyers and all the judiciary who would deny responsibility to those who act.The only true things we have that are our own are love and the responsibility for that which we do. If I am ordered to kill, it is still me who decides whether or not to follow that order. I make that moral judgement, and I bear the consequences. IF you decide to speed down that street and you hit that child it is YOU who made that decision, not the alcohol, not the music. If you murder or rape or torture it was YOU, NOT THE FUCKING VIDEO GAME, not the fucking movie, not the music. If you see a person by the side of the street who is crying and alone and has nothing, it is YOU who decide to stop and help them, to pick them up and say it is alright, to help them to move forward. YOU save that life. It is YOU who decide to face that fire and beat it back so people can get out. It is YOU who decides to face the horror of a situation to get in there and be covered in blood to maybe pull that one person out alive who would otherwise be dead. It is YOU who decides to argue for a better world, to make your voice heard, to maybe get others to listen and join their voices. We are each of us all responsible for everything we do. Hurricane Katrina and Wilma and the earthquake and the tsunami are not the will of allah, or god, or vishnu, or that thetan dude whatever his name is. They are acts of nature. How WE respond is up to us. If you hurt or help, if you are steadfast or craven, if you show loyalty or betray, if you hate, or if you love, it is your decision. Not God. Not Allah, Not the buddha. Not Kali. You. And me. Responsibility is our own, and that is precious. Current Mood: system is failing Current Music: Cat Empire - Two Shoes (17 Comments |Comment on this)
2:00 am	There is a feeling. Its when someone, and for me its two people, but its when someone looks at you, or holds you, or even just talks to you, and you know right deep down that they want you. Not in a lustful way. Not in a needing sort of way. They want YOU. Everything you are, warts and pimples and moods and stupidity. They want you there, in that place wherever it is, and noone else is the one wanted right at that moment. Just you. They want YOU to be the one sharing that precise moment with them. It doesn't matter what went before, what comes after is irrelevant to what is going on. Right there, right then, you belong to them completely, because everything you are or could be is everything they will have if you will give it, there and then. It is being totally accepted. It is being owned. That is the best feeling in the world. They know the worst of you, and they think it is grand. They know the best of you, and the best of you is because you are there, then, with them. It isn't being the important thing. Right then, even for the barest fraction of the moment, it is being the only thing. And returning that. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 24th, 2005
9:00 pm	Oh yes, same-sex relationships. As of 1 Dec 05 the Australian Defence Force will have legislation in place to recognise same-sex relationships and provide the same conditions of service as a heterosexual de facto relationship, which is everything that married folk get. Bloody hell we are a progressive bunch. All you fruity types out there shold be rejoicing :) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
8:42 pm	Stolen from Lisa. A- Age of my first kiss: aout six or something B- Band I am listening to right now: Timo Maas feat. Brian Molko C- Crush: oh come on, that is PISS obvious. Call it a crush again and I'll kill you :) D- Dads name: David and Peter E- Easiest person to talk to: Jac, Ria F- Favorite ice cream: boysenberry swirl G- Gummy bears or gummy worms: bears H- Hometown: Rotorua I- Instruments: guitar, harmonica, bass, flute J- Junior high: there were six K- Kids: don't want to talk about it, but thanks for asking L- Longest car ride ever: darwin to adelaide in 27 hours M- Mums name: Diann, and no I did not miss out the e N- Nickname: D, Baz, Triple B, bazels, bazmantutu, Big D, doll O- One wish: expectation creates disappointment. Lack of expectation provides unexpected mountainous bursts of happiness P- Phobia(s): failure, blindness Q- Quote: Wherever you go, there you are. Tanstaafl R- Reason to smile: You and her T- Time I woke up today: 0530 U- Unknown fact about me: I was an altar-boy, and a damn good one V- Vegetable: not yet, but the knees will go eventually and then its all over baby W- Worst habit: farts are hilarious X- Xrays: I glow in the dark dude, seriously Y- Years since I've been to church: church is everywhere. If you need a house to hold your faith you are just doing it for show. Holy shit that was profound. Z- Zodiac sign: Gemini (Comment on this)
8:39 pm	Everyone thinks I am turning into a snag. I would be pissed off if I wasn't so mellow about everything. Just because I don't kill one guy who reverses into me because someone doesn't want me to, all of a sudden apparently I am a big softy pushover. I suppose it is okay for them to think that, no skin ooff my ass. Might want to be careful when she is gone and I turn back into my normal moody self though :) (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 23rd, 2005
9:59 am	Whoa dude! Remind me to tell you about the last few days sometime. Some idiot reversed into my car, my housemate's car blew up when we were on the way to see Nightwatch so we had to walk six or seven kays home, I got up at 0915 yesterday and still haven't been to bed, I am tired, I am sore, my throat is killing me and I have just had the single best day of my life. All in all, its been an interesting period of time. And it is all mine. Well okay hers as well, but for our purposes, mine. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 19th, 2005
5:49 am	For once I am not over-thinking things. Its trippy! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, October 17th, 2005
11:09 pm	I did mention that she has a boyfriend right? I think I forgot to mention that. And no I don't mean me. Just in case anyone thought something else was going on. Its just so groovy to have her back. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 16th, 2005
5:11 pm	It is STINKING hot. The humidity is so damn high that it onbly takes a couple of hours between cold showers to become sticky and stinky again. Ewwwwwwww and stuff. IT rocks really. Have I mentioned that I love Darwin? This place is so great. Everything good happens here. Well ok, almost everything. Some really good things happen in New Zealand and Brisbane and Adelaide and Perth too. Just mostly here is all. Yay for Darwin :) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
12:07 am	Four years two months and nine days ago. That is when I went to Timor. When I left her when I had just got her, when I ripped myself apart. I am SO smart you have no idea. I mean that was like a BRILLIANT move. ( A long and possibly boring reminiscence, but with a point ) It is strange that in the space of two days I have gone from absolutely devastated to perhaps as happy as I have ever been in my entire life. She is back. I never counted on that. However briefly, she is back. So I have two weeks of this wonderful feeling, and then with luck I will end. I am not a terribly lucky fellow though, although in fairness I must admit that right at this moment I feel like I am the luckiest. Current Mood: words are inadequate Current Music: who needs it? (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 14th, 2005
12:34 pm	Medicine is a strange science, I shit you not. So I was being tested for allergies to see what tried to kill me a couple of weeks ago, and the results were a little unexpected to say the least. I am allergic to dust mites and Bermuda grass it turns out. They aren't the problem. I'll elaborate, because this is a journal and that is what you do right? So we now know the reason why I have had ulcers, get really bad damage whenever one of my injuries flares up, why I get frequent headaches, even why I sleep badly. The reason is unstable mast cells. YAY ME AND MY INSTABILITY! What this means, as I understand from the briefing this morning, is that my body is overreacting to allergens, but because of the instability many things that AREN'T allergens are getting reacted to in much the same way. This includes stress, muscle damage depending on area etc. This is really good news, because even though I might have wished it had been treated 16 or 17 years ago, at least we know now and it can be fixed. As in cured fixed. That is pretty groovy in my book. Headaches gone, no more predisposition to ulcers, sleep a bit better, not die ffrom anaphylaxis. All big pluses in my view. The bad news is that this does in fact mean my career is over. I have to go on a course of treatment for the next four months, and I have to carry an epipen for the next couple of years until it is all sorted. This makes me non-deployable, as I can't go into dusty environments, can't go into the scrub for extended periods, can't be too far away from medical facilities because although it probably won't reoccur, if it should I am fucked. Yes tommy, proper fucked. So its been a good and a bad day. At least I know right? Now I can plan for the future, for a time when I am well, and fit. Unfortunately, that future isn't in the Army. Current Mood: destroyed Current Music: KMDFM - Straight to Video (15 Comments |Comment on this)