I would prefer sharing tallboys with ex-cons

Back from vacation, choking on sweet city air.

On the bus ride back, I found myself surrounded by foreign university students, discussing contemporary politics, using the most abstract of terms.

"Capitalism!", "Separation of powers!", "Media conspiracy!"

It was painful.

I forced myself to sit back and try to decipher what the hell these people were trying to accomplish, arguing over what they hadn't defined. Relief settled in as I realized they weren't trying to do a damn thing. They may as well have been talking about football. Super muscle man has 400 sacks? Skinny French theorist wrote 80 articles on the Portuguese media? Same damn thing.

If you're going to argue over politics, stick with concrete examples and terms you've newly redefined in that conversation. 'Cause no one wants to see you scratching yourself, leaning on borrowed authority.

The Internet: A World Full of Nervous Laughter

When involved in an awkward conversation on the internet the most common reply used to avoid awkward silence is LOL. Which means that this laughing out loud has turned into nothing more than a chuckle and cough.



LOL.

Soon to be Balls Deep in Freedom and Liberty

I will be out of town for about two weeks which means no posts from me for a little while (not that I've posted in a few days anyway). During this vacation I will be involved in several activities, mostly drinking and sex, but I will also be working on my notes for another post. This future post will be a bit of an exploratory musing on the American usage of the words freedom and liberty (maybe usage is too mild a word, I mean raping).

Because chewing takes too long

A couple of interesting articles from the American: one against cash incentives for schooling, and another in favour of abolishing the SATs. I agree with the main points of these articles: you can't fix disparity by conditioning behaviour termed "proper", and you can't identify the diamonds among those rough and ornery underprivileged by judging both privileged and underprivileged by the same standard...not without underscoring a sense of entitlement among the rich.

But I also think that something about the tone in each article was off, (though I blame the articles less than the debate they engage in, especially in the case of the first article). They were presenting valid arguments against ineffective programs, programs meant to help the "underprivileged"...but in doing so they did not take the time to define what needed fixing and why. I was left with the sense that both articles masked sentiment that was (perhaps unconsciously) trite, that "we have a duty to help these poor, wayward, limited, (dirty) individuals...but alas no method is working".

It is as the writers (falsely) believe a great burden is weighing upon them, a great struggle that must be engaged in despite knowledge from the start that it was doomed to failure, because (they falsely believe) the children of the privileged are (genetically) better off, and everyone else is catching up. (e.g., from the second article: "The children of the well educated and affluent get most of the top scores because they constitute most of the smartest kids. They are smart because their parents are smart. The parents have passed their smartness along through parenting practices that are largely independent of education and affluence, and through genes that are completely independent of them.")

This is self-absorption masked as charity.

The debate needs to be rephrased, away from an under-defined "moral obligation" toward the poor, and toward a sense of mutual advantage to be gained from the promotion of functional, semi-autonomous sub-systems within a single nation. In other words, don't feel as though the promotion of the underprivileged is necessary because we must return to that innocent (mythical) state of equality to which we were born. Instead, realize that independent communities exist within America, that problems within one community (crime, unemployment, illness) affect everyone, and that it is in everyone's self-interest to resolve them.

My solution? Teleportation.

Let's get back to inconvenience

You want to move America to the left. You want to do something to engage an actual physical person with a negative result of conservative policies.

But conservatives have every drug addicted hobo on their side: they are abstractions, projections of what we could become, of what we can avoid becoming through obsessive engagement in day to day affairs, absorbing the creative output of others.

Let's rebuild the hobos, take them from the future to the present, where all that's keeping them from success is a lack of compassion. Speak to them when you walk by.

Oh, the Children.

The young ones stole the headlines over the past week with underage suicide bombing, high-speed texting, getting checks cut from the Catholic church, stunt riding on the hood of car, and being the subject matter of sexy Spanish photos. Now, age is an interesting factor in determining one's individual ability to function within the whole of human society: eg. There are those adults who say "But, oh, they're so young," others who espouse "That child knew what he was doing," and also the ever wistful "They grow up so fast, don't they?" One of the difficulties, I would argue, in determining how much responsibility should be placed upon kids comes from, what I would consider, the real and imagined effects of age on mental acuity.
This idea is not ground breaking, and this is not what will be discussed.
Let me start by saying: I have nothing against children as a specific group of people; everyone of us was a child at one point. I do, on the other hand, tend to view children the same way I view all other people; Most kids, just like adults, I find to be fairly obnoxious. This does not alter the fact that I believe they should -again, just like adults- be treated with the compassion that all humans deserve. I would like to believe most people can agree with that statement to some extent.
Now, after all that retarded exposition I can get to the very short point I was going to make. If you were going to find how compassionate people can be towards children, look to the Middle East. -Wait, he didn't just say that did he?- Oh, I fucking did. President Hamid Karzai pardoned a 14 year old would be suicide bomber. The president realizing the boy had been taken under a malicious wing pardoned the kid and wished him "a good life." Incredible. I can remember a few years ago there was a fifteen year-old boy in Florida who was given life in prison for accidentally killing one of his friends while the two of them were practicing wrestling moves they saw on TV. At this time I will withhold my opinion on the Floridian event and leave it up to you the reader.
This does not excuse the Middle East or any other region of the world from other crimes committed against children, I'm just pointing out that while the western world was taking naked photos of kids, placing them on the hood of a car, or leaving them in the hands of dodgey religious figures. Those oh-so-hated Middle Easterners were showing some compassion. Or if you're a cynical fuck such as myself they were just getting some much needed good publicity.

Positioning Inequality

There seems to be some debate going on between a couple of bloggers, one a supporter of greater economic parity, one an opponent of excessive concern with income. It’s like watching an episode of a long-running soap opera, except the sexy twin brother stranded in nicaragua is a million (wannabe) hobos.

Eight Things I Don't Even Care About

All I can say is that I'm terribly sorry I have to do this.

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Shit, I'm not sure I can think of anything worth committing to an electric page. Fuck it, here goes something (something probably uninteresting).

1) I was born clinically deceased. I was quickly resuscitated, obviously.

2) I think Legos are about the greatest thing ever fucking invented.

3) A year ago I visited England for about a month and I have to say the Scottish are about the friendliest people I've met. Though, I've had many disagree with me. But, they're bastards.

4) I do not own a television. I don't take pride in this it's just a random fact.

5) This is a lot more difficult than I would have imagined. (This one counts, right?)

6) The funniest person in the world, according to myself, was Bill Hicks.

7) I am and always have been an interminable jackass.

8) I am fairly certain compassion is the foremost virtue humans can bestow upon others.

Ok, now that's done and I can send this virus (thank you Tantalus Prime) to eight others.

Gadgetholic

TAN

Heliotropic

Corpus Mmothra

Dr. McNinja

Global Guerrilas

Hobotopia

Hole in the Head

Where Are the Mythic Floods?

Short of an act of a deity I don't believe in, there isn't a much that the United States citizens or congress can do to the president anymore. I'm not one to advocate wiping clean the face of the Earth, but I do not believe I can describe my current opinion on the state of my country any other way than complete and total disillusionment. I used to think that when there was great evil the good would band together and stave it off; this sentiment no longer seems true, and perhaps it was only true in the pulp stories of my youth.
Where is this great evil?
That is my current problem, I can't truly find it. I have begun to rationalize everything and with this new found logic virus I no longer feel anything towards our current state of being. I find moments or flashes of white hot emotion, but soon it simmers down to a slow boil and the feeling of helplessness settles back in. The only question I have left that lights fires in my blood is this: What happened to compassion? I no longer see it in the eyes of a country whose founding legal documents seemed so wonderfully promising. And, unlike some others I don't see dollar signs or the number of the beast; all I see are glassy eyes reflecting my own vacuous stare tinged slightly with red from an eternal hangover.

Wikipedia for Zombies

I have no problem with wikipedia as a concept. Reality is already subjectively created and interpreted, may as well make the process a little more transparent, draw people that much more into a storytelling reality.

But I have to admit, sometimes I worry that an online negotiation of truth will ruin the collective sanity, that it threatens cultural boundaries that are better left alone...but rather than censor the internet, can’t we just blind the stupid?

Wikipedia has already overwhelmed Google to such an extent that it’s nearly impossible to find any information on how to kill it, so we should just accept its presence and choose some other way to mediate between conflicting truths, a way that will leave the information out there without presenting people already too absorbed in abstraction another abstract evil which contrarian individuals can be associated with.

Because, truth be told, I have no problem leaving a bunch of people ignorant, so long as I don’t have to deal with them. I see nothing righteous about forcing alternate perspectives down another person’s throat. It’s tiring.

I’ll stay in my circle of hell, you stay in yours, and we’ll talk about tangentials.

And it's going to be incredible

I don't know what the hell is going on in Italy, but they are planning something.

Meet People Who Want Sex / Japanese Sexy Women in Action!

Do those headlines grab your attention (among other things)? Those are just two of the subject lines I grabbed out of my e-mail today, and I must say I noticed those more so than the headline, "Court Dismisses Suit Challenging Domestic Spying." The dismissal was due to the fact that not one of the plaintiffs could prove that they had been spied upon by the US government. The rebuttal from the ACLU was that the plaintiffs were not allowed access to the documents stating just who was being spied upon.
At this point I noticed that no where in these arguments has anyone brought up the sheer legality of the wiretapping. No, of course not, the court needs specifics. But, that does make sense, to a degree. The only way that this could be taken to court is over the specifics. The warrant-less wiretapping issue is too large and has been around for too long to just be thrown in the back of a paddy-wagon and hauled off to the hoosegow. For instance, CNN stated that:

"Electronic surveillance programs run by the NSA have been under fire since December 2005, when The New York Times disclosed that the government was listening in on international phone calls involving people suspected of having ties to terrorists.

Some legal scholars said the program is an illegal and unwarranted intrusion on Americans' privacy, but the Bush administration has defended it as necessary in the battle against the al Qaeda terrorist network."

Notice a few tricky words: terrorists, suspected, ties. Terrorists in this case, I'm assuming(which pisses me off for having to assume), is synonymous with al Qaeda. I'm not sure quite what suspected means or how you get on the list of suspects. Lastly, ties doesn't seem quite concrete enough. Couldn't you have ties to someone because they are your local grocer, or have ties to another because they are your mail-person? Shit, what if you have ties to someone else that has ties? Well, Little Timmy, you're probably fucked.
Remember, terrorist has a very fluid definition, and eventually it will just mean people who disagree.
This is why I'm going back out to find people who want sex, and maybe, just maybe, I'll find some Japanese sexy women in action!

Truths to make you fearful: Bisphenol A

Toxic enough to get doctors fired for dismissing it’s effects. Not toxic enough to be banned from use in baby bottles.

Hot Nights and Cold Wars

Lately, I've been a bit of a shut in, drinking alone till the early hours of the morning and scrolling through news sites. I've shied away from my old haunts and even stopped calling people during the day to save on cellphone charges. All of this in the name of saving some money. And, while my pocket book maybe stable, my consciousness is far from it. The last few weeks I've been trying to convince myself that we are not heading into another cold war. Putin's suggestions of modernizing the Azerbaijan early warning station have all but been shot down, while Bush wants to place an American presence on the Russian border. All seemed lost until I read this wonderful paragraph:

"Both leaders, who dined on pancakes and omelets for breakfast and curried zucchini soup and chicken salad for lunch, smiled and seemed eager to portray a strong, stable relationship between the two nations. Putin is the first head of state to be hosted at the Maine summer home by President Bush, an attempt to warm relations in a place of sparkling views and summertime weather."

Oh, thank fuck there's sparkling views and summertime weather to melt away Putin's icy Russian exterior. Word on the street is that they've got a few fishing trips planned. If only Roosevelt and Stalin would have put on jean shorts and gone bass fishin' this whole fucking thing would have never been started.
After this post I plan on heading straight out and grabbing a drink. Then as I amble home, my drunken screams for peace will find ears among the stars, and if I'm lucky maybe I'll see a Russian missile flying overhead. You know when you see a Russian missile fly over head and you make a wish, it doesn't come true then either.

asbestos suit, away!

and what is this heroic fabric flying towards? why, a past unpopulated by the clones of former monkeys, newly transformed into machines, feeding on dreams made into a broken metaphor for awakening.

(if humans can soon transfer data through bones, change species at will, and feed a vast supply of clones, we're almost ready for an age where you can plug your enemies into a wall and fax them into frogdom).