Censorship is as old as humanity’s empire building and tyrannical control regimes, which is really a very long story. Therefore, when it comes to censoring and editing our Uncle’s works for publishing, things in Nihnuta are no different; it’s complicated. They have to pretend to allow a small minority group of mental health challenged (therefore very vocal) people to feel they too have a say.
Auntie Jemima, the rather stout woman with the comically stern expression (it’s comical because it’s patently for effect and show), will sit at the head of the table in the weekly Nihnuta pueblo council meeting. She will carefully review, over the span of about 15-seconds to a story, each that was submitted by the village publishing team. Her red pen wiggling, tip of her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth, she crosses out profanities or unflattering references to herself before allowing them to be published.
The villagers often grumble about her persistent attempts to censor everything, especially the personals column in the Nihnuta Herald where folk advertise for mates or suggest get-togethers of sorts, and advertisements for cucumbers and carrots, of course. But Auntie Jamaina remains steadfast in her self-acclaimed role as head of the Morals Committee, a committee she herself set up and only Budslam members attend, all 25 of them, and no-one else ever cares about what not they rule or do.
Uncle says to allow the charade is an affront to people’s good energy and a dangerous game to play. He said at a town meeting, “…the tyranny of a backed-up, leaking, public toilet in the square, that interferes with people’s enjoyment of the town. And you allow it simply for the sake of being inclusive — sure all toilets have a right to exist and spread their energies and also have the right to want all toilets to be like itself. But if it goes against the norm and values of society, the majority must put that outhouse outside their domain. Let it stand in its own domain and preach its energy from there. Its followers will go there to worship its energy.”
He wrote in an article for the town paper, “Allowing an antisocial radical minority group the grace of acknowledgement and tolerance, to them is a sign of weakness. They would never afford you the same grace. They have remarkable talents as sciolists and one should study that phenomenon. It is they who sabotaged the sails of Socrates’ ship of democracy just so they can become captain and crew; their end game is to cut of the head and rule the corpse.”
But, for now, Nihnuta does not take action against Budslam, a tolerance that signals victory to adherents.
Jamaina publicly defends her philosophy by reminding people that even the great philosopher, High Mountain Story Uncle, refers to her as a classic Sciolist and others would do well to also learn from Uncle.
She never caught on that villagers are fully aware she reads nothing but Mo’s Book. So, they publish whatever they like, and she will never know, because she never reads. Therefore, they tell me, “there’s no problem allowing her to run the censor committee and morals committee. It only takes a few hours of all of us’ time every week and sure a lot of paper is wasted but its not so bad.”
Jamaina dislikes any ideas other than those in agreement with hers. Just one example I want to share. She scratched out all occurrences of the word “fart” and all references to her person in the following paragraph. Which, I must note, Auntie Emma totally ignored the edit and printed the article as was written. It was a piece against Budslam’s campaign to ban cucumbers. The paragraph reads, “Jamaina, that old fart thinks she doesn’t fart, all animals except for cows fart. But insofar as farting cows go, Jamaina farts for the state championship. You can hear her fart a mile away from all the broccoli and hot air she swallows with her sideways prayers yoga, ridiculous darn fart moves. What a silly old fart…”
Now, that quote simply would not read well if it was redacted.
Publishing is big, of course, in Nihnuta, because Uncle’s books go out in many animal and human languages and jungles across the world, and via Zyvox, it goes out to the Milky Way at large.
To coordinate so many editors and contributors, Nihnuta Pueblo used to use a delicate bluebird as their faithful messenger for years. The little thing and his entire family would be fluttering from windowsill to windowsill with important messages, and gossip, of course.
But then, covert censorship came in. Without people’s knowing, WHO Hu the owl, and the Budslam people, conspired to force the little blue bird, to first tell the messages to them, which they then “sanitized”, for reasons, they say, “the safety of all people.” Then, the Bluebird family would deliver only “sanitized” messages, many of which were nothing but unscientific and blatant lies aimed at social engineering. Which, as you perhaps know, is menticide to people who do not own their own minds.
Little Bluebird and his family had to put in twice the effort, and it felt like a betrayal. Sadly, the tiny creature fell ill from inhaling too much unicorn fart gas, which happens when you visit farting unicorns every day to deliver your sanitized message.
The poor thing grew weak from the negative energy, from the lies it had to tell. The poor thing had to be sent to a psychiatric recovery camp, and got addicted to Whaat! to forget about it all.
Little Bluebird’s manifesto, which he wrote before going down the Whaat-the-fook! rabbit hole, has this enigmatic paragraph in the end:
“The alphabet government who runs your world refused to include X in their catalogue, and they banned the proper pronunciation of it on AI-voice, and in schools, even in the senate. And all, because none of them could pronounce the name of Nelson Mandela’s tribe, the Xhosa. And they don’t want to say the word ’tribe,’ because its not woke, as if they themselves are not acting like a ’tribe’. And to them ‘woke tribe’ people, X must be cancelled because it’s a non-letter, they say. They say, ‘Because X is really an unnecessary duplicate of Z’, they say, ‘Z is more important because of Zorro. Zorro is history and must be protected,’ they say. And they cited xanadu, xelic, xenia, xerophyte, xenophobia, and xenon, as examples why X must be cancelled. A madness, I tell you. A madness. People are too stupid for X. Then they went ahead and forbade any AI to ever pronounce words starting with X correctly. A world run by zegolomaniacs is not worth investing in. I bow out. I take my leave.”
Auntie Sheniah, the secretary of the Council, was quite upset about X-Gate. In her own passionate words punctuated with Latino gesticulation and Spanish phrases in-between, aimed at her Mexican audience only. She shouted out from her podium,
“When X was thrown out, denigrated! Desonrada por la cornudo Z! Only the illustrious alien, the honorable Senor Nole of Mars, took X under his protection. And restored its honour! Making it important again! Thanks to Mr. Nole, today we are free again to pay homage to Xilonen, Xipe Totec, Xi Wang-mu, Xiuhcoatl, and most importantly, Xochiquetzal. And, thanks to Mr. Nole, the proud people of Nelson Mandela’s Xhosa tribe can again speak freely and continue to name their children Xolani and Xoliswa.”
Nowadays the committee uses Nole’s “The X-Machine”, for messages because it is stationed mid-orbit where a higher sense of duty, ethics, and honor rule. They use Telepathy Gram to communicate where the censor-tyrants can’t get to them. Auntie Jamaina, of course, condemns The X-Machine’s un-sanitized bluntness as “unwashed broccoli” — a phrase she often uses to dismiss ideas that go against her sensibilities, as if her sensibilities are of international standards proportion. She even warns that listening to messages through The X-Machine may lead to “snowflake disease,” apparently a dreaded syndrome which causes individuals to suffer from “exceptionalitis” which leads to many other ailments — a scientific medical fact she learned about from WHO Hu, the owl owned by the pharmacist who makes millions from medicines for exceptionalitis.
Auntie Jamaina has great respect for WHO Hu because he too believes in Programmed Thinking as the divine force, and that only the chosen have the ability to do Thinking. She and WHO Hu preach that science is divine because it is derived from Thinking which is divine. Any example one would give of how tenuous in nature scientific “truth” is and how corrupt and how purchasable scientific facts and proofs are, is countered by a string of hysterical insults about one’s appearance, anatomy, under-carriage, and a bunch of random isms, their favorite being conspiracy theorism, nazism, and extremism. Those in the village prone to indulging in the entertainment of watching public mental meltdowns, go out of their way to trigger these two beloved characters, without whom Nihnuta would be more peaceful, but poorer in entertainment.
Amidst the raw and unfiltered language of the Jungle AI monkeys, the candid messages of blackbirds, and the eternal wisdom of Uncle, Auntie Jemima’s censorship committee is constantly at work, tirelessly sanitizing his mesmerizing tales. But their work goes straight to the furnace of Whaat! Brewery. People think it really very funny that their beloved Whaat-the-fook! is brewed by failed bigotry.
Even auntie Katie runs her tart oven on reams of censored material produced by the committee. If nothing else, censorship it keeps Auntie Jemina occupied and content that she is controlling the lives of people who dare think they can think for themselves, a notion she dismisses as, “‘…humanly impossible by Divine decree.’ Chapter 9:11 The Book of Mo”.
Other village aunties join in on the task of saving the text from destruction by the Budslam people by adding some quirkiness and fun when they make little mistakes. Uncle made a rule that no story must ever be published unless there are at least three mistakes in it. The editing aunties do a good job at that. Their imperfect grasp of English, influenced by their home languages of Aztec, Mayan, Khmer, and Mexican Spanish, can sometimes let cracks appear in the quirks. Uncle delights in the quirks in published books.
And then, of course, there is the globally renowned photographer and artist living in Nihnuta, whose stunning visuals enhance Uncle’s stories and books. Going by the assumed name DullE, at times, he relies on Uncle’s invention, Jungle AI to lighten the burden of his tasks. The idyllic Magic Corners neighborhood of Nihnuta is home to DullE’s tucked-away studio, where he creates the priceless photos and art featured in Uncle’s books. People gave the name “Magic Corners” to this place because its hidden corners can only be stumbled upon, impossible to see beforehand. In this neighborhood, residents enjoy a complete sense of security, as robberies are unheard of. A distinguishing feature of the residents of Magic Corners is the abundance of scars and blue marks that embellish their legs and foreheads.
Uncle’s stories are like a tapestry woven from a multitude of sources, each thread adding richness and depth to his tales. His alien hat, gifted to him by Zyvox, is a constant reminder of the extraterrestrial beings that exist in other energy domains, beyond our understanding. The Jungle AI, energized by raicilla liquor from Mascota, in Mexico, and often even from other parts of Jalisco, is both mystical and practical in Uncle’s eyes.
Uncle would often find inspiration for his stories; featuring intelligent plant and animal characters whom he had personally interviewed and learned from. Through these stories, he seeks to pass on the ancient philosophy of theWAY — that all lifeforms in nature are interconnected and comprise the oneness of Nihnuta, a concept that drives his passion for storytelling.
When the cricket orchestra fills the evening air with its melodious tunes, Uncle always summons me to partake in the ethereal energies of evening, accompanied by a steaming cup of hot cocoa-raicilla.
Our quirky Uncle calls his evening hot cocoa-raicilla, his “morning glory” because he sleeps so well, so the days start of well. He drinks it for breakfast too, sometimes, but, then he calls it his “parting drink”.
From what I can deduce, “parting drink” has something to do with, when an auntie fell asleep in his room, for whatever reason it may be said, in the morning.
Anyhow, after a while of sitting in silence, I encroached on Uncle’s healing time, and asked about what I had learned in the village today, about X, and whether he agreed.
Uncle confirms what I learned about humanity almost losing X to the “alphabet thugs,” as he refers to them, is true.
“In fact,”, says he, “I will to propose to Nihnuta Village Council to erect a monument to Nole of Mars holding the X. We must honor this hero. Look, I made a painting of it.” He said as he rummaged through his piles of ideas and half-manuscripts strewn all over the work side of the cabin.
Then, he tells me a secret aspiration he holds, something he says, he never told another human. For years, he had dreamed of developing an AI that would embody the essence of theWAY philosophy through extensive training. Something that people can ask questions about life and learn how theWAY speaks to seeking a solution. So, naturally, Uncle attempted to test it out with his Jungle AI, but quickly realized that it was not well-suited for such ambitious goals. The problem with the monkeys and mycelium, he says, “They tell the truth as it is. Which is indigestible in human brains, it leaves a plaque in the perineum which cuts off oxygen to their thinking bits.”
I asked, sort of, just to make conversation, whether Uncle believes in freedom of speech. I should have learned to not do that with Uncle. Again, he surprised me. “Oh, no! That is the real problem with life. There is an entire class of people who do not deserve words. That is where politicians and scientists come from, from words, and look at the world they made. Speach is not free, it never was and never should be. All speech have consequences and nobody should be exonerated from the consequences of their speech.”
I asked, “Does that mean you are in favour of censorship?”
“Noop!” says he. “Again, you don’t understand. Let’s put it this way. What would be the consequence should you have said to your Mother, “I’m not cleaning my room, It’s your job.”?
“My dad would beat the hell out of me,” I said, cringing at the very thought of anyone uttering such words.
“By the constitution of the country, did you have the right to say those words?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you pay a price for using those words?”
“Yes, sir,” Ah! I get it. “There is a price to pay for using words.”
“Absolutely. But not always a price, sometimes a prize.”
I agreed.
“Will you get a prize, or a price, for the book you are writing about Nihnuta?” He asked, and watched me compute that, with a twinkle in his eye.
After giving it some serious thought, I had to declare, “A price, sir.”
“Ah, my good man! That is why we invited you to come.” He winked as he raised his glass to me. “So, who do you vote for? The left wing or the right wing of the bird?”
I hesitated to talk party-politics with anyone. It’s nothing but a modern version of the Roman Circus, it’s a useless topic to discuss. It’s an orchestrated and choreographed distraction. But I had to answer. It was a fair question. “I vote for strong opposition, sir. The bird shall be corrupt and unqualified but without balance it will fly into hell.”
Uncle looked deep into my soul with those piercing eyes, and ever so slowly, leaned over to me, closer and closer, unwavering in his fixed gaze. From the corner of my eye, I noticed him filling a raicilla copita on the coffee table between us, then handing it to me. “Good man,” he said and lifted his glass. Whatever I said was so right in his view, it called for a shot of straight-up raicilla.
Uncle resumes to tell me, in order to ensure future unadulterated understanding of the Wayist teachings, he now knows that a “machine learning machine”, as he puts it, is necessary for his special project. The news of Nole of Mars successfully awakening old Grog and injecting it with true raicilla confirmed to him that it was the optimal solution. To him, it is an unshakable conviction that spreading awareness about theWAY and enabling universal access to it will be a safeguard against the allure of Budslam and “the apocalypse of corporately owned politicians”. Uncle dreams of a future where the currency conversion rate from Canada Goose eggs to Grog$ works in his favor, to help him achieve his goals.
Wondering about Uncle’s perspective, I questioned him about whether he thinks Budslam is a blight on the world. “Not so,” he says firmly, his words hanging in the air. “Soul-people need soul-mind nutrition. That is all they can digest. Since they always want things, especially free things, because ‘they deserve it’, and things that make them feel special, they must be corralled. They must be disciplined and forced to have self-respect; they need tribalism and externally imposed authority over their nature. They need deities whom they fear, because they respect the abuse of power. They elect leaders for their economy, international policies, and financial systems whose only real life experience and training is to be an entertainer with the gift of the gab. People just like them. They respect leaders who bully and abuse because that is what they will do if they had political power or godly freedoms. That is why they need the budslams and other tyrants of the world. If not for that, they will themselves dismantle the very foundations and every nut and bolt of civilization, and engineer the collapse of society. Why? Because of the joy of watching people squirm under their power. But spirit-people, we need something different, not an external something — we have it all inside.”
~end of preview chapters
Note to reader:
Uncle taught me how to make his cocoa-raicilla. He is super meticulous about it, never deviates from the specifications. It was one of my daily tasks as a guest in his house. With Uncle’s permission, I pass the recipe on. The Theobroma cacao beans must be already fermented. Roast the fermented beans, de-husk and mill very fine with your molcahete. Here is an expert tip. This powder is oily and stains your underwear. Wear an apron…. At this point you have transformed the cacao to cocoa. Use ¾ tablespoon cacao powder per drinking beaker of river water. Bring to boil, over a corn-cob and cow dung fire, add a liberal large chunk of pilonciljo (never another sugar). Top up the water and boil for 2 more minutes. Add no more than 60 proof raicilla from Jalisco to taste. Listen to the cricket orchestra while drinking in the evening. Or drink before facing Menis in the morning. It’s an acquired taste.