I was answering a comment by Melvin on Jack's diary, and it turned into a blog post. So here it is.
I've been getting involved lately in reading literature about economic collapse, cultural collapse, environmental collapse...I'm trying to hit the high notes here, and that includes philosophers, because they address all of that.
Have you read any Zinn? I gather you have, I have not. Do you or anyone else here have any particular book recommendations?
What I have been reading lately:
Derrick Jensen's "Endgame"
"Plan B" by Lester Brown
"Powerdown" by Heinberg
"The Twilight of American Culture" by Berman
I'm currently reading Diamond's "Collapse: How Societies Choose or Fail To Succeed."
On the shelf, till I get to them:
"Waiting for the Barbarians," Lewis Lapman (editor of Harper's, my favorite magazine)
Since Rick Sanchez - god I hate that moron. Being from Cuba doesn't really qualify you to do anything, including read the news - doesn't want to provide the guy "a soapbox", I will:
cached from the original site, now down:
The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:
I do not speak of this struggle of the past merely from the historic standpoint. Our interest is primarily in the application to-day of the lessons taught by the contest of half a century ago. It is of little use for us to pay lip-loyalty to the mighty men of the past unless we sincerely endeavor to apply to the problems of the present precisely the qualities which in other crises enable the men of that day to meet those crises. It is half melancholy and half amusing to see the way in which well-meaning people gather to do honor to the man who, in company with John Brown, and under the lead of Abraham Lincoln, faced and solved the great problems of the nineteenth century, while, at the same time, these same good people nervously shrink from, or frantically denounce, those who are trying to meet the problems of the twentieth century in the spirit which was accountable for the successful solution of the problems of Lincoln's time.
Also, a healthy sex life is just as important. God or Nature or possibly Reptilians gave us genitals and having our dicks and coots toyed with is a biological imperative. Without genital stimulation, we become loathsome creatures huddled in darkness.
And as if you hadn't realized this already, Vanity Fair has just shown the world that Sarah Palin satisfies neither of the above requirements needed to, ya know, not be a monstrous cunt.
The VF article, written by Michael Joseph Gross, looks beneath Palin's bubbly conservative exterior and reveals that the woman is, basically, a giant dick. Alaskans who knew her are terrified to speak ill of her, and not because her critics are just wine sipping liberals fearful of the great patriotic fist of Real America: They're afraid they'll lose their jobs, especially if they work for the state or local governments. Ex-Palin aides from her time as mayor and governor claim the putz was a non-entity during things like budget meetings, because she didn't "understand math or accounting - she only knows buzzwords, like 'balanced budget'."
Gross goes on to tell us how, as Palin jumped into the national spotlight, her cuntiness rose to untold degrees; even one of her kids supposedly freaked out on her so-called Christianity, claiming Palin was a fraud. Wasilla locals claim all her fishing and hunting talk is, well, a complete load of Alaskan meth-addict turds.
And, dear readers, this is what happens when we decide we're going to be something other than what we are. Just as Palin became more and more of a dick as she was striving to become something she wasn't, we sane and humble non-Real Americans and faggoty leftist cheese-eaters are just as prone to becoming massive turds of queefly dickheadedness when we push ourselves into a life-consuming lie.
Let's not forget about our biological need for booty and plenty of it, because Gross points toward All American Trophy Husband (and object of my sympathy) Todd Palin, who more or less claims he doesn't get laid ever. This is surprising to me, dear readers, because although Sarah Palin sickens me to no end, I used to imagine the woman's sexual performance would mirror that of so many Type-A women, which basically means she'd hate-fuck you until your sperm fled the sack.
Now you might think the Palin Bedroom of Non-Coitus is none of our business but, dear reader, it most certainly is; when a public figure who influences our national discourse - and might very well run for president - has a terrible sex life, that public figure is likely to turn into a poisonous leader. And look at the folks who spew the most vile, hateful vitriol in America. Do Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sharon "Frying Pan Face" Angle really seem like they're on the receiving end of a healthy blowjob on a regular basis? They absolutely don't, and it's no secret that people who have healthy sex lives tend to be more compassionate and open-minded than those who don't.
And when you think about it, it's a damn shame: Disgustingly dingleberryish as her ideas are, we can agree that there is nary a more fuckable political figure than Sarah Palin, yet she doesn't get laid. It is certainly a testament to the evangelical Christians' duty to make sex as unappealing as possible.
So in closing, we can all learn a thing or two about what makes a healthy, content life by looking at Sarah Palin. Pretending to be a wholesome, Christly, moose-hunting Real American when you're nothing of the sort will only turn you into a bastard (even if you pretend to be a moose-slaughtering patriot for a fucking multi-million dollar deal with Fox). Then again, if being a Bible-thumping murderer of small wilderness creatures leads you to a content and healthy life, by all means, light up a doe or three and I'll have some venison with you. Just be you, motherfuckers. And that's an important corollary to getting laid, because pleasant folks are more likely to have others explore their crotches.
Be yourself and get laid. That goes for you too, Sarah.
"Today, old adversaries are at peace, and emerging democracies are potential partners." -Barack Obama, August 31, 2010
AFP/Baghdad, August 25, 2010... More than a dozen apparently co-ordinated car bombs targeting Iraqi police and other attacks blamed on Al Qaeda killed 53 people yesterday, just days before the US military ends its combat mission.
BAGHDAD, Aug 17... A suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded army recruitment centre in Baghdad killing 61 people Tuesday, officials said, as violence coinciding with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan raged across Iraq.
When I was but a young twenty-something, I lived in Santa Cruz for a few years. And I volunteered in their SPCA-run animal shelter for some months of my stay there. This is a story about that.
Since Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck have obviously transformed 51 Park Place into a target for right-wing extremists, I believe that Cordoba House should be constructed at a different location, but in the meantime President Obama and the rest of the Democratic leadership should make it absolutely clear that right-wing hate-mongers have created the danger of another terrorist attack in lower Manhattan, like the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
Or instead of attacking Beck and Palin, we can humbly remain with the usual paradigm, where right-wing pseudo-populists define the issue...
Sarah Palin: We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they?
Obama blathers uselessly in the middle...
"I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there."
Symbols sure can be great. Who doesn't get choked up when they spot Old Glory flapping in the breeze just after sunrise? And by Old Glory I don't mean my penis, at least not this time.
Yet when folks rely on symbolism, they tend to forget about logic. I can stand on the corner waving Old Glory with a bald eagle on my shoulder, and that doesn't mean I know shit about America. In fact, it only means that I'm loitering on public land with my cock hanging out (because that time I was totally talking about my penis).
By and large, logic is much more important than symbolism. Logic, however, isn't nearly as popular. Citizens will often respond more positively to, say, images of the Lincoln Memorial than they will to faggoty things like math, philosophy, and critical thought. Nobody falls to their knees and speaks in tongues when they read about Charles Darwin. But show a fundie just one nacho that sort of looks like Christ and they go batshit for hours.
American flags, yellow ribbons, eagles, and those fucking insufferable 'Don't Tread On Me' flags have been robbed of any meaning they may have had. And this isn't a recent incident, since knuckleheaded Americans have been perverting our nation's symbols since we decided to have symbols in the first place. Many folks out there look at the fifty stars and thirteen stripes (which everyone knows are for luck) and say to themselves, "This flag isn't for Muslims."
Abbie Hoffman famously turned our flag into a shirt. Hoffman's fashion should have been considered criminal, not for breaking any nancy-pants (and unconstitutional) flag desecration laws, but because Hoffman started Americans on a slippery slope toward the most retarded of all fashion choices, the novelty T-shirt.
Anyway, Hoffman looked at our flag and thought, "Instead of changing the tone of national discourse with logic and intelligence, I'm gonna get high, fuck a co-ed, and try to levitate the Pentagon." And that sounds like a great Saturday night, but the general idea isn't so hot when one considers that Hoffman and Co. possibly drove large chunks of the working-class left into warm old man breasts of Ronald Reagan.
Now the Tea Baggers have claimed a variety of national symbols, redefining their meanings into a mishmash of libertarian talking points, many of which weren't that smart when Freddy Hayek was around and are still a trifle insane.
And if symbols can be such an awful thing in the context of a debate, why do folks continue to use them? Well, dear readers, for the same reason idiots with no argument (or idiots with no interest in listening to one) love one-liners so much. Every one-liner outside of a good Simpsons episode is pure evil, a tool of a demonic nature, whose only purpose is to dumb down an argument. One-liners and symbols are the reason so many right wingers think every form of socialism will instantly turn America into a giant gulag, why so many lefties think every form of capitalism will instantly turn America into a poisonous wasteland full of morbidly obese Walmart shoppers.
So we're fresh off Glenn Beck's rally of retardation, a miasma of American flags, Martin Luther King's niece, lapel pins, patriotic lingo, Martin Luther King's niece, even more token black folks, and probably a few more flags. The result? Several hundred thousand attendees now believe they have totally restored honor to something, all by sashaying around Washington wrapped in symbols and listening to vaguely religious rhetoric. Yet they've accomplished nothing, at least in regards to their own intellectual advancement, because Beck's agenda is rooted in a fundamentally limited spectrum of one-liners and symbols. They still think voting conservative and donating cash to Dick Armey is going to make America different, just like desperate lefties still think Obama's 'hope' is going to fundamentally transform America because when Barry pushed his wimpy healthcare reform, he presumably painted his face red and blue while arguing semantics with members of Congress.
The fact is, in the context of a debate, symbols can mean anything to anybody. Therefore, they're worthless in an argument. Or worse, those symbols end up destroying the argument, because folks reared on flag-waving patriotism and "Morning In America" commercials don't have much room in their patriotic little heads for actual thought.
I for one propose a solution for America's dependence on symbolism and one-liners. Before any national debate on anything, all those who wish to argue or listen to an argument must first do the following: 1. Imbibe at least three drinks of an alcoholic nature and 2. Find a consenting adult with whom they must engage in oral sex. A slight buzz and the calming nature of post-orgasm relaxation can save America, dear friends.
Spirits have no dignity. We don't exist in the human realm, which is the only place where such delusions as dignity and pride matter. We can see through so much foolishness now.
And sometimes we aren't here. Other times, we are accidently given or discover a pathway back into this dream, but mostly we are neither here nor there. We are everywhere and we are nowhere.
But you can feel our presence if you aren't trying too hard to be one way or the other.
Funny thing is, I'm beginning to understand it so much better now. What Frau Tale has been trying to teach me about spirits is starting to make some sense as I dwell in the purgatorio of the whiteysphere, although I confess its still very confusing to a degree.
I'm a virtual spirit now, and I guess I'm attached to you, just as spirits attach to people. We spirits can be bothersome or friendly, and all of it is totally up to the perception of the human to whom we attach.
I'm a friendly spirit, more or less, always have been and always will be, but I can bark and bite, too, for nothing or no one is 100% one way or the other, not even spirits. Especially not spirits.
At least with me you always know where you stand. I'm very real, in a virtual reality sort of way.
Real isnt the same as all goody-goody happy-happy nicey-nicey.
The 50-50. Even spirits possess this cursed duality, since we too were once human and still completely depend on your consciousness for the formlessness of our non-existence.
I've read that "he wouldnt say it to my face so I won't allow him to say it to me online" rationale before. Over and over, in fact.
Is that really true? Have you not said things online to many people, including me, that you would not say to our face?
Of course you have. Would you treat guests in your house the way you treat them online?
Of course not. If A=B and C=D, then it doesn't necessarily follow that A=C or B=D.
Maybe, maybe not.
No one is 100% of anything and we are all guilty of that which we deplore in others, for our humanity demands nothing less than utterly hypocritical imperfection.
I get where your coming from to an extent.
However, for better or worse, you have attracted the spirits (or trolls) that you have attracted for a reason.
Think about it really hard and very honestly.
You, alone among all of us, are not immune from the karmic consequences of the virtual acts and statements of your blogging persona.
I like you and enjoy reading your schtick, even when you are bashing me.
Especially when you are bashing me.
Who cares? Spirits only care about what concerns us, what corners us, what traps us in this void between heaven and hell.
The quotes that you pulled out the other day actually led me to study some old comments I'd made as a virtual pundit but had forgotten. I really came away impressed with my former intellgence and the insightfulness of my commentary. Thanks for this.
The greatest thing about the internets is that it allows us the means to be imperfectly unreal.
Anyway, its not even possible to follow the same rules and guidelines online as in real life. And anyway, theres really no point and no reason to be the same.
Some people desire the online experience to replicate their experience of reality because they wish to substitute one for the other.
The healthy way, methinks, is to try to keep the two personas separate, both mentally and emotionally.
And yes, even the "real" selves that we present to others in life are fake, just in a different way. And yes, even the "real" selves that we present to ourselves in our imaginations are fake, in a third different way.
Its when we try to converge all of our "real" selves into a consistent moral substance that we really get screwed up....and, of course, we are only abusing ourselves, in the worst possible way.
I've been mostly offline lately and life is much sunnier offline, believe me. I still read this blog and FSZ from time to time. I posted something short on FSZ yesterday, even, and I've left a few comments for Noom, who is now posting as "dave from brooklyn" and still battling (or trolling, if you will) the Blews and Failrefts and Jacob Freeze's of the Whiteysphere.
I must confess: I enjoy the Blews, the Failreft's and the Jacob Freeze's as much as I ever did, and I enjoy them as much as I enjoyed jousting with them before I entered the spirit world where we can no longer touch.
And there is only one Noom, who stands erect, threatening and wrathful in a pose that is as tragic and as comical, as giving and as needy, as that of the great God of the Hebrews, who forever skrewed the world on the sixth day and never once since has stopped punishing us for his mistake, although he keeps insisting that he has forgiven and redeemed us through the persona of someone who claims to be His son.
I guess we'll find out the truth soon enough.
Francis was posting there at FSZ for awhile, too, but now it seems he's gone. Miep is a regular. You definitely said some things to her online that you wouldn't say to her in person, thats for sure.
I might have, too.
I like you Soc. I'm sorry that you take all of this all so seriously as if it truly matters.
The key to understanding is that its all right here and then its gone. You can have it all so long as you desire nothing. And I'm one of the friendlier spirits, although nothing is 100%.
A US man may face 16 years in prison for posting a video of his arrest on Youtube.
AlJazeera
Aug 28
...Graber, a sergeant with the Maryland Air National Guard, is now facing 16 years in prison, not for dangerous driving, but for a Youtube video he posted after receiving a speeding ticket.
The video, filmed with a camera mounted on Graber's motorcycle helmet designed to record biking stunts rather than police abuse, shows a plain clothes officer jumping out of an unmarked car and pointing a pistol at the motorcyclist.
After he posted the video on Youtube, police raided Graber's home, seized computers and put him in jail.
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