THE ROBBER'S STORY...

PROLOGUE
I've been told I'm not a nice guy. That's probably true. The fact that I don't care would seem to reinforce the evaluation.
It's not that I go out of my way to hurt people - not in the physical sense anyway - but I steal from them so that does kinda hurt I guess. But where's the harm when the victims can afford it and the stuff is just sitting there looking pretty?
My dad always used to say people would find ways to justify anything they did and the more they did it, the more they would justify it. I'd love to say that was a load of bollocks because my old man was a drunken dickhead but fact is - I can't because it's true.
From politics to religion to wife-bashing, the perpetrators all have arguments to support their case. Mostly anyway.
Me, I'm no different. Instead of languishing in squalor, living off state handouts and drinking myself into oblivion every day, I feed off the private sector like a ramora on the underbelly of a lazy shark.
Maybe you think that's a bad analogy. I mean there's supposed to be a symbiosis in those kinds of relationships but if you offer me some latitude here, I do provide a service. While I might not be freeing the mink and manure sharks of parasites, I am liberating them in another sense - and I don't just mean by purloining unnecessary assets - I am unburdening them from onerous attachment.
Yeah, I know. Sounds like bullshit and probably is but when you see how these sparkling-eyed socialites get hooked on material trinkets, it really shifts their focus from the more profound aspects of existence such as their emotional and spiritual needs. They're so wrapped up in the outer image that their inner selves are starving. It's a nauseating circus of nips, tucks, sports cars, lavish houses, designer labels, over-refined foods that are cooked by underpaid servants and expansive, unvisited gardens that could provide accommodation to thousands of underprivileged souls across the country.
And it's not just sour grapes either. They've got it so I wanna take it away. No. The backlash from disgruntled men who've cultivated a hatred for all things opulent and blame it on the previous regime, has resulted in mindless rape and murder whereas I rob the rich and it takes them until the next time they check the safe before they find out. I don't need to unload y'see. Even though the old man wallowed in a morass of loathing and self-pity for most of his life, my mom gave me a solid upbringing with a balanced set of values. Values, that is, that conform to a middle class, middle of the road, don't challenge the system kind of mindset.
I watched and I learned and ultimately I chose.
Not a career in medicine, nor in law (not in the conventional sense that is), nor in construction or in engineering (although I was adept in many of those areas) - I chose a career in property: other people's. And I acquired it through unlawful albeit creative, innovative methodology.
I was a thief. A damn good one. Or had been until now.
Let me tell you how I got here.
Where?
Standing over a corpse in a darkened bedroom - someone else's bedroom - with all escape routes cut off. I didn't do murder. I hadn't done murder. But looking at it from anyone else's perspective I would have nicked myself under these circumstances.
Fuck! This wasn't good.

(Would you want to read more of this story?)

THE SILENT WAR ON HEMP

This has been going on since the 1930's, folks and it's got nothing to do with the dangers of narcotics, despite the US maintaining its positively draconian stance on marijuana and listing it as a schedule 1 drug. That's in the same category as heroin and cocaine, for example.
Now, I'm no stoner - might have been once way back when - but any semi-educated person knows empirically that cannabis isn't in any way a schedule 1 narcotic - not even schedule 2 in my book but that too isn't the point.
Whenever anyone wonders about a controversial subject and why it has become controversial there's usually one simple answer - follow the money. 
And the marijuana/cannabis legacy is no different. In fact, it's probably one of the most extreme examples of how a wonderfully beneficial product with a myriad uses has been vilified by those groups it threatened.
At one time most American rope, textile and paper was manufactured from industrial hemp, the basic cannabis-sativa strain with a marginal THC content. There were manifold reasons this substance was so popular, not least of which are the following:


* it produces a 77% cellulose fibre yield as opposed to wood pulp which produces around 30% cellulose by volume - that's massive

* its variant cannabinoids produce a natural insecticide thus there is no need for chemical pesticides whatsoever - compare this with the cotton industry being one of the largest users of chemicals in the world - 50% of the chemicals sold in the agricultural industry in the US go to the production of cotton

* The nature of its growth prevents the proliferation of weeds, they simply cannot survive below the hemp canopy - ergo: no chemical weedkillers are necessary 

* the yield of hemp against cotton is staggering as it outperforms cotton by 200% on average and even more under "ideal" conditions 

* it has a rapid harvesting cycle and can thrive on effluent water that would ordinarily be dumped into viable water streams thereby causing widespread pollution which is the norm in the wood, paper and textile industry generally

* similarly - hemp can be processed entirely without any harmful products being used thereby reducing the creation of pollutants even further 

* It's a superbly versatile and cost-effective building material producing bricks, mortar, plaster and even hemp-based concrete all of which are non-flammable and high-grade insulators, allowing buildings to actually "breathe". 

* in just 14 weeks 1 hectare of hemp can produce enough raw material to build an entire house - not just that, during the growing process, that single hectare absorbs around 18 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere making hemp houses actually carbon-negative. The same house built with conventional materials produces on average around 450 tonnes of carbon dioxide!

* given the nature of the hemp fibres, which are long, continuous strands, the basic premise of "longer is stronger" applies making hemp based products 3 times stronger than timber ones 

* the seeds are rich in protein and produce oils which can be used for a variety of purposes

* the seeds provide high levels of natural Omega 3 and 6 oils - hell even dogs love the stuff and get a whack of nutrients from hemp seed products. Hemp seed is regarded by nutritionists as a super food for very good reason

* it's now been shown that even industrial hemp when ingested helps us remanufacture and retain our own natural cannabinoids which are essential for health - cannabis is the only plant on this planet that produces these chemicals as do humans - so there may be a clue in compatibility right there...

* if we move over to other strains of hemp, there are cannabinoids within them that, when distilled, have been shown empirically time and again to manage, treat and cure conditions as far ranging as epilepsy, autism, Aspergers and even cancer...

* and perhaps one of the most important facets of hemp - it is entirely sustainable and has an ongoing positive impact on the planet. With hemp's significantly shorter harvest cycles, its use over trees counters the enormous problem of rampant deforestation and the consequential impact on the environment, other flora, fauna and associated ecosystems. 

Now take all of the above and ask yourself why any sane, humane, compassionate society would seek to repress this substance...
And I refer you back to premise Number One - follow the money.
With the rise of the petrochemical, textile, pharmaceutical industries in the 1930's - up until that time, the farmer essentially produced food, medicine and other base commodities from the land.
Hemp needed no chemical "protection" and provided a whole range of beneficial products in a fast, easy cycle.
Dupont and the US congress wanted a different model though - they didn't want fresh produce in grocery stores - they wanted chemically enhanced foodlike products in big supermarket chains and they wanted to sell their chemicals to the wood and textile industries so hemp, not being a team player, had to go. And that it was a plant with a range of medically beneficial properties couldn't be tolerated either so suddenly the demonisation of the plant began through a campaign of disinformation which commenced (Donald Trump-like) by changing the name of the stuff to marijuana - give it a Mexican sounding name and show people stoned off their faces, promote it as a dangerous, addictive drug and before you know it, cannabis will be made illegal.
And that is exactly what happened.
In their fervour to protect a vulnerable public from the creeping "reefer madness" that was sure to afflict you if you as much as sniffed the stuff, they quietly succeeded in having industrial hemp banned too as nobody really had any idea that hemp was a strain of the same plant - the deadly marijuana - the one causing all the murder and mayhem...
Then followed the rise of the corporations, the elevation (sic) of cannabis to the level of a Schedule 1 banned substance and generationally, the bullshit and disinformation was passed on.
Now we find a resurgence in the hemp industry around the world where the Chinese (who else?) have probably the biggest industrial hemp production facilities in the world and have even resorted to producing high quality hemp paper without the use of chlorine bleaching - all eco-friendly and all readily available.
One can readily understand why the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want people having direct access to the beneficence of the effective cannabinoids that aid and cure the most chronic of ailments - it would also explain why this same industry (including the US government) has taken the time and trouble to synthesise these chemicals and take out patents on them. They fully intend to let you have medical marijuana one day but oh boy are you gonna fucking pay for it. This is the dynamic that will maintain the product as illegal - ownership of the chemical patents on the plant - yeah, thats right - how can anyone own the formulae for plant-based compounds?
In the same way they're patenting certain genetic coding so they own the rights to viruses, human gene-sequences and by extension the cures to diseases. You wanna get better, then pay for the formulae that will do that.
I keep telling you - follow the money. It's all there - it's happening and it's been happening for a very long time.
So if anyone thinks that TTIP or TPP or any so-called global trade partnership is about broadening the base whereby ordinary people can do open-ended business - think again. Those "agreements" are in no way contracts that have been endorsed by the public sector, the public hasn't even had access to most of this information and wouldn't have had, had it not been for that nasty global security threat organisation, Wikileaks and their radicalised despotic leader, Julian Assange...they've got him nicely hogtied at present. Can't think why...
As an upshot of this all, I have decided to do everything within my power to explore the world of hemp production as fully as I can as I'd like to involve myself in this in some way in the foreseeable future.
The saddest part of this entire story is that we know our governments pretend to have our best interests at heart but they're really all about population management and profiteering. Within the mix are some genuine people who are fighting for the greater good and we should be part of that but for the most part, they're trying to fuck us and they don't give a rat's ass about your welfare or indeed your future. 
And that is the inconvenient truth.

OF SHEDS AND METAPHYSICAL APPS - NO, NOT REALLY - IN FACT, NOT AT ALL...

Karen and I went to look at a shed yesterday. 

It's not that we have a fetish for utility space voyeurism or anything like that. Is that a thing?

I'm sure it must be a thing. Everything is a thing nowadays. Perhaps it's always been, they just didn't have an app for it until this present decade. 

Won't it be cool when there's an app for nutrition in the interactive world we're entering... Maybe it will dispense with our pathological obsession with cooking shows on tv - just figuring out how to make the app transfer nutrition from the ether to our energy bodies. 

I mean, I know it sounds out there - it IS out there but if we are nothing more nor less than individual energy centres that process nutrition in an energy transfer, using the fuel and discarding the unwanted byproducts then there's no reason why an app cannot interface with that energy system and link us to the zero-point field to allow the exchange to take place... 

Where was I again? Oh yes - sheds. 

Every person needs a shed, maybe even two sheds. Sheds are the bomb. Especially when one is married to a magpie, a creature attracted to the accumulation of shiny things. 

Ergo: one needs a shed, we don't have one, it's on the agenda, one became available through friends so we decided to call the guy for a shed viewing. 

But this isn't about sheds at all nor, it must be said, is it about metaphysical apps. It's actually about the wife of the man to whom I'd spoken earlier in the day about coming through to check out their up-for-grabs utility facility aka - their shed. 

I collected Karen from her studio en-route as the UF (utility facility aka shed) was close by. 

We arrived, parked and I negotiated my way down the steep driveway to the windowed facade of the house where I rapped firmly on the glass. 

An olive complexioned woman of distinguished looks approached the glass door wearing an utterly bemused expression on her face, this expression dedicated entirely to me. I was the source of her perplexity, it seemed. 

She swung the door ajar and gazed at me quizzically. 

"Hi," I boomed, "I'm Paul. I spoke to Ruhi earlier. I've come to look at the shed...."

She smiled then, immediately at ease, which relieved me mightily. Then she said something extremely peculiar to me. It was as surprising as if she'd just shapeshifted into a mermaid before my eyes. 

She said, "Oh, the shed. It's just that you look like a rock star..." 

Say what? 

"Wow!" I said, laughing uproariously at this pronouncement. "Well that's the nicest, weirdest thing anyone's ever said to me..."

I know my hair is much longer than it's ever been, I was donning a checked shirt, skinny jeans and biker type boots - and I suppose there are my bangles too but it was a quantum leap. 

I told Karen who too thought it to be wonderfully funny. 

The shed was okay, large, utilitarian and full of stuff. It would be a while before it was ready for disassembly. 

We thanked Ruhi, a lovely Persian-English- American-Australian and took our leave. 

"Please tell your wife that she made my day," I said as we pushed back up the crazy driveway. 

A rock star indeed. 

I always knew it. 

Now, I think I'm going to forego the shed idea. 

I might start looking for a second hand Stratocaster instead...

What a life.