Oh, yeah, and if anybody out there has any experience with software router programs, give me a holla.
Anybody ever notice that Internet Explorer problem where you enter a password, then tab down to the "Submit" or "OK" or whatever button, and when you click that button with the space bar it puts that space in the password text entry box somehow, and messes up the password?
Oh, yeah, Reagan died last night... for all his failures to deliver on his promises, he kept us out of war (probably in spite of himself) and put the "small government" idea on the table. Too bad he never actually did anything about it, nor did any republicans. I think the Republican and Democratic parties are basically dead as opposing forces; they're basically just two factions of the same elite anymore. Yeah, Steve, I know, I know, but get your own damn blog.
Everybody shut up. Listen - I just had the best sushi last night. It's philadelphia roll, deep fried in tempura batter! Damn that was good. The only thing better than that is yellowtail sashimi, and that's way too expensive.
There should be some sort of protection against letting your high class tastes outpace your ability to afford them. Anybody know where you can find sashimi grade yellowtail in the Bum Fuck Egypt area?
I don't know about y'all, but when I was growin' up, my white middle class ass was listenin' to some hip-hop. Cube, Dre, Snoop, Ghetto Boys, Public Enemy, yeah... then I found out about so-called "alternative" music and latched onto that and derided most hip-hop as basically shit. And, a lot of it was. I was always such a musical person that it was easy for me to see the sugar coated, lowest common denominator production behind the rhymes as essentially ear candy with no soul, nothing "musical" about it.
Lately I've been getting back into it, and there's some really good production out if you know where to look. I really can't listen to any of that gangster shit - I know some people just wanna laugh at it, but I think it's funking sad people take that shit seriously. But there's a lot of good stuff - not neccessarily underground, either. Blackalicious (The Gift of Gab, the rapper from Blackalicious, just came out with a great new solo album called Fourth Dimensional Rocket Ships Going Up - yeah, the whole album is about spiritual evolution and it just makes me wanna sing) and anything from the Quannum collective (DJ SHADOW!), Jurassic 5, I even dig Dilated Peoples most of the time and Eyedea and Abilities are good too. I love the production but most of these guys are really on their game lyrics-wise, mad skillz plus they've got a positive message to spread. I love that moment when the beats and words come together and give you that rush like a shot of smack in the arm....
Whew, speaking of which, I'll be right back... now where'd I put that spoon?
As this blog comes together, I'd just like to thank Wil Forbis of Acid Logic fame for getting me started at blogging. I'm enjoying the experience immensely and am ripping the HTML from his own blog page. In fact, this blog will now be called My So Called Social Memory Complex.
Why are y'all groaning like that?
Anyway, my girlfriend, who is a full time, self employed potter, is doing another art show this weekend in Fredericksburg. This means I get to sit at a booth with her while women going through or already past menopause ask dumb questions and whine about how cute everything is without buying anything. The worst ones are the ones who try to talk down your price, as if she really should be charging less for this stuff that she works her ass of at. "Hello, this took a lot of time, it's only $15, just give her the money, take it out of the big sack of bills your husband got when he cashed in his stock options, you pretentious sack of botox!" I swear, I have no idea how she does it. I could never do any retail, I would just give myself an ulcer.
I'll give you a topic: the blog's new look, discuss.
Oh yeah, check out this essay a wrote for my friend Eskmo and his website The Helix Network called History as the Evolution of Identity.
Why did I write this article? Because the idea of the social memory complex is the type of collective I think our planet is headed towards throughout history and currently. It's been coming for some time; the question is simply whether it will be positive or negative. We must come together to solve the problems we face, but we have to do it in via each and every individual. We can't form this complex, and thus tap into the power of the collective, without each and every individual taking his or her irreplacable spot in the collective.
Let me know what you think. Well, not you, but the rest of you.
OK, libertarianism and environmentalism, here we go:
The whole point of this book I read (The Ecology of Commerce) by Paul Hawken was the idea that, if you look at the natural ecology, there is a remarkable efficiency to the way biological systems work. There is no waste whatsoever. It is the ultimate example of economic efficiency, applied to the problem of how to sustainably maintain a diverse biological environment healthily. The premise of Hawken's argument was if business could adapt to incorporate this natural, organic efficiency, it would be not only more efficient, but more sustainable: economic efficiency and environmental sustainability and reduced ecological impact should go hand in hand. Essentially, the business that incurs the least waste and least environmental costs should also be the one that can produce the least cost widget. So why doesn't capitalism work like this?
I can't find the quote now, but there is a quote in the book by some anti-globalization writer that puts it quite succinctly: "The problem with the free market is that we've never had one." This is precisely the problem: externalization of costs cannot occur without government interference in, and distortion of, the market. Corporations pollute the air because government will not - cannot - hold them accountable for the common problem they are creating (whether because of the principles of limited government or the effects of corporate influence on politics). Artificial limits on liability and legal ambiguity allow the corporations to continue polluting public resources like the land, air, and water because in most cases the public owns these assets. Of course, what that really means is that politicians control these properties - and these politicians have no stake in the future value of the properties.
Read more...
OK, well, just finished watching The Fog of War and it was very interesting and candid. I'm not sure what to think of MacNamara. On the one hand, there seems to be a large argument to be made that he was a moderate force in the conflicts in which he was involved. He certainly has a respect and sense of responsibility for the power and danger of government. He regrets much of what he did, and the sincerity of his intentions is difficult to doubt. He believes in duty and service, y'know, all those qualities our generation supposedly doesn't understand. He related a story about how Kennedy took full responsibility for the botched Bay of Pigs operation - even though MacNamara said that every single military and civilian advisor recommended he do it. Compare that to Bush and you get a sense of what our country has lost in the past fifty years. Accountability flew out the window sometime during the 70s, I suspect, and it won't return.
However, on the other hand, it was precisely this ideal of duty, accountability, and willingness to sacrifice that I believe was the problem in Vietnam and the problem now. This flawed idea that, somehow, government can advance ideas and ideologies and that that justifies people dying en mass. That government is not, in the end, just the business end of a big stick. MacNamara states point blank that if we had lost World War II that we would be considered war criminals for what we did. But he takes the completely opposite view as I do - he says we need to think about how to codify a just approach to war that minimizes loss of life. I say forget it - make war as horrible and brutal as possible, don't make it a game. You fight to win, so nobody dares fuck with you, BUT you only fight when necessary. Vietnam didn't start out with 500k troops on the ground - but it did end up there, and it happened because we tiptoed into a battle because we weren't truly willing from the beginning to accept the costs.
Yes, war is sometimes necessary in order to defend your nation - but the more you try to institutionalize it, conventionalize it, make it a more and more acceptable extension of politics, the more often you will have to wage it. Like where we are now as a superpower - perpetual war for perpetual peace. And all that does is just make war more and more acceptable, and destabilizes the world. No, war is horrible, and it should be accepted as such. It should be waged so terribly and brutally as to make each and every human individual determined never to accept the conditions of war from their leaders unless absolutely necessary - and even then with skepticism. I do not accept that we have to engage in these maintenance wars like Vietnam and Gulf War 1/2 (I do, however, believe that our foreign policy requires such maintenance, but it is that policy that should be regarded as the problem).
Read more...
Hey, y'all, thanks for checking out my outpost on the web. Let the indoctrination begin...
I'm still not sure why I'm embarking on blogging. All in all, it just seems like a way for malcontents to rant and rave. It seems to do more sometimes to marginalize discussion on the internet than to promote it, and from some of the conversations I've been in over the net, I can understand why that would be desirable. I'd like to believe that dialogue on the internet can lead to creative and thoughtful discourse (even humor like my bud Wil's blog) but experience has shown that the internet tends to draw out the worst in people (such as my bud Wil's blog - HAHAHAHA).
However, holding with my idea that the internet represents a major step forward in the conversion of humanity to a more integrated, interdependent sense of identity - indeed, a Social Memory Complex (more on that later, in the meantime, check out my original music under the same name - I want to at least put my views out there and let the chips fall where they may. I think recent events are catalyzing change at both an individual and collective level, whether or not people realize it. My bet is that there is value to be gained by talking about this. We shall see.
And for anybody who's finding this from Wil's blog, calling somebody gay is hereby verboten. If you're gonna insult people, use your fucking imagination.
Now let's see what happens in the comment list, now that I've released their inner creativity... express the child within.
I just finished watching a documentary called Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary. Basically it was a series of interviews with an old lady who was one of Hitler's secretaries way back during the war. It was absolutely fascinating to see somebody who was in such close proximity to Hitler as a person talk about what it was like, especially during the last days. It's wonderful as time goes on, the Germans can look back on those times and see things in a broader array of colors than just black and white. Even when I was in Germany back in the 90s, it was still a very sore subject, and this is the first time, after all these years, she has been able to talk about this.
I can't do it justice with words. You have to see it yourself. The people who distributed it in America (it's in German, and I was actually pleased that I could understand much of it without the subtitles) also just released an interview documentary with Robert MacNamara that looks really interesting called The Fog of War. Good, good stuff.
Don't dispair, loyal readers... libertarianism... environmental policy... I'll get to it.
How much do they have to flaunt it before you realize that Republicans and Democrats are two wings of the SAME FUCKING PARTY?
Christ, they're practically fondling each other in their cute little sunglasses. Do your homework on these two, fellas - this picture says a lot more than any campaign talk will this summer.
That libertarian environmental post is still coming...
Just FYI, the Libertarian Party picked it's nominee for the 2004 Presidential Race. Good for them. The winner, Badnarik, seems like a good guy - a little bookish, but I guess that makes him a pretty faithful representative of the party. If he can come off as not being a pretentious snob devoid of any social skills whatsoever, he's already doing better than some of the LPs membership.
See, as you can tell, I'm not a huge fan of the LP. Well, I'm a BIG fan of libertarianism, and I even support the LP mostly, but the people actually IN the LP can be so fucking annoying. I was on the State Central Committee for a state LP that went through a big political feud over trying to oust the Party Chairman, and it was just stupid posturing, backbiting, and slick maneuvering over, what, 1% of the electorate? Hardly a big enough piece of the pie to get bent out of shape over.
They call themselves the "Party of Principle", but I think they could stand to lighten up on the "principle" part. Being the party of principle doesn't mean shoving *your* principles and self-righteousness down everybody else's throat, Christ. The LP needs to get their fucking act together before they get anymore of my money.
I just read Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce which is all about how businesses must become not just eco-friendly, but design their businesses for long term sustainability. Sounds pretty libertarian, I'll do a post on libertarian environmentalism in a bit.
