Wednesday March 7, 2007 - 3:15PM EDT
So today I read about two fatal US school shootings. Both involved a suicide. And one was a murder suicide of the person who killed themselves former girlfriend. Ain't these bastards got something better to do. Also some clown committed suicide recently at my former high school. Do that shit in your backyard or in a dark alley after 2 days of binge drinking. I'm not digging these grandstanding fools.
Friday March 2, 2007 - 12:33AM EDT
Watching a show on ancient monuments on history channel. I love this stuff. I remember watching something on how they pretty much have discovered what was known as Atlantis to Plato and it was a civilization that was far more advanced than anything of the time. In time we may find out that advanced human civilizations are far older than we know. What could it mean? Who knows but I love it. Our past on this planet is far from completely revealed that is for sure. It makes me wonder about how humans could have had such and ebb and flow of advancement and decline. We think of our earliest periods as being primitive but somethings go against such an assessment. It also makes me think of how the modern era of man still might have some catching up to do as far as longevity of society in comparison to our ancestors.
I saw another show a while ago about how missionaries and European settlers to the New World destroyed a lot of certain Native Culture's writing because they thought it was related to the devil. That kind of garbage is terrible. Even today the self interests of certain people to uphold some kind of beliefs in things get in the way of any kind of objective look or discovery of our past. I just hope we don't lose all this history because of the ignorant fools of today.
Thursday March 1, 2007 - 5:14PM EDT
I just want to reiterate how much I hate fucking charity in our society today. It has gotten to symbolize what is completely rotten and illogical about our society. I vaguely remember a Martin Luther King Jr. quote going something like, if you see a beger on the road to Jericho don't give him a coin and walk on by, talk to him and ask him what his troubles are and what you can do to help. There are charitable causes today that just don't throw coins and I have talked about some of them, but the vast majority is still rooted in that coin throwing philosophy. Not because they actively recognize it but because of the passive acceptance of the structure of society now in which you support certain charities as a legitimate path to change and not just something to selfishly massage your altruistic urges.
Thursday March 1, 2007 - 5:07PM EDT
I always see articles on how to save money and tighten the belt. Articles like that certainly have their place. But I almost never see article that encourage people who have money no to blow it on dumb shit. I guess once you can buy 3 ferraris and 5 ivory back scratchers a day you are way too smart to be a drain on the rest of society with excess and hoarding of resources.
Sunday February 25, 2007 - 11:42PM EDT
I was watching ESPN the other day and Marty Schottenheimer was on as an analyst. They were discussing among other things the players idea to implement three strike kind of rule in relation to off the field behavior. I was pleased with his pragmatic answer to the question of what he thought about such an idea. He said it was an admirable start to a discussion but didn't really say it was the answer or that is wasn't the answer. I just found it refreshing to see someone answer a question with some even thought instead of just picking a side and going buck wild supporting it.
Sunday February 25, 2007 - 5:43PM EDT
How that clown John McCain always says he is a republican and always mentions it is the "party of Lincoln". It pretty obvious what he is trying to do, by invoking the generally good standing of Lincoln in history to associate himself and the party with it. I am just trying to figure out who is stupider. The idiots who rally around such a shallow, self-serving and history distorting association or the moron(s) that came up with it.
Sunday February 25, 2007 - 2:07PM EDT
intrigued when I learn about ancient cultures and societies in which the standing of women was much more equal to that of men then of what we think of when we think of the average ancient culture's social standing of women. Celts are one example. As well as pre-buddhist/confuscian ancient Japan. There are probably others but I can't name any right now. I also think about bonobo chimps which are a female dominated society. The ideas that human society is male dominated because it always has been or there is some distinct advantage to it is just that, ideas. Ideas the developed and gained traction for various reasons.
I think about how there is this idea of an egalitarian human society as being a goal. But I question whether anyone even knows what that entails. I wonder how different the world would have been if certain ideas lowering the social status of women had never taken hold and flourished. Its fun to think about history in that way. To see that there was a multitude of things that could have happened. It empowers me to seek change. To think of history as fatalistic and somehow perfect in its progression is such a weak-minded and weak-willed attitude. It leaves people to not care about our world and to think that it doesn't matter and that there is nothing they can do. The dark ages were a terrible time for just that reason. Everyone thought that this world was just temporary stop in some greater journey so western society languished for hundreds of years until some people finally woke up and said hey this is all we got we better make the best of it. Enough thinking about that stuff for now. I need to clean out my closet.
Wake me up before you go go - comments(21)
Thursday February 22, 2007 - 5:35PM EDT
Ha that title is funny and has nothing to do with this post. On Wednesday I saw part of a documentary on some of the last first hand accounts of former slaves who were freed after the civil war. It is about 2000 interviews done in the 1930's with people who were slaves before the civil war. The original documents are kept at the library of congress. The one account that has connection to the rest of this post is the one is which a former slave recalled when at 5 years old he was given to his master's son as property. A playmate for his master's 2 year old son. The former slave recounts how the little kid told him while playing one time to hurry up nigger and he replied I ain't no nigger. To which the 2 year old slave owner replied yes you is a nigger my daddy bought you for $200 for me to play with. That episode is important to another issue I've been thinking about and hearing a lot about recently. It involves Native American mascots and the "debate" over their appropriateness. Though the connection to the slave story I just recounted may be tenuous it made me think. On ESPN I saw clips of University of Illinois fans lamenting the last appearance of their Native American mascot because the NCAA has banned the depiction of Native American icons as mascots. As I watched an unnamed female shed tears over the last performance of their precious mascot I thought about the slave story and it occurred to me that on some level this person is lamenting the loss of her nigger playmate.
I never thought much about the use of Native American images as mascots growing up. My middle school's mascot was a warriors and had a huge Native American head in the middle of the basketball court. They did later change the mascot to a spartan which was the high school's mascot, but I never gave much thought to the change. As the issue gained some steam and I started to see it more places I still hadn't thought much about it and didn't care much but I would skew towards the view that things like that were offensive although I had no personal feelings. It wasn't until I saw an episode of Real Sports where Bryant Gumbel interviewed a Native American lobbying to get such depictions of Native Americans that I saw the whole picture and understood why that stuff was so offensive. In the interview they talked about what redskin really meant. Most of my life I had taken it to have to do something with the skin color of Native Americans. Although they aren't red that was the primary color generally associated with Native Americans. Damn was I wrong. Redskin is a term used to describe the bloody scalp of a Native American brought back to show proof of the kill for a bounty placed on their lives by early american settlers. That shit is fucking disgusting. A fucking NFL football team is named after that crap. I was appalled when heard that. People are just so completely ignorant (just as I was) on this issue it is disgusting. You could never get away with using such derogatory names and images with any other group.
Sometimes I wonder about who European settlers wronged more, the blacks they kept as slaves or the Native they butchered into virtual nonexistence. A sordid history we have indeed. I also think about what the world would have been like today if things like that hadn't happened. I am not of the supremely ignorant view that everything that happens, happens for a reason and it was someone the way things had to be. But I also don't want to say that the changing of certain things in history would have hugely beneficial effects. I just think about it sometimes though and wonder what would have changed.
Wednesday February 14, 2007 - 10:27PM EDT
Occassionally I will watch Lost. It is a decent good show once you get into it. I liked it better though when it was called The Prisoner. ZING!
Tuesday February 13, 2007 - 11:24AM EDT
discount the influence of television, movies, music, video games and mass media in general as an overblown reason for certain human behavior. But I am not of that way anymore. I never really thought about it much before but now that I have I can see a connection. I am not just talking about violence, sex and whatnot which is always discussed in that manner but just about everything. What I refer to as media is a medium for a shared human psyche. A shared human psyche that influences people to various degrees. I try to look at people from the outside of that. Try to strip away those influences from myself to view people with a more objective eye. I can't say whether I'm always successful or not.
Thursday February 8, 2007 - 5:12PM EDT
do you think that rael eats a salad of kale while resting on a bale of hay in a gale of wind on the campus of yale while sunbathing so not to be pale as he reads moby dick a book about a whale? i wish i was rael's pal, then success would never fail and i would hold a profitable rummage sale.
- MarroneWednesday February 7, 2007 - 2:25PM EDT
I just read that some Nigerian militants are holding people hostage to protest distribution of oil wealth. This immediately led my thoughts to Martin Luther King and Ghandi. Two people who fought for similar things in the past. Ghandi influenced King and King influenced many others. I think how their methods of non violence became popular and the standard of garnering attention and change. Now with all these fucking terrorists running around every time someone wants to fight for injustice (perceived or actual) they immediately adopt the tactics of terror and violence.
Friday February 2, 2007 - 10:00PM EDT
Of the places I worked at early in my career (if you can call it a career, boucing around from place to place), two of them don't exist anymore and two of them were purchased by other companies. I don't know if there is any significance to those facts but it just came across my mind right now.
Wednesday January 31, 2007 - 2:07PM EDT
The title has no relevance it is just the word I happened to key on when I glanced at the TV which was doing a basketball recap. I left this post then came back to it and I don't remember what I was going to write. Ah well.
Friday January 19, 2007 - 10:10PM EDT
In follow up to my last post I start thinking about the 2008 elections, or the JD 2454484 elections for you Julian Day Count fans. I think about the various epochs in American history of social change. Generally you could say that things swing back and forth between ideals as we progress forward. The 2008 election could be the beginning of a swing in an opposite direction. Though I loathe to say it. The democrats could be back in strong position. That is not the swing I want. I still can't fathom these so called election laws about fundraising and equal time that have loopholes the size of the Chunnel in them. Not to mention this sinister yet accepted practice called lobbying. Well I guess we will see what happens.
Speaking of politics and government. I was watching a documentary on western philosophy the other day and they were talking about how early greek philosophers debated the merits of various forms of government. While today we assume (making and ass out of me and you) that democracy is the best way to conduct things and how every single nation should be run it was still up for debate in early western philosophy. I just wonder if those who debated forms of government had the history of the world up till now to add to their debate what would they say. I don't think it would be the single minded academic stances we have today about some forms of government.
Along those lines of emergence of ideas one of the most loathsome things I find about human society today is the lack of objective historical hindsight. Wait that is not what I want to say. I mean the blatant ignorance of the development of human society. The vast majority of people view humans as a static group that spontaneously attained its various characteristics at various epochs in history. Many times at epochs they make up. I cannot with any sound mind view humans in that way. We look at the great apes the roam the earth today and I can't help but think that in our beginnings that we were much like they are now. Our development into what we are today was exactly that, a development that takes into account tons of variables. Even simple concepts that we take as something being intrinsically human, something that were always a part of us, can't in honesty be taken that way. I think I talked about it in another post but the concept of reality is something that was introduced in western philosophy. We don't come out the womb knowing what the hell reality is. Now there is a concept, I don't know who introduced it, but the concept is that humans posses these things but it needs to be drawn out. That is a horrible way of going about things. Going on the assumption that people posses high concepts already and they need to be simply drawn out is some kind of logical fallacy and leads to all kinds of problems. I think of the various reports of wild kids living with animals during their developmental years and being discovered by society. These people who are not kids anymore have no high concepts they are like animals. That is what they learned to be.
Which brings me to another point. The whole instinct vs. learning debate issue. What is intrinsic to humans and what is learned. I think people put far to much weight on instinct. Mainly because what they interpret as instinct is learning. I don't think the general public has a good grasp on what exactly learning is in its most basic forms. I hear this a lot in sports. That certain great players have good instincts. While their intention is not to mislead about human behavior I think the kind of dialogue about instinct we hear in sports leads to that. Maybe because it is boring to say that someone is good as catching a ball because their brain has slightly higher than average amount of neurons dedicated to depth perception and that because of it they skewed development towards using those neurons by playing with balls a lot as a kid. I just think there is an incomplete picture of human behavior and brain function yet we operate as if we understand it completely or that we know the basis of human behavioral tendencies. I guess people don't like uncertainty. That what it comes down to for me. I''ve come to a point where life is best taken as sliding levels of uncertainty. But I don't feel that as being how most people see it and I think it is doing more harm than good. But then again what is good anyway?
Friday January 19, 2007 - 9:32PM EDT
As I watch the disgusting situation in Venezuela deteriorate into something worse than Cuba I look at the recent hubub in the United States curiously. It funny to watch the last dying days of a presidency. In my short time this is the most pathetic exiting term of a president I have seen. Obviously I haven't seen many so it is not saying much. But this clown is losing the support of his own party yet still tries to push forward with many of the same ideas that got him into the less than favorable situation his administration stands in now. The lamentable part about this is that he seems like a decent person but is still right up there with the rest of the horrible leaders that populate our world. He rode a wave of moral discontent with Clinton and lacadaisical opposition from opposing parties to two terms in office. I always wonder if personally he never wanted any of this responsibility of leadership. That is was forced upon him because his father was president and his family was powerful. I just can't shake that feeling that if given a choice he would just be a rancher in texas still. So back to the current dust-up about troop deployments. While Chavez can bend a country to his will unopposed. Out president still has to fight it out and it is great. The White House traded some barb about the house majority speakers comments being "poisonous". I love it that the white house doesn't have all the power here. This isn't a Monarchy it is a Republic. Such a comment sounds like someone trying to incite seditious accusations and hush up opposition. But guess what? This isn't a Monarchy, ha I already said that. The White House can say whatever they want, that they will do this and that and plow ahead with their plan but they can't, not in this system of checks and balances.
I have something I need to say - comments(19)
Wednesday January 10, 2007 - 4:55PM EDT
It is time I said something about this. Why is it that whenever I watch anything related to football and New Orleans someone is saying something about how the city needs the Saints to heal. I have heard the stinking pile of bullshit for entirely too long from a bunch of sports writers and the like blinded by delusions of the football gods balancing the universe. It was ok the first hundred times because some people need to vent emotionally. But it has been non-stop for almost two years now. Do these clowns realize what they are saying. The are resting hopes of a broken city on an NFL franchise. Sure it might help a few hundred people maybe a couple thousand in the short term. But whether the saints stayed or left or sucked or won the superbowl wouldn't do jack shit for 99.999% of the people in need in New Orleans. First off the Saints weren't even all that popular in New Orleans to begin with hence the talk of them moving. This trumpeting of the Saints is to me the most disgusting of elitist and snobish behavior by a bunch of people who felt absolutely no direct effects of the destruction of the city. They just need to remedy a twisted altruistic urge that gurgles up inside when you see another in need.
With all that said I don't want to completely demonize that kind of behavior. I just want people to recognize and analyze a situation objectively. Stop relying completely on their ephemeral sense of guilt to guide their decisions. This also goes along with the popular notion of going with your gut or not overthinking things. The statement about not overthinking things is so misleading I hate when people say that. It is rooted in a complete lack of understanding of how humans work and how the brain works. The disassociation of thinking (brain) and feeling (gut/instict) is almost incomprehensible to me sometimes. Everything is brain connected and you need to treat it that way, stop treating thinking and the brain as some kind of separate step child not worthy of consideration sometimes. Fuck I'm tired.
Monday December 25, 2006 - 4:04AM EDT
I am hungry as a mofo right now.
Saturday December 23, 2006 - 2:51PM EDT
What is the title referring to? I am referring to the ideology advanced by Booker T. Washington that says that the downtrodden colored should lift themselves up by their bootstraps to conquer inequality. I am sure all of you have heard of Booker T, but many have not heard of W.E.B Dubois. W.E.B Dubois was Booker T's contemporary and a opponent of his bootstrapping ideology. I am also an opponent of the bootstrapping ideology. However for reasons that are pretty damn clear bootstrapping is still the dominant philosophy to conquering inequality (except for a brief period in the 60's and 70's). During Mr. Booker T. Washington's time he enjoyed much broader government support than Dubois, mainly because it allowed the government to take a hands off approach to inequality because they could eschew their responsibility towards "all" people and tell them to do it themselves. The whole bootstrapping philosophy come from ignorance or arrogance or both. However I still see it championed today. Particularly when it comes to these black athletes. Riddle me this people? Why is it that we always bring as shining examples those black athletes that struggled through great obstacles to become a professional. We champion their effort and determination (and those of their parents sometimes) as being the main reasons they succeeded. That narrow viewpoint distorts reality and sets a bad precedent. It advances the philosophy that what the disadvantaged need to do is try harder. When talking about these heroes no one bothers to mention the 1000 other people that worked just as hard did that exact same things and failed miserably. In fact I think that this idea of lifting yourself up by your bootstraps has gotten so pervasive that people think those who try just and hard and fail don't exist. That the only disadvantaged people really worth anything are those few that luckily come out of the jungle alive and are paraded as examples in front of us.
Take for example the new move with Will Smith,
The Pursuit of Happyness. Great story, heartwarming, inspiring. But although it shows a positive image of an African American what is it teaching. Is it teaching people that the only way for the black man to get ahead is to struggle mightily against obstacles? Everyone loves and underdog story right? It is good entertainment right? But that is all it basically is. That the black man must use herculean efforts to get anywhere in life is not a good thing. That is the same bullshit philosophy the European world used to justify slavery. Through some disgusting bastardization of Christianity these so called Christians (almost every single fucking one of them that lived back then) used "the word of God" to say enslaving the black man was righteous. It would assure them a place in heaven. As my history of slavery teacher said once, the quakers had slaves, it was before they discovered their "inner light". Slavery has to be by far the most despicable and worst thing humans have done in recorded history. What is almost as disgusting is that we still haven't learned all the lessons we needed to from that time. The world is still rife with the ignorant philosophies and mindset that created the chattel slavery of the 16th through 19th centuries.
The Revolution will not be televised - comments(18)
Thursday December 7, 2006 - 6:51PM EDT
No.1: People at all levels stop doing any activity that is a waste of their time, the customer's time, or the company's money.
No.7: Nobody talks about how many hours they work.
No.9: It's O.K. to take a nap on a Tuesday afternoon, grocery shop on Wednesday morning, or catch a movie on Thursday afternoon. - full article
Every other sentence in that article got me excited! I wanted to cry with joy! Can it be that someone has finally figured it out and implemented it. It which I have ranted and raved about countless times in this blog! Fought for in countless jobs in which I took a stand against THE MAN! It may be raw and have some hiccups but they are moving in the right direction. I had a brief discussion about the ridiculousness of 8-hr workdays and having people show up in an office for many jobs with my mom a few months ago. She manages people and I was telling her how ridiculous it is to work using a factory based methodolgy to measure productivity. People in offices aren't manning machines are sewing clothing. I hope this kind of things spreads and becomes the dominant way things are done. The world would be a better place for it.