for feb iss of bp...

Late Respects: Hunter S Thompson (1937-2005)

Do my experiences date from yesterday? It is a long time since I experienced the reasons from my opinions. Should I not have to be a barrel of memory, if I wanted to carry my reasons, too, about me?—Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche

Though he may have hummed “let me forget about my day until tomorrow,” I don’t think that Hunter S Thompson was the sort of character who would allow himself to forget. Call it an occupational hazard, but to understand a system as well as Hunter did, to the point of making brilliant satire, one must be a never ending gluttonous greedy whore of a history junkie. Though he had admitted that he lived much longer than he had gambled on, he had an aspect to him that made him more than just one of “the mad ones.” His, “Shit, why not?” hid deep-seeded terror, and yet he pushed and dedicated himself to ever-tracing that “edge.”

But now, can one truly believe his claim that “it never got weird enough for [him]?”

HUNTER STOCKTON THOMPSON, 67, DEAD OF SELF INFLICTED GUNSHOT WOUND, FEB 20, 2005.

These were heavy words that echoed in my head on that rainy Monday of the 21st. How would Steadman illustrate the suicide of a senior-citizen Raoul Duke? I didn’t really want ponder these awful near-realities…

Though none of us had actually met him, within a large group of my friends there was a very real sense that we had lost one of our own, a hero, an older brother, a teacher. Globally, with phone calls, instant messaging, emails, and blogging, an entire community of people united through Thompson’s works was abuzz, sending each other words of condolences, laments, conspiracies, disbeliefs, and favorite anecdotes.

The Good Doctor’s ashes were blasted-out of a cannon, shaped like his iconic Gonzo fist, this past August at his Colorado ranch [see Omibus: Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978)]. His friends gathered together—actors, artists, rock ‘n’ rollers, politicos—and there was drinking and celebration. But most revealing about this man’s impact; the stream of fans lining Woody Creek Road, leading up to the “compound.” He was loved, whether or not one had a personal relationship with him.

Though a self-declared failed novelist, Thompson has been the subject of two major motion pictures, is given much credit for Rolling Stone’s style and voice, and, though disapproving, the inspiration for the Doonesbury character “Uncle Duke.” And he ran for Sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket.

Hunter is credited for birthing a new style of journalism, Gonzo journalism, in his first collaboration with English cartoonist Ralph Steadman, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.” But even before this desperate faxing of field notes, Thompson’s work on the Hell’s Angels helped make the modern investigative report a popular undertaking. He has become the source inspiration of too many terrible knock-offs; myself included.

He is said to have copied The Great Gatsby, in order to learn how to write a great novel; though not a novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a masterpiece. What Fitzgerald was for the Jazz Age, Thompson was for the Freak/Hippie/Acid/Drug Culture. It wouldn’t surprise me if a Bruccoli-type character surfaces, obsessed with analyzing Hunter’s work. He was more than the mirror-shaded aviators, the fishing hat, the aqua-filter, the drugs, the nihilism, the idiosyncratic behavior and speech.

He was, in fact, friends with actors and rock ‘n’ rollers and politicos; and he was loved—Johnny Depp (who starred as “Raoul Duke” in Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) funded most of the funeral, just so his “pal’s” last wishes were fulfilled. He rubbed elbows with big names; and with more than a few, he wasn’t afraid of rubbing them raw—a sad rarity today. Though perhaps hell-bent on toppling ivory towers because of anarchic psychosis expressed in violence, he did so with a sense of dedication and professionalism; he was, after all, a “doctor of journalism.” Thompson was and will remain a hero to Freaks everywhere; even as he was a critic of all Freaks, himself included.

Great art encompasses, represents, comes to define, and yet contrasts with an era, a life style, an ethos. Having read Thompson, I find it hard to read Wolfe’s Acid Test. Though Tom Wolfe is unquestionably a great American writer, his dealings with the Pranksters had a sort of soft blurred awe—his portrayal is perhaps less dark than what was required...no mention, as it were, of the “grim meat-hook realities.” In contrast, Thompson makes it blatantly clear that the Hippies failed, from an insider’s point of view. In real time, he brought the Madness that came to define the 60’s and 70’s into sharp focus. He made it the hip thing to hate Nixon, his arch-enemy, representative of all the evils Hunter saw permeating US politics; redeemed only for being a football fan. Even after the Crook keeled-over, Thompson wrote in an obituary that his body should be burned in a dumpster.

Sadly, as his celebrity grew and as the effects of his life-style began to take a toll on him, Thompson seemed to become a water-down version of Raoul Duke, minus Steadman’s illustrations. In a 1978 interview, he laments on the fact that he is never sure who people want him to be, Duke or Thompson; that his celebrity made it impossible for him to do his job. Though his peak was most certainly his work from the 70’s, Thompson remained a major figure in media. One can still weed through the Hollywood-naming-dropping-dribble of his ESPN.com “Hey Rube” posts to find examples of true artistry.

There’s something truly American about charging head long at high speed out of touch with reality toward one’s own demise. Where as Hemingway may have enjoyed his danger from the safety of the stands, Thompson would have painted himself red and run stark-ass naked through Pamplona howling blood-curdling screams through the thick of things, kicking bulls in their balls and laughing, probably on some sort of substance, guaranteed drunk, and he would be the first one through the gates to taunt the brave men with their swords…suggesting perhaps that they box the bulls to death, like real men, if they weren’t scared chicken shit. Thompson kept himself seeking “the edge.” Sometimes, he high-sided. Most times, he skated through with some karmic version of dumb-luck. But at all times, he accepted the challenge. “Buy the ticket, take the ride.” “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” Indeed, Good Doctor.

Granted, the hammer has to fall, but it’s the dichotomy that makes his death so hard to take... Had the decades of doom saying finally taken their toll on him? Did it have to do with Walter Cronkite moonlighting as MC at Bohemian Grove? Could it be his mind cracked when, just days before, Karl Rove and Jeff Gannon were named starting pitcher and catcher for the GOP intra-party softball team that summer? Was it related to his speculative claims that the Bush Administration isn’t totally innocent in the September attacks? Could it be his obsession with discovering what mutants killed off the Kennedy’s led him to it? What about the physical evidence? Where’s a goddamn autopsy report?

Regardless, Hunter S. Thompson will be known as one of the few who chronicled the “Death of the American Dream,” as it was happening. Though the persona may have done him in, it allowed him to get away with what he did: pure Gonzo. His intuitive knowledge of the political system and American society in general gave him the ability to, in the midst of chemically-fueled rhetorical neurosis, turn on a dime to make sobering, heart-breakingly accurate assessments of our culture. His professional obsession for facts allowed him to make light of some interesting points of US history. “How would Horatio Alger handle this situation?” The American Dream and Good Citizenship go together, hand-in-slightly-smaller-hand. Right.

So, here’s to the hope that Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 will make it as summer reading here, one day soon. Mahalo, Doc.

fuck hobbes.

the saddest part of this dark era in history, that of my potentially fair country sleep-goose-stepping its way into fascism, as the history books will eventually point out, is that all of this was done with consent, explicit and tacit...by the time people are shocked into the level of discontent necessary for revolt, it will be too late; either the rest of the world will tire of us, or we will be to the point of natural self-destruction and collapse...expansionism is illogical, it will be our undoing...

the us war for independence was a revolt from above. there were just enough elites who bought into enlightenment ideals to frustrate the absolute success of their fellow aristocratic british revolutionaries looking for a way out of paying taxes...sadly, the way around granting freedom has been discovered: peddle fear.

an interesting read...

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. --And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

No time...

ahhhh, 'tis the school year, indeed...full swing...midterms and too much coffee...

for anyone who still comes here, most of my creative talent will be applied in writing for Boiling Point, UNC's unapologetically progressive magazine...by far more ballsy than the Carolina Review...note the unfortunate sarcasm...

here's the shameless plug...

Speaking as a writer, I'll be candid about my thoughts on the editors...squares...especially one in particular...I may post full versions of the articles here...not sure...with any luck, my article for next month's issue will make it through that process a little more intact...and that's being optimistic that the other people who are supposed to be submitting articles come through on their part so that we can have an issue for November...jesus, I have a great disdain, well, love/hate relationship with deadlines, but moving it back three separate times (two if I concede that moving the first date because of fall break was at least somewhat legit...which I still got my article in...written on no sleep.....) I digress, moving the deadline back that many times, thus moving back the date that it hits the presses, thus moving back the date that it hits the public, is unprofessional, even for college students.

A song...

Ejected out

into the dark sea stranded world

circa that Orwellian year

struck and set ablaze

like a signal flare

of generational distress

and discontent.

Now some two decades

of madness

and cultural slumping…

relegated out of place like

a landlocked lighthouse—

this is our beacon,

our hope

our drive

a desperation to shine

brighter than

that flypaper box

of streaming electron beams

and the Mtv race for

the bottom.

We are that oxidized-green light

and that longing

for a distant shore.

Give us your outcast,

your tired poor

with tear eroded raw cheeks

cut deeply in

mourning the death stillbirth

of the American Dream.

distractions...

ah sports...little league world series, nfl pre-season (fuck to and fuck espn for that new insider bullshit, fucking capitalists...), the nhl is back (though I think I'm still subconsciously holding a grudge), NCAA will be starting up soon...and before long, it'll be sweater weather again in beautifully depressing north carolina.

Don't leave me behind, just drop me off at point-zero and paint a target on my skull...

To being, steal a copy of Bad Religion's, "No Control" (and others, should you choose). Put them on repeat for the next two decades or so...

And when you have the tune nicely in your head, sing along...
BIG BANG
this isn't another new fashion, or a new wave plastic trend. everybody's searching for something but in the meantime let's all just pretend. i've got this feeling and i don't know what it is. this room is overcrowded, man, and i need air to breathe, yeah. big bang, big crunch, you know there's no free lunch. kneel down and pray, here comes your judgment day. big crunch, you know, it's gonna be quite a show. what comes around always goes around, yeah. a million hopeless faces dwell within protected walls, all waiting for a moment in life when they can heed the clarion call. and it's all so oppressive my mind feels like a sieve. this city's overcrowded, man, and i need room to live. big bang, big crunch, you know there's no free lunch. kneel down and pray, here comes your judgment day. big crunch, you know, it's gonna be quite a show. what comes around always goes around, yeah. i think of the countless shadows that have all come and gone, all suffering in the notion of better things to come. if you share these beliefs you know i wish you well, 'cause there's no room left in heaven and there's sure no room in hell, yeah. big bang, big crunch, you know there's no free lunch. kneel down and pray, here comes your judgment day. big crunch, you know, it's gonna be quite a show. what goes around always comes around.

So, PBU is going to be writing about doom and gloom... I guess I'll find out if I'm alone in being crazy, this should be fun.

The question we've been given as a topic was "The Evil-doers:How far will they go?"

I think I will take a view that accepts some of the positive aspects of our time's negativity. Meaning, I will start form this point: those who are in power, now, either believe that they are blessed to an afterlife robed in beautiful white censorship free from sexuality (which will begin just as soon as they take over the "Promised Land" and the Great Hero, the Commander and Chief tortures and slaughters all thieves and takes away all Believers to the Land of Milk and Honey), or they believe that they are something more than Bald Apes...of course there are variations to these, there's Karl, who sold...scratch that, who is Ni666on's bastard child, thus he's about doing his Dark Father's work, corrupting souls and seeking to bring about the End Times (thus, the pairing of W and him, they both want the same thing, just for different reasons...). Beyond this, a couple hundred years of believing the fairy-tale of infinite supply has forced this planet to the breaking point...well, a critical point would be more accurate.

The point is, the planet will survive us. We will be recycled.

So, will the world end? Not for a couple billion years. Will humanity self-destruct? This remains to be seen.

We have the ability to curtail our negative impacts on our environment. We have the ability to seek balance. Further, we have the ability to forecast where this spinning wheel is going to stop, and to adapt to that new reality.

I don't believe in a jackasses who quote from Revelation.... especially when they call it revelations. The writer of that piece of literature was writing in a specific historical period, to a specific audience, making specific historically bound allusions.

If you want to quote the Bible, how's about taking a look at what the philosopher Jesus said... take a good look at his moral theory (of course founded in Jewish theology, he was, after all, a Jew)... then take a look at what he said about the "End Times." Could he have been warning not to make any claims because he understood that the messianic era (in terms of the end of the world sort of crap) was bullshit? God was not coming down from the sky, sin was not something that a Zoroastrian creation was going to boil you in a lake of fire for, and further, to be more explicit, there was no such thing as the Devil.

We hold our future in our hands. Perhaps the time is coming for a true battle. Perhaps the time is coming to debate the semantics of a fist. Or, perhaps the time is coming for us to walk away.

waiting for the great destruction...

Approximately 250Mya, life on earth nearly ended. Though perhaps a contributing factor, most scientist agree that this crash was not caused by a bolide impact. In fact, life has been nearly wiped-out mulitple times by geo-environmental changes (see the "snowball earth" theory). But I digress, the Permian Mass Extinction began in Siberia. Volcanic activity pumped billions of kilograms of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (as a side note, this volcanic activity was most likely the eruption of a cauldron volcano, similar to the one under Yellowstone, which is continuing to grow... moving closer and closer to an eruption, the likes of which could only be described as Biblical--and that would be the thoughts of an observer in NYC where God would be raining down fire and brimstone on the sinners and econorats that scurry up and down Wall Street, never mind what would happen to the politicks in DC). This increase in atmospheric CO2 led, as greenhouse gases (GHG's) tend to do, to a rise in earth's overall temperature. As tends to be the case for systems, this change triggered further effects. Frozen in the bottom of the ocean were vast quantities of methane, safely separate from the atmosphere, so long as it was frozen. An oceanic rise of just 4 degrees Centigrade triggered the sublimation of the methane, which is a far more efficient GHG than CO2. From here, the effects ran their course. This extinction event wiped out nearly 96% of all life, approximately 95% of marine life and some 60% of land life.

Scientists are now reporting that thawing Siberian permafrost is releasing methane into the atmosphere.

And still, we cannot curb our appetite for petroleum. This is what our entire culture is founded on. And still, we are moving toward peak oil production and the end of cheap oil. We are actively seeking our own demise.

Order and balance will establish itself, but we do not know what the new homeostasis will be. Human history has witnessed the rise and fall of numerous empires, and has continued. This is the best case scenario. With any luck, the US and the Capitalist (because, yes, there is such a group, organized under various corporate logos, "societies," and treaties) will recognize that their world-view rest on a dangerous fallacy and decide to simply step down. This, however, is mostly a non-likelihood; and their inevitable fall will have ripples because we do live in, and as part of, a system.

In order to understand just what we face, we must accept the other possibility. But in this too, there is hope. The earth has survived numerous mass extinctions. Life has survived. And life will survive us, eventually. It will grow in complexity and become intelligent. And just as we have discovered the tragedies before us, something will discover our tragedy. They will be gifted with the understanding that they can be their own destruction. They will not look to dominate the earth and sky trying to prevent extraterrestrial shots in the dark (which may or may not have ended the reign of the dinosaurs), because ours will be the top layer.

And with head phones on, I'll tune out the world...
waiting for the lights to change
the raindrops skip the wiper blades
buildings fall from the sky in panes
and it carries me down
if you gave me a chance to be sincere
do you think they'd let me outta here
gonna walk out in the traffic
if I promise not to make a sound
and the look upon your face
would be chiseled there forever
as the glass came through the windshield
and the car lifted from the ground
maybe at my funeral
they'll say I found the answer
they'll say I had it coming
they'll say I was just sitting around
waiting for the great destruction I am
waiting for Holden Caulfield to call
waiting for the great destruction I am
waiting for the sky
the sky
to open up
make me feel small
like a bird in bad weather
these engines won't stall
time enough to watch the free world fall
under the black and blue handle of
it will only take a saw
waiting for the lights to change
the lies they learn to rearrange
the truth they hold to exchange
and it carries me down
second hand to the greater fear
these words of promise disappear
so I wrote them down to make it appear
but nothing is what I found
but if it was really all that easy
don't you think I'd have given up by now
and if the questions had an answer
they wouldn't be believable out loud
and you know that I would tell you
even if it sounded like a lie
funny thing about the truth is that
no-one warned us to wonder why
and I will leave the car door open
as a symbol of my freedom
like the riddles of a dead man
who didn't always need them
and in the end they'll say I'm crazy
'cause I never give a reason
he always talked about tomorrow as if
he were always leaving
and I am waiting for the great destruction
waiting for Holden Caulfield to call
waiting for the great destruction
I am waiting for the sky
the sky to fall
--Matthew Good

But still mark your callenders and call Rummy and tell him you'll be there with boots and a cowboy hat on to show your support for the troops on September 11th.

in brief...

Goodnight, Mr. Jennings. Thank you for your professionalism.

And in other news, it seems that Dole is trying to make a deal with UNC...more on this later...

A Paradox.

Life is at once entirely accidental and random, but it exists as it does because it absolutely must.

So long as we adhere to dogma, whether under the guise of science or religion, we will never come any closer to solving these mysteries. Acceptence of Truth, however, is not dogmatic.

I hope that in forty years, we celebrate a century without the use of nuclear weapons between opposing nations. What's more, I hope that we can celebrate forty years since the last weapon was built.

The World is Beautiful...

...embrace its magnificence.

As tends to be the case, schools of thought fall into the dangerous area of dogma. This is no less true for Religion as, ironically, it was for the Existentialists. Their flawed dogma was the outright rejection of all systems, when in fact, the System is the very point one should focus on.

We will never be able to absolutely calculate Pi, but that endeavor was essentially missing the point from the start, regardless. The point is that there is an absolute order, a constant relationship between a circumference and a radius which constitutes what we've labeled "circle." From this simple fact, we are able to further articulate and describe our perceptions of the world around us. This is not to say, however, that syntax is never important, only that it is worthless without its counterpart semantics.

So to carry on this train of thought further, we live in a charged and active world. From the earth's iron core to the thermohaline circulation of the oceans to solar radiation, we are surrounded by a world in flux. Our weather is dictated by electromagnetism in ways that we are only now beginning to comprehend. Beyond this, all of reality, humans, dust, lightning, grass, E. coli, stars, the universe itself, everything is but simple variations of one fundamental energy. Einstein's discovery showed that mass, space, and time are separated in dimentional expression, only. They are equal in terms of energy density, which is by the factor of the speed of light square; another constant.

In this, inexhaustible sources of energy are to be found. In this, clues to solving that old riddle are to be found. In this, a foundation for a true Ethics is to be found.

But if existence is defined as a System, there are limits and equilibrium. This cannot be refuted. None of this is new thought...

So, why the fuck are we still killing each other?

hmmm, makes me think of a happy song

www.cfa-inc.org...
"One step closer to making the unification with China easier...here, take this pill and it will all be painless. Trust us."


it makes me think of a happy canadian punk rock song, by propagandhi, no less...

perception and time

Apparently, this country is on its way to hell in a handbasket...but hey, when hasn't it been? Cable companies consolidating, a corporate friendly congressman (as if there are any other kind) to be voted on for the SEC chairmanship, the on-going race to the bottom between MTV and most of the other crap on TV, an entire administration that is still in office as we are still in a war of false pretense and the deathcount and number of war crimes keep rising...

But thinking on all of this I can't help but think of the sequoia forests of northern california. How many civilizations have crumbled as they've reached for the sun? Planets take billions of years to form. Solar systems take eons to condense from swirling clouds. These are the respective scales of their lifespan. How do they percieve? Do they percieve on these time-scales?

Given that perception is simply interaction with the rest of the universe, I'd say yes.

It's impossible to watch a tree for five minutes and watch its life in motion. Is it possible to sit in a forest for weeks and watch life in motion? I think so, with the right patterns of thought.

from comcastwatch.com

Why Your Community Should Oppose the Sale and Transfer of Adelphia Franchises to Comcast and Time Warner Cable

Comcast is the largest cable operator in America, serving 21.5 million cable homes, or nearly 30 percent of American homes subscribing to cable. If the Adelphia purchase is approved, Comcast will grow by two million homes to 23.5 million.

Time Warner Cable (TWC) is the second largest cable operator in America. While TWC serves fewer cable homes than Comcast, it is controlled by Time Warner, one of the world's largest media content creators, an owner of a broadcast network (WB) and multiple cable channels (CNN, TBS, TNT, HBO, etc).

By virtue of their joint control over the nation's cable television homes, Comcast and TWC each possess unacceptable "gatekeeper" power to dictate which television channels Americans receive, as well as the content on those channels, whether they are Comcast and Time Warner Cable subscribers or not. Says cable tycoon John Malone: "I don't believe that an independent programmer has any chance whatsoever… There's no way on earth that you can be successful in the U.S. distributing a channel that Brian Roberts (CEO of Comcast) doesn't carry, particularly if he has one that competes with it."

Comcast and TWC's monthly fees increase annually far in excess of the increase in inflation. A 2004 study by the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) found that Comcast's rates have increased by 50 percent – almost three times the pace of inflation – since the Telecommunications Act of 1996. To increase its profits, Comcast forces customers to pay for channels they don't want. Despite the fact that the CFA found that nearly 80 percent of Comcast's customers wouldn't pay for ESPN if they didn't have to, the company refuses to allow customers the option to choose the channels they wish to have in their home and keep out the channels they don't want.

Comcast is the nation's largest broadband Internet service provider. It refuses to allow competing national and local Internet service providers, such as Earthlink, to use its broadband cable to provide Internet access, a practice ruled illegal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the Brand X case, presently on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Comcast's refusal to allow competitors to access its broadband cable gives it power to dictate which sites its consumers can access and to divert customers to sites that Comcast has an economic interest in. Regardless of the outcome of its appeal, the sheer number of Americans who have little or no alternative to Comcast for broadband Internet service gives it an unacceptable power over the American public's Internet and media choices.

TWC, through its AOL and Road Runner units, is the nation's largest Internet service provider. While it presently allows other broadband Internet service providers to access its broadband cable, it does so only because the Federal Trade Commission requires it to – a public interest condition of the approval of the 2001 AOL/Time Warner merger. Time Warner Cable is now appealing that condition of open access – a telling commentary on that company's commitment to the public interest.

Comcast has the worst customer satisfaction rating of any company or government agency in the country, including the Internal Revenue Service, according to a 2004 American Customer Satisfaction Index survey. According to a recent article in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, searching Google using the keywords "Comcast" and "hate" generated 339,000 hits.

The city of Philadelphia, Comcast's corporate headquarters, is building its own wireless broadband network to provide better broadband Internet access to its citizens at a reasonable cost. This speaks volumes.Comcast is the "Wal-Mart of the telecommunications industry" in terms of its labor relations. A recent study by American Rights at Work, titled "No Bargain: Comcast and the Future of Workers' Rights in Telecommunications," is highly critical of the company's labor relations, citing poor pay and union-busting tactics. According to the report, pay is "approximately one-third lower than the unionized telephone companies" while employee "turnover and the use of temporary workers ... are twice as high as the telephone industry average.... Only one in four locations where a union exists have been able to obtain a collective bargaining agreement."

Comcast has taken an extremely confrontational and difficult stance with local communities in franchise-renewal negotiations. In 2003, Comcast sued the city of San Jose during negotiations over its local franchise agreement, arguing the process violated the company's First Amendment rights. Comcast lost this dubious argument in the lower courts, but is now appealing the decision. Meanwhile, San Jose has been without a franchise agreement with Comcast for seven years.

Given these facts, are Comcast and Time Warner Cable truly the best companies to take control of your local Adelphia cable franchise?

ponderings for the night...or morning as the case is

What strange times we live in. For as trite as that phrase is, I don't think there's any other way to put it. For as comfortable as we've become with living next door to our annihilation as a species, the medical field doesn't seem to have figured out the concept of mortality...well, you could argue that they have, but a different abstraction motivates them to perpetuate absurdity. And for as tangled and twisted as the web is, as deep as the rabbit hole drops, it seems to all boil down to one point, one flaw in Western "logic..."

When it comes down to it, they can never really answer "why?"

Today, two people fell in love, some people stubbed their big toe, a person's smile made a stranger's day, a little girl lost her first tooth, a husband became a father, some one cried for the loss of a loved one, a man killed total strangers, a whore turned a trick, a country carried on "business as usual." And also today, climate shifts were continuing, petroleum deposits were drained more, a child starved, violence was inflected on strangers by strangers, the media gave a voice to a jackass who should have been kept quiet and silenced a story that should be known. And in this country, criminals remained at-large, in office...and the country carried on "business as usual."

"Ev'ry day da bucket a-go-a well; one day, da bottom a-go drop out." Jamaican proverb

What happens then? Are things really as bad as they can seem? Is there any way out? To fix? To throw-out and start-over? To not fuck things up once something new was established?

Tomorrow, the sun will rise, perhaps...

an email

And though it contains a shameless plug or two, do watch the film "Bush's Brain." It's terrifying.

In a message dated 7/11/05 9:12:06 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
imcurl@email.unc.edu writes:

Hello Mr Shoob,
I'm a subscriber to the
Institute for Public Accuracy's email briefs and have some questions for you regarding the current "episode" of the Bush drama. Before I begin, I must say, "Bush's Brain" does in fact give me nightmares.

First, what do you expect to result from this "revelation," in terms of public approval for the Bush administration?
I think it's still hard to tell. If this investigation turns out to be as thorough as it appears that it's going to be, I think the Bush administration will feel the pressure, and their approval rating will suffer.
Will Rove be released from his position and prosecuted, as Mr McClellan stated in 2003?
It's not clear that Karl Rove has broken the law, so it's unclear to me whether he will be prosecuted. My guess, however, is that this will lead the press and the voters to look at our film, read the books and newspapers that are out there and learn about Rove's thirty years of "hardball politics". I think his reputation will suffer.
What will be the Congress' response? Do you think that Republicans and Democrats can come together to pursue justice?
This all depends on the findings of the Special Prosecutor. I think this investigation might turn up other pre-Iraq activities by this administration which will be taken seriously by both Democrats and Republicans.
Considering Rove's past shenanigans, how strong will a defense based on "knowingly" be?
"Knowingly" will be the key.
How long can the Administration get away with such blatant disregard for the very ideals they are supposedly bringing to the rest of the world?
Good question. This next sixty or ninety days will tell us a lot.
Do you think that there will be any real public displays in reaction to this scandal, since this story has been largely confined to the "blogosphere?"
I think that this story has reached beyond the "blogosphere" into the mainstream press. And, for the first time in his administration, Bush is having to contend with a hostile and aggressive press corps.
Thank you for your time.
Ian Curl
pfblack.blogspot.com
My pleasure. I would encourage your readers to look at our film to better understand the Bush-Rove relationship and to realize that this latest revelation about Rove is just the tip of the iceberg in his thirty year history of vengeance and dirty tricks.

Best,

Michael Paradies Shoob
Co-Director, BUSH'S BRAIN

upcoming events

United for Peace and Justice is holding a major event in September...find information here.

Right now, I've got a strange feeling about it...a "my knee aches, I think it's gonna rain" sort of a thing. BUT, it's not for two months, and who knows, the Administration could all be in jail and the country plunged into chaos before then...

A Quote

With the possible exception of Nixon, Hubert Humphery is the purest and most disgusting example of a Political Animal in American politics today. He has been going at it hammer and tong twenty-five hours a day since the end of World War II--just like Richard Nixon, who launched his own career as a Red-baiting California congressman about the same time Hubert began making headlines as the Red-baiting Mayor of Minneapolis. They are both career anti-Comunists: Nixon's gig was financed from the start by Big Business, and Humphery's by Big Labor...and what both of them stand for today is the de facto triumph of a One Party System in American politics.

Hunter S Thompson, '72

As true today as it was then. The trend has been a consolidation of power under the manufactured polarization produced by the media. Simply put, we need the Democrats who are serious about fixing things to break off and start a new party...but not like Lincoln, where the new party wound-up replacing the old, we need a multi-party system. Democracy is not supposed to be easy, it's not supposed to be stable, it's never supposed to be business as usual.

and while I'm on the point of continued trends, Harvey Wasserman has published another brilliant article.

Against the Death Penalty and For Reform

This example, along with sad others that will never see the light of day, is a strong reason for why we should do away with the barbaric practice of capital punishment...even for treason...

Further, as it has been stated time and time and time and time and time, again, our entire justice system needs reform. Most especially, drug policy needs to be thrown out and incarceration should be replaced with treatment. None of this is new thought. Alternatives to criminal trial for nonviolent drug offenses must be found and utilized nationally.

Shifting in thought, only slightly...

I was suddenly struck last night by the question, "what happens when the crash doesn't come?" Where will all the doom-sayers be left, then? What happens when I wake-up on that "prophecized" day, only to find that I lost my job because I pissed off my boss and didn't care because, "shit, there isn't even going to be a world tomorrow?"

Will there be rough times, globally, in the not so distant future? I believe that there is more than enough evidence to suggest so, even if it is just the shift away from petroleum dependence. But this doesn't exactly spell the end of the world. Throughout human history, thousands of people have forecasted the apocalypse, only to sit on a hill and look like idiots.

Barring widespread nuclear war as a result of possible chaos, the world has survived the fall of empires and will survive the fall of the US. There are ways, however, to advert the systematic failure of our country. Nothing is guaranteed.