blogging philosophy

who would want to be the last human on Earth?

2011-03-08T04:45:00.005+01:00

Working at a coffee shop, it has come to my attention that there may be a tendency for the country of origin of the bean can influence a persons' preference in selecting a brew. For example, the day that I write this, the coffee shop is offering either an Ethiopian or Costa Rican blend of coffees. The Costa Rican blend was exhausted many times over before the Ethiopian needed to be brewed again. Granted, as has been noticed, a darker roast (which the C.R. is) tends to be preferred overall by the clientele at this particular coffee establishment. With that being said, the idea that the mental reflex of media imagery between these two particular countries is drastic and may influence where people would gravitate towards, even in as something as nominally consequential as selecting between 2 coffees.
When thinking about Costa Rica vs. Ethiopia, unless you have visited them both first hand, whatever imagery comes to mind is only shaped by media. Whether it is a lush pictorial essay on the tropical rain forest of Costa Rica or the starving children of the desert of Ethiopia as said by Sally Struthers, the portrayal is of drastic polarity. One, abundant, thriving and brightly colored, a vibrant portrayal of culture whose rhythmic pulse is seductive and virile. The other, a monochromatic, flat portrayal of a bleak, needy place, cultivating an image of no one's preferred destination.
These stark differences, these immensely varying topographical and psychological mental images, where are their role in our decision making process on such a benign situation? Is there room for considering the region and the consequences of supporting its exports? That snap judgment of what best serves me in this time of desire for synthetic energy and pleasant taste, does the consideration beyond self-service? Yes, evolution has conditioned this human, and other animals to mostly focus on self interest (self preservation) but in this cushioned, highly comfortable life that the Western World finds itself in, this pervasive and unwavering idea of "everything is about me", will (as I see it) come to drastically effect the preservation of the species as a whole. Who would want to be the last human on Earth?
As media exploits our innate propensity for self preservation, in a name of capitalist infatuations, our proximity to extinction of either our physicality, spirituality, or morality becomes more and more intimate.

Viva Marshal McLuhan!!!

what about

2010-12-17T03:01:00.003+01:00

What about the wrongs? What about the trials and promises? Thinking in matters of location, being on the y-axis when the x is the range of motion. The reservoir of considerations, any given filter on any given day, changing wavelengths. Packs of charred remains, going back to the counter.

Fortunate enough to give it another go.

Where has it been, clouding realizations. Further through but not above. Having yet made the sacrifices advocated? Anchors require something to hold onto, inherent to their function. Whether numerical links or consistency of ground, symbiosis non-the-less. Bordering on two very different locations.

Consistency regarded as the means.

Pivot motions, granting both sides of the coin. Back and forth provisions, back and forth brought back to zero. Commonly regarded and somehow commonly revisited. Familiarity, kicking up the same plumes translating the debris and know-how. Etching onto eroding tablets to be consumed later under false pretenses.

Mending garments supplied by circumstance and reaction.

Top hat ablaze, staring at woven shoe laces. Ingenuity distilled and watered down to function on abstract and tangible levels. Slight of hand in the gesture of offering. Stripes ranging taking orders from untamed id. What about the wrongs? What about the trials and promises?

micro-culture

2010-10-18T20:43:00.003+02:00

The idea of family....
Comfort? Love? Tradition?

Control.
"Raising" little individuals.
Shaping, molding, conditioning an Other.
Either on one's own or in tandem, constructing an atmosphere which formulates culture on its own scale. As atmosphere always seem to do.
Authoritarian position by chronology.
Exercising legislative and behavioral control through reward and punishment.
Validating your own tactics against the backdrop of other methodologies, finding fault as a vehicle of self empowerment.

confused sense of purpose

2010-09-18T16:48:00.003+02:00

It would be my guess that control of a situation is a desirable survival technique that evolution has bestowed upon us and has jumped the tracks wielding out of control. Those who find themselves in a position of power are there to control the policies under which they oversee. Coming with this, or any, position is a sense of what is expected from you, not the least being instilling a personal sense of procedure which advances the governed body, now being measured in revenue. ("Governed" is being used fairly loosely here. It is being used as an umbrella for oversight. A small business owner may "govern" the business or a teacher, govern the classroom/department.)
The political environment has been supplemented for a more basic survival scenario. No longer having the capability of maintaining a standard of living because the factors that shape it plow their own ground. Control is unattainable from seemingly every level. Although the media finds itself existing with an effect on the most impressionable parts of human's make up. A form of control found through countless resource and time packaged as natural, effortless, and innocent.
Could this sense of control have some impact on the appeal of the internet? We control these sites, blogs, networking pages etc. Giving us the control of deciding a template, color scheme, content, pictures. Underneath the greater controlled system, we have the option of taking on the self-aggrandizing responsibilities of maintaining what we have the ability to control. If a site is poorly maintained, our scrupulous scrutiny in others' work (as a mechanism to make ourselves feel better about how we navigate through the world) takes over and we may immediately have a certain view of an individual, institution or corporation based on the appearance of how they control this intangible outlet for the world.

what is the question?

2010-09-11T20:24:00.004+02:00

A recent trend seems to be emerging by political commentators, journalists and politicians. This has been observed both on the radio and on television. When someone is addressing a political issue and is asked a question a standard default response can become, "But I think that real question is.....". This has become a seamless transition into another aspect of the topic at hand that may be more conducive to illustrating the particular agenda that the individual is determined to generate. I have yet to hear a host of one of the programs call this out.
This blatant and simultaneously subtle side-stepping of issues was widely used during the BP Spill in the Gulf, used about the Muslim Cultural Center in Manhattan debate and regarding the pompous egomaniac that threatened to burn the Koran in Florida. This strategy of non question answering keeps the efforts of those with legitimate questions from achieving the inherent goal in asking a question. An answer. Being frightened of being wrong or even showing the slightest understanding of the other side of the argument is now being projected as a weakness. In fact the opposite is true. Someone who knowingly chooses the side of ignorance or dismissal is stockpiled with weakness.
Since when is it a novel idea to answer a question straight up? I suppose the practice of politics would not be what it is if answers were actually offered to the questions that were asked. This dance of avoidance is so blatant that it validates an idea that politicians and political pundits think, in fact are banking on literally, that the majority of the public can not tell or is indifferent when the wool is being pulled over our eyes, with a pulling fee.
It depends what the definition of is, is.
There are known unknowns, unknown knowns and unknown unknowns.
What about the known knowns. Do they exist?

you struck gold!!!... now you are screwed

2010-06-14T23:22:00.005+02:00

Some pentagon geologists have say that they have found huge mineral and gas reserves in northern Afghanistan, saying that it could become one of the most lucrative mining sites in the world. If history is any gauge, corporate interests have already been sniffing the ass of this reserve for years. This potential of lucrativeness will have little positive impact on the greater population of Afghanistan. The rich and upper class will get richer, that is certain. The lower class can only hope that things do not get any worse. Sure, a new mine may offer employment opportunities to those otherwise unemployed, considering the mining conditions in the U.S., I would be surprised if they were any better or up to the par, there in Afghanistan. So, poor working conditions, more than likely poor pay, long hours, etc. will be the effect on those struggling in the longest war torn region on this little planet.

Do not be surprised if they sell of drilling, mining, extraction rights to private foreign corporate behemoths, just as they did in Iraq with the oil fields. By they I mean the same shills who end up buying the rights are the ones who if not write the policies themselves have a heavy, heavy influence by way of the Benjamins, on how policies are structured and carried out. Because of the situation, the alternative to auctioning the rights off to the fattest cats in the chow line, is to allow internal conflict over rights spiral out of control. With the Karzai government and their almost transparent coruptive practices, any chance for order is like rafting down the Colorado River blindfolded, arms bound.

Either one of these scenarios could conceivably feed anti-American sentiment, resulting in a continuation of all of those things that comes with that. Some of those things being more jihadists, more political capital by U.S. politicians to pass policy measures which slowly erode our civil liberties in the name of Homeland Security.

It is endlessly fascinating and disturbing that when a country, so downtrodden, wins the resources lottery, the winnings go to the guy who sold them the ticket.

legalized organized crime

2010-05-13T15:36:00.003+02:00

If there is anyone out that thinks that those actually responsible for the "blemish" in the Gulf of Mexico right now, I can only hope that this instance is the indicator which exposed them to a capitalist utopia illusion that this country runs off of. As was to be expected, when explaining themselves to our feeble-minded government, each facet of this operation blames each other. BP, blaming whoever built the safety valve, they blame Halliburton who, if I'm not mistaken, installed the faulty valve. This blaming musical chairs will jut confuse our elected officials to where nothing will be resolved. As is the rule of capitalism, making as much money in the shortest amount of time, it has been revealed that there were no safety checks on the most crucial aspect to the rig.....the component that ended up failing, killing individuals, countless animal life and an immeasurable amount of fragile environment. There is talk that if the spill drifts into the gulf stream, the "tar balls" as they are called could find their way all up the Eastern seaboard.

There will be volunteers out there with rags, buckets, hazmat suits, sponges trying to do what they can to minimize the environmental impact that this disaster may inflict. There will be BP execs. who will be in there with lawyers, cocaine, business suits, Cuban cigars trying to do what they can to minimize the financial impact that this will inflict on their own personal bank accounts.

This whole situation is a crime. A crime against the Earth. Yes, the impact will be felt the most in the Gulf region on so many levels. A region that has been battered for the better part of a decade and then some. But regardless of arbitrary boundaries drawn in liquid, this is a crime against everyone on the planet. If China were to experience a spill along their shoreline, have no policy in place for such an emergency, allow oil to gush out for weeks and weeks, the same would be true.

Back to the fact that there were no, at minimum, annual inspections for the safety valve:
Where is the concern for the crew?
Where is the concern for the environment?

It was buried under the fact that inspections of this nature would undoubtedly be expensive. BP made a calculated risk that they will push the limits of the state of a vital piece of equipment and by the time that anything could go wrong, the profits that they make up to that point would far exceed the cost of clean up. Especially since they surely have had forethought to how they would navigate through the system to minimize their liability to get the bill.

This is yet another personification of the problems with capitalism. Power not only corrupts but each step on the road to power injects corruptive ideologies to prime individuals to maximize profits by any means necessary.

Legalized organized crime.

tapping into the same vanity

2010-04-25T08:45:00.002+02:00

The extortionistic mentality of modern human's sources of influence tap into the same vein. The consumerist and the religious play to the same tune. In tandem they play to our eternal desire to make us feel better about ourselves. The former lies in the superficial realm and the latter in a supposed spiritual realm. Both selling the same product. For the need to quench our fears of living in a social structure and the inherent desire for acceptance coupled with the fear of death.

We can only see the trees, not the forest. What good does the anxiety that was bestowed upon us with the acquisition of a conscious mind than anything else than exploitation for the gain of an Other? Realizations of the fragility of the effects of our collective fears has resulted in environments which we struggle to deal with. The gift of existence is permanently overshadowed by the compromises that come with that existence. Fear is inescapable to the sentient being. Knowing this, we as a society have based the framework of success on abilities directed at profiting from this fear. If it were a universal fear of something else, we would have been riding that bandwagon for the same amount of time. But there will never be anything as profitable as the sense of our own mortality and the image that we project while approaching such a fate in a social structure.

institutional let down

2010-04-24T22:43:00.002+02:00

So the North Carolina Museum of Art had is unveiling of their new wing today. For someone who has been going there for ten years or so and being involved with contemporary art, my experience may have been perceived by a more critical eye than some. The new wing itself, as a building, has almost hidden admirable traits. There is a subtlety that mostly contributes to how impressive the structure is. Good use of natural light and existing in accordance with the formulaic approach to state art museums.

This new, contemporary, shelter now simply stores the museums permanent collection. The contrast between the architecture and Roman works from antiquity, African ritual items, etc. may have been intentional but acts most as a distraction. To those who have seen the collection before, or any other standard art museums' collection, there is little motive to relish the experience. Accepting that the collection is not terribly impressive inherently (at least what was exhibited at the wing opening) the space gives off a, "trying too hard", vibe. The change in surroundings does little to help the short-handedness of the work. The work appears to miss its old surroundings of dimly lemon lit, brick walled comfort and is not forced to deal with surroundings not fit for such a relationship.

To the museums' credit there was at least one interesting performative sound work going on in the old wing and the new wing had a somewhat predictable contemporary figurative work which lost its luster quickly. One could hope that the old wing will be a more open space where challenging contemporary artforms may be allowed to play themselves out from this moment on. And, there are a hand full of works in the permanent collection that exceed the typified art object created in the last 60 years. None the less, it seems like a botched decision to relocate the tired, repetitive, underwhelming, standardized collection to a space that is begging to be used in a more innovative way. But within the context of the kind of "unveiling" that the NCMA decided to hold, this is not at all surprising. The event, as the majority of the work, pandered to the safe idea of what an event such as this would have to offer to the public. Sure, their must and should be children focused areas and I applaud that. The music seemed to be a fine fit as well. It was nice to see some of the outdoor sculpture being so prominently displayed and engaged with by the public. Wrapping around the building, following the sculpture path, the predictable Rodin Garden awaits to be briskly strolled through, paying more attention to the beautiful pool that steals the show from even Rodin. Even the large scale sculptures selected were nothing short of safe, contemporary sculptures.

When does the role of the institution gain the gusto to challenge the public? Is this only truly possible when one is run privately? Fortunate enough to hold a board of trustees that is willing to use the prominence of an institution to introduce new ideas into the public sphere instead of spoon feeding them their own expectations. Politics and money, infinitely impossible to escape anymore, the tenderness of institutions is eroding their influence. Fear of a funding shortage stemming from provocative exhibits, maintains the lukewarm at best institutional experience.

reality has been purchased

2010-04-18T18:59:00.006+02:00

So entire reality ha been bought.
Our surroundings, bought.
At a lasting cost, thorough and deep.
Privileged few worshiping the Golden Calf.
Dancing on the bones of those they stole it from.
Higher elite sift bare minimum or less.
Omnipresent construction, wealth and illusion.
Hidden context of comfort and of suffering.
The pot is bound to boil over.
Pressure goes somewhere internally or externally.
But it most certainly travels.

Puppeteering the collection plate.
Purchasing sustained control.
Fully knowing their own tactics.
Blatant hypocracy, so thick it conceals itself.
Sourcing receptivity fabricating interests and apathy.
The veil will be lifted.
Its occupant surprised.
"Why" is not asked enough.

one honkey's perspective

2010-04-18T18:39:00.003+02:00

(me being that honkey)

I would like to put forth my personal perspective on how this nation's deplorable history effects how I navigate through contemporary society. A visceral reminder of this history is hard to deny and escape. Not that an escape from it is even desirable, let alone possible. It is easy, plain as day to see our specific course of history which has led up to this very moment. Some obvious examples would be poverty and the disproportionate among those in poverty being black. It is also noticeable with, in certain locations, with the lack of a minority presence. This was the case in Alfred, N.Y., where I attended Graduate school. If I had to guess I would place the percentage of minorities in Alfred as less than ten percent. This absence was a reminder to me that in a small community where most of its inhabitants where there to participate in a "higher" educational experience, minorities could not finance such a privileged experience. The absence of poverty or of a struggling minority does not eradicate its existence in the minds of those who care and are compassionate. Out of sight is not out of mind in this case.

I live my life based on respect. Respect for other and myself. I'll be the first to admit that I fall short of these respect based goals more often than I would like to admit. None the less, we are all in the same privileged-to-be-alive/privileged-to-simply-exist boat and that indisputable fact demands an even playing field in terms of respect and opportunity.

I do not like the historical precedent that brought about the scenario where an elderly black man would call me a younger white boy, "Sir". He is "Sir", he earned "Sir"!! I do however appreciate and admire his level of respect for his fellow man but can not help but wonder if the respect is at face value or if a fear based courtesy has been installed into him and possibly his family.

I acknowledge that I find myself in this lifetime as in the (temporary) majority. I know that this will change, there is evidence of such change already. I welcome change of most sorts, this being one. I welcome this change because I hope that with it will come the change of a proportionate delegation of political representation and legislative policy making and fund allocation to the actual proportions of the populations, prioritizing those communities that need it the most.

We are one.

cubically minded

2010-04-12T17:20:00.005+02:00

Very few right angles occur in nature. The only one that comes to mind is mineral formation in geology, pyrite for example, the angle of some tree emerging from the ground?

Modern man's environment, very much changed from of those passed, is inundated with sharp geometric angles. Even the cliche, "Think outside the Box" has a visceral resonance of the struggle to deal with this abstract system that we no longer have a choice but to navigate through. Spending a majority of our waking, and sleeping time for that matter, in a small cube, in a larger cube, in an even larger cube, found in/on a grid system based on right angles. The obvious but notable inseparability of the industrial revolution and the response to that in art with Cubism, is an applicable side note. The industrial revolution, bringing hoards of people in from the country side, leaving a more organic existence, towards a more abstracted, geometric (if you will) lifestyle. This is an interesting idea: going from an existence, where a closer existence to nature abounds where work hours happen as they must and leisure hours happen when they are able, moves to a more regimented lifestyle where productivity and energy are scheduled, being just a part of the distancing of industrial humans from an intimate notion of the natural environment.

This is the metaphorical cage, not to sound too alarmist.

Certainly, there are plenty of notable advantages and necessary used in construction to default for the right angle. I am simply trying to point out a correlation with the physical environment that we are constructing with the cognitive, psychological, philosophical and spiritual environment that we are more struggling to come to terms with.

right/left: a side, not being correct

2010-04-08T18:30:00.003+02:00

Talking heads.
Someone must have fed them after midnight and then they got exposed to water resulting in the gremlin transformation and multiplication. Substance is not their strong suit. Children throwing a temper tantrum in the toy aisle. These distinct sides, perpetuating each other's exposure. Feeding the other's argument. Recognition is more than either side of the network hollow figure heads deserve. Hateful versus sarcastic. Neither proposing real suggestions, merely darkening the light shade, making room for actual policy makers to continue down the road of self gratification, breaking their oath with every step taken.
Like the childish temper tantrum, ignoring it would be the most effective remedy. Let their feet stamp and voices wail. Give them a pillow to scream into, not a microphone. Give them a squirt gun and a poster of their rival, not a platform to blindly fire verbal artillery. Give them a mirror to masterbate to, not a close up on the idiot box (although the term is even more appropriate when their physical appearance is plastered upon it). Give them a sand box and plastic shovel, not an avenue to build a fragile structure of illusions in the minds of the feeble.

Everything is Okay, Right Now....

2010-04-03T05:45:00.004+02:00

Everything is okay, right now.
That is the mentality that is the consequential motive for most things vile.
What we think is not what is.
Ok is the individualistic illusionistic palpable mist that fills nostrils without contention. Masks are fleeting signs of obligatory statutes harboring a misconstrued notions of presentality (yeah, that ain't no word but it somehow fits in this context).
If is smells like a pitbull it might as well be a pitbull. Shape and form of are from the cloth. Woven within the confines of a mass produced hysteria not too mention the ramifications of a misperceived reconciliation of what might even be remotely real. To the weakest consent of that term. What about the homographic notion of a solidarital existence? Could it be seen as a downfall of what ever is worth preserving that which should be elevated as a marketing priority? The consequences of putting profit over a sense or well being has yet to be experienced only because of time. If we find ourselves in the privildged existence of thinking that hard work is the ultimate end to a happy end, then we should know to pick up the nearest firearm and take to our own trachea. Preferably the one in which the least amount of recognition of pergatorial suffering should be endured. This is to be prepared for the moment when all other options are not on the floor. But the denial of the worth of the continuation of, at least the attempt to contribute to any perceived perpetuation of a sustained human existence is reaching a cynical space which is warranted as being one to which the clock should pause to reach a constructed point when such matters could be better dealt with.

synthesis

2010-02-24T16:49:00.002+01:00

For any critical thinker, the extraction of ideas to put towards the formulation of personal ideals is the work of one's lifetime. This on-going pursuit is to continue efforts of synchronizing of one's actions with ideals.

Ideology, as I will try to define it in my own way here is, a collection of societal attitudes, beliefs and proclivities that are constructed out of both a genuine attempt at a sustained harmonious existence as well as an illusion-based propagandistic mechanism to rule over people. The "rulers" offer up pre-packaged ideology in where those who would rather continue to take the convenient route take it at face value and as yet another absolute in their mind's eye.

One's actions or behavior, as I see it, are more based on the nature side of nature vs. nurture. Self preservation reigns supreme. Greed, lust, vanity, etc, etc, are mechanisms that stem from self preservation, some manifest from society itself and a general reaction there within. So, the action side of humanity is at odds with the ideological side of humanity. We know that war is bad but we engage in it. We know that money is the most corruptive force on this small planet but we all buy into that idea, have a budget and strive to make more money even if it is for better reasons than exhibiting newer and newer purchases to a shallow society, playing into their game of tit for tat in the class heirarchy. We know that monogamy is a noble gesture towards someone we care about but lust is an erasable element of our make-up, it is the driving force behind the species self-preservation.

Within the context of a constructed and plastic coated society such as the one that Westerners find ourselves in, it is a constant grueling task of trying to navigate through the present world of consumerism, social scrutiny, false positives, all of this while only being equipped with the reasoning that our own experimental rise out from the trees has given us.

The balance between ideals and actions is what shapes the way we look at ourselves, on all levels.

Haiti

2010-01-16T10:04:00.004+01:00

The way in which the aftermath of the Earthquake has been covered, for the most part has been deplorable. Suffering is maintained as a media commodity. Prefacing this story with that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with no following explanation is feeding into the oppression that the country has been subjected to by other countries. Sure token gestures of aid have been available and supplied but a meaningful effort of assistance other than money has not, to my knowledge, been actuated. It is the same approach that the West has given African countries: funnel some seemingly generous amount of money to a country struggling to get on its own feet and then be annoyed and pseudo-surprised when the money is corrupted, stolen or channeled into obscurity. This has nothing to do with helping out those who need it but maintaining a political construction of generosity to be seen as coming from compassion.

Haiti was the first country to break the chains of slavery in the Western Hemisphere. It is the first country to be run by black African descendants. This created a fear from slave owners in the rest of the countries whose economy was dependent on slave trade and slave labor. Word spread of the successful slave revolution in Haiti around 1790-1803 or so, to other slaves giving them a sense of hope for their own situation and possibly sparking revolts among slaves in the Americas. Having to deal with the new attitude instilled in what they deemed as their property, slave owners reacted in ways that are predictable and personify the worst in human behavior. The folks who ran the countries were either slave owners themselves or did everything in their power to maintain that form of economic foundation, continuing to justify the use and practice of slavery and slave trade. Haiti suffered as a result, from the beginning. It suffered the effects of having to pull itself out of oblivion from day one with no outside help. These people, all of them are the epitome of survivors, of strength of wills and the original freedom fighters.

The same forces are at work today to keep Haiti down. There are obvious parallels to Katrina in imagery and casualty numbers. Similarly to Katrina, the infrastructure to combat such an event was white washed by the ruling elite, preferring to leave fellow humans to fend for themselves in a system that is not only prone but relies on choosing ignorance over effort. Convenience over action. Some association told Haitian leaders two years ago that the fault line that they are sitting on was prime for a quake. This prompted the Mayor of Port Au-Prince to declare that the buildings in his city were not only not quake proof but were dangerous under normal circumstances. How did anyone expect the "poorest country in the Western Hemisphere" to pull themselves up by bootstraps? Bootstraps that have been denied them since their own independence. The talking heads have been blaming Haiti. Blaming the corruption on its dictators. The corruption lies with the global Anglo systemic economic water boarding of good people who because no act of their own threaten the egos and insecurities of the ruling class of its neighbors. To blame the people of Haiti is to blame the victim. Victims of circumstance. Victims of a system that does not side with truth but with tactics which secure power no matter what needs to be done to achieve such ends.

Two figures of the kinds of people you wonder how they can sleep at night with all of the hateful rhetoric that they spew from orifices that are easily confused with other parts of their body by appearance and exiting content, they are jumping on this disaster as a way to hate and fear monger even harder. You have the now notorious comment by Pat Robertson. As a blogger for the Huffington Post called him, he is, "a PR nightmare for God", and he gives religion a bad name and is the reason why people who actually care about others and not use that front as a way to receive misappropriated donations to save their souls are skeptical about religion in general. These kinds of people are the embodiment of ignorance and because of this do not realize that they turn more people off to organized religion than they do convert people or as the see them, donors. It is not a congregation for these folks it is a watered down board of trustees who are by no means involved with the decision making processes and go along with whatever is being said or done by the organization's who they are supporting, figurehead.

It is the same people who would support the kind of self-promotional ignorant hate filled speech of Rush Limbaugh. The secular equivalent of Robertson, Limbaugh is in the same boat for turning away people with the capacity for independent thought from the Conservative cause. This pharmaceutical saturated narcissistic xenophobe is telling the ignorant band of people who take his thoughts seriously, probably one in the same who listen to Robertson or Sarah Palin, that because the U.S has given the token gesture of financial support to Haiti that they should not give any more money to these people and let them suffer in their own circumstances. This Ronald Reagan loving, capitalism infatuated attitude leads to such ignorant and compassionate absent rhetoric that it mirrors the attitudes of slave owners and I have no doubt that Rush Limbaugh, and Robertson would have no problem coming up with an excuse based on ignorance to argue for slavery and be the first to own slaves if they were given the chance.

It is comments like these two that make me actually with that there is a Hell. If there was, the hypocrisy and fear based deception that is everything that the teachings of Jesus goes directly against that these two figureheads employ would land them in Hell's quarters for sure. The very fear that they have within themselves, the idea of eternal suffering and this fear that they claim to be acting in reverse of out of love, this fear is exactly what they deserve to experience. Eternal suffering is almost too good for these kinds of people. Their rhetoric has consequences far reaching and perpetuates the very fear that they harbor which fuels their own ignorance.

It is unfortunate in the wake of this disaster that energy and time is wasted on these kinds of people. Maybe that is their plan after all, a distraction of the issue at hand. By saying such things, they are vying for attention and the media, being what it is, gives it to them. They like the fact that they get those who are not ignorant enough to take their words at face value, upset. Should I feel like I have fallen into that trap? Maybe, but to let this idea of reverse psychology keep me or anyone else from calling out these kinds of people would be to somehow legitimize it.

Here is a link to Jay Smooth's thoughts on the subject on the ILL DOCTRINE.
He has already posted links to organizations that people can donate too. If you are able, pitch in. Spread the word, RESIST IGNORANCE, EMBRACE COMPASSION AND LOVE!!!

Reid-ing into it....

2010-01-15T15:41:00.004+01:00

So, Harry Reid got called out on mentioning Obama's electability during the campaign because he was "light skinned" and that he was able to speak without a "Negro dialect" if he wants to. Republicans jumped on this without hesitation as a double standard set up by Dems. etc. The fact is, is that this is all theater. The only folks who are really up in arms about this are Republicans. There have been countless African Americans who have flat out dismissed the comments as not worth the time, recognizing them as less than sensitive but that might really be the extent of it.

All of the African American folks who I have had the opportunity to hear respond to this incident said that the same kinds of things were discussed within their own social circles during the campaign. Obama is "light-skinned" there is no disputing that. The idea that whites might be uncomfortable with voting for a darker skinned person to run the entire country, very well might be a regrettable truth. This is something that very well should be discussed, not Reid's comments. This idea that his complexion was something that was on Obama's side is a real issue involving perceptions regarding race and a superficiality that not only the U.S. should finally stand up and face squarely. The taboo of race relations in the U.S. and elsewhere is the main thing holding back progress. The constant sweeping under the rug of a thoughtful, considerate, and well informed discourse is the single greatest hindrance towards the parties involved getting on the same page, and not only about what they feel but why. As with everything else, the lack of understanding leaves people to resort to reactions steeped in ignorance resulting in skepticism, hate, or inaccuracies.

The work "Negro" has some obvious sensitivities that accompany it. All of which reflect that is sounds like and is associated with another "N" word. But Negro was widely accepted by the Black community up until the 70's. We had the Negro-Leagues Baseball, an organization that I doubt people would agree to participate in if they felt the very namesake of the organization was insulting or degrading, even in those times when they were at increased disadvantages. As has been mentioned by possibly every one of the African Americans that I have heard respond to this, the older generation of Blacks still use the term themselves or consider themselves Negro.

It seems that an increased policing of political correctness is muddling the real conversation that could be taking place withing this whole fiasco. In a non-political situation, would a white guy face social ousting from his peers for using the word "Negro"? Of course the elements that come into play to answer that question are variables which range and run the gamut of possibilities. In order to face these issues that pose real consequences for a large part of the population we must be able to get over a certain amount of linguistic sensitivity from both sides in order to free up the space to have the conversation. Words carry meaning. Meaning that we allow them to have. Context and origin shape the meaning of a word. A word is just a word, with all of the possible meaning that it may be able to carry.

Here we should refer to George Carlin and his thoughts on a prime number amount of words. He, Carlin, also had some great thoughts on the "Negro dialect" and how it is always the white kids imitating a black vernacular and never the other way around. As the perception of society has shaped it, one sounds "cooler" than the other.

Here is a link to a conversation between to admirable minds on this subject:

John McWhorter and Glenn Loury, Bloggingheads

and

Here is a link to Carlin's genius:

The Seven Words

I tried to find the other clip that I referred to but was unable. Anything by Carlin is enlightenment articulated.

invisible lines on the ground

2010-01-14T21:05:00.005+01:00

Borders...........not the bookstore......

Arbitrary boundaries which political power-struggles defined for means of nationalistic possession. Materialism on a grand scale. The shape of a country's or other body of land's man designated border becomes its own entity in the mind of its occupants or outsiders in their perception of it and its inhabitants. In a way it is similarly looked upon by the folks living within it as the flag is, another signifier of collective identity in an abstract, symbolic way.

Sure there are less than arbitrary parts to national borders. Mainly those which follow geological formations, mountains, rivers, etc. Obviously there have been disputes regarding borders. Starting at the top, we can all come up with nationalistic boundary disputes, Berlin, Korea, and resulting continuous conflicts which have occurred. Even just the act of being in the border of a country can lead to arrest. The recent event of the folks hiking in the Middle East and unknowingly wondering into Iran several months ago, and are still detained, if I'm not mistaken. There is a warranted paranoia of espionage. But some cases seem more like 2 children who share a bedroom and they draw a line down the middle to section off each's side of the room. Arguments and fight abound when one puts a toe over the line to occupy uninvited space within that arbitrary boundary which is agreed to belong to the other.

Most of us on this planet have been born after the majority, if not all, of the nation's borders have been delineated and agreed upon. These are taken as absolutes. The greater force of history and rulers have decided these things that we live up to. Part of the bureaucratic structure that the rest of us who are just seen as commodities in the form of labor hours must obey. Is there any other way in which a population that the Earth is struggling to sustain at the moment, to structure a coexistence? The alternative is complete anarchy, an option I do not know enough about to argue either way but my gut doesn't seem to lean in that direction. It is hard to image a world without borders. A pertinent example is the Palestine/Egypt border. It was opened for the first time in I forget how long. This is one of the first opportunities in such a time that humanitarian goods are able to be delivered into the Palestinian people, a people desperately in need of help. This is also the first time since family member have been able to be reunited, in years, if my memory now serves me. There are cases where Palestinian people past the border into Egypt some years ago for whatever reason and while they were there they closed the border, effectively getting trapped in another country with no ability to return to loved ones. The non-ability to travel a matter of meters because of a fence which was erected by state direction to distinguish a "rightful" border, is an all to common occurrence. One that leads to devastating consequences.

Boundaries just seem to be a phenomenon which screams closed!!! This reverberates capitalist sentiment, although it is better to have anything opened so that the business can commence. Property, material, capital, outlined large-scale commodities drawn in the sand.

color coded

2010-01-11T14:27:00.004+01:00

In the second time in as many weeks, I have heard a story on streaming internet radio about this phenomenon that black folk looking for employment have been resorting to as a response to the way in which their credentials are viewed in the job market. This phenomenon is disturbingly referred to as, "Whitening of One's Resume". There have been studies done which prove the disservice to humanity that the corporate environment is continuing to foster but at a more alarming rate during the current economic climate. Black applicants are basically being forced to "whiten" their resume in order to land that first interview. Changing their names to sound more white or molding a resume to de-emphasize African American institutions, etc, while upholding their respectable credentials. This is one of the most despicable things that American society has come to within its own borders.

These folks are being forced to deny their own appearance of a history and culture that they have every reason to be proud of. According to NPR, 52 percent of black men between 16 and 19 can not find work. Black college graduates have twice as much hardship as white graduates at finding work. Competency being equal, whites, whether they know it or not, agree with it or not, have an upper hand. This is not surprising in a system that was established by slave owners. A system that only abolished slavery to begin with because they were fearing the lost of power and economic might. The Civil War started over a dispute of business practices not related to slavery. The issue of slavery was incorporated by Lincoln as a strategic move, calculated that it would rally more support behind him in his agenda for the war. The freeing of slaves was an act of strategic political calculation, not compassion.* As they always do, the history books paint, Lincoln as the savior not the politician. There is no doubt that we was a persuasive guy, but the spin put on his actions have preserved the system that was put into place by keeping Blacks down and elevating the status of Whites. The government stoked the fires of racism when they noticed that the poor whites were siding with slaves or freed slaves back then. They poised the poor whites against the poor blacks in competition for the jobs, intentionally blocking any familiarization between the two. The poor had and continue to have the strength in numbers but the guys in power have the strategy to keep things the way they are or keep the tide flowing in the direction of the power elite.

The latest happenings of qualified people being denied work because of the color they were dealt at birth is appalling at best. It is telling about the human tendency to overlook the fact that the chances of people being who and what they are, are irrelevant. We know how things have come into being, yet we accept this flawed history which led to the flawed present as absolute, indisputable and inevitable. At least the elite have successfully generated a situation where disputing present circumstances seems futile which discourages those who care to change the way in which things work or how things are run. In turning mostly to white workers, we are denying the collective a valuable resource of intellect. What would come from the true allowance of everyone, regardless of anything, to run with their own creativity to better serve our species and the rest of this planets inhabitants? We may never know.

Here are two NPR stories that aired 1/10/10:

Black Job-Seekers Hide Race for Corporate America

and

Black Teenage Males Crushed By Unemployment

* Info about Lincoln provided by my recollection of what is contained on the subject from Howard Zinn's, The People's History of the United States.

narcissism led to racism?

2010-01-09T13:32:00.008+01:00

[ Acknowledging the sensitivity of the topic at hand, I find it necessary to state the following to clarify any misinterpretation of the intentions of speculating on this topic: This is a thought experiment, not a justification by any means. It has been observed in the past that in discussing various habits of humanity that an understanding may be seen as a way to justify an occurrence. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact that these kinds of occurrences do exists warrants, or maybe necessitates, the investigation of the roots of their manifestation as a crucial first step towards their eradication. This theoretical offering could be brought into similar and no less important bigoted mindsets such as sexism, classism, ant-gay sentiments, etc. etc. I hope that the idea of theorizing on a cause is an attempt to bring a collective awareness closer to the understanding of a phenomenon in order to begin the process to correct it. ]

We are all narcissistic. It just depends to what extent. There is nothing altruistic in action because we find pleasure in helping others thus resulting not in a selfless act. This pleasure is also derived from a sense and attempt that we formulate an image for others to perceive. Although this is not physically narcissistic, it plays into the same intentions of appreciating your own image, whether that being physical or the image that a collected source of past actions is able to construct in the community eye.

The above mentioned condition has led to a feeling of comfort in things that are familiar. We feel threatened in the unfamiliar. Early on when one race would come in contact with another race, this was an interaction between unfamiliar parties. The lack of insight into the human condition by a collective species, coupled with the effects of evolution and survival of the fittest resulted in hostile views stemming from ignorance of the near exact, besides mere and superficial appearance, similarities and traits. There are obvious lopsided oppressive practices throughout history coming from one race towards most others. It is of the feeling that this is needless to say and that time spent on revisiting crimes against humanity on this unimaginable scale would be rehashing ideas which we are all familiar with. In the interest of posing hypothesis towards the roots of racism, I feel that to focus on the main party whose outlooks on other races has resulted in a system which secures the results of this historical avenue is able to be set aside for this brief moment to focus on cause and not blame, a blame that is hard to ignore or argue against.

During the process of human evolution, the familiarity of other living entities was perhaps the first acquired instinctual trait. The perils of surviving in the "wild" are such that strength in numbers, any number greater than one, is a comforting feeling bringing a sense of greater security than if one were to be alone. This is still felt today by many living in a "civilized" society, many are left to fear being alone. We are social animals. The recognition of beings that were of the same make up as our selves equipped us with a necessary survival instinct that if we were in trouble, we could run to the right kind of group which would provide protection for our own personal survival. And on the flip side, know which kinds of beings to help defend from predators to keep the number high enough to preserve a band or tribes chances of survival through coordination and numbers. If our instincts were not this generous, we would either run to the wrong kind of group, a group that would kill us or we would find ourselves on our own with a decreased chance of survival, going at it solo.

The proven advantages of sticking with ones own similar kind were duly noted in a survival scenario. A continued and increased migration of peoples, with growing populations, following food source migration, general curiosity, searching for new goods, etc. brought about a higher rate of interaction between different races. Geographical and climate based elements had varying demands on the different kinds of people, resulting in differing technology, diseases and utilization of natural resources giving some peoples a technological advantage to take over other cultures. (Here I would like to refer to Jared Diamonds, Guns, Germs and Steel. Diamond goes into phenomenal and clear detail on the playing out of cultural powers through out history.) Without understanding the shared capacity for ingenuity and the effects of the physical world on such ingenuity, the people's who had the outcome of living through a more harsh climate, resulting in a more exploited use of resources and ingenuity, were able to justify an unparalleled treatment of their fellow man and women. This early and super concentrated ignorance is the same flavor of ignorance that still exists fostering and permitting forms of "isms", especially racism to persist. The conquering parties automatically reverted to assuming that they were a superior model of human. The infatuation with their own image, narcissism, granted them the ability to do so. This as well as the added justification of religious audacity and greater fire power and disease.

As a side note:
Both Christians and Muslims practiced taking others into slavery. Both initiated a policy that they would not enslave anyone of the same religion. As the market for slaves grew to such an enormous degree, BOTH religious parties took exception and began to enslave their own kind. The drive for wealth and the indisputable market demand made supposedly pious men fall prey to the lust for material gain. This is an interesting historical exhibition of the power of materiality on the human moral compass.

How does this apply to today? Well, I feel that if we are to admit our own narcissistic tendencies, like beginning a treatment for drug addiction, admission is the first step towards reconciliation or reversing the effects of the affliction. The spiritual and religious teachings that we follow give us insight to the potentials of our species, harmony through compassion and openness. Racism is the ultimate form of someone being closed off to others. Scientific facts that are proving all of the races similarity and that superiority among them is an abstract, false concept. It is up to us to construct and align this collective information to resist some physiological residue from evolution and acknowledge that there is a reason for it to have arisen and that there is a greater reason to rise above it.

A volume of books could be written on this topic I feel. This was just an idea that occurred to me that would be worth exploring in as little and unresearched detail as I have offered here....

economic extension of evolution

2010-01-07T09:52:00.002+01:00

Some of the underlying functioning facets of a capitalist society seem to mirror the properties that were (and continually are) felt during the process of natural selection. Like everything else, it is not too far off to say that, what capitalism panders to through commodity in all of its forms are direct the results of the biological manifestations in response to the effects of external variables. The most immediate example would be our omnipresent interest in the exchange of ideas. Another neo-necessity (a term used in a previous post with such a title) is the computer, obviously using electricity, the top neo-necessity mentioned previously. The functioning intentions of this blog is to transfer ideas as quickly as possible to whoever may stumble onto them. The freshness of thought is one which I prefer and one which seems to lend itself to more interaction, revision and hopefully participation. The transfer of ideas or information is not a new phenomena, needless to say, but before the last 100 years or so has been required to take place face-to-face. The commodity that is currently being employed to transfer ideas and information at this very moment is a modernization and extension of one of the aspects of human evolution that resulted in the very commodity itself. Ingenuity through widespread information sharing, collaboration, and idea revision are parts of not only human evolution (this encouraged and nurtured an already growing brain size, gave us the ability to see the advantages of a widespread cooperation, etc) but also the way in which the capitalist system feeds itself in order to keep itself in motion. The constant appropriation of ideas, now from anyone, anywhere, and the expansion of those ideas is flooding the global capitalist market. Someone in one continent may come up with an accessory to a product that was invented on another hemisphere which derived from a product that existed at first 75 years ago.

Product traits seemingly make the same testing cycles as physical attributes in the natural world. Facebook is going through on of the trial periods now. If there are enough negative reactions or responses they, and any other company, will change that part of their product or run the risk of terminating, similar to a biological response to pressures from nature. $urvival of the fittest is an obvious comparison that may not need to be expressed in detail. The cunning survive in both climates, natural and market. Size may help or hurt in both situations. The old is constantly being taken over by the new: Google's Nexus One is making its attempt to control the smart phone tribe as an elder chimp (in this metaphor the iPhone) would be challenged by a younger male. The constant milling over of dominant forces: although some of the forces seem to stay put, we have had a massive extinction in the capitalist era with countless banks, Saab, etc. The big ones fall at some point.

The behavioral and physical manifestations from our subjection to natural evolution has given rise to this capitalist system. Socialism goes against our comfort zone of cooperation with one another through social systems in the past. Sure, we could cooperate on a reasonable scale of lest say 200 people or so but you get in the millions, and forget about it. There is not the personal stake required for such a willingness to take place. The personal stake that is derived from evolution, the inevitability that self preservation is one's ultimate priority. Capitalism is dog-eat-dog. Survival at its most raw and cold. We chose capitalism not because it works but because subconsciously feel comfort in the fact that we believe that we are the only ones that we have to rely on. The comfort of self reliance stems from evolution, that if I can just do this it can be done.

scape goat mask

2010-01-03T20:57:00.002+01:00

In the face of a systemic problem coming to light, the system looks for a scape goat. There have been a few examples of this happening in recent memory. As vast as recent can be in an attention deficit, strobing media society. Obama admits that the attempted attack on the plane over Detroit was a systemic failure. I admire his candor in admitting such a thing. Constructed opponents of the Democrats are blaming Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, about the incident. Ignoring the system that she is trying to run and the system that it is a part of. With the economic crisis, as with National Security, the complexity and widespread incongruity of what should be functioning parts of a whole, the financial system needed a figure head to personify, and scape goat for the problem. They found him in Madoff. The system stays in tact with the faithful to the systemic models preserving their own interests. Madoff goes to jail, the public is supposed to feel like the one bad apple is out of the barrel and the other supposed good apples can not continue on their way to ripen.

Because we are more familiar with the idea of an individual we look for a personification of a situation, event, or system in order to gain an access point to the illusion of the understanding of such a thing or idea. There are the figureheads of socialism which are all regarded as monsters, thus creating the image that the system is monsterous. The opposite is true for securing a system that is equally as flawed and disregards true human need. The system needs to find figureheads that have the sufficient appearance of a comforting face on the system that they paint as having the greatest potential for individual freedom (greed) and protection against threats (fear).

No change will come about if we are constantly looking for scape goats. You take out the spoke in the wheel and it gets replaced with another which is implemented to maintain the structural integrity of the same system. If that one fails the same tactic is deployed. This is a conditioning tactic of the system towards the masses as well. If people were to actually see the systemic failures in the conduct of everyday life (massive debt, multiple hours in front of the t.v. daily = killing ambition, poor diet, etc. etc. etc.) then they may regain some kind of critical awareness of the state of the multitude of systems that they are inevitably a part of and look for answers in places that are not offered by that same system.

neo-necessities

2010-01-03T16:52:00.003+01:00

The structure that has emerged in our economic system (and its offspring: the commodification of every aspect of life) is directly linked to how we have been shaped through the trials of surviving in the natural world and early forms of human society. On the most basic level we are dependent on external phenomena for our existence and its survival. If we were to boil it down, that phenomena would be the Sun, depending on how far you were willing to "boil". This reliance on external material for our own survival has developed into an abstraction which has concrete consequences that we are able to see in our everyday interaction with the world. There is no way around the increasing need to be flexible in our own formulated perception of what is now a necessity. One could live as basic as one would like but in some ways that has its own side of a self directed existence. If we are to continue the most noble virtue of humanity, the virtue of compassion and the subsequent acting upon it, depending on the scale of ambition of our actions, we would need to understand the theories for the society currently manifest to find ourselves in a more accepting position to adopt to its conditions and some of its unnecessary necessities. Because of the hardships of dealing with the intangible aspects of human spirituality, no matter what that may mean to any given individual, the seemingly unshakable and concrete nature of greed and materiality is a dead ringer for a more appealing arena to focus one's energy. There are more immediate returns on one's investment, the former denies some pleasures where the later is rooted in them, etc.

One of the easiest of these, what I would like to call "Neo-necessities" (as being a man-made, man-generated, or man-utilized material or phenomena that the structure of modern society as conditioned us to feel is indispensable from any social survival as we are heading towards a single global tribe of humans) is Electricity. This could be easily carried over into many other forms of things that result with the correct manner of processing that leads us to energy which gives us the spoils of living today. Gasoline, coal, etc. are the formidable targets. Just as we are dependent on external phenomena for our own physical bodily survival, the consumption of nutrients from external living entities plant or animal turning these entities into energy which power our own bodies and coming to understand the access to food as a human right or at least as something that we should as a species strive to ensure that everyone is distanced from the burden of going hungry (even though we export food from starving countries by companies owned in the West to feed Westerners), we have developed a similar outlook on the energies which power our machines which we have unending faith in that make our collective lives either easier or more interesting.

The fact is, is that energy as a commodity is entirely too inexpensive. The Industrial Goliaths that provide societies with energy in all of its forms have perfected the state of non-critical awareness of the effects and sources of their products which ensures a production above mainstream interest and a product which taken for granted by the consumer. The ease of flipping a switch to give light to a room is an act whose complexities are rarely contemplated. From the natural resource to how it is processed or used which moved something that was connected to something else that moved around wound copper resulting in the production of electrons, to the copper cables laid from house to house (not even getting into the production of the copper cables, the light bulb or the house that the room is in). Commodification has resulted in our complete resignation to the wills of the corporate and industrial brokers who provide us with environmentally detrimental products. If energy was a reasonable price in relation to its effects on the second most dependent externality which we are inescapably linked, that being Earth, and a higher price of energy consumption is unavoidably felt whenever energy is being used, we may be able to appreciate the infrastructure that we live under, the collective agreement to live in such a way and the effects that it has on a planet that will have the final say in things. We blow smoke in the face of the hand that feeds us.

In and about 2005 or so when the gasoline prices were creeping close to $4.00 per gallon, people, being subject to the behaviors in a modern society based on false economics are capable of, spent most of their time complaining about the price of a substance which simultaneously makes their lives almost immeasurable more convenient and possibly indisputably more interesting than life without it, and pollutes the very environment (most principally, air, another externality necessity of basic bodily survival) that we need. Because of the economic base of society in 2005, this resulted in people not taking for granted their time in their cars as much. Of course this probably did not phase the wealthy for obvious reasons. We (the U.S.) have chosen convenience over compassion. The only reason why the prices were as low as even their highest point is because our tax money is used to subsidize the cost of gasoline, among other things. This is money that could be going towards universal health care, the noble venture of ending poverty, cleaning up the environment, etc. etc., all which are compassionate acts but we have, mostly because we have become accustomed to the convenience that is found in the low price of gas, chosen to preserve our convenient lifestyles. We know how to fix the dire situation that our brothers and sisters within and outside of our arbitrary countries borders, we just do not want to be inconvenienced in doing so.

I heard a study sometime recently that came to the conclusion that when it comes to helping others, if you increase the number of people in need from 1 (one) to just 2 (two) people's willingness to help drops something unnerving like 75%. If the idea of helping out more than one person is enough of a deterrent from helping, we need to find a way to overcome our inability to endure whatever our privileged Western lifestyles have conditioned us to consider an inconvenience and understand the positivity generated within our own being from the feeling of helping out another human being far exceeds the feeling of acquiring the new trendy commodity of the hour.

a small dose

2009-12-26T20:13:00.003+01:00

Coming to terms with options.
Knowing there is only one plane to walk on.
Each having their own hints of silver.
Where is the time to want?
Occupied by the expected worry.

Hands off, mimic the world.
Acceptance and persistence.
Hungry to find the next way to stay a float.
Cognitive bouyancy as advertising fills the sandbags.
30 + gigabytes of information a day, images and words, sights and sounds.

Navigating own vessel while in tandem.
Contradictory rudder angles.
Inevitable.
The ship effects the ocean.
Reciprocity under the surface, patience in effectiveness.

Perceive the multiples in singularity.
Handing out goods.
Opposite ratio to transmitters and those there to receive the message.
Blank is simple, boring until painted.
Motions gone.

Chosen, yourself reflected in actions of animals far removed.
The appreciation of complexity.
Comes at a price.
Thinking selves to death under flourescence.
Running towards emptiness veiled in curiosity.

Understanding and belief.
This species is addicted.
Abstract anything to fit the shape of a poolside recliner.
Kick your feet up, don't mind the others.
Following history.

Cadillac Coffin.

catching up while behind and moving forward

2009-12-22T09:35:00.004+01:00

Profits.

If you break down the word: pro and fits.
This seems to be an oxymoron if you consider the implications of a society based on this insatiable idea....

pro
noun ( pl. pros) (usu. pros)
an advantage of something or an argument in favor of a course of action : the pros and cons of joint ownership.

fit 1 |fit|
adjective ( fitter , fittest )
1 [ predic. ] (of a thing) of a suitable quality, standard, or type to meet the required purpose : the meat is fit for human consumption | [with infinitive ] is the water clean and fit to drink?

(source: Dictionary Software on a Mac)

Yes, we all like profit. We like it as a nation and as an individual. More so as an individual. We have allowed profit to overrun our goals when there are people suffering both within and outside of our borders. The system that we have created, which has generated such profits for the elite minority has resulted in a illusionary false comfortable lifestyle for the masses that could be argued that in itself is a form of profitable existence. Comfort and convenience by buying groceries, buying furniture, buying leisure, entertainment, medicine, recreational drugs, travel, a snuggie, etc., etc., etc., all offered as a service or product by the hope for profit to extend one's own personal comfortable lifestyle.

We tell ourselves that this is the best system. Unregulated markets that regulate themselves. The past 2 years have proven otherwise and there are talks that we may inject the system with more money in order to preserve this system that rewards the already uber wealthy. Just as the marketing and packaging of products goes, the shinier and brighter colors convince us that this is the best product, the powers that be are packaging their own ideals to the population with bright red, white and shiny blue in order for us to buy the idea. Allowing the overall market and each individual cell which comprises the whole has resulted in a too big and frail scenario. People get accustomed to an unsustainable service model and the system get ahead of itself and ends up trying to catch up with itself that is behind itself while constantly pushing itself forward.

Cutting corners in products and services provided and provides people with excessively cheap goods and services. We immediately latch onto the cheapest, easiest, most convenient and the markets set their own standards on these aspects of what they offer. People will be eternally reluctant to revert to less convenient modes of operation no matter how small. Setting the bar high to offer luxurious services but cutting costs and making such a huge market comes back to effect the producers. It may effect their profit escalation and like the customers being unwilling to accept a less convenient service or low cost product, the business are unwilling to allow the incline of profit growth on their corporate line charts.

adult theater

2009-12-21T10:03:00.004+01:00

We are highly impressionable animals. Our own mortality is a constant source of anxiety where through subconscious responses we look for comfort in the inevitability of our lives to end. Because there is no way around this, we have invented ways to relieve some of this anxiety through religious beliefs, reassurance through formulating meaning to personal existence and even the idea of cryonics, the freezing of the immediately deceased thinking that the ability for reanimation and a cure for what ever was the original cause of death will be discovered in the future.

Being a social animal from early on (It just occurred to me that warm blooded animals could be more likely to be social animals because of the benefits of the exchange of body heat in close quarters and in cold locations.) we have developed a response to our surroundings that creates an innate navigation of one which seeks to exist within the parameters of our native or adopted group as a means of survival or comfort. If any given group is living in accordance with a belief set that may lean towards an oppressive circumstance for a certain group or individual within the group, the strength in numbers meme overrides the desire to address or consider the stream of actions in place. Our impressionable nature, coupled with a constant need for the reconciliation of our fear of death and protection the the fear that our lives may not have a meaningful purpose is how religion has taken hold. The fear is so great that we are willing to kill to preserve the comfort and familiarity of these beliefs in our lives. The ruling class has infused these sets of beliefs with the idea that conversion of others who do not fit the same religious bill by any means necessary is the will of whatever god is in play. This appears just to be a ploy to gain more power by ruling over a greater number of people.

The life long impressions put on people has shaped their minds in such a way that they believe that they have religious experiences. Visions of religious figures, attributing fluke accidents as divine interventions, etc. by means of willing them to be as such they reaffirm an idea which is unable to be proven and thus these unexplainable phenomena seem to be attributable to proof and affirmations of the truth of religiosity. If we were to agree that truth is what we believe, then there are no universal truths. We may be able to overcome the strife and conflict in the clash of beliefs by recognizing that any belief is a personalized truth built on past experiences and that is it. Claims of universal truths are inherently false, including science. Our cognitive capacity is limited, we supplement this human handicap with a willing belief that there is a puppeteer putting on this play in the cosmos.

war for hire

2009-12-17T17:17:00.005+01:00

So it is not surprising that people are having a hard time finding work right now. That is not the case if you are a hired militia member. At the present moment we, the United States has more hired soldiers, from such companies as Blackwater, in Iraq than American soldiers. This does not factor into our number of soldiers in the military that the media and the government report, since they are a private "firm". With the recent escalation of troops to Afghanistan, the number of out-sourced fighters will rise at, at least the same number and it would not be surprising if hired guns out numbered those in the nation's armed forces.

Hillary Clinton as a candidate for president vowed to eliminate these private security firms that have over run our foreign operations. Now the same companies provide her security as she travels abroad. The current administration has lessened the role of Blackwater in the Middle East but they are still a major player in "keeping the peace" there. There are mounting suspicions that they are not only acting as their own organization but aiding and abetting the U.S. military in missions and even in strategic planning for the U.S. military. The later actions do not have the consent of Congress and are a blatant violation of the American Constitution.

The owner of Blackwater, Eric Prince, is a fundamentalist Chrisitian Crusader who has declared that his mission is to wipe Muslims off of the Earth. A claim that he denies of course. A problem with these hired gunmen is that they act with no regard for the rules of war because they are essentially acting outside of the law. For someone serving their country by being in the armed forces voluntarily, there is a reputation and dignity that is expected to be maintained. When fighting in a war becomes a job where one can do anything with out accountability, the results are what we are seeing now: unprovoked massacres, torture, and immeasurable tarnishing of the intentions of being over there in the first place. These people are the one's training the security forces over there so try and set up a situation where we can finally leave. The act with impunity and the longer the fight goes on, the longer they have a job. They manifest their own job security if they fail. Why would they want to provide Afghanistan with the means to protect itself? They would then be out of a job like the rest of us.

Here is a link to an interview with Jeremy Scahill a very good journalist who has been investigating Blackwater for years. There is the option to listen to the interview from the site too.

don't forget: you are a mammal

2009-12-16T07:21:00.002+01:00

With all of the information floating around about health, eating this will contribute to to a healthier that, etc., it seems that we are overlooking our physiological, biological, environmental, and behavioral origins. This seems to be an overly simplistic way to project our real struggle to understand the intricacies of life and how we as a species should navigate through it with all of the distractions and involvements of the effects of modern technology. The motivations and effectiveness of advertising media keep people with a high and mighty attitude to give them a sense of empowerment to dupe them into impulse buys and the like. This is an extension of the tendency to distance us from the natural environment to exploit its resources and to act in a completely self directed way with moral impunity.

There are many elements from physics, biology, sociology, etc, that we will never understand. That is not to advocate a lack on interest in constructing theories on various facets of life, human and otherwise, but to keep it in mind when making sweeping claims that drinking coffee helps with colon cancer as was reported by NPR within the last week. This gives people a false impression of what they might be able to do to, or more importantly: what to buy, which plays on the ubiquitous fear of death.

It could be a humbling and accurate thought to keep in mind that indeed we are mammals. Our chromosomes are not so far removed from the other mammals on the globe. Biological make up, bipedal walking, thumbs and brain size (brain size contributing to language, cooperation, a sense of deep time, etc) are the main differences from our species and say those of mice or llamas. If you boil it down, we are distant distant cousins of the earthworm as we are just a later model of the animal. This reminder is one which makes the achievements of humanity even more impressive and keeps the worries of contemporary causes of stress down. We are mammals caught in a trap that is existence. This trap is one where we have room to appreciate the surroundings and ingenuity of our fellow inhabitants. The downfalls to this trap, again, the fear of death, social insecurities, etc. are never remedied by some "magic" product to be bought.

enlightenment 2.0

2009-12-13T14:56:00.005+01:00

Recently added to this thing is a side gadget (as they are called) of what I am currently reading. Figured what the hell: always reading something and it typically informs these thoughts.

-----------------------

It is interesting how books' content can bleed into each other in succession in unexpected or unforeseen ways. A previous read ArtScience by David Edwards as bled into the current read Joseph Beuys: The Reader in, as it is thought about now in a way that should not be too surprising, but sparked the following thought:

There are ways to describe the category of a time period as what we now know as Modern as the resulting compartmentalization of the various facets of human intelligence. Meaning the separation of science, art, philosophy, etc. Stemming from the Romantic period and I would think the Enlightenment, the widening of banks of knowledge, the expansion of insights was almost too much to take in on its own and just filling up the well of knowledge was in itself a arduous undertaking. It would have been too much to handle trying to figure out how these various avenues of human intellect fit together to contribute a harmonious and more well rounded images of our species capacity to perceive our own realities and collective reality.

This ground work of compartmentalization created habits that have kept us from tying some of these incredible advancements and achievements together in a way which could very well uplift the nature of such achievements. The aestheticizing science in a way to make it more accessible to a greater number of people, and visa versa. We are seeing more and more cross-disciplinary institutions, but perhaps not enough. Specialization is like a link in a chain gang. Things are tied together only in so far that they are part of a whole but not able to flourish or advance through a chance to mingle fully.

To figure out what the intellectual endeavors of our ancestors is meant to accomplish today, it may be interesting if nothing else, to actively pursue the blurring of the boundaries intellectual subjugation. It could be beneficial to allow these ideas to swim in the same waters, to bump into each other and procreate new unexpected ideas to carry us into an Enlightenment 2.0 of sorts.

the crucifixion of Charles Darwin

2009-11-21T18:25:00.004+01:00

There is a Christian ministry in California who has written there own introduction to Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species. This introduction which was written by no one who has any expertise on the subject, claims that Darwin was racist, sexist and that the Nazis used Darwinian thought to justify their actions. All of these claims are not only false but so easily realized as a pathetic attempt at further propagandize and indoctrinate people. What this particular ministry does not realize is that this kind of actions are and will always be counter productive. People who would fall for such a ploy or smoke and mirrors tactic are the same people who might fall prey to scare tactics of being damned to hell or to be fanatically patriotic over fears of terrorism. People whose closed minds have been subconsciously looking for a source of fear to base their lives and its subsequent decisions on.
There are so many things wrong with this but among the many, it shows the desperation that seeps from certain congregations. All of which are probably just trying to find a way to get through the economic crisis by building up their brain-washing quota. This particular church is using an old hack child actor who was never revered as being talented and is easy to understand why no one sees him in any work anymore.

It is apparently legal to write an introduction to any publication that is part of public domain. This book has been out for 150 years now so it fits into that category. How would these ignorant people who claim that their intentions are to save their souls and not to increase the churches budget, how would they like it if someone added a fifty page introduction to the New Testament? The New Testament which is a work of fiction comparable to any book on Greek Mythology is more conducive to a modern take on an old fable than a work based on science.

Science is literal. Religion would be happy to reach levels of science fiction. To treat the bible as a manual for living in a literal sense would be like using a manual from a model-T Ford to try and fix the 2010 Ford Focus. It just doesn't work. Mechanics who would try to convince do-it-yourself'ers or his clients through violence, indoctrination, propaganda, brain washing, deception and fear would be run out of town or discredited from their profession. Sadly this can be the name of the game, these tactics for some organized religions, clinging firmly to their ideological literalism without the flexibility or open mindedness to adapt to present day conditions and the evolution (the pun was intended) of the human condition by such elements as globalization, the Enlightenment and technology. Sounds strikingly familiar to die hard republicans or democrats preaching family values and then finding them with their pants down, literally.

All of this proves that if people are too stuck in their ways to be aware of the changing face of human existence they will force themselves into a continued practice of coercion and fear as their means to "convert" others. The imposition of personal beliefs in itself is a faulty way to address spreading any message at all. These very tactics reveal flaws that the people implementing them can not see themselves because they are stuck with their heads in biblical, political or convenience based sands.

Here is a link where a video promoted by the specific church and a humorous and informed response are found.

less credible than my imaginary friend

2009-11-12T12:01:00.005+01:00

So Lou Dobbs is gone. It is only too bad that he is not gone from the public for good. He claims that he will be seeking a more activist role and try to become a leader for some of the "profoundly critical" problems of our time, climate change, health care, etc. and he goes on to say that all of these problems and their subsequent solutions are dependent on the improved health of our capitalist system. This flesh sack of hot air has proved himself, especially over the last 6 months to be willing to sacrifice whatever amount of professional dignity he once had the moment he jumped onto the "birther" band wagon. This ego-centric corporate shill is no greater advocate for the profoundly critical problems of our time than Paris Hilton or her Chihuahua or the purse that the damn dog lives in. What is most likely taking place is other interests (probably corporate) have sunk their diamond encrusted teeth into Lou Dobbs's ego and are lubing up a fist full of cash to shove into parts of his body whose appearance is hard to distinguish from other parts, to get him onto their band wagon. This would only be money that CNN refused to match because as Dobbs' himself the typical sock puppet patriotic sensibility exploiting blowhard has proved is that his self serving tendencies have been broadcast to American living rooms as soon as the poll numbers showed that his pathetic attempt at nonsense spouting attention grabbing actually worked by announcing his doubts of where current president was born. First of all, the idea that Dobbs would assume that his wild assumptions on Obama's birthplace, based on Allah knows what, would be accurate and would be something that the Republican party would either overlook, dismiss, or not be privy too in the prior 15 months leading up to the presidential election (the uncompromisingly and unapologetically twisted and spin-centric political party possibley conceivable) and not use it in their own arsenal to try and win the White House, is evidence enough that any sense of decency left in this pretend journalist probably never existed to begin with or eroded with exponential speed once he began to get attention.

It is a sad state when any body of people would actually put stock or care what this person's next course of action is. Congratulations Dobbs you have actually surpassed such hollow personalities as Glenn Beck, Limbaugh and Ru Paul. By beinga guy who takes himself seriously enough to go from a pretend entertainer to a pretend activist. Anyone short of a lobotomy and half a second to think about it should be able to see through your disguise as someone who is by any stretch of the imagination out for anyone besides himself, just like the 3 others mentioned above. And frankly I am a little embarrassed to have wasted time on you at all.

Good riddance and your endorsement alone, of any issue, immediately places question on that side of the argument.

The Gospel according to Trout

2009-11-10T15:56:00.003+01:00

[This is an email exchange with a long-time dear friend, used with his permission]

Trout -
Was just strolling down memory lane and playing ball at the YMCA. Man I must have played there 2000 times but it seems like with all my routine visits, I can recall a time or 2 when everything just seemed "off". Like it was totally a different place on these isolated incidents, and then magically turned into the old place I knew and loved.
Do you remember when you first moved in to the house on Basswood? Do you remember how new everything seemed and smelled, the back deck and all those trees, the mud outside from the recent construction? Everything had its place in time and evolved to how you perceive it now in the present. Of course things changed, you are bigger now and things get replaced, painted, restructured and remodeled. And you grow accustomed to these changes.
My point is, this is all NORMAL because of the long duration of time, and things always change. But can they (realities) change one day and go back the next?
My experience that day at the Y that seemed so different wasn't due to any major overnight change or physical progression of the building itself. Everything just seemed different one day, and then back to normal the next day. The fact that it was an overcast and rainy day should not have made any difference ; I surely had entered the building during a day similar over 50 times. I remember all the people playing ball were the same as usual, the day of week didn't matter because I went any day of the week.
I am stupefied by this. It has to be that my subconscious mind was picking up on environmental keys that my conscious mind could not.
Sorry if you didn't understand clear enough, but I've thought about that day since I was 11 or 12 years old and how the memory did not seem to fit or get stored like the rest of the "normal" ones.
memory

Me -
I think that I know what you mean. There are so many variables that may have contributed to such an "off" experience in such a familiar place. It could have had something to do with the kind of food that you had been eating for the few days before or a certain combination of foods you ate together for lunch or like a less than adequate night of sleep. All of the above may have something to do with an unusual chemical output from your brain at that time and the spacial properties of the Y at that given time had exaggerated things. It is interesting when things like that happen.
It is totally different to move around a bit, as I have. Things (surroundings) are not allowed the time necessary to get used to an acclimated to the perpetual change of things. It's like that trip to the Y every time I come back to Chapel Hill. Things are so familiar but then again, almost nothing is familiar. The most drastic example that I can think of right now is the Cedar Store. I nearly fell over when I saw its remodelling job. Weird.
I like how you described it as that it was something that your subconscious was picking up on that your conscious mind was unable. I believe that is the case pretty much all of the time. Meditation is a way to cultivate a more keen consciousness which more closely blends with the sub during waking hours.
Speaking of the Cedar Store:
An incident that happened to me came to mind when I read your email. I went into the Cedar Store, I believe that I was with E.P. but he was out in his Volvo. After I paid I was walking towards the door and a woman came through the door. A middle age business type woman. She was in a hurry and completely self absorbed, hardly noticed me. As soon as my eyes set on her, I understood her. I mean I saw her as a child, through adolescence and adulthood to present day. I understood the social conditioning that created this person. I pitied her to a large degree. It was really strange. Now that I think about it, it could have happened at Wilco.
Thanks for the philosophy Trout.

Trout -
Whatup BIGGS?
This is a crazy explanation out of left field for how that day got sculpted askew in my memory : what if the conditions that day where PERFECT for a tornado in Chapel Hill, and we just missed having one by coincidence or chance. I know that sounds a little obscure, but those days are freaky... and highly irregular barometric pressures could theoretically by something noted and also remembered exclusively in the subconscious.

human ingenui-deity

2009-11-10T15:14:00.002+01:00

The results on us from evolution, as the essentials, stand as: thumbs, competition, two legs, compassion, cooperation, curiosity, fear, love and ingenuity, among others. All equally playing equal parts to bring us, for better or worse into the collective state we find ourselves in today (although it may have been pretty hard without thumbs so arguably they may have a place towards the top of this list). Curiosity coupled with ingenuity as traits that describe how we as a species interact with the our external environment may be the most fitting to describe our base-line tendencies. This like most traits stemming from what has proven to be an advantageous feature in the game of survival, no longer in nature but in society.

We see things or events and our innate subconscious response to them is to analyze them as a means of understanding and to ponder various way of potential improvement. We saw death, we engineered God. Someone thought of the wheel. As a response, someone else invented the cart. A recent example being the iPhone and its apps. Information sharing, open source and globalization (globalization, with all of its flaws), is a utopia for our inherent sense of curiosity and ingenuity. Not only do we have access to a bank of historical data for what has brought up to this point at our finger-tips on the web, but we can see what anyone (practically) is engaged in, anywhere in the world and expand, enhance or alter it. Not only in tangible objects but in thoughts. We can take this curiosity as a perceptive exercise and type out these ideas in the inadequate form of symbols that we came up with in a response to our invention(s) of spoken language.

safety in numb'ers

2009-11-02T07:56:00.005+01:00

numb |nəm|
adjective
deprived of the power of sensation : my feet were numb with cold | figurative the tragic events left us shocked and numb.
(source: Macintosh Dictionary software)

Materiality acts as a cognitive local anesthetic. As long as there is enough we are oblivious to the pain that exists. Unlike anesthetics in medical use, this desensitization is not administered during which the process is beneficial, rather when it is a near silent atrophic erosion of meaning and spirit. The power struggle is suffering flavored by politics and economics. Pure power struggles for physical survival found in the natural world are just that, as pure as the privilege of inherent rights at accompany existence itself. False social class indignations are sponsored by venture capitalism in the business of frivolity ill-concerned with product necessity but rather fabricating beliefs of necessity by pulling on our innate survival instincts not suited to live in a consumer based environment.
Care is being white washed. Aldous Huxley's prophetic line in Brave New World, "Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches.", has been the indoctrination of consumerism from the beginning. Its evidence is everywhere. We are not permitted to consider the consequences of the numbing effects of all out capitalism on the human psyche, at least not in a mainstream format to be received by the people most likely to have the detrimental effects of this artificial landscape they have been born into. Of course they would not be allowed access to this information because it would be an antidote to the corporate anesthetic which keeps them filling up their shopping carts. This numbness is the surrogate for fulfillment. It tricks the body and mind into thinking that the pursuit of contentment and means of survival is achieved when peace of mind and body are assumed and not actuated.
Synthesized materials constructing abstract geometrical fluorescence filled environments contribute to this lack of sensation. The path of most resistance leads to a reacquaintance of humanity and the anti-venom of the effects of the strategic maneuver of corporate tranquilizers.

abstract crisis

2009-10-28T08:16:00.005+01:00

Withing the confines of the abstract "economic crisis", this crisis which really affects people but comes down to a bunch of ones and zeros being shuffled around or the concepts of their existence being exchanged for tangible representations of something of value, there are obvious effects.

[As a side note: what really is the difference between actual, physical, tangible paper or coin money and digital numbers that appear in a bank's account data base? Well, first off, at this point in time in the U.S. you can't charge your next dimebag. But other than that, what would be the difference between the way in which we as a society view a five dollar bill in our hand and a little pixelated 5 on a screen? Both are given abstract, arbitrary values that we all just accept, considering the gold standard was surpasses around the end of the 19th Century.]

Back to the main point:
Needless to say that is the it poorest of the poor which suffer the most. I am not just talking about the underemployed soul who gets a pay cut or laid off altogether. I mean humanitarian work. The people who live either within or beyond our borders who, at the hands of the system are given a hand in life that requires a hand-out. The people who are thrown into existence in a situation that squanders prosperity because the top half a percent like it that way and they want more because their yacht is not big enough or not enough of its appliances are platinum plated. The people worried about uber-rich social status and power, keeping those just trying to survive with their heads just above the surface.
The lack of humanitarian funds is a reminder of the lack of compassion that capitalism has instilled in wealthy nations. Short sighted, narrow mindedness reigns supreme in these societies. We could speculate that anyone from any country is susceptible to the greed that follows one towards wealth, prior to the guilty conscience repenting in philanthropy, i.e. Bill Gate and the like. Needless to say it is better for guilt to eventually result in giving back to any community, considering it is commonplace for the wealth to come at the expense of a community. But this lack of funds shows the displacement of evolutionary qualities which have been so abstracted and skewed off of the responsibilities of being human.

To preform a little thought experiment, without trying to idealize notions of hunter-gatherer societies too much:
Imagine a small hunter-gatherer society, lets say of 65 people in a tribe or what have you. If someone in the tribe was sick or starving, since the entire group's survival is more closely dependent on its individual members, it is not inconceivable to think that at least one of the 64 others would offer assistance in whatever form to help out that person in need. Or if a person had enough children and stored food, he or she may sent an offspring to help out that person, much like a philanthropist may pay a group of people to help out a third world village, etc. With the survival of our globalized village not dependent on the individual, have we evolved beyond actuated compassion that once existed in a more intimate existence?

We once were concerned with the need for food, shelter, clothing and gene spreading. For some all of those things are commonplace to the point that luxuries and monetary obsessions cloud the duty to help out your fellow species. It is no surprise that organizations that do good work, such as UNICEF, are very profitable because of the poverty that they try and help. Otherwise they would probably not exist.

idealized external vs. insecure internal

2009-10-27T21:41:00.005+01:00

The grass is idealized greener.

It seems that we, in this complicated modern society, have a tendency to idealize others. This is obviously the root of the celebrity and where the infatuation with such people comes from. But it can be thought that we do it to the people that we are aware of in everyday life as well. As we do this we relate those feelings of how we perceive ourselves. When we idealize others it may stem from an inherent sense of insecurity that comes from within us. We subconsciously know how we could like to be as individuals, morally, physically, personality-wise, etc, all of which are no doubt shaped by society. When we familiarize ourselves with others enough to project our own idealized selves onto them, it is a way to reinforce what we find wrong with ourselves.

Conversely, if we are introduced to shortcomings that arise from others we may latch onto that because it effects us in different ways. We feel better about ourselves because at least we do not (at that particular moment at least) act in the way which is deemed inexcusable or shameful, the way that is found in any particular other. It lessens that insecurity because we are not the only one to fall short of personal idealized traits of a human being. It also creates disappointment because it is further evidence that the standards of idealization are a hard bar to reach.

I have had the fortune of meeting a small handful of people who are held in a high regard in their respective field or even thought of as celebrities or at least have a certain amount of actual fame. The later category are musicians, the former visual artists. It is constantly refreshing to come to understand that these kinds of people are just as normal or posses a similar underlying insecurity that we all seem to have. On the reverse side it is disappointing to find a hollow shell wrapped in arrogance and self entitlement. It is easy to understand why these traits, when found in "normal" people are so immediately despised. We find a certain amount of reassurance in a common insecurity, we find it healthy and more communal than the kind of personality which feels like he or she is the one to command the tribe through self determination alone.

real knowledge un-politicized

2009-10-21T07:48:00.002+02:00

Rather than putting in my own thoughts, I defer to a man that is much more competent and knowledgeable than myself.
He very well could be one of the most observant, keenly intuitive, and smartest thinkers that walks on our common ground today.......enjoy.

Click here for Mr. Zizek

what could be worse?

2009-10-15T07:27:00.005+02:00

Within this blog, I have not concealed my frustrations (to put it lightly) with capitalism. I came across yet another case which has been perpetuated for a long time but is creeping into "developing nations" with little surprise.....

On October 14, 2009, Devinder Sharma, a writer and activist from India was on Democracy Now! (here is the link). He was discussing the problems with India's exploding agricultural industry. Among some of the things discussed was the present "Land Grab" going on in Ethiopia. As is widely known, Ethiopia was had widespread starvation and malnutrition since the Industrial Revolution, would be my guess. Just as Britain did to India, India is not doing to Ethiopia. The difference is instead of Imperialistic conquest, India is using money to systematically contribute the to food crisis that plagues this north African country. Agricultural corporations from India and elsewhere are buying up HUGE portions of land to cultivate. At first glance this could seem like a potential way to alleviate the food shortage there. The fact is, is that these companies are producing food to export out of Ethiopia. The poverty of Ethiopia, which no doubt contributes to it's starvation epidemic, disallows Indian agro-business to even consider keeping the produce grown from Ethiopian soil to feed those sharing the same soil.

Industrial farming is killing, literally, small farmers in India. They can not compete with the prices. As was stated in the Dem. Now! interview an estimated 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 15 years!!! The Indian government is not doing anything about it, more than likely because they are getting kick backs from the agro-industry. Britain used to do the same thing to India. Set up shop, grow food, rice, etc, and ship it back to the UK as millions of Indians went hungry. I used to have this romantic view of non-Western humans as more compassionate and egalitarian. The white man is the kind of person to enslave, to spread corruption with the barrel of a gun, to rape with a smile, this is what I used to think. It is becoming abundantly clear that he is not alone in the inclusive group of racial oppressive class.

Disguising capitalist ventures so that they do not surface as the reason for war or cultural mistreatment is nothing new. It is the reason that the U.S. went to war with the Philippines around the beginning of the 20th century, to gain a foothold on the Chinese market so that surplus U.S. goods could be sold there. Boy, how that has been reversed. This practice by India came at a time when I read a quote in Howard Zinn's amazing A People's History of the United States 1492 - present (you can read it HERE!! and I would recommend at least skimming through any part of it). Written in the late 1800's/early 1900's, Zinn quotes an account of NYC, I looked for the quote but could not find it so I will paraphrase,

"We are in a city where thousands go hungry everyday. In the same city it can be seen that the pets of the aristocracy are adorned with jewels."

Or something to that effect. So this is not a new phenomenon. None the less a terrible one. This is the effects of capitalism and population explosion. Urban life does not enable a true hospitable community. Smaller communities enable intimate relationships among the majority and thus a willingness to help out fellow man or woman. Capitalism's first executive decision was to throw that idea to the waist side.

ethics of falsified public rhetoric

2009-10-13T09:57:00.005+02:00

Moving from exchanging pleasantries from the last post to exchanging politically correctness in public discourse....

First off, it is only appropriate and necessary to avoid pejorative adjectives and nouns in a setting of discussing public policy. That is to say there is no room for slanderous speech or unproductive terminology in trying to figure out a real utilitarian solution to the perpetual public problems that constitute real tension in societies. In this corporate run capitalist pseudo democracy, politicians and some other public figures have adopted a rhetoric that is so excessively dancing on eggshells that it spins the wheels of ambiguity for progress in society without any movement forward. In fact it resembles spinner hubs which give the appearance of movement and are shiny, beautiful and mesmerizing but in fact serve no function other than superficial insatiabilities.

This is the exchange of pleasantries on a public scale that keeps the wool over people's eyes. This is the exchange of pleasantries on a public scale that makes people think that their preferred political soldier is on the front lines when he or she is in a greenroom having foundation applied their face in preparation for the next egg shell waltz. This is the exchange of pleasantries on a public scale that disallows real change to occur, a quagmire that many of us who acknowledge this unfortunate phenomenon are fearful that our president may have slipped into. This is the occurrence of hollow discussions.

Just as we may put on our happy face in the face of a person that we care not for, this is the modus operandi of the political approach to "informing" the public. This is the way to keep us in the dark. We may continue on our way from this metaphorical person we care not for and murmur under our breath, "Like I could give a shit", this is the same murmur these political figures utter when going form the pedestal to the corporate conference to continue the bed fellowing that slowly erases the meaning of the word humanity.

This masking of real debate is why the free thinkers of the world are honorably chanting the same mantras as their predecessors. We have been in the same struggle for a substantive and qualitative existence for a time frame that we can not relate too in our fleeting life spans. The "hope" that came from Mr.Obama is evaporating as we are now observing this exchange of pleasantries that he is so convincing in, resulting in hollow results. A recent result was his speech to the gay rights activist he met with over this past weekend. It is business as usual in the political spectrum.

It seems infinitely more appealing to listen to a free thinker, willing to speak his or her mind. The ability to be candid to speak what one's real principles are even if they are appalling or disagreeable is to be real. We have constructed an atmosphere were when those brave enough to speak their mind are dismissed because it is a new thought. Progressive has a negative connotation, what a sad state of affairs. It is easy to respect realness in a person's personal delivery even when it is taboo, disgusting or insulting that is how things should be addressed. People like Howard Stern, Ralph Nader, and Farrakhan are people who are controversial only because the speak out on what they truly believe in, they are real. (I never expected to lump those three together in the same sentence.)

Here is Andrew Sullivan's take on Obama's speech to the gay rights activists. Although he has an invested interest in the issue, I tend to see him as a rational guy when it comes to evaluating things....from what little I have read by him.

ethics of falsified pleasantries

2009-10-11T15:12:00.002+02:00

During my last while teaching, I became entrenched with the idea that most public interaction is absolutely dependent on the perpetual exchange of pleasantries between the same people on a daily basis. It was observed that a substantial amount of the time these were falsified statements or falsified interests, both on my own part and on the part of others towards me and others. The more that this was observed the more it was rejected. Once something in a sociological realm is noticed, it tends to make itself prevalent on a regular basis, it is like if you buy a car then you notice all of the other cars like that one on the road.

The ethical question arose: is it better to go along with these falsified interactions without regard to their existence or to partake in the common conformity that is this way of behaving? It would be hard to argue for a situation that encourages people to only say what is really going on in their mind at all times. Society as we know it would crumble, showing how much we are dependent on these pretenses. Resentment would abound, cooperation would be hindered, etc. That is the extreme that you argue on would be self defeating.

What I am proposing here is an openness to speak one's mind in a constructive way when confronted by someone and in a situation that presently subversively demands the exchange of falsified pleasantries. When someone finds oneself interacting with someone who has just spent time and money on altering one's appearance (new hairdo, piercing, tattoo, etc.) or walking by someone on the street who you are acquainted with but not particularly care for, which is the way to go? The falsified route or the honest route?

In the case of the new hairdo: if someone is really either flat-out asking or you can read on their face that they are fishing for compliments or opinion, what do they gain by saying that they look improved. For something like a hairdo, something semi-permanent, what is the harm in saying that it is not flattering, that it clashes with the shape of their head, or that bright orange is not a hair color that one is typically drawn to? Would it not be more of a service to be honest, critique the alteration, after all it is only a single opinion, and we know what they are like....
But then that is the truth in your eyes, who he/she looks to you to relay any other information would be untruthful. I do acknowledge that much of society is based on white lies, this falling into that category.

In the case of passing an acquaintance on the street: instead of stopping and asking how their sick cat is doing, why not just say "hello" and keep walking? Chances are that the other person does not want to have the awkward conversation any more than you do. You both would be doing each other a favor. It is not rude but more efficient than the waist of time that would be the conversation when neither party has any interest in the blabber coming from the other side.

Is truth the ultimate end to an ethical evaluation? If so, refusing the norm of exchanging pleasantries when the exchange itself is not a pleasant experience would refute the principles behind this brand of ethics. Is the ultimate consideration the feelings and outlook that are generated by the opposite party during the exchange? If so than the falsified angle would be the correct choice. I am in the camp that the little white lies of some pleasantries are a small scale version of the oppressive natures that are found within human society. This is to say to continue to avoid malicious interactions and to maintain a sense of civil interaction but not constrain oneself to expressing falsities when the receiver of such information would easily decipher it as such. But in reality that is this established system of hollow praise and interest, the easiest thing is to just go with the flow of what people expect even when their expectations are to give the predictable answer that does not lead them anywhere challenging or intriguing.

consider the intricacies

2009-10-09T07:50:00.005+02:00

Curiosity of purposefulness is the double edged sword. To go out of one's way and to put forth efforts to understand things, no matter what is being considered is to resign to an idea of disappointment. Curiosity requires the openness to allow expectations and understanding be shattered beyond not only anticipation but unpredictability. Coming from a questioning disposition, the ideas generated by curiosity encourage creativity to pursue or further understanding. The ecological and evolutionary milieu that is and has been present on this particular set of planetary circumstances has, generally speaking, made it advantageous to harness a healthy curiosity as a means of improving chances of survival. Going back to using objects in one's surroundings as tools, both metaphorically and literally, to use as a means of survival. Without going into detail, the means of survival paired with modern technology have counter acted this formally, just short of, necessary curiosity to facilitate a greater means of survival. With the advent of fast food, food delivery services, prefab housing, etc, the creativity inherent in all human beings, can be argued, in some situations is directed at how to cheat the system to further convenience (going back to the heightened sense of convenience being a comforting psychological aspect towards gauging the momentary sense of survival percentages: the more convenient/comfortable = more likely to survive in the present. It could be argued that long term effects have a negative curve towards this end....the end of survival or longevity.).

For anyone still harnessing a healthy curiosity to contribute to creativity or whatever level of understanding we are capable of achieving as a species whether it be in science, philosophy, economics, etc. this sense of curiosity is a contributing factor into an open mind towards a peaceful state of things. Leaving open doors which are stumbled upon during research or curious endeavors to explore then or at a later time is to practice an art of open mindedness to either willingly or otherwise strive towards peace. Openness and peace go hand and hand. An open hand comes from an open mind, a closed hand comes from a closed mind.

Here is a hypothetical scenario as to which illustrate the above point:
Imagine a hard core white supremacist. Not the kind of thing that most of us enjoy imagining but I think this is a relevant and appropriate angle. We could imagine a general sense of this kind of person's life outlook. For argument's sake lets say that this person is not an intellectual supremacist by nurture, meaning his immediate surroundings do not foster an open minded atmosphere, the people he associates with choose or perpetuate ideologies that are in a closed circuit stuck in a rut of ignorance and hatred. Let us assume that this person listens to Death Metal music. What could be the outcome of such an interest if this person were to follow a curious strand to better understand how Metal came to be and where it comes from. He would find that Metal, stemming from Rock, stemming from Blues, stemming from slavery, stemming from Africa. Depending on the openness of this individual (granted a supremacist may not be inherently too open to begin with, but amuse me here), there could be two cognitive responses:

a) huh, black folks began the groundwork towards an art form that I enjoy. That must mean that I can find some common ground which can erase lines of differentiation.
or
b) it was the history of how they were treated that produced the fruit that is Metal.

I do not think that either a or b are difficult to imagining occurring under these circumstances. Either one could be taken into consideration and depending on the nature vs. nurture set up for this hypothetical individual would of course influence which side he may fall on.

Curiosity inherently opens up lines of awareness leading to an opportunity to evolve within one's own skin.

time well spent mr.o

2009-10-03T09:33:00.004+02:00

Going into the ninth month of our 44th president's first term, it seems that enough time has lapsed for an assessment of his established habits, effective and non. With the time that it takes to evaluate effectiveness in an administration, the non effective aspects may just be easier to perceive but those shall be weighed in on here, briefly.

This line of thinking started when it was first learned that Obama was heading to Copenhagen to pitch the bid for the 2016 Olympic Games to be held on Chicago. With everything else that he is dealing with domestically and with foreign affairs, to any rational human being, to put forth efforts towards trying to secure such a superficial marketing ploy for Chicago is mind boggling. What is it were San Diego or Grand Rapids? My lofty guess would be that he would not use tax payer money to fund a trip across the Atlantic for using his self appointed diplomatic prowess and charisma to try and win over the Olympic Committee. An attempt that failed in the first round of voting. The BBC coverage of the Chicago announcement explains his adviser's reasoning for deciding to send him there, in their video report: Chicago bid to host Olympics fails.

The man is trying to reform not only Health Care, which we all know the fight that has arisen from that whole fiasco but has recently introduced a call to reform the financial system itself. He has put himself in the position of confronting arguable the two most powerful forces in the American market. He needs to own this and not put forth efforts to further gentrify Chicago, which is a result of Olympic preparation, they drive out the poor to the outskirts of the cities by taking over poorer neighborhoods to give the city a face lift for its global spotlight. The same will happen in Rio de Janeiro. So for the poor in Chicago, the lost bid is a blessing. For the huge swaths of inequality in Rio, it will prove to be devastating to those on the lower end of the economic spectrum, not to mention the environmental devastation which will inevitably occur in the name of keeping up appearances, etc, etc.

Is this a telling aspect of the still young Obama administration? Is he being told that the starry-eyed masses will still follow him into Heaven's Gate? Does he think that his blend of charming smile and pseudo sternness is still a winning combination with out sufficient content. It is a widely shared belief that the man needs to get more specific about everything. Hope is good in the beginning, where is the implementation of this hope? To harness hope takes specifics not lofty rhetoric which tugs on metaphorical heart-strings, it required an existence in a tangible realm of human experience, not playing on visceral desires.

And of course, he could be stretching himself to thin. An understatement at best and something that his presidential campaign certainly had signs of. I admire his ambition but one should be able to know how to pick his battles. Strategization of timing is a key component to moving things forward. He picked the right time to run for president, thankfully, now it could be time for him to harness the a more appropriate timing apparatus to push through overhauls on the scale that he is proposing. A rekindling of backbone, which was discussed in an earlier post, would be refreshing too and an actual hopeful sign of real change. To past legislation which would essentially strengthen the health insurance giants, which is what Baucus' bill will do and to leave out a public option/single payer is to keep the same wheels greased in Washington and caving in to the powers that run the country from non-elected, financially saturated positions. Let us not let this happen. The man needs to stand up and embody what people perceive in him. Live up to the change that he professed.

So hind sight is 20/20 but from the outset of the announcement that he was heading to Copenhagen, weeks ago, it seemed like he had more important things to focus on.

fourth decade

2009-09-26T17:54:00.006+02:00

Upon entering into my fourth decade of existence, as with any birthday, this one marking the turning of a corner into another decade is cause for reflection. The marker of time is progression. We know or understand that time has passed when we observe something in an earlier stage of its existence and come back at a later time to find that the signs of aging (the effects of time) have made their mark. To say that someone has aged well is to remark that they have side-stepped the normal effects of time in relation to gravity and the coarse of cell generation and appear as though they have been in existence for as long as they have. This is of coarse based on the idea of linear time, the only concept that we have to base so called normal reality on. The way that we have chosen to domesticate time is to use in in relation to math and numerical abstraction and language.

Just like mowing the lawn, being subservient to the ideas of 12 hour cycle time is to try and mold reality into a systemic grid to coordinate our socially oriented species. But like so many other abstractions (i.e. wealth in money, etc) time is an element of this existence that we have created that is so deeply indoctrinated into our cognitive conditioning that we can not shake it. Everything in this ill-adapted world that we have constructed has come about because of the coordination tool of time comprehension and imposition. Without this abstraction nothing would "work". Is there any way around it? IT, after all, is major source of stress in our lives. Deadlines, in the nick of time. How could be coordinate such a nationalistic progression leading towards ultimate greed and extortion without time.

There are theories that women thought up the concept of time. Their menstrual cycle in relation to the cycles of the moon were an indicator of a noticeable pattern which they perceived and passed onto the fairer sex in the equation. Men took advantage of this idea and used it for control. This is no surprise in an controlling kind of being, looking for advantages for personal gain, coming from the innate intuition of personal survival and the survival of one's genes. The idea of Time added in this quest of gene preservation. Those who could understand this vehicle of coordination would flourish within the group, those that did not would fall. The persistence of human intellectual development weeded out those who could not follow the ever complicating abstractions coming to rule the way we interact with the world and with each other.

source of wrong

2009-09-19T11:39:00.008+02:00

As the lobbyists infest the White House and Congress to ensure their interests will be met, the likelihood of any actually reformative health care/insurance bill being passed becomes less, day by day. Everyday about 3 new lobbyists join the frenzy of the nearly 3,300 lobbyists that are devoted to curbing real efforts to reform health care. Amateur politicians, these lobbyists use money not inflated rhetoric to get what they want. What they want is the continued exploitation of a system bases on a subversive effort to squeeze as much money as possible out of one of the richest countries in the world but certainly the most ill concerned with the care if its citizens. With a federal study coming out this week that estimates that 45,000 uninsured people die every year because they do not have health insurance (a study that lasted 12 years), they are validating that they are greatly more concerned with money than care. The medical industry has been ransacked by a right wing mindset, indoctrinating health professionals with profiteering rather than service. If there was any sense that the health, and safety of the American people were of any regard to the political right, they would, with any conscience would embrace a public option. An option, by its nature is not a mandate and most people, either being uninformed or ignorant and deciding to simply listen to whatever talking head is screaming at them, they are too afraid of real change and would opt to continue to keep their old private health insurance. Once again, their fear mongering is not only effective but lasting.
These industries have acquired enough money to secure their corporate clout in the form of bullying and buying out politicians. These politicians need the money to run their campaigns and to maintain their summer homes in the Mantauk. As long as the human condition is too tempted by money, the present form of dilution of power derived from the tribal system of hunting and mating, politicians will continue to be swayed to endorsing or drafting legislation that quite possibly goes against their core principles in order to win over the lobbyist funding. At the conception of this "democratic" system, the ducks were lined up to secure the wealthy's place and their continued wealth.

where's the greater backbone?

2009-09-12T07:49:00.005+02:00

With the recent resignation of Van Jones, the "Green Jobs czar" as he has been called, from the Obama administration shows some disturbing signs that may underlie the mystique that is Obama. Having platformed a campaign substantially on Green Energy jobs as a way to create new jobs for some of the recently and chronically unemployed which in turn would contribute to stimulating this battered economy as well as have the in tandem benefit of benefiting the environment (its win-win), one would think that Obama would back his boy Jones who headed such an initiative. But he and his whole administration remained silent. With word coming out of the administration extending the contract to the company formally known as Blackwater (now "XE") a company who shoulders seemingly countless scandals and massacres in the name of America in Iraq and Afghanistan and as a private company militia makes it seems on paper that we have less troops on the ground in that poor country, the CHANGE which fueled the HOPE which powered Obama's campaign seems to get more and more watered down every day by those who have no longer succumbed to the starry eyed majority perception of Obama.

Van Jones was essentially ousted from his post by Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck is one of the conformist right wing television personalities that pretends to be a credible journalist for a certain media outlet who I will not flatter my giving them a plug on this blog but whose name phonetically does not sound too far from "fuck yous". Apparently after Beck made a standard unsubstantiated claim that Obama is a racist, which with the same logic that he spelled out on the morning so-called news show that this was dropped, the same principals would be applied to Beck himself. He called Obama a racist by association by exaggerating claims of Van Jones of being a black national, etc. among others, one including Rev. Wright who was an early Christmas present of sorts for right wingers as a figure to use as yet another scare tactic. These scare tactics along with superficial financial incentives such as a thirteen cent tax cut over the next four years are all that the right can offer. They play on the fear of death that drives themselves to accumulate as much power and money and property and resources as they possibly can during their lives, which by the way contradicts a certain book written about 2000 years ago that they interpret literally, selectively as it turns out. But I digress....it was after the accusations by Beck of Obama being a racist that the group Color of Change, an organization that Van Jones helped found but for the last year and a half has not had any dealings with, had began an effort to pull corporate sponsorship from Beck's show. They succeeded in having over 50 sponsors pull their advertising revenue from the slots during the show. This effort was initiated without Jones's knowledge or consent. Once these sponsors began to yank their support, is when Beck began his crusade to oust Van Jones. Among some of the smears was that he signed some petition which did not rule out the possibility that the Bush administration had prior knowledge of some kind of threat that resulted in 9/11/01, that he is a black nationalist radical, etc. If the petition that Jones allegedly sign had something to do with not ruling out the incompetency of the Bush administration in regards to 9/11, their history of competence and decision making warrants such suspicion to anyone capable of critical thinking to a realistic end, of which Beck has shown is no. With his "Apollo" connections, Beck tried to make ties between anyone that would paint a poor picture of a man, Jones, who actually knows what decency is, unlike G.B. One could tie Kevin Bacon back to prehistoric monkey eve who would eventually be the predecessor to the monkey that gave birth to Moses who brought the tablets down the mountain to spawn an off shoot of Judaism which has found Christ in the title. Pandering to the fears of the ignorant white based blind patriots in this charade, taking the easy way out instead of being a decent human being and watching what he says about people through grossly unsubstantiated assumptions. Had anyone said anything comparable to Bush they would have been crucified as anti-American and driven out of this country by a torch and pitchfork wielding media. The hypocrisy is so thick it is suffocating.

How does the Obama administration fit into this as was in the beginning of this post? Their silence. Compared to the president who came before Obama who would lie about things that he knew to be false to further his imperialist agenda, this president did not even attempt to speak on the behave of Jones towards accusations that he knew to be false. Yes, big O has a big fight with health care on his hands right now, almost obsessively but understandably since it is up there with the war and economy as the top 3 concerns for our country, for this week at least. Next week it could be that Britney get her fourth piercing south of the equator, or anything else as dumbing as that. His health care should not have gotten in the way of relaying a message through the White House press secretary to defend Van Jones and what he stands for. Bush had no problem defending Alberto Gonzales, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, etc., etc., etc. Where is the greater backbone. This just perpetuates the idea of a spineless Democratic party that is incapable of standing up to its adversaries. Strong rhetoric when standing behind a podium addressing any group (pick you favorite) with a pre-scripted monologue. To save face by being silent is cowardly and indifferent to a major issue of sustainable energy and job creation which Jones was the head of.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, I am sure. This right wing victory to oust not only one of Obama's guys but a black guy, who the right are afraid of anyway will just encourage such destructive behavior. Obama's silence is a concession to these tactics. One would think that a background check would be run on those who were appointed by any political official. Seems that, by the record, Obama's background check secretary is out to lunch or maybe Beck had his way with them too.

For an American unaffiliated with a political party, such as myself, presently living in Europe, such as myself, to be aware of the hypocrisy of the right and the cowardice of the left, is not only a testament to the power of modern technology and the spreading of information but the testament to the apathy that the American people seem to be infected with.

Here is a link to independent media on Van Jones.

dismissal hurts the cause

2009-09-07T09:36:00.003+02:00

Just like any group of people who believe strongly in anything, especially religion, to talk down to other groups in opposition is counter productive. Having recently listened to about 1/3 the audio version of Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion, and having come across a few different pieces of commentary by both George Carlin and Bill Maher, there seems to be a trend of atheists or rationally minded people who do not just fall into the religious line to lash out at there claims of the absurdity that is religion. To dismiss the importance of religion in people's lives is to begin to understand the weight that it does carry. To consider the rise of religion, or more aptly, spirituality, well before Judaism, as a means to cope with the new found understanding of personal mortality, it is not hard to imagine how it has been blown out of proportion. The fear of death is the driving force in how people are controlled and how they live their lives and spread their genes among other things.
The anti-religious groups, by resorting to a similar dismissive rhetoric as those proposing the existence of God, are shooting themselves in the foot. The religious or God fanatics should be sensitive to critical thinkers and the atheists should be sensitive to religiosity. Where is the finesse of the debate? The overriding principles of religion, compassion, patience, understanding fly from the waist side in the atmosphere of the discussion of the existence of God. To hit someone over the head, metaphorically and as is the case in the history of religious conquest literally (and some advocates of atheism are guilty of it in a metaphorical sense, cases of atheistic violence escape my awareness) does not showcase a civilized tactic but serves more as ammunition for the counter argument of righteousness versus action thereof. And in turn, critical thinkers (scientists, philosophers, independent thinkers in general, etc.) must recognize that a trait of such a mindset is to be patient, to allow for the counter party to state his/her case and to calmly and rationally state the case for opposition. To wildly dismiss the idea of religion and group all religious people into a box of religious fanaticism is to reflect and participate in tendencies of the opposition in which one is using as an arguing point.
To have a dialogue is to converse. This is where an exchange of ideas is played out. When one side of an ideology is shot down prior to them being allowed to state their case and their opposition is not willing to consider their side of the argument, then the parties involved are no longer engaged in a dialogue but merely a monologue with an audience or one or more. The same has been true for politics, where if we are going to go so far as to exercise nomenclature in relation to religious and political ideology, the only correlations of religious fanatics would be neo conservatives and critical thinkers would be fire breathing hard core extreme leftist liberals, of coarse there is some wiggle room in this correlation.
Dismissal may be a sign of the insecurity of an argument. Conviction in beliefs should foster a willingness to hear and an attempt to relate to opposing view points in order to further assess the state of the argument and the personal ideology held wherein.

the privy dilemma

2009-08-31T16:19:00.009+02:00

Something happened not too long ago that got me thinking. The seemingly mundane event went as follows:

I sat down with some others to watch a video that we just bought. Upon inserting the DVD into the player the hostess of the house glanced at the cover or the inset and exclaimed, "Oh, this is so-and-so who does so-and-so. I read about him a while back in such-and-such magazine by chance.". (Some specific information is left out deliberately of this recount). This exclamation resulted in the other parties being in on information rendering the experience of the video ineffective posed with the intentions and surprise ending found within its content. It is my assumption that the person in the shoes of disclaimer had no intention of ruining (for lack of a better word and not nearly as dramatic as ruin) the video. It was more of deflating the experience than ruining it. She merely reacted uninhibited to her knowledge and bestowed it openly as a knee jerk reaction of sorts. Like telling someone the murderer in a who dunnit mystery, the video was deflated with the inevitable and now pseudo climax of the video. The information rendering the climax artificial because the irony or shock was no longer able to exist as such.

---------------------

Although this little event happened almost two months ago from the date that this is written and posted, for some reason my mind took me back to it and few objective questions arose. If someone were to find oneself in a similar position to the above mentioned hostess, what are the conscious or subconscious instinctive reactions to the understanding of being privy to some kind of information that, although insignificant, could alter others experience and/or give away something of some significance? I write significance somewhat reluctantly since this was a somewhat insignificant video but in the context of viewing the video the information carried much significance. The four decisions when in this situation, which I will now call the privy dilemma, that I have been able to formulate up to this point are: 1)Exclaim such information as was done; 2)Exclaim that you are privy to information but assuring the others that you will not tell them; 3) not say anything at all until after the irony or such has played out and then exclaiming that you knew all along; or 4) not saying anything at all, before or after.

Although an attempt is made to dissect the signs of personality through the decisions listed above, it should be noted that these are just speculative and knee jerk reactions to this situation in and of themselves.
What do each of these 4 choices or reactions in response say about the individual in the position of being privy?

1) This reaction seems to show a desire to assert a minor sense of superiority through knowledge over those in company. This is not at all necessarily at all malicious or intentionally harmful but the instinct of superiority in some small amount of exceptionalism could be extracted from this choice. * After all the privy in this case is the exception and by putting the information towards the others effectively changing their experience is a way to assert further the exceptionalism that the knowledge had bestowed.

2) This reaction seems to show a similar desire to #1 with a heightened narcissistic quality found in the reaction. So, it is exclaimed that their is privy knowledge present but by not revealing the information, the privy is showcasing their ability of thinking about others interest and of coarse by doing this is subversively thinking of oneself in so far as ratcheting up the perceptions of those in company of the privy by giving them reason to believe that he or she is compassionate or selfless. This would still alter the experience of the event. There would be heightened anticipation were there would have been none if the others were none the wiser that something was going to happen. I suppose that it could be argued that this might even enhance the overall experience by bringing a heightened sense of anticipation, thus resulting in greater sensory sensitivity used during the event.

3) By retaining the information, the privy is allowing for the others in company to have a genuine, uninterrupted experience of the event. Leading up to the point of climatic irony or such in the event, the privy may be swelling with a sense of pride that he or she has resisted temptation of existing in either #'s 1 0r 2. When the irony has passed and it is revealed that the knowledge was retained in the interest of the others, the privy is now showcasing a hindsight version of evidences of compassion or selflessness, thus grasping the chance to profit on the ability to mold the others perception of themselves. And in doing so directing the attention back to oneself and the underlying desire for acknowledgment of will power to preserve the ironic treasure the others were to experience.

4) By retaining the information and not ever bestowing that it was fore known to the others, the privy is keeping the sense of self pride and not jumping at the chance of molding others perceptions. This may stem from an indifference towards the maintenance or cultivation of the way that others perceive him/herself but that the perception of self is in need of some reassurance. Knowing about oneself, that oneself is capable of such acts of consideration towards others may be the healthiest decision out of the 4 mentioned here. After as has been mentioned more than once prior on this blog, there is no such thing as altruism. That being said, where is the harm in reaffirming one's own sense of self worth by basking in personal good sumaritanism or the like? It can be argued that we don't really hold the door for others entering a building after us for their own sake of easier/more convenient entrance to the building but rather for the ultimately non altruistic gain of knowing that we have done something good today and getting joy out of that.

* At the above asterisked point while writing in this post a series of events played out that relates to the content of this post and I thought that it would be anecdotal and ironic to include it. As I started this post my girlfriend (who incidentally was the only other, other in the above recount of video spoiling) was trying to get a fire going in the wood burning stove. We are in Norway and even though it is August, a fire is a welcomed luxury in comfort even this early in the year. She was not having as good as success as she normally does and I pointed out as she quickly acknowledged that she new all along but wanted to try anyway that the one big log in the stove was not the best of strategies to start off with in getting the fire started. Smaller pieces of wood would allow more air to circulate in the stove thus helping things out, I mentioned, something that I am sure she already knew as well. In her usual state of determinism, she ended up taking out the big log and replacing it with three others that lit better. At the point of the asterisk, she went down to fill the wood bin. The flame on the smaller wood now in the stove was flickering poorly and was at the risk of going out. As she was still absent from the room, I went over, rearranged the logs just slightly to help out airflow and used the fire place blower to give a boost. Seeing that she was determined to get this thing going, now not only because it was cold but because it became a vendetta of sorts between her and the stove, I found myself privy to information regarding the state of the fire in relation to her efforts. Had I not asked her to read this post to see if she could guess the above mentioned event that she was also at, I may have picked #4 but there is a good chance that #3 will be the one that happens to pan out.

laws of perspective

2009-08-28T08:39:00.003+02:00

Everything, totally dependent on perspective.

Everything in field of perception, contributing to where that perspective lies.

Converging lines towards the horizon. Source of light calling out value.

Movement of thought, locations, time, all mold our own individual perspectives. The slightest movement alters this perspective in immeasurable and undetectable ways. During the very early days of the financial crisis, big banks, corporations and government were in a frenzy trying to tighten the grip on the markets that they fraudulently let flutter upon an open palm. Prior to these profound effects finding its way down to the average global citizen, as Max Fraad Wolff described it as somthing like, "it was raining on the top of the mountain but not on the bottom. But just as water behaves, sooner or later the water will run downhill getting to the bottom.". Now that the media and governments are claiming that there are signs that the economy is recovering, the poor and middle classes are at their peak of suffering. 9.4% unemployment rate, proclaimed to seem even better than it is. If it were to be taken into account those underemployed and not seeking further employment, the figure would be closer to 16%. This is more evidence of entities of power (gov't, media, etc) using the ability to fabricate a communal perspective to lesson the individual's desire to become an active participant in the system named after everyone's voice being heard. If the voices are not spoken, no one can hear them so no one will have to react to the sounds. That is the overall plan, keep them silent. It is easier not to hear than to ignore.
Standards of living are perspective based. What is this financial existence. Ask the CEO of USB, the Swiss bank in a heap of trouble right now concerning money laundering and assisting their clients to do so by avoiding paying U.S taxes resulting in billions of dollars not being fed back in to the system and he'll probably tell you that you can get away with anything, of whatever magnitude as long as you have the right person on your side. The CEO of USB just was golfing with president Obama in Martha's Vineyard this week for all of 5 hours and was a major contributor to his campaign. Now ask any woman in Africa or the Latin Americas who hand beats her own flour. The consequences of her actions bare a stricter result to her and her immediate surroundings although on a much smaller scale. Perspective in a action.
I would propose that everyone, especially Americans, if given the opportunity, to live abroad in excess of one month. Even going to another western country for those who could not stand leaving the pervasive comforts of corporateocracy, as long as it is a non-English speaking country to gain a sharper perspective on how the world works. The isolation of America has askewed our perspective in the way the rest of the world functions. When will we come to seek out a clearer understanding of the laws of perspective?

wiki-primordia

2009-08-24T09:17:00.006+02:00

An idea jumped to mind this morning:

Wikipedia is a modernization, an extension, of an inherent humanistic trait that we have been exercising as long as our species as been able to recognize the importance of our gift that we can extract information from our environment to put into practice for our personal and collective advantage. The dissemination of such tried and true information has been the key to our species ability to flourish if one were to boil it down to one phenomena. As Renee Dubos theorizes in "So Human an Animal", (to paraphrase) that when humans first began, at the earliest stages of human development, to realize that their capacity to think in a way to utilize their immediate environment to their advantage, i.e. increase their chances of survival, coupled with a pre-existing disposition to an understanding of strength in numbers (coming from the social beings of apes), human understood that information extracted should be shared. This sharing of, the idea of throwing a rock at a rabbit or any other game for instance, the more people who understood this idea, the better. If more humans knew these concepts, they could not only practice the actual motions to better acquaint oneself to become better at the act, but they could use this as base knowledge to expand upon it by modest experimentation with other elements of his or her immediate environment to further increase chances of survival. These powers of observation were of coarse not limited to mere curiosity and experimentation but to exploiting beneficial accidents and learning from harmful ones as well. Such accidents include, but are not limited to: lightning and the domestication of fire (if you will) and the placing of a mud bowl close to or in a fire overnight and observing that it had hardened to the point where it will hold water and not rehydrate into mud. Of coarse, these mentioned accidents could only happen in a precise sequence of events, fire had to be domesticated first, before the fired vessel could have accidentalized. Following observations of such beneficial unintentionalities the spread of information commenced and humans were able to use their varying brain power to expand and perfect applied methodologies. This of coarse was the basis for everything to come: agriculture, systematic oppression, trade, governance, globalization, all things that seemingly are applied methods to increase our chances of survival or (seemingly more likely) offer a temporary historical space of an unrivaled standard of living whose side effects are perpetual and widespread global detriment.

Coming back to Wikipedia...this all inclusive avenue to spread information is what strikes us as an inherent element in the privilege of participating in being human. Beginning with gestures, then to sounds and words resulting in oral tradiditons, language, symbols and writing resulting in historical scribes and record keeping, and presently culminating in a homogeneous cultural input device that is the internet and Wikipedia being the embodiment of that device in a particular service. The misleading and scrupulous negativities that may be found are obvious. When we all have access to input, things should be taken with a larger grain of salt. Needless to say when an information's source is optionally divulged than a description of the String Theory should be more suspect on Wikipedia than on a National Physics Administration website, for example. This still infantile state of technological utopia found in the internet is like the fictional account of scientific exploitation of human development found in Aldus Huxley's Brave New World, which describes that a labratory which was able to accelerate the physical growth of people so that they reached physical maturity in 6 years was lacking the mental development of adulthood. This achievement was only good so far. The uselessness of 6 year old adults was of superior evidence. The internet reminds me of such a 6 year old adult whose uselessness is not as pervasive but may be construed in the frivolity found with in it, mingling with the intellectual pockets that justify its presence.

me-ism

2009-08-23T15:21:00.009+02:00

Something that has always been of interest is the ideas of some of the figureheads of spiritual philosophies (later adapted into religious figures long after their deaths as a means to exploit people's fears and to control them) as the rejection of the self. Not to be confused with individualism, selfhood finds itself as a concept in limbo between politics and religion/spirituality, not alone in this category I'm sure. To overly simplify thoughts behind this, I offer the following: politics (specifically American) = the American Dream, freedom, valuing the individual, you can be anything that you put your mind to, be all you can be and join the army (which seems oxymoronic), etc. ; religion (specifically Buddhism) = rejection of earthly desires, compassion towards others, voluntary suffering, etc. The choice of these two potential extremes is a deliberate one to emphasize a point and recognize that there are subtleties to both of these categories that is left out due to various reasons.

As is the case with most things, thoughts on this particular division between selfhood and non-self aspirations comes back to the middle ground. Finding a location between both of these extremes to effectualize the benefits from both mentalities without harnessing the negative potentialities that these extremes so readily offer. These extremes' negativities may include but are not limited too: selfhood = greed, violation of others in some way, etc.; non-self = neglect of personal physical and emotional necessities, infliction of self harm, etc. These extremes' positivities may include but are not limited to: selfhood = proper physical emotional maintenance, self confidence and acceptance of one's own proclivities, etc.; non-self = generosity, compassion, etc.

With this general background of thought regarding this string of ideas, the following may not be submitted: Where can we go with a conversation about the separation of the ego and the self? Since there is no such thing as altruism, are efforts put towards the erasure of any form of ego inherently fated to fail? Being captive in a body that is subjected to social scrutiny which contributes to the shaping of self scrutiny, the ego, so inseparably connected to the body and mind, can never be relinquished. What is wrong with an appropriate level of selfhood or ego? The social construction of reality and the self body image are so tightly linked to modern existence that the recognition of such can be used as a way to find the most helpful and healthy way to handle navigating through this world that he have constructed that we are maladapted to exist in.

As was mentioned in a comment of the first post on this blog called, "appreciation through acceptance", Tyler described the way in which people may journey through life as being the main characters in their own story. I rather like this description considering that we have adapted a narrative kind of expectation for most things, that is the occurrence of thing in a linear fashion. But more so because you can not separate out a character from the story, all context is lost. You can not separate out an ego from the carriage (body) which houses it, all context is lost. The spirit, soul, essence, life-force, whatever label one might be inclined to stick on it if comfort is brought within the use of such a label may be directed towards easier pastures: heaven, good karma, enlightenment, etc, if some so wishes to believe in such things. The way to direct efforts towards such righteous rewards is to take the middle ground, respect for oneself and one's surrounds and to act accordingly.

The spiritual philosophers were not selfless:
Buddha in his quest to attain enlightenment was trying to escape his own suffering. To focus on the suffering of the world (boiled down as sickness, old age and death) the first Avalokiteshvara (in Mahayana Buddhism, the name given to an enlightened being who has not died yet, still walking on the Earth, the first whose birth name was Siddhartha Gautama) while directing his meditative attention towards others used this as a way to ultimately alleviate his own suffering. Even just the thoughts of compassion may have fueled his small ego by making him happy or proud that he has decided to spend his time by being compassionate towards others. Then the voluntary suffering was some sort of self inflicted ritual of passage from sentience into non-sentience, if that is possible? Not allowing one's own hands to come into contact with money is one thing that can be seen as a noble symbolic act, that I personally agree with, do not practice but agree that it is noble. Begging for food, setting some sort of extreme example of selflessness by going door to door with your begging bowl, dependent on the generosity of others, spectacle-izing oneself seems ironically like feeding an ego somehow.
Jesus said, "Take this an eat of it. It is my body....Take of this an drink of it. It is my blood....". And the easy example of nonself in regards to Jesus is the cruxifiction but the negativities are inherent in the act. My sensibilities require me to note that more likely it was written that this was said or done about 300 years or so after the Last Supper occurred by a clever author formulating the most thoughtful rendition of a moment in time to most persuade people to adopt a train of thought to best control them.
I'm sure that the list goes on for both figures. My knowledge of Muhammad is limited (barely there really though I hope that to change) so if anyone has any thoughts on him in relation to this topic of self/nonself they are more than welcomed to comment.

Refer to the line chart found in the accompanied illustration of this post. This is an unusual line chart that only contains a horizontal axis which is finite and is "x" long. At the halfway point of "x" is the middle ground which acts in the above mentioned manner. The left of "1/2 x" = selfhood, the right = non-self. The further one travels in either direction the more extreme the disposition becomes. A visual to go with this middle ground way of thinking.

sustainable power hunger

2009-08-12T20:29:00.010+02:00

So Chevy finally came out with some inflated numbers on the miles per gallon (mpg) of what its new Gas-Electric hybrid the Volt will get, claiming 230 mpg. Compared to the kinds of numbers that Americans are used to hear regarding mpg this sounds amazing. True to form Chevy has come up with a way to exaggerate or mislead the figures into their favor to make the vehicle seem more impressive than it potentially already is, but shades of deception tarnish a possibly admirable stride in setting some kind of standard in the automobile industry, at least in the States. Chevy is not mentioning that the gas kicks in after so many miles already traveled (I think it is 40 miles or so) and by not disclosing such discrepancies, they are massaging the numbers as a marketing strategy. This is not new to my understanding and the automobile industry has been doing that for years since that part of the vehicles performance was of concern to the customer. Testing in conditions that would far exceed the conditions that the typical consumer would find themselves in or by using some sort of measuring methodology that has a high rate of inaccuracy so that they can add in the fine print +/- a certain amount knowing full well that it is minus, etc., it would not surprise me if there are plenty more tactics that are not widely known.

As a response Nissan has recently unveiled their new electric vehicle the Leaf. Using the same mpg measuring methodology and as a kind of upping the ante of car industry rhetoric, claims that the their new products gets a whopping 367 mpg, a 60% increase. As another deserved slap in the face of Chevy it is easier for Nissan to flaunt the fact that it is on average, depending on the bells and whistles opted for, the Nissan Leaf is 37.5% cheaper in price than the Volt. One could find this telling for a car company who is, let's say, "no longer in their prime" and probably was banking on a rejuvenation with this latest product which even before its release date is finding competition that already seems to leave it behind. This company which has been in bed with whoever it needed to continue the security of its own interest (not unlike most other American run corporations).

This is all fine and good. Better mpg's are better for the consumer. And the environment? Maybe? Where does the electricity come from? There is a few different ways that we all should be aware of. Such as: coal burning to turn generators, nuclear, renewables. Since renewable are a substantial enough part of the national grid, it is futile to mention it in a conversation regarding the implementation of a new fuel station for automobiles. So the former 2 mentioned means of acquiring electricity have consequences that rival burning petrochemicals. Whether the impacts of such usage are atmospheric consequences with emission of burning coal or storage problems and ground water contamination of nuclear the consequences are real and potent. From an environmental stand point it is simply changing the poison and not remedying anything. It is no coincidence that the largest investors in renewable energy are the gas and oil companies. This fact does not reveal some kind heartedness but shows a perpetuation of corporate hawkishness. They go where the money is. I used to think that I would not care if Exxon started to make wind turbines and introduce them into mainstream consciousness. It would be better than nothing, possibly but the company history and its contributions to previous American governments to help fund coups in other countries in order to secure a market elsewhere resulting in the deterioration of the quality of life for the citizens of that nation, is not a company that should be in operation let alone at the top of its field. But in a world run by a corporate agenda, this is only a romantic notion that any such motives would not be in the lead.

This potentiality for a new "green economy" as Obama likes to call it, can be a way to re-systematize the way things are done and run in the world. By allowing the already powerful sustain their power by running the sustainable power industry will shatter our chances at being sustainable. If companies like Exxon and Ford continue to promote and sponsor cut throat (literally!!) corporate operations in conjunction with the government, erasing capitalism and turning it into corporatism (to use a term introduced to me by Naomi Klein) than the world will continue on the same path of the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer and the middle class not giving a damn.

Here is an article on the Volt vs. the Leaf.

shards of privilege

2009-08-12T14:20:00.007+02:00

Recently I have stumbled onto a great blog, well a vlog really called: bloggingheads.tv. This could be old hat for some of you but I have been visiting it regularly lately. Basically it is a site that takes experts from various fields and through the wonders of telecommunication, they are able to have , what they call a "diavlog" (which I think is not only appropriate but notably clever) at different points on the globe about various issues. So in effect you may have a historical religious expert debating the Middle East conflict with a journalist or an economist discussing matters of psychology with a disciple of Freud, this may sound incongruous but to allow the powers of the internet to get intelligent people of different expertise to discuss matters that are not only important but typically interesting is a brilliant idea and in my opinion one of the more beneficial employments of the potentialities of the internet that have come about. A site who's m.o. is to capture a dialogue to then be commented on by its viewers, is a great idea. Admittedly I do find some things about the self promotion and momentary ego-centrism that can occur with some of the sites participants, it is easy to dismiss that for the overall good of this service.

So, in searching the site's archive and watching the past "diavlog" about both Obama's election victory and his inauguration, I got to thinking. Not only is the internet a vast and indispensable tool to archive thing in the past, as far away as the earliest written texts that have survived to exist in our physical archive, now digitized, but of the instant archive-ization (pardon the made up term here) that the internet provides and has so quickly seeped into its users consciousness. The power of being a personal, self sustaining media source is one that we have not yet realized the implications of, the long term effects have not been measured. The historical steps to have thoughts ripple out in the world has been given concrete shoes and thrown over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Most forms of cultural record keeping that I can think of off the top of my head while writing this seem to have been bound to only record what is perceivable in hind sight. This activity usually done by the elite, either appointed, in a privileged position (by being born into a economic class to afford the education)to do so, or highly intelligent and recognized by a collective as the man for the job. The world wide web shatters that privilege. The resulting shards of privilege changing into a universal right. Access to the internet is the most sought after "right" of the 21st Century. I am writing here in terms of typical Western concerns and by no means want to down play any human rights issues that still plague our species. But for those privileged enough to live in societies where the internet is both omnipresent and omnipotent this self entitled "right" may seem equally as real to someone who is ill-concerned with anything other than their own immediate gratification (which could be argued is at a higher concentration in a population in a Western society), may seem as close to contributing to their own survival as say workers rights in China. I realize that this is (hopefully) an exaggeration but it is so to make the point.

What will pan out from the access to the archive of the perpetual present. Television shows or even commercials no longer die and cascade down into an abyss of obscurity, they are online. When a defining cultural event happens, within the hour a cultural critique has already been played out by not only the culture in which it has happened but by outside cultures as well. I acknowledge that the spread of differing cultures around the world via the internet can plausibly contribute to more cultural and ethnic tolerance, anyone who is a reasonable individual should want such an outcome. But the immediate and thorough critique of culture on all scales is one that we have already become accustomed to since the internet was offered on a hand held device, now already almost perfected as it seems by Apple and others. It will improve but the hand held internet market has had a hell of a good start for this present infantile period of existence.

work force = force work

2009-08-06T06:57:00.010+02:00

To add to the earlier post Free Market Democracy posted on July 1st, 2009 (see below) I would like to submit the following:

Regarding the conditioning that is Western culture of after high school, going to college possibly into a field that one is not interested in or something as vague as "Communications", graduating and either pursuing further higher education still or going into the "work force". More like "Force Work". The ideas that obtaining a predictable (disguised as stable) job as part of the prescribed combined banal package of Western adulthood including heterosexual marriage and 2.5 children, is yet another subtle way of manipulating a situation in where the masses are held down and willingly feed and public entity exploiting the faith in that same public that their elected officials are protecting personal interest when in fact they are hell bent on profit not protection. Here is part of why I speculate how:
First the obvious, the work week. The 40 hour work week and all of its proclivities, are driving a food industry based on the cheap, the quick, and the unhealthy, as well as driving behavioral patterns of the public to be in a constant hurry being preoccupied with the demands of the office (modern digital telecommunication has brought the work home from the office where in some cases, 40 hour/weeks are just the beginning) and these two side effects leading directly to sub par health effecting our ability to process information to our fullest potential and distraction effecting our ability to notice things in our environment. These 2 side effects are exploited and sustained in order to keep people in line and keep the profits showering down on the corporate-political elite.
The above mentioned distraction not only distracts people from parts of their own environment (whether immediate, local, national, or global) but this hurried existence does not allow for the reflection on life's many deeper and meaningful aspects that distinctly gives us the privilege of being and acting human. Let alone to stop and smell the roses, literally and metaphorically. This pace of life disallows us to cease taking the natural world for granted or to sustain an appreciation for it that may have existed before thrust into a lifestyle that we as a species are maladapted to survive in. Thinking about things to harness intuition, observation and dialogue in an attempt to better theorize or understand the human condition and the natural world are some of the most potent gifts from the current climax of mammalian evolution, that we know of anyway. If one's lifestyle enables the acceptance and use of this gift than a whole slue of effects are possible. The questioning any number of things not only life itself. The broadening of horizons both mentally, in personal interest and in physical location. But by keeping this activity, of pondering some of life's meaningful questions, at arms length electing for instead ones mental and physical energy to go towards that of monetary profit, the current system in place will continue its horse and pony show.

health reform rhetoric

2009-08-05T07:44:00.009+02:00

Something must be said about the health care reform debate going on in the U.S. right now, reform that the Democrats are starting to call health insurance reform as to not make people think that the proven inadequacy of the health care is in jeopardy. There is so much wrong with the current system that to try and do all, or even a small fraction of the problems justice would be impossible. So I will resign to understanding that whatever I am about to write in response to the current political climate in the U.S. will fall short, hopefully to be expanded on...

Since the 2008 presidential race, the republicans have been painting Obama as a Socialist. It appears that, in light of his attempts at health care/insurance reform, they were just knowing laying down the ground work to prime their loyalist drones into subversively convincing them that his proposal (a proposal that is not really his since he is taking a back seat to the actual drafting of the thing and "encouraging" members of the Senate to write it up but I'm sure he will have no problem taking credit for it and the Repubs. will have no problem blaming him for it) is in effect a plan to set up a mandate for Federally run health insurance across the board. I have a feeling that the Republicans are making all sorts of wild claims that the auto industry was the first step toward socialism and the health industry the next on who knows what is next, maybe he'll come to your town and take over your small business of 5 or so employees!!! The intentions of socialism are pure ones. Greatest good for the greatest number of people, distributing wealth from the top down. It has only been the one's running a socialist system that have blocked the passage of the financial funnel, if you will, keeping the wealth from being properly distributed. Cold War hysteria has resulted in such a negative view of a socialist ideology, with images of endless overpriced breadlines in Russia, etc. effectively conditioning Americans to think that free market democracy is the only option towards freedom. The Republicans are playing on our fear of that dreaded word of socialism, which is not the same as communism, to exploit the public into unknowingly following their own egocentric agenda. Of coarse, they have had at least the last 50 years or so to perfect this methodology.

The main differences between Dems and Repubs:
Dems = big business, big spending, regulated markets.
Repubs= small business, spending cuts, unregulated markets.

The former ideology was solidified with the New Deal in response to the Great Depression.
The later ideology was solidified with Reaganomics.

To reform health care/insurance is to in effect regulate the market of health insurance. The Repubs. make it sound like they give a damn about the health care coverage that this reform would enact. That is the least of their concerns. If they cared at all about actual legitimate health care performance and efficiency of medical practice, the current system would have been reformed long ago to actually perform in working manner. The ties that politicians have to the FDA and the pharmaceutical industries is staggering. Donald Rumsfeld, to give one healthy example, while Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush held had disclosed, by the man himself, that he held between 5 and 25 million dollars worth of stock in Gilead Sciences, the company with the patent for tamiflu, which is the monopolized treatment for avian flu (bird flu). As a newly appointed public official in Jan. 2001, Rumsfeld was required to break any ties with any businesses that would set up a conflict of interest with his given post. Being the top Security administrator of America, and flu outbreaks are a matter of National Security, one would think that his stocks in Gilead Sciences would be the first thing to go. Long story short, Rummy flat out refused to liquidate his stocks in what was undoubtedly a tangled web of deceitful lies of excuses as to why he was unable or unwilling. With the avian flu scares of the 6 years Rummy was supposed to be upholding the U.S. Constitution, his stock rose more than 800%, from about $7 a share to over $60! Makes one wonder how real those scares were and the cause of the stock prices came from governmental investment of the treatment by purchasing massive quantities in preparation of an outbreak. It would be a relief if this was the only corruptive tie that Rummy had, this list goes on, and on, and on.....
So, if the health insurance companies are regulated with price caps or are hindered by more oversight, than politicians from both side of the isle are bound to not make as much money as they used to in direct payments from the various cronies found in the medical industry. It is business as usual for the Repubs., make it seem like we care about the public with rhetoric proven to be effective in hooking an impressionable, misinformed or uniformed public while the smoke and mirrors are there to protect personal financial interests.
The Repub. and Dem. propaganda machines are in full swing. But all signs of the performance of the American health care system is broken. The Republicans are using Canada's Universal Health Care system as an example what is wrong with such a system. The bottom line though is that people will get treated. They may have to wait longer but in the end they get the treatment, unlike millions of Americans who avoid doctors and treatment because they are uninsured. Insurance companies in the states immediately go into hyper-research-drive once anyone makes a claim. They scour your records to see if anything can be manipulated into looking like a pre-cursor to your current condition, rendering their responsibility to pick up the tab, as it were, null and void. This is another overshadowed concern about the industry itself. It is only trying to insure healthy people, by making in damn near impossible for sick people to afford coverage, or if healthy people who have been paying for insurance services do get sick, denying the coverage outright.

I have focused on the Repubs. for this post because their tactics are more explicit and evidence of such is more widely published. I have no doubt that the Dems. are equally as deceitful and self-interested. After all Obama is a master of rhetoric, we will have to wait and see what is behind it once the noble independent media looks into things. For the record, I like Obama. He is the well spoken, charming and came along at the right time for his historic public crowning. I am enamored with what he has seemed to do for America's international reputation and even if only the smallest amount, helped to ease racial tensions at home. But, I run with the crowd that is eternally skeptical of politicians. The same crowd that may agree that any president of the United States can only achieve such heights by participating in or turning a blind eye to Washington's perpetual corruption.

This post was inspired by the following story and interview reported by NPR, All Things Considered, August 4, 2o08:

Lawmakers Face Hostile Groups at Town Halls

and

Sebelius: Health Care Deeply Personal To Americans

google phone app for CIA: iSurveillance

2009-08-04T08:45:00.012+02:00

In the NPR program All Things Considered, August 3rd 2009, they reported on the Google CEO who has just recently quit the Apple Inc. board. They explain in the report that Google is now focusing on researching and developing their own operating software, mostly to rival Windows, but also to further develop their cell phone development. Of coarse the report and subsequent interview focused on the technological advancements and business side of this former alliance of sorts: Google helped develop apps for the iPhone which it is now developing products that are in direct competition with resulting in an industrial conflict of interests. As is also explained in the the difference between how Google apps work versus the way that Apple apps work. The difference is this: the Apple apps are part of your actual device, computer, phone, what have you, and the Google apps are housed on the server. What the interview and report failed to mention is the ease of access for apps which are kept on a server.

Having barely used and iPhone or an app for that matter, I can only speculate on the amount of say sensitive personal information may be incorporated into some of these conveniences. It seems to that a lot of these are either surrogate devices such as a calculator or compass, rendered digitally and others are more entertainment based, more like a video game or some frivolous digital representation of a squeeky toy for dogs or something along those lines. I am sure that there are many more that I am not aware of some with real life applications surpassing my biased assumptions that the majority are purely commodified accessories, available at no cost or for a nominal fee, to enhance the already alluring features of the amazing hand held devices that we find ourselves being given the option to purchase. However!!, the difference in where these apps are situated and operate have huge implications for surveillance for the governments on the globe. A company like Google, or Apple for that matter, does not reach the omnipresence that it has by sheer ambition. It is granted such positioning by conceding to act and fund in a matter that directly ties into the agenda of the governing party of which the business is found operating in. As Google has already demonstrated in China, it is willing to pander to governments, regardless of affiliation and human rights (and wrongs) history in order to break a market for a profit. Arguably the Chinese market is too big and growing with such virility that any business if given the opportunity could only concede in order to get a piece of the sweet and sour pie, so-to-speak.

Now, having mentioned the potential lack of personal information such as social security #'s or addresses of the app users, there is more subtle and potent information in which the government can harness to use as a method of control over the masses. This information is of our behavioral impulses in using devices that we are more intimate with than any human being during unregulated and unrestricted moments of personal isolation whether being physically isolated or virtually isolated while encapsulated in an app while killing time on the subway or bus. It is also the most direct and candid source of information about our interests and ideologies that the governments, advertisers, and corporations (the dividing lines of these three are becoming increasingly blurred or erased all together) have in order to continually inflict subversive and possibly subliminal control over our consumeristic behavior, if you will.

These intricacies of digital commodity may not be on the package of the product which is funneled to the world consumer bank, but just as cloned livestock meat that is either now or in the very near future in U.S. supermarkets should be labeled as such (a no-brainer of maintaining corporate ethics, or is that an oxymoron), so too should the location of where apps are being operated and the accessibility of government to this information and the degree of compliance that Google is playing into governmental interest.....yes, I do see the irony of using a Google run service such as Blogger to post this fleeting call for awareness and caution.

NPR: All Things Considered. Google CEO Quits Apple Board. August 3, 2008.

*after publishing this post I ran across a related article by the venerable Amy Goodman of Democracy Now: Free Speech vs. Surveillance in the Digital Age.

a free-market philosophy

2009-07-27T21:07:00.015+02:00

This was initially written on a flight from Oslo, Norway to Aalesund, Norway. The pen held together this time....

In the July 18th, 2009 issue of The Economist Magazine, the article titled: What went wrong with economics: And how the discipline should change to avoid mistakes of the past (I could not find the name of who wrote it), in describing why theories on economics prior to the economic collapse were so much followed with blind faith in their supposed perfection, the purist economic model is boiled down to as such, "supply must always equal demand.". As simple of an economic idea as this is and as logical as it sounds, the rampancy of this idea has resulted in a false demand stemming from the deception and effectiveness of advertising and banking operations (at least the banking operations of the recent past which are and will be continue to be reformed to squash similar oversights and voluntary ignorance to negative effects of concentrating more energy on feeble attempts to avoid any minuscule evidence of inflation). Although I am far from an economist it seems like with the growth of an economy, small, organic inflation could be a natural part of its growth. There is a great chance that I am drastically misinforming myself on this.

Back to supply and demand: the supply creates the demand. with an overabundance of commodities of all kinds flooding the market (which some economists may say is a sign of a healthy market, creating momentary or seemingly healthy competition resulting in affordable prices for the consumer), this flood creates fabricated demands. This "healthy" competition and designed product obsolescence deceives the general public into thinking that although they were not previously demanding the product, the price is so good that they should buy it, almost for that reason alone. Demand is justified by price, influenced by high surplus and long term unhealthy competition, all of this action is encouraged and ultimately made possible by a credit market that has been based on debt and prolonged reimbursement grounded in variable interest loans. To allow the market to regulate itself may work for the local corner grocery store, but as a system as a whole that is based on accumulation, greed and opportunism, it is not at all surprising that an unregulated marked would drive itself into the ground. This system which fell into the depths of hiding behind a smile in making the individual consumer feel that they are being offered a loan of which they did not believe while walking through the doors of that trusted financial establishment that they at all were eligible for, let alone demanded. This being another example of surplus, in this case capital, influencing, deceiving, and fabricating a purely illusionistic based consumer demand. By deceiving the customer into thinking/feeling that by offering them a loan higher than was previously conceived and needed, thus improving their quality of life, this being a blattant lie and it is my belief that most of the individuals offering such unexpected and seemingly generous loans knew the deception they were laying down in fine print and to the eyes of those consumers who, like the purist economists found a subconscious faith in the good ol' American brand of unregulated free-market supply equals demand capitalism. The banker probably knew the very real possible long-term negative effets to these individuals. But as mentioned earlier, the opportunistic aspect of the system seemed to justify to potential decent human beings wearing banking costumes that their tactics were not only widespread and that they were simply going with the normal flow of traffic, doing 90 mph in a 65 zone so-to-speak, but that the perfection of self regulating overall free-market economy, will keep everyone's pants up. This has resulted in whore houses in Germany offering, all you can get, for $111.00 per hour and senior citizen discounts and shuttle bus services as as way to keep their customers pants down, as was reported in Time magazine, July 27, 2009, article titled, Hard Times Hit the Sex Trade, From Bangkok to Berlin, The global downturn is hurting brothels - and their workers, by William Lee Adams.

Economist Magazine, What Went Wrong with Economics.

Time Magazine, Hard Times Hit the Sex Trade.

responsibilities of existing

2009-07-27T20:17:00.005+02:00

This was initially written on a flight from London, England to Oslo, Norway with a pen whose strength could not handle the cabin pressure of the plane (which is my guess) and ink getting all over the place......

[Text found in brackets were added later during posting.]

The baggage or responsibility that is inseparable from existence is the maintenance of that existence. Being found in whatever social structure, the systemic behavior of that structure must be familiarized by its inhabitants in order to increase individual chances for prolonged survival of not only the individual but of one's offspring. This like anything else stored in cognition is acquired by mere observation or by the teaching of any form of elder. If one is to be found in a system that functions on commodity, whether that is one of land, entertainment, service, goods, ideas, art, information, than one must adhere to the systemics of that society long enough to either rise to the ranks inevitably to be found in a commodity based society to actuate change or to merely survive and survive comfortably. To survive without adherence is to deny oneself the comfort of the benefits which these types of commodificational societies based on monetary exchange provide. [I would agree with most arguments that pose an idea that some of the above mentioned comforts could be seen as excessive and unnecessary.] This denial may be a conscious decision to employ recalcitrance and live a gypsy based lifestyle (for lack of a better term). Or by being forced into a life of homelessness and thus relying on the generosity or pity of others or on a resourcefulness which depends on the wastefulness of others who have wholeheartedly adhered to the system.

Food, shelter, clothing, companionship --> stemming from the system which one finds oneself. Climate conditions play into the physical necessities of both shelter and clothing, i.e. hot climates require different types of shelter/clothing than do colder climates, etc. Food is no longer determined by climate variables with [the availability of] mass transport. We can eat strawberries in the heart of winter in Alaska, thanks to air-transport, [refrigeration] and the marvels of scientific and industry's tenacity of synthetic and engineered food preservation. We also ahve created micro-systems for growing non-native plants/animals by use of an understanding of microclimates/ecosystems which are themselves sheltered from the natural outside world as to exist in a customized environment to specific needs. Companionship needs vary with the individual's conditioned responses to interaction but since we are inherently a social mammal the need for a social structure of some sort is a pervasive one. If all interaction is denied, the individual may revert to talking to oneself or to an imagined figure, effectively creating a situation where the social necessity is artificially manufactured/fabricated to meet this need.

Is the global system altering current biological/social necessities? Is our technological pervasiveness changing/altering physical needs? Food, shelter, clothing, companionship, considered excess?

free market democracy

2009-07-01T07:43:00.004+02:00

Work
to
Play.

Another thing to balance.

The only thing to balance?

Being consumed by an insatiable desire to work, is to be driven to be drove into the ground. This comes at a metaphor and an eventual literal prediction. The sacrifices made to quell a workaholic appetite can easily cross the border from healthy to otherwise. The "sacrifices" come at the expense of personal physical health, psychological health, family....the list goes on. These sacrifices can be seen as misplaced. Not only to suffice for the inevitable need for the basics, namely: food, clothing, shelter and now in some societies, an education, but to elevate the accumulation of monetary digital decimal places in order to take the place of what used to be the desire to accumulate tangible resources necessary for survival but now for credit in the form of ones and zeros.
Bernard Madoff just sentenced to 150 years. What kind of arbitrary number is that really. This man embodies the idea of greed, is the new face of "deadly sin". Why not simply give him life in prison? To put a number on it, any number, is to subversely acknowledge that we as a society do not fully condone greedy behavior, for our precious Free Market Democracy is based on it. If Madoff was sentenced to life in prison it would send the message that, "well people, look what happens when you get greedy.....you are bound to die in a place that is confining and undesirable". Of coarse being 71 years old, Madoff is probably destined to die in prison anyway even if he had the same sentence at age 7. That is besides the point. The rhetoric is still leaving the door open. The belief that rehabilitation for reintegration is one that is highly admirable and one that is under utilized in the United States to some standards but in some ways you can not teach an old dog....and the extent and thorough devastation that was inflicted is unforgivable and in some extremely unique cases figureheads for such acts of selfish impropriety, these kinds of people, just like those who bless our species with examples of selfless propriety could be treated as standards on one end, high, of the spectrum, could be treated as lower ends of the same spectrum (the spectrum that we all adhere too) and could be made into examples in the form of a deterrent by their sentence.

Yeah, 150 years is a long time. Longer than our life times. He will die in jail. What does the wording do to our collective conscience? The sentence handed is finite and idea that we are able to comprehend, that this will end, like everything else that we have ever experienced including the life giving source of the Sun. This finite number will end independently of the lifespan of the individual responsible for the acts of extremity. Life in prison would show that there is no independent end to the punishment, it is terminated when you do. It could be seen that his wife should have the same fate for the rest of her days in stead of living off of what is probably another hand out of a quarter of a million dollars per year or whatever they have figured on.

To be driven to accumulation is to be asleep at the wheel. You can not stay on the road forever in that condition.

scientific bigotry

2009-06-26T09:12:00.006+02:00

In thinking about whatever one is drawn to in any particular facet of experience, first hand or otherwise, to reduce than into a single or few elements is essentially to force things into narrow-mindedness. Reductionism is a way to fool oneself or the masses by claiming that an understanding has been reached either by a scientific (as otherwise indisputable) stance, ideological or philosophical stance. This has plagued may different aspects of our present situation. This has been in large harnessed by a good/evil scenario: the most obvious being religion, nutrition (thank you Michael Pollen for the recent insight), politics, war, peace even, etc. The wording of reductionist evidence is such that makes is seem to be absolute which is inherently flawed in that assumption or appearance. Context, unknowns that will remain unknowns, inaccurate data, missing data, etc. all contribute to the falsehood of reductionism. Is this a form of scientific bigotry? Some could see it as such.

Similar to isolating a race and its overarching characteristics founded on assumptions and expectations which serve to elevate the bigot, these reductionist absolutes acts as vehicles to further perpetuate illusions to quell the emergence of a free thinking society. Forcefully spoon fed ideas from one end while being subversively given enimas of lies and deception, disguised as a shrink-wrapped pleasurable material good. What is best for Industry is the best for the country, is best for the economy is what we are told is best for the individual. Go ahead, eat more low-fat food. The low fat comes from more processing, more introduction of synthetic materials not intended for human consumption or barely studied to understand long-term effects, bridled by reductionist infatuation. High production and ease of acquisition has also sparked an industrial behavior that turns a blind eye to every questionable ethical action it is participating in. What is good for industry is good for the world. This kind of mindset has our livestock brimming with antibiotics because we have change their diet which would make them sick if they were not on medication. The hormones that we pump animals with have resulted in such a unbalanced size difference that some species of chicken can no longer mate with each other. The sex organs do not line up or the male is so abnormally large that it would kill the female in the act making the act counter productive to its intention. So for these species (and it would not surprise me in the slightest if there are others, not limited to birds) they must be artificially inseminated to stay on the planet and to be continually subjected to our constant tinkering with there physiological and biological make up to stay up to date with the reductionist way of thinking that has gone viral for this fleeting moment.
This subversive, existing in depths of seemingly neutral scientific rhetoric, stance on things is one example (potentially among many), of the powerful tightening their mastery of deception to control their populations. In the respect of food: if the majority of the population is obese and/or diabetic as a direct result from the food stuff that they are not only provided but also encouraged to consume, that lessens the chances for voicing opinions or staging demonstrations from sheer physical inability. The capitalist obsession of high production at minimal cost, baring no humanitarian expenses (in either manner of production, i.e. using child labor or environmentally detrimental materials or processes, effects of outsourcing labor to find cheaper overhead and what that does in the vacuum of unemployment in the host country, and the quality or lack there of, of the products at large) has such effects that are hard to perceive for some in daily observation especially when that is all one knows. This culture of convenience is one that once the trend has taken root it is almost impossible to treat, for it seems counter intuitive to revert back to any form of existence that feels any less convenient than has been previously experienced. After all, we go on vacation to get away from responsibility and the hardships of normal living, who in their right mind would choose normal living over a permanent vacation if given the chance? This of coarse is a rhetorical statement, understanding that not everyone adheres to these habits and chooses less comfortable ways to escape, backpacking is but one example.
How do we convince people that an excessive convenient lifestyle is commonly the root of their personal suffering. By taking the stairs instead of the elevator every now and then they are using their body for its intended function. If an automobile is kept in a garage for an inordinate amount of time without being driven, when finally approached to perform will be found with host of problems, to use a poor metaphor.

The subject of obesity is a tender one. As to not subscribe to any sort of reductionist prescriptions on the matter it seems fitting if not necessary to end this train of thought with the following:
A disclaimer may be or quite possibly depending on your outlook, should not be needed when putting personal thoughts out there, but it is of a belief that some subjects could warrant further explanation as to not offend anyone especially in the politically correct obsessed atmosphere that the West has adopted. There are plenty of times when a disregard for this p.c. redundancy could be justified but this case is not one.....I understand that the issue of obesity is much more than a politicized food industry run a muck at the hands of greedy uncompassionate fat cats. There are genetic and potentially addictive factors at play with some. There are factors of societal consequence that are rooted in a capitalist system that overplays appearance yet profits from disallowing the underprivileged (and some of the privileged) from achieving those unreasonable superficial standards. But beyond superficiality, the health implications and quality of life that are being effected create situations where the profits from companies like Kraft or McDonalds, who are allowed to act by shaky standards set by the American Food and Drug Administration (and are sharing the profits of the before mentioned), are tainted no matter what philanthropic veils, if any, their CEOs try to adnorn to the public at large.

deceptions of systemic epidemics

2009-06-20T09:04:00.007+02:00

It seems unlikely that industry would active with an objective eye regarding the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). If the intention of such a standard is to truly better our climate and/or set a precedent for our Western consumerist culture, than science is the only source that should direct such implementation. We should give ourselves the gift of enacting this standard as an actual sign of progress, shedding tendencies of political mindedness locked behind the influence of lobbyists.

What is it about power that allows formally good men to shed their personal ethical standards to either maintain or further gain another ounce of it? The era of showcasing an individual man's power of hunting is long over. It is now the power to enact legislation by circumventing reasons for a politician's initial desiring for office or honoring those who gave one the privileged position? How do abstractions become so seductive? The idea of God not excluded! To either intentionally deceive people into thinking something by exploiting their fears, with either a political or religious avenue, or by effectively convincing them that they should be in agreeance with a social issue or that they can not live without the specific frivolous product that they happen to be selling for the unbelievable price of...... Deception of workings of systemic epidemics are to politics, what air is to atmosphere, consistently fogging the goggles of participants of the race not directly involved with its operating functions.

distinctly american?

2009-06-19T21:28:00.006+02:00

This is being written after the news was broken to myself about the supreme leader of Iran calling their elections free and fair. Although the western media has, as usual, brought its coverage of such a tragic and unfortunate event towards more of Super Bowl Sunday coverage than objective journalism, I feel that since I am thinking about the people of Iran's situation in relation to how we, the "free" live and may have sympathetic to others but do not do anything tangible and productive about it. We feel that feeling bad for others is enough. By turning our profile picture green on Twitter... will this result in change other than a the hue of a few thousand pixels? Maintaining our ideas that convenience reigns, it is terribly inconvenient to change a lifestyle to effect long term changes in how our choices indirectly or directly influence the ability for oppression to occur in the world. But apparently it makes a difference to us to be able to think that we care enough to paint our portrait green on Twitter or watch CNN to see if any brave Iranians have risked his/her life to capture 8 seconds of governmental brutality on their cell phone movie mode, makes us feel compassionate.

Now, what can we as Americans, the one's who are being painted as the reason that all of this is happening in that country at the moment, do to illicit real, actual change? Voting with our money, as invaluable as it may have become. This of coarse requires more effort and choosing products which are typically more expensive than the run-of-the-mill bargain, mainstream brand name products, especially in food and some kinds of products are unavoidable to support businesses which proliferate behaviors that enable unjust, inhumane and unethical behavior to persist on this planet. For example, this post is being typed on an Apple computer. The idea of quality in products which typically result in longevity in some kinds of niche markets, it is impossible to escape supporting a business that has ties indirectly or otherwise to causes that do mesh with our own.
So, s the fact that it happens on the planet enough to cause concern? Only when Fox News or MSNBC (which are the same product just a different brand in and of themselves) make a hoopla about things apparently. The underlying unjust that occurs the world, such things that actually effect Western Industrial countries citizens (or patriots if you employ such propagandized rheteric) by pumping them full of products that cause obesity, diabetes and cancer, or fund the use of child slave labor, etc. But it is good enough to sit at home eating Cheetos (fried artificial coloring) sitting on a sofa bought at Wal-Mart (made in China from child labor of trees from forrests that are depressingly depleted) in a cookie cutter house (in a community with a name like Deer Hollow or Quail Ridge where the animals whose namesake is exploited have been killed off or relocated as a result of the development) but that has become an American way.

It this distinctly American though? Is this trait that humanity has adopted? Have we reached a point were we strive for convenience above anything else? Apathy is more convenient than anything else.

Apathy is more convenient than anything else.

Apathy is more convenient than anything else.

Apathy is more convenient than anything else.

death shapes us

2009-06-18T09:27:00.003+02:00

The knowledge of our own death was a major turning point in the cognitive, behavioral and cultural evolution of our species (again to reference thoughts introduced and simutaneously reiterated to myself by Dr. Leonard Shlain). To live with this monkey on our back , to only be able to shed it when the fear of the experience has passed is something that has plagued and enriched our being. Do we experience death anyway? Is it the bodies preparation for eternal blackout that our brain is flooded with endorphins? A last high before perpetual nothing? We can always discuss the implications of ideas of an afterlife, whether existing on this terrestrial plane as a desk lamp or stickbug next time around, on a pillowy white precipitated groundspace with the sounds of prestine pipe organs, or on a hotplate whose energy comes from the mandate of the work of those who are being punished by being subjected to the heat of their labors (feel free to bring that up if you prefer...).
The fear of death produced Religion. The fear of death produced greed and the survival of the gluttoneous. The fear of death produced the desire for longevity of survivors to remember the ideas and action of ME (I refer to the universal idea of a "me"). The fear of death produced fatherhood by understanding that the passing of genes was a way to escape death and to ensure survival of those genes (one's own children) resulted in fatherhood (Shlain). Art is a product of the fear of death in combination with the free time to decorate functional objects, oneself for a ceremony which in itself was inspired to be performed by the idea of death, or in present times to perform the act of creation for aesthetic ends, to comment on aspects of the human condition in its various facets, or to live up to the degrading idea stemming from Minimalism of "art for art's sake". This free time to make art, of coarse, stems from the time allotted from the benefits of the invention of agricutlture.
It seems that everything that we do comes from, either consciously, or subconsciously, from the omnipotent anxiety that comes from the understanding that one day, the inescapable event will occur of one's own death. To rack up as much digital capital as one is able in order to leave it to offspring is to ensure that one's own genes have the capacity (materialistically) to survive. These kinds examples can go on and on I am quite certain.
Would anyone inherentely want to be forgotten? Would this go against evolutionary conditioning from survival? This has possibly changed from physical survival, resulting from the luxurious western lifestyle (on average, and I use the word luxurious because being able to purchase anything that supercedes basic necessities can be seen as a luxury in my book) compared to lifestyles when physical survival was the ultimate concern, to the survival of memory of ourselves to give meaning to this existence, each of us, individually.

nomenclatural divide

2009-06-17T21:37:00.004+02:00

Categorizing, labeling, and classification of everything and anything inherently results in the subjectification of those things being pigeonholed. Labels on things bring about a subjective response from those harnessing any sort of perception on the idea/object at hand. To have boundaries on land and a name brand to go with it (Germany and the German flag, etc.), or boundaries on kinds of people (Mexicans, Jews, liberals, etc) is to establish boundaries in the mind. I understand the need to distinguish between distinctive kinds of property, culture, people, mindsets, religious practitioners, etc. in order to allow the priveledge of language continue to be effective. These is merely an observation on the effects of these linguistic necessities on how people interact with ideas that involve such nomenclature.

Divisions mount with the results of classification. Pre-existing expectations for a "noun in play", which stem from conditioned and historical shaping from personal experience result in predetermined responses that may overwhelm the perciever. This occurance can result in the complete and utter negation of being receptive to any reasonable idea no matter the scale of what is at stake.

There can be attempts made to squash even unsuspecting residues of classification by-product. An understanding of different things in objective reality is only accomplishible so far. One can not seperate their own subjectivity from an objective obersation and in the inverse, one may not be able to incorporate objectivity to a subjective response. Are their any other kinds of responses? This could be what the striving is to be for, its desirable end. To come to a point where there is a constant awareness of our congitive subjective dicatorship in how we interact with all of our surroundings including ourselves as we are a part of our surroundings the seperation between the two in another illusion that we must navigate through or with depending.

deciding element: Iron? (Fe)

2009-06-12T08:45:00.003+02:00

Dr. Leonard Shlain proposes an intriguing 300 + page theory of the role that iron had played in the evolution of our species in the book: Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution (Viking Pub.). In one of the more thought provoking books that I have ever come across, a wide range of reasonable ideas are addressed regarding female biology and its effects on behavior, cultural and physical evolution.

Some personal points of interest: the compound molecule chlorophyll is like a ring of molecules of Nitrogen, Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen and located in the center of this "ring" rests one molecule of magnesium which gives plants their green color. The compound molecule of hemoglobin is the same ring of molecules but the magnesium is replaced with a single iron molecule.
The need for iron in our blood is what persuaded us to become carnivores. Unlike other mammals we have a hard time processing the iron found in plant life so we must eat other animals to acquire the iron for our body's needs. As we evolved, the brain size in human infants got bigger resulting in larger craniums. Brain development requires high does of iron, as well as amino fatty acids. This need for iron and the man's role as hunter, because a pregnant, nursing, or attentive to children mother is not exactly in a convenient place to go out for a kill, increased our "bravery" to go for larger and more dangerous game, resulting in higher testoterone levels. The larger or more dangerous the game a hunter brought back, the more evidence of his hunting skills = he was a more desirable mate for the women. The more iron supplies the woman had while pregnant the more the brain in the baby developed reaching its genetic intellectual potential (women are succeptable to anemia while pregant and if this occurs may result in unfullfilled brain development in the child or mental retardation even). This iron rich diet produced greater intellegence. This has been a grossly under-articulated, insultingly brief description of some of the thoughts found in this great book, my apologies to Dr. Shlain.

Now for some personal thoughts:
The fact that the major make up of the Earth is iron seems to be of little coincidence. Though our physical make up is mostly H2O, the iron needed for intellectual capacity is undesputable. If it were not for iron: the gravity of our planet may be different because its density would be different resulting in either a stronger or weaker pull on its inhabitants and objects within its gravitational field, our species would not be as intelligent as we like to think that we are, the scale of our industrialization would be squashed since the Bessemer process, which uses the introduction of oxygen into a pot of molten iron to rid some of the carbon contents in the iron resulting in a more resilient and less brittle material, transforms iron into steel.
The chlorophyll description above + the Earth-iron relationship + the idea that the salt content of the ocean is similar to the salt content found in the human blood stream seems to point things in a certain direction.
There are some questions that I find it hard to fathom that we as a species will ever come to undisputable universally accepted difinite answers. Isn't a fact just subjective reasoning with the illusion of objectivity that the majority of a given group of people agree to be true? Some of these indefinables I believe include: What is the origin of life? What is the origin of the Universe? What is God's pants size (or is it skirt size.....)
It is this curiosity of our surrounding which in cooberation with our increased intellect that we are able to come up with inventiveness, both in objects and ideas. As Dr. Shlain puts it, the "if = then" priveledge we have as a species, granted by curiosity, a sense of deep time (past and future) and our thumbs. This is what we do, play with things and think about stuff to pass the time. Problems amount when these ideas acquire such an emotional charge within us that it results in war and violence. To take the time to understand other's beliefs can curb the instinct lash out at those who disagree. Where to absolutes lie anyway?

appreciation through acceptance

2009-06-10T09:07:00.007+02:00

Bindings to materiality.
Stress rooted in superficial responsibility....

...for what?

To be and stay distracted from the most noble gift to oneself: appreciating the present moment.

The majority of energy is spent on preparation for the future. Unlike our other mammalian "family members" we have the luxury of not being in a constant state of preparation for future survival, i.e. storing food for the winter, building shelter ourselves in every season, etc. This is some of the fruits of agriculture, communal cooperation and the forces of various industries. This luxury of, well, luxury has spawned various forms of art, entertainment, invention, etc. All of this is out of what I believe to be an attempt to better the collective human situation. These contributions to the human collective are ways in which individuals try to enrich lives whether it is from a physically applied contribution, a cultural contribution, or a contribution for the end of convenience of existence. (It could be argued that some of the convenience aspect side of this idea have gone to far at the hands of capitalism, but we can save that for another branch of discussion.)
Although we have this luxury of time, I have noticed in various situations and location that we as a collective tend to get caught up in matters that do not in any positive way contribute to our own condition. The illusion that these concerns leads to a future goal rooted in benefit is so pervasive that our sensibilities are askew. (again this may come back to capitalism and the social conditioning that has resulted in its effectiveness).
We are all guilty to some degree of another of allowing these kinds of tendencies to interrupt genuine affinity for life. Philosophical, spiritual and natural affinities may be taken for granted, dismissed or met with indifference from the preference of superficiality and self interest to no known end. I try to remind myself when I am fortunate enough to notice that I have allowed my head-space to wander into such locations the following:

We are sitting on a rock, spinning around a fireball!!

What could be more humbling and amazing than that idea? If this rock were any closer or farther from "our" fireball, any life resembling our own notions of what life is would not be present let alone be able to survive. It could only benefit our condition to keep in mind a sustained appreciation for the over arching situation that we find ourselves in as we maintain our daily responsibilities.