The Party

Well, my House Party for Change was a rousing success.  I changed my undies, a lightbulb, water into wine, and a tire.  Then I passed out bricks for people to smash against their heads while croonin'.   "Only make believe that you love meeeeeeeee......"

The One Won Didn't He?

That's what I thought I saw on TV.  And yet the fraud who would be king still seems to be campaigning, still trying to get everyone to love him.  How else to you explain the culty/fascist call from David Plouffe for worshipers of the exalted Pampers to have "house parties for change" today?  Why is Joe Biden, when there is still plenty of dough in the Pampers war chest, sending out solicitations to get people to help pay down Senator Clinton's debt?  Why is an email being sent in the name of Bill Clinton?  Why are Hillary supporters being barraged with sweet little notes in their inboxes?  Why?  I can think of a few reasons.

The most obvious is that Pampers has an unquenchable need to be loved by everyone.  He tells everyone what they want to hear.  AIPAC can be told Israel will never be divided.  The next day, disgruntled Arab leaders can be told that's not what he meant.  What does Barry care as long as he's loved.

Another reason for this culty/changey nonsense is that there is a growing trend of people either losing interest, becoming disillusioned with, or caring not one wit for The One, now that he's actually won the election.  We saw a similar pattern after the primaries.  When the brownshirts no longer had Hillary to vilify their interest waned.  Sure there was a little pickup once the conventions were over, but clearly the summer of flipflopping cut into the the Lefty/Changey rah rah zisboombah. 

Now there is no opposition, the cabinet and administration is quickly filling up with former Clintonistas, the economy is continuing to tank, there is a new terrorist threat manifesting itself in the attacks in Mumbai, and the list goes on.

From Election Day +1 Pampers has still been trying to sell us on the fact that he can be the President.  He's still marketing himself.  We see it with that ridiculous, "Office of the President-elect" placard on his podium, complete with mini-Obidential seal (the most ludicrous thing he's done since they came out with that dumb seal in the first place).  And now we're seeing it with these solicitations from his people like Plouffe, basically saying, "Please don't stop loving the chosen one.  And those of you who haven't learned to love him yet, give him a shot.  He's really awesome!  I keep waiting for the message that says, "Love him or else."

I can't help but feel that the real story is that there aren't going to be very many of these so-called house parties for change.  I don't think any of his hardcore fans have one bit of interest in helping pay down Hillary's debt.  And guess what Camp Pamp?  You can send us as many emails as you want; those of us who opposed Pampers in the general election are not going to change our minds.  Is this campaign of the absurd supposed to distract us from the fact that The One has no legislative agenda, no foreign policy agenda, no plan for fixing the economy, and is facing a flock of lawsuits challenging his Constitutional eligibility to be President?  You managed to dupe 67 million people into voting for the little dictator.  What's the matter, buyer's remorse is setting in, or did you know this Blagogate mess was coming?

Quite frankly I'm surprised you're not just blaming all these problems on the Jews.  That always worked for the Czars.  Why not send an email out asking supporters to have "Pogroms for Change?"  Knowing you Pampers, and the thugs holding you up, it wouldn't surprise me if the Office of the Resident-Select already has that in the works.  Don't forget to blame the gays too.  You wouldn't want to leave them out.

MESSAGE TO BASE:  WE ARE NOT BUYING!!!

Just Another Reason to Vomit & Other Coincidences

My dear friend Heidi Li Feldman is collecting misogynist campaign garbage.  I too have inadvertently started collecting garbage.  My category is "the unbelievably ludicrous."

I had the honor of being favorably compared, by my aforementioned colleague, to Frederic Douglass, a man who stood up at the beginning of the American women's movement, as a reporter, and supporter of the fight for women's suffrage.  It was a humbling moment for me.  

Humility was not what I felt however when I saw this today on my internet walkabout:

No, you are not high on acid.  That is a baby bib with a side by side image of Frederic Douglass, and Pampers.  The quote is from Douglass: 

"I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

If there were to be a picture in the dictionary to accompany the definition of the word "irony" it would be this one.  It could also be used for the definition of "nauseating."  "Incongruous," "proposterous," "infelicitous," and "absurd," would also be acceptable.  

There is an entire line of products with this image if you are in need of an emergency vomiting.

Do I need to comment that if Frederic Douglass were alive to see the misogynist-select's campaign I suspect that he would not have endorsed Pampers?  Nah.  Too obvious.

I popped over to Seraphic Light last night to read the post on John Lennon, and suggested picking up Skywriting by Word of Mouth, remembering the puma references suddenly, and somewhat late.  Betty Blue, being an intrepid traveler, checked out the book and unsolicited by me in any way (no really, I didn't call her and give her a list of candidates I wanted to replace me in the Senate), commented on the puma references.

This nugget from the opening of "Puma Eats Coast Guard" makes my spleen percussive from laughter:

It was a large part of Max's orifices that had served him well during the recent "stagnation." An unqualified success was written all over him during a discourse on the probability of improbability. Max's hair had been a mess. Being a coast guard had its problems. Apart from the virtual isolation, the wind kept ruining his rod stewart. It had taken him six months, more or less, to look like an idiot, and more than fifty dollars (American). He was not too thrilled with the outcome.

Max could not distinguish between a vaginal spray and underarm deodorant. "The problem is," he used to moan, "I don't know which to spray first." These kind of things bore heavily on his mind. (What else did he have to think about just gazing out to sea?) Being very short sighted and easily led did not help matters. He could not even see the rarelyspotted Qualm, a beauty of a beast that lurks over Iceland. It lets out a bloodcurdling but stealthy stream of epitaphs whenever it is disturbed. Which isn't often.

The collective unconscious is always working...if you don't stop to blink every couple hundred once-in-a-whiles you'll miss it.

Prometheus Unbound

So what is this bus, and what is its purpose? The bus in the banner is Furthur, a 1939 International Harvester that became the notorious acid test on wheels that Kesey and the Merry Pranksters sent careening across the country in the hopes of bringing the cultural revolution to the backwaters of America; “bringin’ on the party where they need it the most.” The original mission back in 1964 was to travel cross-country with large amounts of LSD kool-aid (can you imagine what this election would have been like if Pamperbots had been drinking that instead of the crap handed out by Camp Pamp?), the East Coast destination being New York, for the publishing party for "Sometimes a Great Notion."

The unbaptised hear the words “electric kool-aid acid test” and think of stoned hippies leaping from windows thinking they’re birds, or acid casualties roaming the streets, permanently zoned from one too many trips. But the Acid Tests were not about escaping, they were about burning things down, specifically the conformity of the 50’s, most notably represented by McCarthyism, a time of American fascism and fear (sound familiar?). Kesey was a government LSD test subject, perhaps the biggest mistake they ever made. Whoops! Who let this guy in? Robert Hunter, lyricist for the Grateful Dead, was also part of the study.  They told their associates they had to try this stuff. Well, the secret got out during a period when LSD was legal. Kesey understood the potential LSD held for unlocking the mind, and unlike the East Coast School, led by Timothy Leary, that sought to use the drug in controlled settings to help ease the mind into certain scenarios for the purpose of healing,and expanding consciousness, Kesey and the Pranksters espoused the notion that this was a vehicle for the releasing the unbridled mind; essentially the difference between looking in the mirror and smashing it.

The real aim for Kesey was not getting high, or getting other people high. It was the unshackling of the human soul and spirit. Only when one was able to step out of the culturally induced illusions of success, career, home life, and nationalism could one really be able to explore the full potential of the self, and learn to see the world from a place of pure freedom.  In many ways he was a modern Prometheus, and LSD was his fire.

The butterfly effect of that revolution is still rippling through our fabric. It even got to me as a suburban elementary school student in the 70's.  It was because of Kesey and the Pranksters that I discovered that my teachers were liars.  They tried to scare us away from drugs with ginormous lies like; one drop of pure LSD in the water system of a football stadium could kill everyone who drank from it. Unfortunately for them I knew that wasn’t true because I had heard of the Pranksters already (when rock ‘n’ roll is your hobby you hear stuff). I knew they ate the acid, and I knew they weren’t dead. Naturally the next logical step was to figure out what else the teachers were lying about.  Turned out it was a lot. I never trusted a word that came out of a teacher again; worst and best thing that ever happened…a lot like taking the red pill. That knowledge set me free, but it was not without its burdens. 

Can you imagine what it’s like to go to school day after day knowing that you cannot confirm or deny the things coming out of your teachers’ mouths? I would spend hours after school in the library cruising through microfilmed articles on anything from South American politics to astronomy, just to take in information that I felt I at least had some control over. I finally came to the conclusion that the only thing you can even begin to consider to be true is what you experience first hand. Any information you glean from an outside source could potentially be completely false. This blog that you’re reading right now might not even exist…or maybe I’ve put a widget in your brain…BOO!  It was difficult at times, but in the final analysis I wouldn’t change a thing. I learned to see the world in ways I otherwise would not have. I learned to trust my instincts and my intuition. In many respects those things are your most powerful weapons. Learn to trust yourself. We live among a great many liars.

Now don’t confuse me and think I’m saying you have to eat LSD in order to open your mind. Kesey and the Pranksters put on an Acid Test Graduation to mark the transition beyond consuming LSD. They used it to open the doors they needed to walk through and were ready to go back to the world no longer needing to consume it. If you allow yourself to understand that the world is not black and white, not what you think it is, and that you have to stab through the mask, as Melville might say, then you’re well on your way.  

I got to spend a little time with Carolyn Adams Garcia, Mountain Girl on the bus, back in the mid 90’s. It was a finishing of a circle for me. We talked about this and that. I got to thank her for all she and the rest of the Pranksters did for me; paving the way and breaking the ground that allowed me to liberate myself.  It was a revolution, and it’s not over yet.  In 2007 Garcia did an interview as part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s retrospective on the “Summer of Love.” She said something that pretty much sums it up for me, “I think that a lot of it is about having given ourselves permission to be weird. We gave ourselves permission. We also gave other people permission to be weird. Try to think outside of the box of convention. I think that's been terribly useful.”

If there was ever a time to give yourself permission to be weird, it’s now!

So what is the purpose of the Oh...My Valve Bus?  It's essentially the same; to encourage you to look at the world a little differently, expand the view, get your weird on, and share your gifts with the zombies because they're the reason we keep having to go through this crap again and again.

What's your acid test? What are you going to do to alter your perception of the world, expand your horizons, and set yourself free from the market forces selling America Hope and Change (ironically, the remaining members of the Grateful Dead, the house band for the acid tests, were completely bamboozled by Pampers)? What are you going to do to bring a little circus to the American scene?  What are you going to do to repair the world?

For those of you just starting to wake up here are some tips for the American journey that lies ahead:

1. Nothing is what it seems.
2. Everything has at least two meanings.
3. Only believe what you experience, and then question it.
4. Be as human as possible.  In other words, when faced with any situation, ask yourself, "What would Prometheus do?"
5. Get in shape.  If you're going to do this journey right you're going to have to be in decent condition.
6. Work to break the pattern of Kesey's Postulate: "In any given situation there are always going to be more dumb people than smart people."  You have to be one of the smart people.  Swell the ranks so that we can have more smart people in any given situation than dumb people.  How's that for a tipping point?
7. Have fun and get your weird on!

Blago Blows It

So let me see if I've got this straight... Governor Blag the Inhaler skinned a skunk, and sewed the pelt to his head; then set up a booth at the Illinois State Fair where he put out a great big jar of jelly beans. Contestants would then give the Governor lots of money, or a sweet job. Whomever gave the Governor the most money, and/or the sweetest job, would correctly guess the number of jellybeans and get to go to Capitol Hill and eat the jellybeans until they got good and sick. Lots of people wanted to play, and some even had conversations trying to get the Governor to tell them how many jellybeans were in the jar, even though that was clearly cheating. And now it turns out that there might be some recorded conversations between Pampers' People and Blag the Inhaler or his Inhaled People, and that those recordings are in the hands of the FBI...whoops! (tip o' the hat)

Of course Pampers' first response was to interrupt his morning ego massage for a press conference, or as we say in Obiana, two minutes lying, to say that none of the angels of leprosy at the Transition Central Committee spoke with Blago.  Then it was of to the midway for a vigorous round of "Under-the-bus toss." He's gotten quite good at it. He won an oversized stuffed Stimpy.

Looks like the Governor is in big trouble with the Fair operators. No doubt he'll start spilling the jellybeans in order to shorten the length of time he will be someone's white collar beeatcha. Hey, even investment bankers get the blues.

And in yet another SNN exclusive, sources reveal Pampers' preferred pay to play contestant to replace him in the Senate.

My advice to the Governor, and anyone else implicated in the jellybean scheme is this: use the Chewbacca Defense.

My advice to the rest of you is pop the popcorn, melt the butter, crack open a beer, and get psyched. This is gonna be kick ass! And you thought there wasn't going to be any hope or change...I mean dope and mange.  I like a little garlic, kosher salt and curry powder added to the butter.  You can also throw a couple cardamom pods in there.  Yum!

Unfinished Business: Secretary of State Clinton

I have not commented as yet on Senator Clinton’s appointment to the position of Secretary of State. I have been content to watch and read the debate unfold over the past several weeks. For me, her accepting this post is a mixed bag.

Her uncompromising voice for democratic values in the Senate, particularly on the issue of FISA; her ceaseless advocacy for women, whether it be strengthening family planning, access to health care, or rights; her devotion to fighting for children’s environmental protections, and shedding light on the need for early childhood education across economic and social lines; her stand on ending the possibility of burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain…all this has made her an essential force in our legislature. I for one, will miss her standing up on the Senate floor.

She now ascends to a larger, broader stage, where she will bring her depth of knowledge, critical, eye, and ability to connect various threads, to hone and craft solutions to a myriad of crises and situations. When faced with the list of alternatives, I can think of no one better suited to this position than her.

Many are disappointed by what they see as her choosing to prop up the man cub that would be king by taking this job. Others feel betrayed, and have since the summer, when she did not take her fight for the nomination to the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Denver.  I admit that I myself crapped a whale watching her call for a vote of acclamation from the floor, compounded by the bowel perforating sham that was the roll call.  All 47 Arkansas delegates voted for Pampers?  Not without serious arm twisting shenanigans, which no one in the media was interested in looking into as they were far too busy selling the "party unity" meme.  Though honestly, what disappointed me most was that she did not go before the Credentials Committee and at least make them address the sham of May 31, 2008.

But in the end, what could she have done?  Who in the Democrat Party leadership was willing to stand up and demand that the delegates be allowed to vote openly?  After what happened at the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting it was obvious that the Pampers train was not going to be stopped, and that Clinton was going to be tied to the tracks.  Partisanship overrides Principle, and that is the problem in the end isn't it?

I have said many times on this blog that what distinguishes Senator Clinton from many of her peers, particularly the Resident-select, is that she is a public servant first, a politician second. She did not move to New York, as her detractors callously suggest, simply to run for Senate so that she could position herself to run for the White House. She has made a career out of advocacy, and every move that she makes is to strengthen her ability to carry out all that this entails.

She did not run for President to become the first woman elected. She did not run for President to fulfill the dreams and desires of American women, many of whom have callously abandoned her as she makes this move. When I see this I wonder just how many of these people really understand who she is, and what she is about.

She was viciously attacked by the media, and the Resident-select, in unforgivable fits of misogyny, that have turned so many of us away we are fashioning ourselves into journalists and advocates ourselves. These attacks however do not define her. Senator Clinton has been beyond the women’s rights movement for her entire career. Where is she then? She is standing on the shoulders of Dr. King. She believes in his vision of the Promised Land. I have said before, and will say again that King’s dream was not getting a man of color in the White House. It was that we would learn to see the rights of everyone as being as sacred and worth defending as our own.  Again and again Hillary Clinton echoes that call, as she did in Beijing, and as recently as June 7, 2008 in Washington D.C.

We are not all “other.” Women, men, children from everywhere, regardless of who, what, where, or which way, are endowed with the same rights, but billions…billions of us face circumstances where forces outside of ourselves work tirelessly to deny us those rights; our indefeasible human rights. Not indigenous rights, not gay rights, not religious rights, children’s rights, or women’s rights: HUMAN RIGHTS.

Our struggle, in the end, is the same. The forces that oppose us, in the end, are the same.  The blood we shed in the struggle is the same. Your need and desire for your rights and freedoms is no more or less important than mine because it is the same struggle, so if you say, “Mine are more important than yours,” you fail to see what Hillary Clinton stands for, and fail to see why she is willing to put her political life on the line to be Secretary of State; just as she did in 1995 when she went to Beijing against the wishes of her President’s Department of State, his advisers, and the President himself. She risked alienating everyone, and risked her life, to stand before women of the world and urge them to enjoin their struggle with the struggles of all people because they are fighting for the same thing. She urged women to stand up and say we too are human, and this struggle belongs to us. And she challenged the world to accept that women and girls are entitled to the same protections and freedom from oppression as men and boys.

No more honor killings. No more slavery. No more rape. No more burnings with fire and acid. No more imprisonment without due process. No more forced circumcisions. No more torture. No more genocide. These are not rights simply for women. This is the universal struggle.

The fourth wave of feminism is here. It is here, and Hillary Clinton ushered it in. Women’s rights are human rights, and the struggle for human rights is the struggle for women’s rights. We stand together or we fall silent alone. And it is the women who should be leading all of us. And they are. The Gulabi Gang in India stood up for themselves against injustices they were facing. Now they stand up against economic and caste prejudices, on behalf of women, men, and children. When they defend others, they strengthen themselves. They are becoming the leaders, and their status grows. Here in America women are starting to do the same. This is the fourth wave: assuming power, and leading the fight.

NOW, NARAL, Emily’s List; the all betrayed what they stood for in 2008. They are fast becoming irrelevant, but women are standing up and building new institutions. 

That is what Hillary Clinton is about. That is why she is accepting the Department of State. She owes no loyalty to those who campaigned for her. She owes us nothing. I did not support her because she is a woman. I supported her because I know she understands that the fight is to be joined in all our names, genders, orientations, races, class, age and creed. I supported her because her vision is the legacy of Dr. King.

There will always be men and women to call her shrill, mock her laugh, call her a bitch, a whore, grope her cutout, make misogynist bumper stickers and t-shirts about her. She will go on in spite of it. When asked to iron a man’s shirt she will turn on the lights in the room so that everyone can see the sexism. But she will not stop. She will not back down. She will follow her own advice that she gave us in Denver. She will keep going, and she will do what she feels she must to insure that she can. Her detractors (I’m talking about you Rush and your “Sexretary of State” crap) will say this is just her cold, calculating, power-hungry Hillary way. I suspect that if she met him she’d just give him a Tweety pinch on the cheek and say, “Oh, Rush.”

It is already apparent that she will be making advocacy for children a priority. No doubt she will do the same for women, and other marginalized communities in the countries we deal with, and no doubt in countries to whom we doggedly turn a blind eye, as they do not produce oil, or some other such commodity that we deem more important than human rights.

I believe we will be seeing a dramatic shift in the way our State Department deals with the world. I suppose there will be career diplomats who will have no desire to step out of their comfort zones and push to move humanity forward, instead of dickering in little backroom games that benefit the powerful and leave the voiceless in perpetual destitution. I suspect, as in all things Hillary, they will play her game, or they will be gone.

Many have said she will have to do the President’s bidding. I can’t remember the last time she did anyone’s bidding without getting something else in exchange. I have a feeling that is how she got this job. The Resident-select wants only one thing; to be reselected. He will allow Hillary to do what she does, or he will drown. He has no foreign policy agenda. He has no legislative agenda. There is no issue he is passionate about. He is passionate about himself. Others will do the work for him. Will we be stuck with him for another four years because of what she does? He only gets reselected because people vote for him. It is up to us to defeat him, not Hillary Clinton. Her job is to make sure the foreign ship of state is vigilant against those that would do us harm, work for peace, expand and strengthen our alliances, and do what she can under the umbrella of America’s might to help those around the world who have no voice. For too long our foreign policy has been conducted on the backs of the human rights of others, in Tibet, where the people are facing cultural genocide at the hands of the Han; in Africa, where people face physical genocide because of governmental indifference, and the need for oil; in Arab countries, where women are shrouded, doused with acid, and have their tongues cut out; in South America where indigenous nations are decimated in the name of profits. Will Secretary of State Clinton solve these problems? I will not say that. But I can say that she will be far less likely to ignore them. And I’m pretty confident that the President-Select will not be so stupid as to stand in the way.

I applaud the notion of Secretary of State Clinton. At least there is something to be optimistic about for the next four years. I have no such faith in the Clown Prince of Fraud. Senator Clinton, I wish you luck, and success. I would wish strength for you, but that I know is something you already possess.

Tales of the Reconstruction

As I mentioned earlier in the week, Oh...My Valve! is going to be undergoing a face lift.  In reality, it has imploded.  I am going to be cleaning up the mess and reorganizing over the next few days.  If you have any comments, liked the old format, like what you see so far...let us know.  We want your experience to be as pleasurable as possible.

The Latest from the Shtuey News Network: Corruption Charges the Least of Blago's Problems.

See the SNN exclusive story here!

James Carville's Brain: Just a Piece of Cardboard

Once again, the media boys club gets its yucks at the expense of the women's movement. Maybe Mr. Carville is right, it's just a piece of cardboard. I wonder what he would say if that piece of cardboard were Barack Obama, and Clinton staffers were putting a noose around his neck?

Not the same you say? Really?

On college campuses across this country, the type of action being depicted in that photo, fondling a woman, and making her drink, often ends up in a rape in some frat boy's bedroom or dorm room. Is this what was behind Favreau's actions? I certainly hope not. More likely this was a victory guy thing, "We beat Hillary! Ha Ha!" But this is not about Favreau's motivations. This is about image. And the image in that photo (which he put on his own Facebook page James, you bald headed idiot), is an image that, when seen on the Facebook page of a principle staffer of the soon to be President, the speech writer who will craft the message that comes out of the mouth of the man, it is a validation that the action that the photo depicts is acceptable.

In an enlightened society we could look at this photo and say it is merely sophomoric. But we are not an enlightened society. We are a society that upholds Kesey's Postulate: "In any given situation there are always going to be more dumb people than smart people." We live in a society where date rape is committed regularly on college campuses. We live in a society where women are victims of violence at the hands of people who live in their homes. We live in a society that continually fails to see that women, who are more than half of this nation's population, are endowed with the same unalienable rights as men, but chronically have them violated in the workplace, the home, in public, and behind closed doors.

The imagery behind this photo is unacceptable in a rights based society that espouses that all of us are created equal. The President of the United States is the Constitutional promulgator of the law of the land. If the Resident-Select keeps Jon Favreau on his staff he is sending the message that we are not created equal, that it is okay to demean women. Either you represent us all Mr. Obama, or none of us.

Fire Favreau, now.

And Mr. Carville, perhaps if men, such as yourself, understood why women find this photo offensive, if you took the time to walk a mile, then maybe an organization like The New Agenda would be unnecessary.

For those of you wanting to take action to get this little frat douche canned here's some action for ya.

Sign this petition.


Email Valerie Jarrett Co-Chair Transition (Hurry, she may be the first Pampers staffer thrown under the bus for Blogogate)
vjarrett@barackobama.com

Call Transition Headquarters:
202-540-3000 press option # 2 for a live person

Email Media:
hardball@msnbc.com; caffertyfile@cnn.com; cnn.onair@cnn.com; comments@mclaughlin.com; Cavuto@foxnews.com; LouDobbs@cnn.com; hemmer@foxnews.com; headlinenews@cnn.com; Hannity@foxnews.com; gretawire@fox.com ; writemalkin@gmail.com ; elrushbo@eibnet.com; charlierose@pbs.org; gretawire@fox.com;

On Flowers and Matters of Consequence.

Our intrepid traveler, the little prince, before he arrived on planet earth, travelled to many other worlds, encountering a different sort of person on each one: a king who claimed to rule the stars, but who did not have their allegiance; a conceited man who only wished to be admired, but who never received any visitors; a tippler who drank to forget his shame at being a tippler; a businessman concerned with "matters of consequence" who counted the stars and thus believed he owned them, a lamplighter who lights and extinguishes a lamp because he was ordered to do so, and has not been ordered to stop; and a geographer who had no concept of the geography of his own planet as he was not an explorer.  It was on the geographer's planet that the little prince experienced a moment of regret.  He left someone behind on his planet when he decided to go on his walkabout through the stars: a flower with only four thorns to defend herself against the world.  It is because of this that, once on earth, the little prince finds himself concerned about the conflict between flowers and sheep.

He inquires of the misanthropic pilot as to whether sheep would eat flowers, even if they had thorns, to which the pilot replies, "A sheep eats anything it finds in its reach," even flowers with thorns.

On hearing this the little prince begins to wonder what the point of having thorns is, if they offer no protection from the sheep.  The pilot, who was fixing his engine, failed to answer properly, claiming he was involved in "matters of consequence," the same phrase uttered by the businessman who claimed to own the stars.  The little prince flew into a rage.

"The flowers have been growing thorns for millions of years. For millions of years the sheep have been eating them just the same. And is it not a matter of consequence to try to understand why the flowers go to so much trouble to grow thorns which are never of any use to them? Is the warfare between the sheep and the flowers not important? Is this not of more consequence than a fat red-faced gentleman's sums? And if I know-- I, myself-- one flower which is unique in the world, which grows nowhere but on my planet, but which one little sheep can destroy in a single bite some morning, without even noticing what he is doing-- Oh! You think that is not important!"

 "If some one loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself, 'Somewhere, my flower is there...' But if the sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darkened... And you think that is not important!"

How much different are we from the flower?  In the end, what do we have to defend ourselves with against the sheep?  And how do we protect what is most dear to us?  Is this not a matter of consequence?  And who are you really?  Are you the king of nothing, a lamplighter who follows orders?  Who are you?  And what is most important to you in this world?  What are the things, that if you lose them will darken the stars for you forever?  Is it your family?  Your children?  Your freedom?  What do you have that you would lay down your life to protect?  This is a matter of consequence.  Now, when we find ourselves drawing inexorably closer to an unknown, an unpredictable time when the only thing certain is the uncertain, these matters of consequence need to be dealt with.