fineekfoo's Journal

10:55am: Pinky's Show is worth a watch
Do you like thought? Political thought?

Do you like cute animated kitties?

http://pinkyshow.org/

1:38pm: A poem in reply to an ineffective bricking of a by-stander in Georgetown, USA.
If you don't need to be a meteorologist to know which way the wind is blowing;
If you wish to swat the fascist insect which preys on the blood of the working person;
Then I shall shed tears for your arrest, and claim your innocence, and decry the injustice of their courts, and collect money for your bail and defence, and write to you in prison; and, if you are that unlucky, parade your picture with a 4000pt black border; but,
In private, and to my comrades, I will tell them the midnight stories of the failure of the Red Brigades, and warn them yet again,
That the liberation of the working class is the task of that class itself

Not of a party
Not of a sect
Not of a union, and
Not of a bloc, but
of that class itself.

4:51pm: The specific failures of the conceit of community organisation
Yesterday we dealt with the failure of conscious organisations, or "Parties". Today we'll deal with the failure of community organisations, or "Movements." Parties are readily susceptable to capture by reactionary non-class elements: the management, intellectuals and in some particularly peverse historical cases, the bourgeoisie. Movements are susceptable to something quite different: to capture by the reactionary elements of our own class.

Similarly, parties with a broad base are conservatised by the desires of the most reactionary elements of the party; whereas parties with a small base rapidly become irrelevant to the class. Movements face a similar problem, either of becoming the handmaidens of capitalist consumption, or the spinsters of lifestylism.

While we could readily name working class movements which cradled every one of yesterday's party examples, let us restrict ourselves to a few cases. The movement for a rural proletarian revolution in Vietnam 1920-1980; the movement for a "fair go" in Australia 1880-1984; and, the movement for an Italian working class revolution 1925-1980. Again, there are two examples here which can be quickly dismissed.

(and being provincial or parochial as I am, yet not nationalist, the example we will deal with at length is *again* the Australian one. Learn some of your own revolutionary history you Aussie bastards, stop "going overseas" this isn't "Split En Zed" and you aren't going to spend "Six months on a leaky boat.)

Thus we can dismiss the case of a rural proletarian revolution in Vietnam 1920-1980 by saying the movement was captured by a hostile non-class party and defeated. And we can dismiss the Italian movement by noting that the movement was attacked successfully by the state and defeated (*NOT* on the field of battle, in the field of production and consumer goods.) These both require more exposition. In the Vietnamese case the French produced a rural unskilled proletariat, which reacted much like unskilled proletariats in non-democracies everywhere: they fucked shit up. This movement was captured by the Viet Minh, a nationalist Bolshevik inspired party of managers, intellectuals, former aristocrats and bourgeoisie, and then by the National Front for Liberation, a nationalist Bolshevik inspired party of managers, intellectuals former aristocrats and bourgeoisie. Two revolutions occured simultaneously in Vietnam. 1) A revolution of the entire society against French, and US-supported Vietnamese capitalism in the interests of a management elite and, 2) A revolution of the rural proletariat against French, and US-supported Vietnamese capitalism, and the economy and society of Vietnamese nationalist managerialism in the interests of the rural peasantry. (Again, see my next post for details). We tried cooperation with fuckwits, and we lost hard, because *on the day* the fuckwits were stronger. The only way to have been stronger than the fuckwits in Vietnam would have been to be *more organised* *more conscious* and *more structured* than them, of course in libertarian manners rather than hierarchical ones. The Vietnamese rural workers needed a party or a union.

Secondly, we can dismiss the Italian case. We fought the State and the... State won. Now the Italian movement was strong. It was so strong that Communist Party members in 1946 had to be convinced to put down their guns and avoid a revolution now. It was so strong that the children of Communists and *SOCIALISTS* joined armed factions (predominantly Maoist, some anarchist) in the belief that the revolution *was* happening. Yes, the movement was so strong that the State had to enact elements of the US anti-Warsaw pact "stay behind" force, and arm fascists with weapons caches intended to fight a guerilla war agains the Soviet Union. The movement was as strong as it could have possibly been. There were enough newspapers. There were enough true believers. There were enough social centres. There were enough microscopic organisations. What there *wasn't* after 1972, was a conscious organisation planning the libertarian response and *offensives* against the state. Italy lacked a democratic, libertarian method of coordinating our own strengths and powers.

(more on the Australian case tomorrow...)

7:14pm: My analysis of the RSFSR
"Non-workplace Soviets 1917-19: a front of progressive management and the working class: succeeded for the management elements, rear guard actions for social control fought until late 20s by workers, and for working conditions until 1940. (Both times defeated by a capitulation by the leadership of the Soviet working class)."

Is goddamned terse, lets unpack.

In 1917 two types of soviets were established:
Workplace Soviets (Factory Councils): comprised of workers, supervised factory production
Non-Workplace Soviets: comprised of the bourgeois, intellectual, petit-bourgeois and labour aristocracy parties who viewed themselves as progressive.

In late 1917, a large number of Parties left the Petrograd (capital city) Soviet over the policies of the Bolshevik Party and Left-SR faction of the SR party. In regional cities (including Moscow) this wasn't true. Generally pro-revolutionary members of the Mensheviks, Right SRs, anarchists, etc quietly became independents or joined the Bolsheviks (that peace-land-bread program was a winner).

So there are two tendencies at work: those in favour of the interests of a managerial section of the population; and those in favour of the interests of the working class section of the population. (Particularly after the Left-SR pro-war attempted coup and the Tambov uprising which called for a return to capitalism, nobody cared about the peasantry, except for the armed rural proletarian movement in the Ukraine).

Even Emma Goldman (a petit bourgeois by her own admission) saw the situation in Russia in 1919 as one requiring management, her main dispute with Petrograd authorities was about their inability to let her begin managing workers. (Its in /Living My Life/ people). Even Victor Serge didn't dispute the principle of management. Kollontai and a group of Bolsheviks who were most heavily influenced by the workplace Soviets *do* dispute this principle in an organised fashion, but lose. So it ain't cut and dried, now is it?

When the Bolshevik party got "1 man management of the factories" introduced *that's* when we lost as a class. (Read Kollontai's /Red Love/ for this). But we didn't lose everything. Workers had much higher living conditions than before the war, particularly in terms of dismissal, job selection, and class mobility. (It was easier for workers to enter the new managerial class, than to become petit-bourgeois or bourgeois before the revolution).

Then in the 1930s the leadership of the Soviet working class... well, lets talk about what that means,
"You mean the Bolshevik party, right?" Nope. The *party* wasn't the leadership of the Soviet Working class. It was an external institution comprised of workers, peasants, intellectuals, "former persons", people who used to be workers or peasants before they got a party or government job, etc... ("former persons" = old aristocrats, bourgeoisie, petit-bourgeois)
"So you mean the official trade unions, right?" Nope. The *trade unions* weren't the leadership of the working class. They played an important role in providing social services like healthcare, workplace food, leisure activities, and the leadership of the unions might have been highly paid and been able to control a great number of workers, but they weren't the *leadership*.

The leadership of the Soviet working class were the workers who were liked, trusted and listened to by other workers. They might be Party members, or not; they might be Trade Union officials, or not; but they were the ones workers turned to, and turned their ears to, in making up their mind.

In 1929 the faction in the Bolshevik Party and Government around Stalin quietly put forward a few purges of foreign specialists and "former persons" who were in positions of management in the factories. The *popular response* by workers and the leadership of the workers encouraged the Party. When forced agricultural extraction was suggested, the people manning the trucks and carrying the rifles to steal every cow but the last from Ukranians, to steal even the seed grain, were ordinary workers who believed in this. After all, the food supply was being cut short (a genuine experience for urban workers in this period), and when on forced extractions in the countryside they could see the "wealth" of food not coming to the cities.

Yup, ordinary workers were complicit in and supported the purges for their own class reasons. The purges should be seen as an alliance of the Party management and working class against non-Party and non-Stalin management and the peasantry. At the same time as the purges the size, wealth, living conditions and working conditions of the Soviet Working class expanded massively during the purge / 5 year plan period. For evidence look at the 500% workforce turn over rate in basic industries in capital cities. You could move from the country side, start as an unskilled worker, and then three weeks later move to a better, more highly paid, job on the basis of your skill. In this period the "norm" or expected piece work wages, were actually fair.

And then the second self-betrayal occurred in 1941. In order to defend the revolution, or defend the nation, or merely survive the genocide, Soviet workers accepted a cut in their living and working conditions. The cut in their working conditions was never restored to them. Having lost their political power in the 1920s, they sacrificed their industrial power in the 1940s.

6:41pm: The specific failures of the conceit of conscious organisation
The conceit of conscious organisation covers a large number of structural situations. One could point to the Paris Commune, the Australian IWW of ~1908-1925, The role of the non-workplace Soviets in 1917-19, the CNT-FAI / POUM, the role of the Viet Minh/NFL/PRG in Vietnam, the Autonomia movement up to the mid 1970s.

Lets break these down into class terms:
Paris Commune, a front of the working class and progressive management: failed due to external military strength and an inability to create links with provincial France. Embodied the entire labour movement within Paris at that moment.
Australian IWW: working class fragment of a broader labour movement. Failed when the context of the broader labour movement shifted. Only grew during a period of working class assault on capitalism.
Non-workplace Soviets 1917-19: a front of progressive management and the working class: succeeded for the management elements, rear guard actions for social control fought until late 20s by workers, and for working conditions until 1940. (Both times defeated by a capitulation by the leadership of the Soviet working class).

(Obviously if you have big problems with my modes of analysis, the entire analysis will be irrelevant for you, dates and times we can bicker).

The interesting context here is that movements can fail for workers in one of three ways: outright defeat, defeat due to irrelevance to the class, defeat by other class forces. We can immediately remove outright defeat and defeat by other class forces from needing analysis: they obviously demonstrate that the "conscious organisation" was insufficiently prepared to win. This leads into the question: what do we do *until* the revolution comes. How do we "prepare to win". Engaging the history of the Australian labour movement 1880-1925 is *very* useful here.

Australia's labour movement was a revolutionary and progressive force up to the 1890s. It was gutted by a series of badly fought strikes during an impending depression. This included armed state action against striking workers. The movement up until this time had been organic and unitary, it had been white, prole, union, and able to maintain the quite different labour interests within itself.

As a result of repression, the labour movement turned to parliament, and it did so under the guidance of one of the largest general unions, the Australian Workers Union, which was white, rural and increasingly conservative. (Between foundation and 1900 the AWU moved from supporting wildcats to a rather conservative nationalist position.) The Australian Labor Party was formed, effectively, as a wing of the AWU. The early days of the Labor Party were moulded by the elite of the union movement. Unlike today the union elite were usually ordinary workers at the peak of their profession who were thrust forward by the movement itself. They were generally self-educated, white and male.

Ideologies were largely irrelevant to the Australian labour movement as such. There were miniscule Social Democratic and Anarchist movements in the capital cities which were essentially talk shops. The largest ideological movements of the day were the anti-religious Humanist and Rationalist societies, who competed with religious speakers in one of the few non-church respectable weekend events: of visiting public speakers at a speakers corner.

Additionally both the ALP, and the unions were miniscule compared to the largest section of the Australian labour movement: self-help retail cooperatives. Labour movement activists primarily thought of themselves as part of an Australasian (Australian and New Zealand) movement of white, British, workers. The most active portion of the new labour movement were the Trades Hall Councils, places were the leadership of local (city / district) unions met and debated a wide variety of ideas.

The IWW grew in conditions where all these forces were on the rise; but its particular strategy drew out the most revolutionary conclusions of the day. IWW influenced unions (see the Australasian Meat Industries Employees Union) fought on industrial grounds, unionised non-British people, and fought for job-control and site-control (workers' self management). It was incubated within registered and unregistered trade unions which were growing. It relied on access to working-class cultural institutions like trades halls, workers clubs and associations, speakers corners to put itself across. The IWW's activists were 16-30 year old single males; the "expendable" members of the class; who lived disrupted hobo lives tramping across Australian on the cheap on the bohemian edge of acceptability (sound familiar my student activist friends?). And, when attacked, it relied on support from the left factions of the ALP (which split over the war). The IWW was so successful that the official trade unions were debating the formation of a single union entity (under AWU control) towards the end of the period.

However, this occurred within a context of a differentiation of ideology within the Australian labour movement. Concepts like ALP-left and ALP-right emerge at this moment. The settling of official trade unions into left and right wing alignments comes about at this time (generally due to either strong Leadership ideology like the AWU, or due to membership alignment, such as with the Dockworkers). The early stirrings of a Moscow-aligned Australian Communist Party occurred during this period.

So it turns out that the self-conscious organisation of committed revolutionaries relied on a growing movement of a *community* of the working class in the moment of its general and differentiated emancipation. No local "workers consumption coops"? No IWW. No local unions? No IWW. No trades hall? No IWW. No Rationalist bookstores? No IWW. No Humanist speakers corner? No IWW. The IWW inherited thirty years of working class community building during some of the worst recessions in Australian capitalism's history. (Does this sound familiar yet comrades?). And more importantly: the institutions the IWW relied on were *NOT* those smashed at the beginning of the period. They were new, spontaneously developed organisations. The workers coops were *not* the self-help insurance groups prior to 1880. The new registered unions were *not* the craft unions of 1880.

Then again, the IWW never convinced a significant portion of workers of its rightness outside AMEIU areas and the leaderships (labour aristocrats) of the registered unions. When push came to shove, the IWW's leadership and reserve leadership and third reserve leadership went to gaol over slanderous charges and anti-war effort. And there might have been a big rail strike in NSW, but nothing as advanced as the Seattle Soviet emerged. Why? Limited appeal of revolutionary politics outside of the "moment of revolution itself." As a revolutionary anti-war position became irrelevant to Australian workers, as the economy tanked and wins on the industrial front became impossible, the IWW failed and died. So did the registered trade union movement (but it had more fat to cut into during the lean 20 years of 1919-1939). At the end of the day, conscious revolutionaries organisations are created *by* our class *during* periods when we can actually win. Otherwise they remain microscopic and useless.

So if a self-conscious organisation relied, fundamentally, on a cultural movement to sustain it and develop it; why aren't we out building cultural movements and organisations regardless of their politics? Maybe its time to look at the specific failings of community organisation.

7:24pm: Lets review a few simple conceptions of how revolution is accomplished.

1) The conceit of conscious organisation.
Typifying mode / structure: Party
Requirements: hyper organised self-conscious class organisation, semi-militarised (yes, even the Social Democrats count)
Idea of revolution: accidental failure on the part of the ruling class followed by Winter palace
Metaphor for idea: orgasmic fuck in the pub toilets after a hook-up
Typical mode of failure: defeated by state; or, becomes a state and defeats itself

2) The conceit of a community of organisation
Typifying mode / structure: bowling club^W^Whippy commune^W^Waffinity group
Requirements: hyper acculturated long-term community
Idea of revolution: long term social change followed by, I dunno
Metaphor for idea: lesbian bed-death
Typical mode of failure: fails to get off the ground (like small business, most collectives die in the first year), becomes accommodated / incorporated by the state apparatus.

3) Do we actually need a conception?
Typifying mode / structure: whatever's useful right now
Requirements: requirements aren't necessary, its happening
Idea of revolution: none
Metaphor for idea: full-frontal lobotomy
Typical mode of failure: any time other than when people are storming the winter palace / transforming the basic relations of social being. There's no guide to action here.

A hundred years since Gramsci and have we actually gotten anywhere? We're still on war of manouvre and war of position to use his masculine imagery. And in the every day praxis of Australian society, while some of us do very good work (lets pat our own backs), we can't articulate how protest (x), or collective (y), or microscopic organization (z) advances the interests of our class.

Worse: we get caught up in sectarianism. And I'm not about to go into details such as flavours of anarchism, libertarian communism, or autonomism, or whatever flavour of the month being a self-conscious worker is. I'm talking about the big ones: sectarianism towards the trots, greens, labourites, life-stylists, suburban blue collar boat-owning breeding heterosexuals, and white collar liberal party voters. I'm not asking you to buy a boat, take out a home-loan (At Aussie: _we'll_ save yer). Nor am I asking you to change your behaviour to be acceptable to these people. But they *are* part of our class, and if you're going to agree that "The liberation of the working class is the task of [a small self-selected aristocracy of inner-capital-city vegan life-stylists / overeducated class-war sympathisers]" then the central committee of the organisation of your choice is that way.

Lets examine the *specific failures* of the two main ideas of what a revolution is in my next post. We might not get a successful revolutionary strategy, but we might get a suitable *temporary* strategy and justification of our actions.

11:39am: Exegesis and Eisegesis
Exegesis is telling a story, from narrative information.
Eisegesis is creating a story, from normative information.

This is important.

I'm rereading Leviticus in a sceptically annotated KJV version.

( http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com also contains an English translation* of the Quran and Book of Mormon. *= yes, it isn't *a* Quran because its in English. )

( for amusement also: http://www.godhatesshrimp.com )

Now my eisegesis is based on a normative understanding of pre-feudal slave-state or "oriental"-state formation in the near East. Leviticus is a tax manual by a centralised Priesthood (in alliance with a subject king) which aims to subject a series of outlying villages to a central rule. It is a taxation manual. It reads damn interesting about pre-Temple jewish worship then. Ie: local slaughters, common male-male homosexuality and incest (why ban it so much if it wasn't being practiced?).

So applying the techniques used on Medieval church law to Leviticus produces *interesting* results.

This ain't an exegetical work, because I'm assuming Israel was first formed in the "oriental" mode of production, and it carries my marxist baggage and assumption of pre Israel jewish worship as much closer to Baal style standard near-east worship. Your exegesis may vary.

2:47pm: Why does Dracula like code-breakers?

Because they decrypted him.

2:59pm: My scarf has arrived
Hooray, my scarf has arrived!

It looks good when worn!

Yay! I can knit for others!

:)

4:41am: Canca Update: Biopsy
So I got a letter from the hospital.

The brief is:

Nut was cancerous, it was a classic seminoma, creamy in colour. It wasn't penetrating too many membranes, so it wasn't spreading fast. The spermatic cord was clear.

So yeah, onwards comrades, onwards to RadioTherapy.

Better fifels through science! Let us harness the power of the atom for peace!

Edit: You might not realise why I didn't post for a week, I was taking a holiday from worry.

4:18am: Canca Update: Post surgery
Canca: the new trendy name for Cancer, bringing the taste of out of control cellular reproduction to a new generation.

Friday 6.30am, arrive at Perioperative for 7am.
7am Strip, get taken down
7.30am the theatres close due to lack of anesthetists (three simultaneous emergency surgeries)
7.31am Cute Korean nurse in pink cap pulls up to drag me off, "You're mine, lets go!"
7.35am Theatre coordinator makes me a special case, and promises me the first free slot.
7.40am Back up to Perioperative
7.40am-11am Snooze, parents chat and stuff
11.30am Slot opens! Down to theatre
11.45-12.30pm Chats with cute Nurse, Anesthetists etc.
12.00pm-12.30pm Chat with anesthetist. He cannulates me. It doesn't hurt but I get pins and needles in the hands, and begin sweating all over.
12.31pm Anesthetist says, "I'm just giving you a sedative, tell me when it takes effect..."

Afternoon unknown time.
I wake up to my father stroking my forehead with his thumb.
Sleep.
Unremembered conversation with Indrajit my surgeon (parents remember contents)
Sleep.
Unremembered conversation with my specialist (parents remember contents)
Sleep.
Eat food.
Sleep.
Anna Aniston visits. I'm awake enough to receive notice of the various flowers I've got, and all the kind thoughts, and all the kind of thoughs of people who wanted to visit, but I'd asked not to.
Sleep.
Pain.
Pain relief (forte. Morphine was offered, but I didn't want it).
Disturbed sleep.
Pain level friday: freshly kicked balls.


Saturday
Wake, eat, BP, temp, heart rate.
Knit for a bit.
Chat with parents.
Sleep.
Wake, eat, BP, temp, heart rate.
Knit for a bit.
Chat with parents.
Sleep.
Talk with further distant family. Talk with AnnaAniston again.
Wake, eat, BP, temp, heart rate.
Knit for a bit.
Chat with parents.
Phone call from Dig, yay MOOers!
Sleep.
Pain level Saturday: recently kicked balls.

Sunday.
Wake, eat, BP, temp, heart rater.
Knit for a bit.
Chat with parents.
Chat with Aunt.
Eat. Chat with nurses. Get discharged.
Pain level Sunday (Today): like someone kicked me in the balls ten minutes ago.

I'm getting better, walking farther, less tired. Today I could stand upright without pain. And I walked quite a distance in the hospital and to get my anti-biotics from the pharmacist.

Also: YAY PERIOPERATIVE, YOU ROCK. YAY CUTE KOREAN NURSES. YAY 7W2: THANKS GUYS.

4:47pm: Cancer update: Surgical date
I've got a date.

14 hours time for perioperative.

YES.

Friday 7am AEST.

GOOD BYE HAROLT HOLT. IT WAS SHITHOUSE, BUT YOU'LL BE GONE FUCKER.

7:18pm: Fuck rights. Rights are given, Freedoms are taken: Sexual freedom starts now with Direct Action.
[MEME]

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?" -Ernest Gaines

We would like to know who really believes in gay rights on livejournal. There is no bribe of a miracle or anything like that. If you truly believe in gay rights, then repost this and title the post as "Gay Rights". If you don't believe in gay rights, then just ignore this. Thanks.

[/MEME]

Why is it that, as a culture, we are really uncomfortable seeing two men two women and some unnamablely gendered people all holding hands and all holding guns?

No revolution without homosexual revolution!

I would like to know who else watches "Raspberry Reich" and enjoys both the politics and the pornography? There is no bribe of a miracle or anything like that. Just hard fucking gay revolutionary porn. (If straight sex offends, avoid the first 20 minutes). If you truly believe in revolution, then start having revolutionary sex with yourself and/or lover[s]. If you don't believe in revolution, then fuck you. Thanks.

12:10pm: In Re: Dr Who Scarves
Dr Who Scarves are a moderately interesting knitting problem, mainly in the area of conformance to a previous knit pattern. Particularly in an age when spectrums of yarn are unavailable in wool, and obviously, 30 years of difference in dye chemical fabrication and technique.

However, my current fascinations are with 50s gothic, pirate hats, scarves for friends, Lain Bear Hat, blankets, booties, etc.

So here's the deal.

If you want a Dr Who scarf:
1) You pick a season
2) You talk to me
3) I only do it in wool
a) This means I'll discuss the wool choices and spectrums (probably using a web supplier) and get your acceptance of the colour conformance prior to purchase (charged time, see below).
4) I take as long as I like (and at the moment I am committed to scarves-for-friends)
a) I'll say this again: I'll take as long as I like. But I'll give you updates.
5) My rates:
a) Cost of materials
b) Equipment allowance of $10 per unit
c) $16.46 p/h including time spent purchasing wool, equipment, finishing up and posting. Consultation and discussion prior to acceptance is not chargable if reasonable
d) Postage costs (you pick the method)
e) Payment received prior to postage on proof (digicam) of your scarf's status as complete. If you like, I'll hold it up against today's SMH or something :)
6) Revolutionary trade unionists should note that $16.46 p/h is the casual rate under the NSW Textiles Award for skill level 1 (lowest grade non-trainee / apprentice) (I'm not undercutting my fellow workers)
7) $16.46 p/h is subject to variation from time to time dependent upon amendments to the NSW Basic wage and/or the NSW Textiles award.

5:30pm: Cancer update: surgery cancelled
Surgery cancelled: Doctor didn't get to me.

Who knows when I'll be cut now?

9:53am: Don't expect to see me again before Thursday evening my time, I'll be in hospital and they don't have connections!

6:35pm: Hat I made
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fifel/257104493

Cancer I have
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fifel/257104487

12:28pm: Filk: Mars on the River Volga
Eastern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the steppe and blood on the root,
Red bodies swinging in Soviet breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from gallows trees.

Pastoral scenes of German clout,
Fresh piss and shit and a twisted mouth,
Answer: Bread and salt? or a PPSh?
The sweet sick smell of burnt out flesh.

Bury this fruit, in Baba Yar dust,
Burn this fruit, in a Lithuanian crush,
Bake this fruit, in Polish plots,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

11:22am: Cancer update: Surgery
On Tuesday 3/10/06 at 1PM (AEST, GMT+10) I go into perioperative at the hospital.
I'll be in Tuesday and Wednesday night and discharged on Thursday before 10AM (AEST, GMT+10)

The procedure is relatively simple.

General anaesthetic.
Drip.
Anti-vomit airway tube.
They shall incise my pubis.
Then pull the teste up through my body by its spermatic cord.
At this stage they will freeze a portion of the tumerous section.
Biopsy the frozen section.
And get a pathologist's report.
If the pathologist says that anything's dodgy they shall move onto:
Orchidectomy
At this point they will biopsy the teste and the spermatic cord.
Then push a prosthesis into place.
And sew me up.
And then I awaken. They remove the airway tube.

Hopefully either that day, or Wednesday I shall see the surgeons or an oncologist regarding diagnosis and further treatment.

11:17am: Filk: They have to win *every*single*time*. We only have to win *once*.
[slow block beat]

Well I'm a revolutionary with flowers in my hair
In '56
and '68
Our revolution was almost there

But our class did lose
And bosses still own our share

Until we win we'll be class warriors
with flowers in our hair.

10:00am: Cancer update, morning 29 September
Today I have a conference in the afternoon with the anesthetist, a nurse and a surgical-assistant doctor.

It'll go over a bunch of stuff.

After that I get to ring to find my time of admission.

2:07pm: "Silos" by Phil Ochs
In the Silos we sit and we wait for the bell
that will tell us our masters have damned us to hell
then the buttons we'll press and the missles, they'll fly,
and what will we think as we're waiting to die

We sit here each day my buddy and me
and check and re-check all is as it should be
and the buttons we press are apart far enough
that no one man goes crazy and sets the thing off

I'm just doing my job a man's got to eat
there's bills to pay ad there's taxes to meet
and it isn't my doing that flexes my wrist
I'm just a cog on a wheel who am I to resist

We sit here each day my buddy and I
and try not to think of the million's who'll die
but they live in my dreams and their screams fill my ears
till I wake in a sweat and their eyes dissapear

and where do I go for blessed relief
for sleep without nightmares and days without grief
these pills that i take and the whiskey and beer
give me someplace to hide from the pain and the fear

I'm just doing my job a man's gotta live
there's church to attend and donations to give
And i won't let you blame me when the order comes through,
I'm just one man and I've got a job to do

I dare not confess to my girl or my friends
these doubts that have or the fear that descends
When I think what my country is asking of me
Do the others have doubts? Do they see what I see?

And what if we couldn't when the final bell rang
and all other silos decided the same
What if no buttons were pressed and no missles flew
would we be heroes or traitors to you

so I just do my job and I try not to think
and I hope to Christ no one brings us to the brink
And i check and recheck and get lost in routine
then I pop one more pill as I stare at the screen

In the silos we sit and we wait for the bell
that will tell us our masters have damned us to hell
then the buttons we'll press and the missles they'l fly,
and what will we think as we're waiting to die

11:16am: DOI!
Thanks to Trisk! and my dad. DOI: I don't know how to use securing stuff.

11:02am: Cancer update
23 September 2006: Had a day with my parents. Talked with my mum for most of the afternoon. Got some new bedding.
24 September 2006: Chilled at home
25 September 2006: CT Scan of my abdomen, chest, groin.

My mum came up and spent the day with me helping me through this, yay mum.

A CT Scanner is an upright white doughnut with a large bed which slides in and out of it.
You need to drink one medium solution.
Then get cannulated.
And have another medium injected into you.
My veins are difficult to hit. The dude did it well.
The flush of the second medium into my blood stream caused a flush like being full of hot bath water.
Especially in my neck and genitals
Like something out of Burroughs.
Then the bed automatically moves forwards and backwards through the doughnut, telling you to hold your breath.
On the last scan I couldn't quite hold. It was okay though.
Within the doughnut the X-ray device rotates, spinning around your body.

I am not looking at the CTs until after surgery and diagnosis.

26 September 2006: Got a surgical slot, next Tuesday (3 October 2006)

27 September 2006 (TODAY): Went to GP to discuss pain, which is just me noticing pain, and referred pain from the swelling. Going to pick-up my hospital admissions information.

10:29am: How to eat dinner
This post is all about how to eat dinner.

I recommend you read /American Psycho/ by Brett Easton-Ellis. This book describes exactly and aptly how NOT to eat dinner. Do not go to a name resteraunt in Zaggits on the basis of stars. Do not hate your dinner companions. Do not loathe the act of eating itself. Do not seek to get the act over with so you can pay.

Instead, now that you have had an example of how not to eat, you may choose to begin eating under the tutilage of someone who eats dinner like an Italian. (There are other techniques, but these should be considered "advanced").

1) Catch public transport to an area with many resteraunts about an hour / half an hour before the sun sets. Doing this with your Brother or another close companion makes the experience better. If you live in Chippendale/Darlington in Sydney, I recommend the 438 from the bus-stop near Kinkos towards Leichhardt for Italian.

2) Discuss items of conversation on the bus. Get off the bus at the bottom of your resteraunt district. By now the light should be in deep evening or "magic time."

3) Converse further, roll up the street looking at menus and restraunts, keeping the "best" or "most suitable" restraunt in mind.* Don't stop until you reach the end of the district, *or* half of the capacity of your legs (to make it back to that cool place at the beginning of the streets).

4) By now the light *is* in magic hour. You are at a place you want to eat. You _sit_outside_. There is no point in eating without the capacity to see the public antics of the world, and to be seen and witnessed by the public. Yes, you are that cool. Water should be provided.

5) Order a small drink to open your appetite. It doesn't need to be alcoholic. You are clearing your pallete. If you smoke, and your custom allows smoking on the street outside restraunts, please smoke. Peruse the menu for "Primo" and "Secondi" (entree and mains). You will be eating two courses if you are eating in the style I am describing.

6) Order things which match one another. Parmesan eggplant, followed by roast goat.

7) Eat, discuss the food, the street, the people you are with, yourself, abstract topics. Its all good mate.

8) Afterwards, sit and if you smoke, smoke. Keep discussing. Now is the time to settle into the meal. You are full, but you really need to continue. Discussion takes over now from food. Food should now be like discussion. Light. We are talking small desserts like gellato. A spirit like ouzo. A coffee like espresso.

9) You can and should stretch the meal out to three or four hours. Enjoy it. Deeply enjoy it.

10) Pay! Enjoy paying! You have enjoyed your meal. It will almost certainly be less expensive than you estimated!

11) When the moment comes, it is time to go. Pay, stroll a kilometer or two to walk it off. Then catch a bus or taxi home.


* It is possible to eat inexpensively this way too you know. Either restrict yourself to cheap items and avoid having drinks, or any more courses; OR, go to a cafe / eating shop. Cheap food outlets can be just as good if not better. I cite "Won Ton Noodle Inn" King St Newtown. $5 wonton soups + meat or veg which will fill you up in themselves.