Just Anger? Justified Anger?

How about fucking furious?

At 3:00 AM this morning, I abruptly awoke with my mind racing, staring at the ceiling, unable to fall back asleep. I could only think about all of the things I've learned and became aware of in the past decade.

I've been working my ass off for a couple of months now, and I had put in another 10 hour day yesterday, then went to the dojo and trained martial arts for a couple more. I had 3 beers for dinner, and sat down with a 4th for dessert as I logged on to do a little reading of teh interwebz before going to sleep in preparation for another day of hard work in the hot Hawaiian sun.

Sleep has been vital to keeping my energy up to handle my new life.

Yet here I am, unable to go back to sleep and get the rest I so badly need for the day ahead because I can't stop thinking about what I read last night, Dalrock's A case for anger.

I echo the question Dalrock asks of the people mystified by the so called "anger" problem of the manosphere:

I’ll pose the same question back to Ms. Duffy and the commenters who are troubled by the fact that people are angry with the gross injustice which is being done to men, children, and the very institution of marriage: Why don’t you care? Why aren’t you angry?

I've been angry for years. Sometimes it feels like the potential for unhinged rage. Mostly, it's kept subsumed and hidden, only to find expression when I hear the muse to write something again. Much of the source of inspiration for 5 years of blogging here and writing for The Spearhead, In Mala Fide and commenting all over the manosphere is driven by this anger.

Anger at a system and a society that indoctrinates us all to believe that we live in the greatest civilization in the history of mankind because we are a society founded on freedom and justice...and yet you wake up one day and SEE quite plainly the destruction and havoc it wreaks on the personal lives of the people you know and love.

WHAT?! THE LAND OF THE FREE? WHOEVER TOLD YOU THAT IS YOUR ENEMY

You bet the denizens that make up this thing we call the "manosphere" are angry.

To not feel anger at the current situation is inhuman.

I first discovered the MRA/MGTOW blogosphere years ago after I watched my Ex-Aunt desert her family, file for divorce, take my Uncle to the cleaners to cavort with a bad boy motorcycle thug. I literally saw the joy, happiness and vitality for life disappear from the faces of my younger cousins. I saw my Uncle left destitute, heart broken and alone.

Before my Ex-Aunt pulled the trigger and destroyed her family, I lived with them for about 3 months. During that time, my nephews and nieces were a pure joy to be around and play with. I used get awoken by laughing and giggling kids, little children waking me up from sleeping on their couch so they could play with me before heading off to school every morning. Those three months were some of the greatest memories of my young adult life for me. My little cousins would come home from school and give me drawings and paintings they had done in their art classes for me. They were such happy little kids.

I moved to the Mainland for a year to work construction. When I returned to attend college at the U of Hawaii, my Ex-Aunt had already filed for divorce and was in the process of taking my Uncle to the cleaners.

The happy little cousins who were in a perpetual state of playful cheerfulness and excitement at the wonders of life when I left Hawaii, had become broken, dour, sad and withdrawn kids when I came back. It was a fucking tragedy. They have since grown up and made families of their own as young adults. But they were forever changed and broken by the destruction of their home by their mother's selfish actions, aided, abetted and encouraged by a system designed specifically to profit off of this misery.

I could not comprehend how such an injustice could be inflicted by the State on a Father who did nothing wrong, how my Ex-Aunt got everything and she was the one who broke her marriage vows and broke up her home. After googling up no-fault divorce in a search for answers, my long journey of gaining understanding and awareness began.

Our divorce system is a fucking vampire designed to suck the very life out of Father's and little children whose homes get broken by it. You bet your ass I'm angered by it whenever I think about the toll of destruction it's wreaked on so many friends and family over the years.

The tragedy of my cousins and Uncle were the impetus for awakening to the reality of the system built to enslave us all and profit off of our shared misery. But that is by no means the only thing driving my anger.

Long time readers here are also familiar with the story of my high school buddy that killed himself after he could no longer deal with child support obligations that were about to make him homeless, and his ex had alienated his children from him and continually denied him visitation. He was broken by the system, and he killed himself when he could no longer take it.

I was left to clean up the mess.

Anger? You bet your ass I'm angry.

If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.

Mo'olelo 'auana

Mo'olelo 'auana translated into English literally means "the New Narrative." In other words, "the latest word." As Hawaiians did not have writing until Western contact, oral traditions were the primary means of transmitting knowledge and cultural practices. Mo'olelo is essentially story telling to exchange knowledge. It's what I've named my blogroll, as I really like Google's automatic blogroll that shows the most recent postings of everyone on on it.

In fact, the automatic blogroll feature is probably the primary reason why I never switched over to wordpress like so many other bloggers have.

But I recently ran into a problem with my Blogroll app. I tried to update it by adding a few new blogs to it, it continued to crash repeatedly. I couldn't update it at all. I suspect I've had far too many links on it from defunct blogs, and too many rss feeds from nowhere kept crashing the app whenever I attempted an update.

Since I've been working 6 days a week now, as many of you have noticed, my blogging has been very sparse. Too tired, too little free time. So I just let it go until today. It took me almost two hours, but I had to re-create my blogroll from scratch. If you were previously on my blogroll and are no longer on it, that means I hate you and I hope you die....j/k.

Seriously, if you're blog is no longer on my blogroll, I assure you it was not my intention to take you off, but simply an oversight....or you haven't updated your blog in such a long time, I simply did not add you to the new blogroll to streamline the app and hopefully avoid this problem again. If I left you off, and you'd like to be added to my blogroll, please leave your url in the comments. If you are one of those who has a blog, but have not updated it in a long time and I did not include it in the update, but you will one day resume blogging, I have no problem adding you back on to the blogroll, just give me a shout out here and I'll put you back ASAP.

Finally, I'd also like to add that if you are on my blogroll, I put you there simply because you have written something once that I found worth my time to click on and read. Just because I link to your blog does not mean I endorse or agree with anything and everything you have to write about...I merely enjoy reading things from a wide variety of perspectives. I'm married, and I have a child, yet I link to anti-marriage blogs, and PUA blogs who advocate promiscuous lifestyles. I'm mostly apathetic and cynical about present day politics and no longer vote, but I still link to a few folks that still believe in participating in the system of bi-partisan democracy. I link to some "racist" (white nationalist) sites...now that is because I'm a Racial Equalist. That's because I hate all the races equally. :-) My only real guide for adding a blog is that you write something interesting and thought provoking.

Inflation Escalation

Think about the past 5 years, when the Great Depression 2.0 began to ramp up as the real estate bubble burst, auto manufacturers in Detroit were co-opted by the Federal Government, the Federal Reserve gave us a couple of rounds of "qualitative easing" and both Bush and Obama approved Tarp bailouts for the Banks too big to fail.

Is it just me, or does inflation appears to be escalating at a quicker pace in the past several years?

Just three years ago, I distinctly remember you could buy a plate lunch in downtown Honolulu for $6. Now, the exact same meal averages $9.

While I almost never eat at national corporate chain restaurants anymore, I did stop off at one after work the other day for an after-work beer with a co-worker. I looked at the menu while waiting for my beer to be poured...the price of appetizers are all around $10-$12 a piece, and typical entree's were around $15-$19, $22-$28 for seafood. About 4 years ago, I used to eat at such places like Chili's, Outback Steakhouse, Ruby Tuesdays, etc. pretty regularly as our "weekend" entertainment activity.

I certainly remember the average prices for such fare. But $12 for a burger and fries? 4 years ago, I remember thinking $9 for a burger and fries was ludicrous!

I also recall that a six pack of Micro brew beer was around $7. Now, it's typically $9-$12 for the same brands I favor.

Same goes for whiskey. A bottle of Glenlivet or Glenfiddich 12 yr. single malt used to average around $24 for a 750ml bottle. The same bottle is typically $32-$35 now.

Even more dramatic has been the price of bulk items I have been regularly buying at Costco for years now. Toilet paper, dog food, laundry detergent, coffee, artisinal cheese, bacon....the list goes on.

I think everywhere you look at today's prices, most of them are 2-6 dollars more for the same amount of product or service you used to pay for just several years ago.

Gee...you think all that the Federal Reserve's qualitative easing programs may have had an effect? What exactly is getting eased here?