Victory Coffee

Thinking of hedging your bets? A little sick feeling at the thought of the leftist bunglers in the White House in taking on a determined foe that does not embrace incompetence?

The Ballad of Mister Cucumber

My two nephews, Gluten and Spud, often bring home books from the school library to further their studies.  This rainy Saturday the boys are getting their homework done so that in the afternoon we can head out into the woods and hunt hitchhikers along the nature trail that stretches from Erin to Hillsburgh.  This weekend they are doing a project on Diversity, for mathematics class.  To help them, they have stolen a number of picture filled books (from the 'early readers' section) for a source of pictures to be cut out and then pasted into their Diversity project.  I care about their education, so I, Fenris Badwulf, am helping them.  One of the sacrificed books is titled The Ballad of Mister Cucumber.  It is a politically correct book.  I am going to share it with you before I take the straight razor to it.

This is the Ballad of  Mister Cucumber.

Your first clue that Mister Cucumber is politically correct is that Mister Cucumber is not a cucumber green, he is pink.  There is only one line of print per page (in a large, low literacy friendly font, to be expected for books for low literacy readers passed on to an Ontario high school).  Mister Cucumber is pink, and is surrounded by happy, smiling vegetation only found on acid trips to gay bars on drag night.

I am lonely

The next page features the pink Mister Cucumber addressing the reader.  All of the other plants, snails, slugs, worms and other life forms of the acid consciousness of the illustrator are all sad.  There are tears at the eye of Mister Cucumber.

Will you be my friend?

Page three of the narrative and the socialist theme is moving in on my wallet and property rights with all the silence of a constrictor snake towards a sleeping baby.  Why develop discernment?  Who is this pink cucumber that wants my friendship?  I am filled with questions, but the politically correct brainwashing document wants me to just deed the gift of friendship to any who merely ask.  How about the author of this tome, the illustrator, the publisher?  Have they made friends with the pink cucumber?

My neck is sore

Page four.  I do not know how to interpret this.  As an experiment, I used my falsetto voice and quoted these four lines to Mrs. Badwulf.  She punched me in the kidney.  I asked her why, and she said you know why.  Well, I do not know why.  And there are no more pages to the Ballad, as some mischief maker has torn those pages from the book.  This is the mystery of the lonely pink cucumber with a sore neck, as found in the abandoned reading section for high school students who perform far sub-par to high school reading level.

Somewhere, out there, one of you has page five and the answers we seek.

I Fenris Badwulf, wrote this.  I care.

Ruining Christmas for the Happy Holidays

Like most caring Canadians, Mrs. Badwulf and I give generously to charity. We give our time, without reservation. Mrs. Badwulf is an accounting professional, so owning and running and profiting from running a non-profit is a snap to her flying fingers. Also, we accept wages, bonuses, commissions, and expenses as meager recompense for our leadership role in this caring crusade. It is amazing the funding from state sources that can be tapped ... unleashed with a few simple misdirections on paper, some staged photographs, and trivial examples of wishful thinking.

Charles C. Charlatan the Third is our fictitious leader. He symbolizes the important work done by the organization. All of our volunteers receive recommendations signed in his name. A hushed cult of the personality exists around his shadowy non-existence. His voice mail is always active, and Charles responds to emails, writes correspondence, and occasionally leaves voice messages. His influence on the charity is everywhere, as if to make up for his never existing. His signature appears on grant applications, appeals for donations, and requests for funding. He even leaves fingerprints, if it comes down to a forensic audit.

 William Monkey, Chartered Accountant. Billy, as he is known to the staff, is the second key fictitious member of the management team. His signature appears on every document, a veritable bread crumb along the audit trail. He has an office, a business card, and an email address. His invisible shoulders bear the heavy responsibility of being responsible in the event of tax audit or police investigation. Impeachable documents exist proving his timely exit from Toronto to places overseas. Everybody loves Billy, and nobody would suspect him of fraud, larceny, or bunko. As Mrs. Badwulf and I clink our champagne glasses together, we share a smile and practice our response: Where did the money go, detectives?

Christmas is a time of giving, and give they will. Give it up, those confiscated tens of dollars; give it up into our clutches! These progressives are engaged in a value for value exchange: they get their white guilt stroked. Oh, the touching images of waifs, of tears on childrens' cheeks, and gnarly lap dogs sad without a bone. There are keepsakes for the elite guardians of other peoples money: a touching letter written in pidgin English saying Thank You, a knotted doll made by a blind girl, or a paw print on a bit of kraft paper. How the tears flow; and then the zeros on the check. They give, I spend, and you pay.

 Down in the basement of Fenris Badwulf live the people who do the actual work. Volunteers have spotty effort levels. Volunteers are just looking for volunteer hours for various statist requirements: high school graduation, corporate ballsack licking, or parole requirements. Nobody is a volunteer down in the basement. Over time, their skin grows pale: like winter in Toronto, there is no sunlight down there. Their hair is patchy; maybe they should wash ... but tap water contributes to Global Warming, so it is better, Gaia-wise, to let them scratch and stink. They make great telemarketers these basement citizens. They will close a donation to get a commission of a cup of rice, a spoon of beans, or a square of cardboard to sleep upon. The most depraved degradations are their familiar companions. How else to further the agenda of raising money to fight the demons of the age: Global Warming, Fracking, or Fag Awareness? These former people never celebrated Christmas, so taking the Christ of Christmas and making them agents of the Happy Holidays only seemed right, er, left.

 I know you care. You care about the Thrall-Canadians in my basement. Send me your money. You will get a tax receipt. Ask for the brochure about pro-rating your giving to be in friendly proportion to your tax receipting. Tell me what favors and gifts should be showered upon the basement dwellers. I know you care.

 I, Fenris Badwulf, wrote this. I care.

How to bend people to your will using the Tarot

I would encourage you to distance yourself from the limiting thought that the Tarot can only be used to read the future. Instead, realize that you can use it to shape the future.

In order to improve the accuracy and clarity of your views of the future, I suggest this method. Visualize a future time when your goal has been achieved. Make a pact with yourself that, in the future, when you have achieved this particular goal, that you will formulate the thoughts about how long, what resources, what skills, and what events would be useful, advantageous, to know in the present. Of course, when you do succeed, carry thorough with your pact. Transmit to the past what would be useful to know.

How to bend people to your will using the Tarot

11. Having had some business with the Major Arcana we can now turn our attention to the lesser or Minor Arcana. You will be using the Minor Arcana, of course, in your work to bend the universe to your ends.

The three card phrase. The Kabbalah hints at the concept of pairing and grouping together of letters (Major Arcana) to form more complex concepts. The same can be done with the lesser. I assume you are familiar with some of the basic concepts. For example, there is a progression from Ace to Ten, a natural flow. Let us utilize the triad of Ace, Nine, Ten...

There are some sixty four combinations of Ace - Nine - Ten. I suggest you avoid the selections that use the suit of Swords (er, spades) for now. For material wealth, those with the Ace of Pentacles are effective; likewise Cups for romance and fertility; and Wands for wisdom. Keep track of what you are doing in your journal to fine tune the results.

How to bend people to your will using the Tarot

Having done some serious work bringing Saturn into equilibrium one may now move forward to pick from the fruit of the trees in the Garden of Eden. Which fruit to pick? Is the fruit ripe? How do you prepare the fruit: peeled? squeezed? or in a dish of creme? Indeed. You are presented with the riddle of the Sphinx: which would you have: Power? Wealth? Beauty? Wisdom? You are no slouch, you know this story. The correct answer is always Wisdom. And for wisdom, you must bring Mercury and Jupiter into equilibrium. This is the Magician and the Wheel of Fortune.

This operation works best if, somehow, The Hierophant can be worked into the tableau. Are either of your natal planets, Mercury or Jupiter, resident in Taurus or Scorpio? This is not the case for everyone. So, let Fenris Badwulf tell you how to do this ... take out the tarot trumps for the signs where your Mercury and Jupiter reside, as well as the Magician and the Wheel of Fortune. Construct the two by two matrix, like before. Something like Mercury/Capricorn in the top row, and Cancer/Jupiter on the bottom. Now, to work in the Hierophant you must place the card beside the tableau to the left, then above, then below, then to the right. You can vary the above below right left. This time you must study the tableau four times. Record your observations in your journal.

Mercury is the messenger between the Conscious and Subconscious mind. The Subconscious mind has communication with the collective; and the collective has layers of its own (and messengers, of course, between the layers). If you want access to wisdom, which is in the gift of Jupiter, then you want to have conscious access to it. The Hierophant gives you sharper hearing when you listen for wisdom.

How to bend people to your will using the Tarot

9. Bringing Saturn into Equilibrium is a time consuming process, but worth the effort. You can look back on your struggles and laugh. You can shake your fist at the World, for you have overcome the lesser challenges of nature and situation. Re-read your notes in your journal. There you will find fresh insight, and you will find your journal entries to be a continuing source of enlightenment from now on.

It takes a full lunar month for your insights to become firmly installed in your life. In this time, you can contemplate the methods of actively writing the future, rather than being a passive reader.

So, we have all used the lesser arcana of the Tarot deck to predict the future. Some variant of arrangement of cards is used: a Celtic Cross, Gypsy Circle, or something. Here are some elementary rules to changing the future, your future, with the Tarot:

Exchange of cards.

1. Court cards. You can exchange from the spread to the deck. Keep to the same suit. For example, the liar, the Page of Cups, can be exchanged with the more noble Knight of Cups. If the Page of Cups is an outcome card, you can upgrade the outcome by exchanging the 'small potatoes' Page with the high powered King of Cups. The court cards of a suit can be exchanged with another court card, but stick to the same suit.

2. Number cards. The difficult experiences of the nine and ten of swords can be swapped out for the four.

Do some experiments. Keep notes in your journal.