just what were you thinking, buddy?

it all comes down to abortion, really. this judge, judge roberts or something, sucks. he is just some hack that pushes a christian/elitist agenda via a bench and gavel -- and i guess that's ok. that is the way the system was set up. but there has to be a high correlation between western religions and fascism.

seriously, have there ever been more judgmental sects than the jews, christians and muslims? these people are worse than pythagoras killing fools because he didn't understand the square root of two, or irrational numbers -- thinking of course that the discovery of such numbers would shake the cosmology of his sect.

here are some tips for you: if your religion wants you to do anything, it sucks -- it looks to control you more than it does to help you find a significant relationship with the creative force. if your religion tells you that other people are not living their lives as they should be, you are part of a psychotic cult, and you should kill yourself in a closet without asking others to join you.

oh, and did i mention that not only do i not give a fuck about the ridiculous laws under this obsolete constitution, but i could really give a fuck less about who they put in a little black robe to interpret either the laws or the constitution? (ok, i am going to pay attention, but for reference more than reverence.) and most of all, i could care less about whether or not women can have abortions.

this is a point that i would like to stand on. there are many, many, many developments in the past 200 or so years that have made the constitution obsolete, and just below the advent of the nuclear age and above the outcome of the civil war rests universal suffrage.

when the framers of the constitution lived, you had to be a white, land-owning man to vote. and i suppose that if you understand that all rights insured by a constitutional republic are paid for by property taxes, that might seem logical to you. it sure seems logical to me. with the advent of universal suffrage (meaning collectively women, non-whites and non-land-owners), a peculiar thing happened. all of a sudden, the united states became a little (ok, a lot) less representative.

you see, back before this suffrage, the electors and the electees were from the same groups (rich, white, male). this seems to be the way that it should be. ideally, a representative government would have a similar structure to a sample in mathematical statistics. you would want it so that the smaller group (sample, electees) is a microcosm of the larger group (population, electors).

but oddly enough, with universal suffrage, what does this sample look like? i know, rhetorical question. that's right, they are all still white, land-owning men. now i can't say a lot about white, as i believe that whites are a majority in the united states (though i am not the least bit interested to look and see if that is correct).

land owning is pretty significant, though. as i mentioned, all of the rights insured by the constitution are contingent upon property ownership. though i could certainly go into some depth on the matter, i will simply point out that if a right is violated and the government must right the wrong, it is done with funding that comes from taxes ... property taxes. without the property taxes, there is no money to pay someone to protect your rights.

not that you really have rights to begin with. they are more like limits on how much the government can do to use you as its base for building a stronger future ... with the hopes that at some point in the future we may have either world domination or world peace, or better still: both. remember, think globally.

but back to my point, once women, in specifics, were allowed to vote and participate in government, we really needed a new structure. with demographics so easily split in two, the answer seems obvious to me. a government should have two positions (one male and one female) where ever there is one now. two presidents. two supreme courts. twice the number of congressmen.

i am no longer interested in wasting my time defending issues that pertain to women, and not to men at all. men have as serious of problems in american life as women do. in fact, we are more violent, more absent, more ignorant and more counter-productive to the furthering of the species.

and on top of that, when i look at the way that society is set up (not meaning the government or the financial system), i see a giant rat race designed with the express purpose of man's procurement of woman. power, wealth, strength, success, skill ... each of them serves only the purpose to differentiate who the men are that deserve the line share of the women.

i find it kind of insulting that women have gone along with this for so long, when implied is what all men KNOW, that women have all the power in the world with them wherever they go. and moreover, i find it down right perverted that women are beginning to measure themselves in these same terms. there is a more respectful way for us all to live, i am sure of it. and i am sure that it begins with women having as much say in the future as men do, which is not the same as women being allowed to have as much say in the future as men do -- as semantic as the difference may be.

i do hold some relevant minor beliefs.

1. i believe that abortion is not a wise decision. most of the time, i would suggest having the baby and letting the fates have their say in life.

2. i believe that it would be more detrimental to society to not allow abortion than to allow it. there is no threat of abortion killing off the species. but i can assure you that without abortion, there would be more crime. logic is as follows: no abortion = more unwanted children; more unwanted children = more crime; ergo no abortion = more crime.

3. i believe the express purpose of putting judge roberts on the supreme court is to outlaw abortion. because of his age, it is possible that he will cast a vote for as many as 50 years (given an increase in life expentancy).

4. i believe that because it is a decision that affects a woman's own body, and not a man's body, that a woman should decide by her own values (which may or may not include input from the man) on an abortion. and that whether or not she tells the man is also her own decision. in short, i pass judgment on neither. this translates to law as saying that no man should be part of any legislation for or against abortion.

in contrast with that last one, i actually think that it is the duty of any man to support a woman in her decision.

i remember we had these dogs once. pete and repeat were their names. half german shepherd, half pit bull. pete was a boy (shortly thereafter killed by a car), and repeat a girl (who lived a long and normal life with with a nurse who was one of my sister's closest friends).

on the day that repeat had gotten fixed -- often an abortion for farm dogs, as it was for my own dog -- none of the dogs were allowed near her. she had one of those stupid collars on, and laid all night on the couch, and maybe for a day or two following that. the entire time, the dogs were banished to the out-of-doors.

but pete, he sat there on the front porch, and any time a dog approached the house, he stood tall with the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up, barking out some sort of machismo code that no one was coming near his sister until she was fine -- no fights were fought. this is as it should be.

men are better creatures than what they seem to be. and really, the guidance they lose searching for women, they gain it back in spades they have women in their lives. there is certainly method to the madness. but men are utterly lost without the guidance of women. and whatever we can do to repay them for our survival, we should do.

really, i don't have a clue what i am talking about. and to stress that, it actually took me a long time just to have anything to say on this matter. sure, i rambled on senselessly once again, but ... fuck it.

a few items of interest ...

music, part one

i can't even express how disappointed i am in the world when i hear iron and wine on that m&ms commercial. iron and wine grows on me more and more. and i guess there is part of me that hopes popularity doesn't ruin the wonderful art being made in the world of lo-fi folk. on the other hand, i guess that the world will never really be able to get lo-fi. and that's totally cool.

i won't deny that i like music that sounds good. i like pink floyd, dr. dre and even elvis. but i just believe that what makes music special is the art and the message that drives it. again, not to take anything away from music that is meant more as entertainment than to make you think. (of course, the three aforementioned bands/musicians sound good to my ears, i do not wish to imply that they have no art in their music.)

really, though, what i find noteworthy is this life long attitude that i, and a lot of others, have with regards to popularity of the things that we like. it certainly seems like a goal in life is to have interests that set you apart from others. and with that, we do not wish to share that which we like the most with others.

at the same time, i remain convinced that people always seem to do their best artistic work when they are quite young ... meaning early on in their careers. i make this distinction because a person can begin their career late in life and it will still seem as if their best work comes early on. this is especially pronounced in music.

i point these two things out because i find it interesting how many people share these same perspectives. it is quite the phenomenon.

politics and shit

ok, i have to take some shit back. as of right now, i am feeling like bush will not fire rove at all. he has laid the ground work for not firing him, declaring today that he would fire anyone that committed a crime. and as i pointed out the other day, my dreams are telling me that the man will not be convicted of any crime, being the large burden of proof in a crime of this sort is probably insurmountable ... especially for a "special prosecutor." i mean, it's in the name.

laying ground work, as i called it, is a fundamental part for any good lie. before you lie, you should always prepare the other person's head with the appropriate truths that will mask the lie, including lies of deception or omission. this will make them less likely to question the validity of the lie, if executed properly.

the reason being that, according to me, every person knows when they are being lied to. we get a feeling that, if we are paying objective attention to it, will be undeniable. that being said, we often prefer to be lied to, and often don't pay said feeling any mind -- and we shouldn't. it's ok to be lied to. it's as ok as it is to lie.

either way, bush sucks at lying. but that doesn't matter, because a lot of people want to believe him. and that too is ok. as much as i hate george bush being in power, i am willing to let the average man or woman decide the path of the nation.

poker faces

i hate sportscenter. i had been trying to not hear who won the world series of poker, so that i could find it more interesting on tv. this is a path that i often take for kings games. i will come home, avoid seeing the end of the game, and then try and see if i can watch the end and be surprised by the outcome. of course, i am always stiff-armed in that quest.

anyway, today, sportscenter announces who won in the fucking top-ten. and they are the ones broadcasting it. don't they know what that does to the ratings? seriously, do they? i don't have a fucking clue. but i know that i don't like it.

i wonder how long the poker craze will go on. hopefully, it just continues to gain momentum. gambling is a lot of fun. and i rather like that vices have become more widely accepted than they have been in the last century or so. i am not sure what happened after the end of the victorian age, but i think that everyone jumped off the highest building around onto some sort of stick that is now firmly embedded into their asses.

either way, i feel that more people drink, cheat, lie, do drugs and gamble than ever before, and it really is quite wonderful. this body is a temple bullshit never really did fly with me. and why should it? this is the life we are living, and sometimes you just have to accept that.

music, part two

i stumbled across a great web site today. it has a ton of concerts that you can stream for free ... if you, like me, are too poor to go to concerts. it is located at http://fabchannel.com. i guess that's it. now i am going to try and go to sleep at a decent hour.

on accepting the truths of other realities ...

i suppose i should take a few minutes to define some terms, before i senselessly ramble on about concepts that i don't really understand. it just seems like the right thing to do. that and i always hear the voice of my junior college -- lower division + existential -- philosophy professor (joanne bielick) saying "always define your terms."

so ...

truth - the factual perception of one's reality

as compared to

Truth - total and complete factual record

and

reality - the world that is relative to the individual, serving as the base for all of the individual's perceptions

as compared to

Reality - the world that is shared by all individuals, serving as the quarry from which their realities are mined. this means that all individual realities are dependent upon a greater truer reality that provides all of the "material" needed ... or perceived. it is truer because it is based upon, and in symbiosis with, that total and complete factual record.

of course, i lower case all letters when i type for the internet (a stylistic preference). so will try and make a distinction if i am referring to the capitalized or interdependent definitions, as compared to my common place use of the two lower cased or independent definitions. i will define anything else as needed.

--

the scenario: i feel myself often faced with the conflict of the importance of the two worlds. all rationality would say that my world is greater and more important than other worlds, being that it is not only my creation, but the only world that i will ever know -- regardless of events or realizations -- possibly beyond the day that i die.

yet, i am instinctively convinced that the truer reality and its truth are in fact the greater ones, even though i do not think i can grasp it -- thus the capitalization in the above definitions. and moreover, i believe that virtually all other people also recognize this instinctively.

--

i said to preacher mike, in the aforementioned conversation (circa the day of the london bombings), that i didn't have an answer. i think i mentioned that he said i should not assume that it is correct to assign more value to the other reality. but i find that to be more playing the devil's advocate, rather than offering clarity to my confusion.

but i told him that night that i would have it all figured out within a week. of course, i am still just as confused. i have thought of a few things. really, i think it's a fool's game. i am convinced that our individual realities are more alike than they are similar to the greater reality upon which they are dependent.

here is an example. it is based upon a common example that my metaphysics professor often used in college. i won't name him because i wasn't to impressed with him as either a teacher or a philosopher. though, i should note that i find it odd how much better the instructors as junior college were compared to the instructors at the university (barring the adjunct faculty, who were always on the top of their game). but of course, i digress. so ... here is the example:

the two of us are standing in the same room. there is nothing in the room other than a plain green desk with a single drawer and even legs. in fact, there is nothing out of the ordinary about this desk whatsoever. it is, for all theoretical intents and purposes, ideal. and so is the room.

the two of us, on the other hand, are of different heights, weights, genders, economic backgrounds, ethnicities (and on and on). the distances from the desk, as well as the views employed, are of no consequence. all of these variables would be perfectly reasonable in a practical world.

the language: there is, of course, no reason for us to assume that we would have the same terms for the desk, its color, or our perceptions of it. with this, in theory, we have severed all expected ties between you and i in relation to our sharing the experience of the desk. i tell you that i see a green desk. you, of course, have no idea what i said. but with time and patience, simply repeating the words and pointing, i can relate to you that "desk" is what i call the object, and "green" is what i call the color.

perception: now that we know that it is a green desk, we have to figure out what a green desk is to us. for example, do you even notice that it has a drawer? do you see it as something other than a table? and the answers are that it doesn't matter.

the greater reality at ends with our shared realities: here is the monkey wrench. we can all accept that green could, in theory, be colorless and based only on the way that light is reflected off of one object and into our eyes. not only could the object not really be green, but the colors that we are seeing could not be the same whatsoever. if i could see what color you are seeing, maybe i would see that you are seeing only red, but that you see all red objects as "green." and conversely, if you saw what i was seeing, maybe you would see that i was seeing only blue and calling it green, as with all objects of similar ilk.

for the greater reality, there is no color (again, this is an assumption as i have no way of accurately interpreting the greater reality). in fact, for the greater reality, there isn't even a concept of color as the individual perception of any individual object has no bearing on the greater interdependent truth.

at this point in time, you and i have come to a relatable conclusion (that the desk is green). we came to it because of our incorrect shared perception of the greater reality, yet we are in agreement with each other ... accepting that even our agreement could be incorrect. but no matter what, our agreement with each other is more in tune than either of our perceptions to the greater reality.

further still, we have come to the (much easier to accept) agreement on the object being called a desk, regardless of the practical use. and the reason for such is that we can both see practical uses for the desk. the greater reality is, of course, not concerned with the practical applications of individual objects. for the greater reality, the desk (as are we) is just a non-random collection of molecules that, in whole, make up the universe. there is no concept of individual objects or and specific collection of molecules.

--

of course, this distinction is of little importance to our realities or the point of this post. no, the effort is to discover why it is that my reality is not the most important reality. and really, so far i have merely demonstrated two things. one, that my reality is not similar to the truer reality despite being dependent upon it. and two, that if i show effort, i can get you to see my reality easier than either of us can see the greater reality.

these things only go further to reinforce the notion that my reality is more important -- a notion that i believe is incorrect.

--

where i am trying to get: i want to demonstrate that the actions of individuals should be based on a conscious realization of interdependence. but the more i think about it, the further i get. nonetheless, i have found myself at the same conclusion accepting only my own reality plus one not-so-risky assumption: the realities of all individuals have the same value.

why? well, because anything i can say about my reality, any other individual can say about theirs. at the same time, i know that all of the individual realities are dependent upon the greater reality.

using that, i see that if i base my actions upon what i believe is best for the greater reality (no matter how wrong i am), i will be doing what is right for the greatest number of people, starting with and mainly benefiting my own reality.

no matter how wrong i am because the greater reality is not concerned with individuality at all, so i cannot be wrong. the greatest number of people because despite the discrepancies in shared realities, all realities are dependent upon the greater one.

i don't really know if any of that made sense. maybe i will come back and read it later on and see if i still think so. if that is the case, i may make some edits. oh ... and the photos: the top one is just a photo of the sunrise. the sunrise and sunset are probably the most common misperceptions of light -- after all, the sky certainly does not change color, if it has any color at all. the second image is of immanuel kant, whose discussions of duty and a priori v. a posteriori has influenced this entry a great deal.

the first addendum: i should note that i believe that to act on behalf of the greater reality is often manifested on an individual level by doing what is best for the individuals involved. and that to be incorrect about other realities mattering more than my own in judging how i should act has little consequence. after all, if i created it all, than i created it to act with agape, adore and consideration.

conservativism v. socialism, an american direction ...

i wonder what it was like to live in time of the old crusades. what were relations between israel the surrounding area? were there even jews in palestine?

i don't really have a good grasp on history. sometimes, when i am in the right mood, i will do a little independent studying on the internet. and really, that's a lot more than i ever did for a history class. fuck, that's more than i ever did for just about any class. nonetheless, i don't have a good grasp on history.

the first class i ever failed was a history class. of course, it was in my drug-laden sophomore year of high-school. but my freshmen year, i got a d in history. so ... yeah. either way, i don't know anything about the crusades. i just might go and read about them in a few minutes, but who really knows ... it's getting kind of late.

i am pretty sure that i am living during the crusades right now. people are so quick to say that this is not a war on islam or one on behalf of christianity, and i can't really argue against that. in my history of the middle east class (failed, fyi), i tried to argue that the war was clearly a religious venture, citing speaches made by george bush.

but the problem is that in order to assume that bush is leading a crusade, you have to first give him enough credit to do such a thing. i kind of figure that bush is a decent man. in fact, here is a list of attributes that i assign the man ... without ever having met him:

• slightly ignorant, as in not "book smart"
• funny and upbeat
• honoring god, his wife, his family, his state and his country -- in that order
• stubborn and vengeful
• loyal
• open-hearted and close-minded

and looking at him in that light, i do think he is capable of leading the crusades without really having what it takes to lead a war. and really, that's because he has surrounded himself with people that you would think would be capable of leading a war. but i am certainly having my doubts. i think that if we were not capable of taking the entire arabian peninsula, we should not have invaded iraq. i can't find the rationale. it's almost like they thought they could ride in and wipe iraq away and use the uncountable loot to fund the rest of the war.

maybe the problem is that it has been so long since the united states tried to take over someone. i don't really know. but i do know that i am really not impressed with this american war machine either. i am not saying that they are as bad as al qaeda (why can't i spell that stupid word?), but just not impressive. how would we ever fight china? fuck, how would we even fight a unified islamist front?

really, thank god this isn't the crusades. because if these people had any muscle or unity, our military would have been descimated. that's how much we suck right now. oh shit, i think i got off on a tangent.

so when i would argue that the motivation for the current situation in the middle east (american wars + palestinian conflict) was religion, my teacher -- a brilliant woman -- offered insurmoutable evidence that this war had largely geo-political motives, including the securing of oil reserves but more based on access to water.

but i have never been able to shake this feeling that we are in the crusades, and this war has little sanity to its motivations ... and that americans do not seem to care.

i am pretty sure that if the congress wanted the war to end, it would end. and the motivation behind any freely elected republican legislature is re-election. thus, if the people wanted the war to end, then so would the congress.

but no, people are caught up in stupid politcal bullshit. you would be suprised at how many republicans (clearly liberals, if not fascists) are calling themselves conservatives because they are right-wing and how many democrats (who are nothing left of moderates) are calling themselves liberals because they support machiavellian social programs. meanings of political aproaches mean nothing any more.

there once was a day when conservatives didn't believe that the government should be in your bedroom. there was a time when a leftist would argue on behalf of the poor, asking for a greater distribution of wealth and more strides to lift up the ass end of the bus to that future.

seriously, what the fuck are we exporting? how could we even think that someone would be interested in this brand of "democracy"? there is no free exchange of ideas. in this modern age, how can you expect to even have a discussion without representing the views of the greatest political thinker in the last 200 years?

i would like to see the day when america matters again in the formation of a modern government. our fucking puppet regimes are more modern than us. i want a socialist to win a seat in congress. really, i want more political parties. it would be nice if we had as many political parties as we do political viewpoints. that would be a democracy i could be proud of.

as it is now, i am embarrassed on behalf of my government. it seems retarded to tell the rest of the world that you know the structure of a perfect government when we are still living behind a constitution that was written before there was electricity, cars, trains, light, computers, atomic bombs, flight, revolvers, cameras, etc.

long story short, israel attacked palestine yet again today ... with american built attack helicopters. i am also confused why we continue to support israel. eventually you have to put your foot down ... right? they already have me worried with the weapons we have given them. i am convinced the end of the israeli dagger is less than an inch away from the kidneys of the american effort to secure arabia. and of course, the first crusades pitted christians against jews.

i guess this is all just further proof that i don't really know anything.

on the validity of two worlds ...

i walked to the back of the pizza parlor the other night to find preacher mike sitting in the dark by himself, finishing off one of his american spirits. i don't particularly like those things. they are hard to smoke, and i think the additives of regular smokes are far better tasting than the raw tobacco ... but i digress.

i sat down in the dark next to him, and we began to shoot the shit. i don't remember what we talked about. i don't really have anything in common with anyone, so talking to me is rather like talking to a wall ... except i am familiar with current events, sports, music and the weather, so i can often feel my way through the small talk.

i think we began to talk about the bombings, or something. that was thursday, so i would guess so. but it doesn't matter because at one point in the conversation, mike made a comment about the two worlds. he already understood -- i didn't have to explain a thing. most of the ones who pretend to be "philosophical" will quickly drift into science fiction (i.e. other worlds, alternate realities, multi-dimensions, and even crazier shit) as soon as you mention the two worlds.

i suppose if i would have done my reading in those philosophy classes, i might be able to reference old dead people who have made this point before me. but even in those classes, the people you would talk to were more concerned with theory than with metaphysics and their impact on our reality. well ... the truth is that i probably just was spending too many nights doing my philosophizing over a pool table with a pint in my hand. ... but again, i digress.

mike and i imediately began to discuss the different aspects of the two worlds -- about how our individual worlds were closer to each other than they were to the truer world, for example.

mike set me back that night though. he is probably a hippie or some shit. so really, how much can you really listen to? but i do remember my principle of charities, and that any person can be completely correct at any point in time.

i told him that i knew the truer reality mattered more than my own personal reality. and he asked how i knew. i told him that it was because my world was a temporary creation on my behalf to help me cope with being conscious in a living experience, and that it began with my birth and ends with my death. but at the same time, the truer world lives on to be experienced .

here i would note in this entry that in order to have the true reality be your reality you must be the atman. and i am defining atman as the complete collective of all that is part of the universe. nothing that is short of complete is the atman. it contains all, and though its contents adopt individuality, atman experiences nothing other than interdependence. if there is no being or consciousness to the atman, than nothing experiences the truer reality as reality.

mike quickly pointed out that there is no reason to assume that our realities do not have to end with our bodies. in fact, it is just as likely that are realities carry on. i am not too sure i buy that one. but i admit that my understanding of reincarnation has no dependency on consciousness or spirit. in fact, it's rather sterile and more dull than this already dull entry.

i do believe that you should not make conjectures about the events before your birth nor the ones that shall come afterward. and i think that expressed in that is a notion that the healthiest idea (both existentially and rationally) is to assume that this life is your one chance. and personally would put the likeliness that this is your one chance at life at nearly 99 percent. but that's just me.

so i guess the point is that i have found some validity in the two worlds. i am still trying to figure out semantics about the difference between the two, but whatever.

on another note, i did some reading about karl rove and the leaking the identity of a cia agent. these are my initial thoughts, none of them have supporting premises or even appropriate perspective in judgement:

• karl rove did not commit any crime. in that, he will be found innocent in a court of law if tried.
• karl rove will and should be fired as the sacrificial lamb.
• george bush was just as responsible for the leak, and his responsibility is an impeachable offense. thus the previous thought.
• the leak was revenge for a damaging op-ed story that i am not familiar with
• this is a political story, and does not affect me in any way
• if the wife was not an active agent, than this story is a total bust
• it is more ethical for a journalist to blow the whistle than to go to jail in the name of journalistic ideals.

how can you not love this movie?

Peter: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Lawrence: I'll tell you what I'd do, man - two chicks at the same time, man.
Peter: That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I had a million dollars I could hook that up, 'cause chicks dig dudes with money.
Peter: Well, not all chicks.
Lawrence: Well, the kind of chicks that'd double up on me do.
Peter: Good point.
Lawrence: What about you ... what would you do?
Peter: Besides two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Well yeah.
Peter: Nothing.
Lawrence: Nothing, huh?
Peter: I'd relax, sit on my ass all day. I would do nothing.
Lawrence: Well you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Just take a look at my cousin, he's broke — don't do shit.

i swear, the stuff about two chicks isn't the only reason i love this movie. i think there are these rare films that speak to our existential desires. and one of them is this notion of wanting to do nothing. really, i didn't have a point to this entry, i just wanted to record this conversation while it was still fresh in my mind.

some neutral perspective ...

i admit that i am tempted to feel like a prick, saying that al queda is weak, and then they set off a few bombs in london. well ... i don't know who set off the bombs. i do know that i was suprised on the morning of sept. 11 about how soon they were able to say that it was osama bin laden behind the attacks.

and in fact, until i read the translation of osama admitting to the attacks ... (i don't speak arabic, or whatever language he speaks -- it is a common misperception of white people that all muslims speak the same language, when i believe there are many more languages in persia than arabia ... and more still in the rest of the central asian republics. and though osama is from saudi arabia, afghanistan is a central asian republic closer to india than to arabia ... i think.)

talk about a tangent. nonetheless, i don't know what he said. but suffice to say, his admission in the sub-titles was enough for me to finally choose to accept his responsibility. blah blah blah ...

but i don't feel like too much of a prick. in fact, i will argue that the london bombings are proof that they are pussies. one, they were trying to get to the g8 in scotland, london was as close as they could get. two of the bombs did not go off (stinking of the same failure as the columbine kids -- whom i watched something on earlier today). also, the bombings didn't kill many people (i will get to that). and, on top of that, it was england.

england may be the most committed of our allies, but they are our bitch. bush owns blair. when bush says jump, blair says how high. when bush says he wants a blow job, blair asks if he should service him personally or if he would prefer that blair's wife does the trick. england is a weak country that has not mattered since before the first world war. and that's 100 years, if you are counting.

seriously, al queda can't actually think that attacking our allies is going to do any good. they aren't retarded. anytime they attack a non-american target, they are yelling at the top of their lungs: "we suck harder than the bitches on the corner of stockton and broadway!!!" i am just saying, real men would come with it.

think about it. let's say that you and i got in a fight. you punched me in the nose, and i beat the shit out of you. then, to get revenge, you attack my handicapped friend. now really, are you a man? no. the answer is no. you are not a man. and even your angry and jealous god spits on you.

and moreover, if sept. 11 was a punch in the nose, then london was a kick in the shin. and just like a bitch that would kick you in the shin, those bitches turned tail and ran.

the strongest argument against my claim that they are over and done with is that yesterday's attack was significant. so i figured that i would randomly track down some death tolls, to put london into some perspective. they are listed in the order i found them.

• london bombings; 50+ dead; 700+ injured
• iraq war; 22, 787 dead (min.)
• 2004 tsunami; 240,000+ dead
• columbine shootings; 13 dead; 24 injured
• oklahoma city bombing;168 dead; 800+ injured
• sept. 11; 2,986 dead
• hiroshima and nagasaki; 100,000+ dead outright (many more dead over time)

ok, i am not going to do this forever. the point is just that what happened in london, when compared to notable terrorism acts in history, london was pretty minor. and when compared to mother nature, it is inconsequential. but what really dwarfs london in comparison to sept. 11 was the historical significance.

no matter how you feel about politics, war and george bush, there is no way to deny the effect that sept. 11 had on the world at large. for example, without sept. 11, there would have been no bombings yesterday. but more than that, i believe that sept. 11 spelled the begining of the end of the pax americana, which i believe will prove to be one of the most significant periods in recorded history ... if only based on the the onset of the nuclear age.

what the fuck is the g-8?

i remember watching tv a few weeks ago seeing some commercial about how you needed to "watch e3 on g4" or something like that. one of the basic fundamental laws of media communications is that if there are problems in the communication aspect, then it is all for naught. and to that degree, using ad hoc abbreviations and acronyms is often going to cause confusion and inhibit communication.

not that i am in any sort of position to criticize ad people, when they are by far the most productive and effective propagandists in recorded history. but it always annoys me when you are reading something and it uses this obscure (and often awkward) acronym for something that could be reduced to a simple noun. you wouldn't believe how long it took me to catch on to anwar (or however it is written) as the national wildlife refuge in alaska.

in context, anwar makes you sound like an elitist, especially when "the refuge" would often work just as well. it's like, people are always trying to prove what they know.

of course, when you are talking about something like the g-8, i guess the rules are a little different. either way, i must have been lost on the formation of its relevance, as it was in the wake/midst of the post-911 propaganda onslaught.

for clarification, i believe that al queda is a giant group of pussies. i think that they, quite literally, blew their wad on the attacks that tuesday morning. that was it, the big bang. that fat lady sang the opening number, if you will. sept. 11 would not have taken place without the inaptitude of the time. and i am positive that it has been corrected, if only by the vigilance of the common man/woman.

in that, i am expressing two points. the first being that without said vigilance, the minor security upgrades and bureaucratic awareness of today, sept. 11 could not have happened. the second being that even if it were possible, the common person on a plane is going to know that they will die in a hostage situation, and more people would be willing to take greater risks to do what they can for the greater good.

and thus, since 2001, the aim of american propaganda has been to perpetuate the fear that some of us felt that morning. the fear, though, is completely irrational. and it is clear to me that i have more to fear from george w. bush than osama bin laden or a pre-deposed saddam hussein. and i would point out that when you examine that statement, it is not so outrageous.

i believed, correctly, that saddam could never hurt me as long as i lived in california. and at the same time, i could care less about what he did to his neighbors ... and certainly not israel, which is certainly an oppressive theological based government with no legitimate claim to the land is "possesses." and that, as i expressed earlier, osama bin laden had showed his hand, and would no longer be able to attack the united states.

bush, on the other hand, is a far greater threat. though i do not believe that the patriot act will ever be used against me, or any white american-born man. really, i don't think bush is much of a threat either. i do, despite how i may sound from time to time, believe that there are safeguards to protect us from bush. of course, there are no such protections for the rest of the world against a bush led american war machine. but fuck them, that's their problem.

either way, i figure that few of my friends have any clue about the g-8 either. in fact, my money says that they have never even heard of it. i mean, my smartest friend couldn't tell me who dick cheney was. as apathetic as i may be, i am far more interested and active than most of my peers.

bbc describes the g-8 as:

The G8 comprises seven of the world's leading industrialised nations, and Russia.

damn brits. we go ahead and name our language after them, and they can't even have the decency to speak it correctly ... and always with that sissy accent. no matter, here's the translation:

the g8 is comprised of eight of the world's leading industrialized nations. fuck you, russia.

the union is a superficial one of the following nations:
germany
france
italy
japan*
the united states
ab the uk*
ab canada*
russia

*ab stands for "america's bitch." these are countries that would not even exist without dependency on the united states, and really have no claim to any influence on a global level. japan receives an exemption from this classification because, i believe, that japan is secretly and patiently waiting for the day that they may take revenge on the united states for perpetrating two of the worst crimes in recorded history in august of 1945.

the g8 was apparently formed in the 1970s. who knew? and really, no one should care. it is a union without any strength. the g8 fits exactly the image that the bush administration has painted of the united nations. i guess i don't really have enough interest in them to find out more.

i do, though, realize that this was a mighty long entry to say absolutely nothing useful. i guess that sucks for you. but, i am sorry. today's photo ... well, i am not sure what i think of it, other than it's funny.

rational denial of oppression and the media that hide it

i have to admit, it peaked my interest earlier this week when i was looking around the internet at news and discovered that the international herald tribune had a story about the disappearance of an egyptian diplomat and despite scouring the new york times, i was unable to find any reports of the kidnapping.

of course, the reports came in the next day. i suppose you could argue it had something to do with the time difference. and that is probably the situation, but for a second, i was thinking it was that the new york times was suppressing the news.

but then, when i looked at the tribune today, i see that there has been yet another attack on a diplomat to iraq from an arab nation. his name is hassan malallah al-ansari, and he is the chief diplomat from bahrain. bahrain is an american bitch. like most of the arabic nations, it is ruled by a corrupt and archaic government. but of course, it is a very rich government -- largely because of geopolitical placement.

the plan of the insurgents is quite clear. make it extremely trying on the united states and its allies to continue the oppression of a free iraq. i am not sure that americans realize that it is a free iraq. remember, our government went in there and freed them from the evil dictator that was saddam hussien. i think that the tendency for americans is to think that because we gave them their freedom, they could not possibly be asking for said freedom from us.

bahrain is, obviously, very important to the raping of iraq. bahrain itself does not have the large oil quantities of its neighbors. the country relies more on refining and export for its riches, as it is conveniently placed for mass distribution -- also unlike its neighbors. large amounts of the oil that is stolen from iraq "to help pay for reconstruction" will undoubtedly go through bahrain. my money says that al-ansari was in iraq helping lay the foundations for trade. just a hunch.

back to the point ... the tribune article was from the associated press. that's right, not exactly the cutting edge of alternative media. and in the article, the attack was paired with the new declarations from some (presumably) hard-lined sunnis that sunni iraqis ought to prepare to vote and take part in the formation of the new government (possibly finally realizing that the best way to succeed in an american environment is to play ball).

so this time, when i flipped to the new york times, i figured that i could work two angles in the double checking of the "breaking news." sure enough, the top story for the iraq war (which rarely makes the top stories for the times, but consistently is the top story for the tribune) is that clerics were calling for the involvement in elections. but yet again, there was no mention of this attack.

soon after sept. 11, when the distrust and disenchantment was at a peak, people with a more liberal perspective and a more peaceful approach to foreign policy often suggested that the mainstream media were not doing their jobs helping people understand current events and their ramifications.

more than one person pointed a finger at the times and said that any corporate media was untrustable and often stood to benefit from the new america. i am sure that a lot of that was hippie paranoia and rhetoric. but i look at this, and the only motivations i can give the times is to help the government create this image that all is going relatively fine in iraq.

of course, i am sure that by the time that i have posted this entry, the new york times will have the attack up on its web site, and that all of my conjecture has been in vain.

either way, i think it is important to look at things in iraq on an honest level from time to time. of course, to do that, we must assume that all that has happened was supposed to happen and did so just according to plan. and in that, we start here, with the united states in the role of the in-house oppressors who stand to gain trillions upon trillions of dollars with the continued occupation, and that without said occupation, the entire nation of iraq would grow into a mess far beyond what it is now.

from there, we should as the single most important question: why not have peace?

me, i am going to say that peace is the best answer, even now. that tomorrow, bush should announce a total and complete withdrawal from iraq. that the united states has done its job, and that iraq is now free. and that just like every free nation that has before it thrown off the shackles of oppression and made its way into the future, iraq will have to make the rest of the journey on its own.

oh fuck. once again, i have rambled on senselessly, and without resolution. i am tired. that's it. time for me to sleep. oh, the photo. this is the diplomat from the attack. i will just say before i go that peace in the region will never be possible until the west decides that there is a place in democracy for islamic fundamentalism, and the islamists understand that god doesn't really give a fuck about how other people live their lives. god created you, and you created god. it is a personal relationship that is completely independent of any relationships with other living things.

the future of this blog ...

i have decided to put some of the shit i learned in school to some sort of practice. and boy, that segways perfectly into a short rant.

when i first got to the newspaper, and the journalism dept. in general, they were luddites. the darkroom was seldom used, and only for black and white photography. at the same time, digital cameras were not capable of taking large shots, and certainly not the size of the cover of the tabloid newspaper. in fact, the digital cameras were often inferior to any private digis.

and worst of all, the web sites for the entire journalism dept. (including all publications) were archaic in design and considered last priority. the job of web master often fell on the only person/people who knew html -- with the exception of the rather eclectic crew at the radio station (few of which were journalism majors). no money was ever spent on web design software.

pieter was the first one i ever heard talk about the future of electronic media in journalism. even the instructors, knowing far less than the students about technology, downplayed electronic media in lectures. talk of the internet was usually saved for the last week, and usually only one day. the first time i heard an instructor say the word "blog" was in my last semester. and, of course, it was an adjunct professor. i am pretty sure the tenured faculty could scarcely use their e-mail.

i often thought it was a crock of shit that students were asked to be familiar with the newest technologies to graduate, yet the professors were often in the dark, at least in the journalism department. but i digress.

the advisor at the newspaper (adjunct again) was quite interested in the newest technologies on the other hand. and as the students began to become more and more interested in the future, he began to do what he could to help us.

our first step was trying to find a way to apply the current thinking in newspaper design to the internet. newspaper people tried so hard to move past their "fathers' newspapers," but they went ahead and stepped back a few epochs to design the web sites ... which you would think would be more modern.

nonetheless, we fell back on a few priniples we felt were key. the utilization of minimal white space. the use of images and broken down, "digestable" news items. clear thinking and progression expressed in design. and so on. it is amazing how much such simple steps enhance reading ... a necessity for such abstract writing as my own.

so i guess this is all my way of saying that i am going to post images. blogspot has made it rather easy (as it should be) to do so. this first picture comes from me having limited resources. in the future i will try and make the photos more relevant and whatnot. but it is pieter konink -- the man who taught me how to build, run and maintain a web site.

my other thoughts have been to start writing regular entries into this blog. i have no set pattern as of right now, nor am i that interested in conformation. but i would like to write more often, and it may serve as some sort of motivation. if i should do that, be forewarned that my writing may be less ... of whatever it is, and more organized. but only on those days.

for example, i may choose to once a week write an article, if you will, about a certain artist that is interesting to me at the time.

of course, with all of this, i am wondering how much is just to convince my so-called "friends" to read the shit that i write. i should know by now that would never happen. but there can't really be anyone out there that is interested in my random thoughts about metaphysics.

for what it's worth, my next such entry will most likely be diatribe focusing around why it is more important to act on behalf of the world that you cannot understand rather than the one that you are familiar with. and why that may sound simple, the dilema comes into play when you realize that your own reality is more consistent with your peers' realities than it is with the true reality. but i digress yet again.

anyway, i am going through the process of making the sidebar more pretty. i am afraid that i am going to have to ditch some of the things i have added, but i am not sure yet. eventually, i will set up another php web site and move all of this over there. so i am a little hesitant to devote too much energy to anything other than content.

things worth mentioning ...

justice sandra day o'connor has quit. most people are concerned that this will affect the federal government's stance on abortion. me, i am a man. i could really care less about whether or not women can have abortions ... on top of that, i am not even sure that i support abortion -- though i certainly support the women in my life who have chose to get them.

i do believe that when you are faced with demographic numbers as evenly split as gender, it would be wise to insure that each gender is appropriately represented in the governments. and by that, i mean that for every position, including president, there should be a female and a male. but i digress.

the fact is that i can't be fighting for the rights of women. men are in a pretty fucked up situation right now as well. and someone has got to stick up for them. no, the thing that concerns me about the retirement of o'connor is that she has always been (to my knowledge) a states' rights judge. and i honestly believe that the conservative point of view is becoming obsolete in the united states.

people are always so apt to point out the apparent shortcomings of the so-called "left" or "liberals." but really, it is the neo-conservative right that is calling for more government and less libertarian freedoms. really, we have something that amounts to little more than a power struggle between socialists and facists ... and the facists seem to be winning.

so what concerns me is that i am fairly sure, no matter what the stance on the abortion rulling, that the new justice will be less conservative and more of a right-wing idealogue.

ok, i admit .... that's all i have to mention. it's hard for me not to rant on about iraq and the metaphysical ramifications. it's hard because i don't want to give the impression that iraq matters, per se. it's a common misperception. who gets killed ... no ... who dies and who lives can't matter very much at all. life is so fragile, both in theory and in practice, that to give it a value based on when it ends doesn't make any sense.

either way, tonight i shall give my mind a rest. i don't feel like i am at the top of my game. i am not sure i have even cussed once in this whole entry. today is the nation's birthday. it is a time to celebrate. i even think i might find my hands around a samual adams by the end of the night.

it will be fun to sit and watch people set off their fireworks -- imagining in my mind the progression that leads from rebellion and enlightenment to the mindless following of customs and blah blah blah. i have nothing to say tonight.