bursting at the seams

So I have been counting down the last days of my thirties. Been burning the candle at both ends, partying hearty, living large, dancing like Zorba the Greek, offending the ghost of Orwell with my cliches, and all that. And it occurred to me this morning as I was driving to work--I do some of my best thinking on the way to work, sadly it's a brief window--that I have learned something these past few weeks. It's a modest insight and probably not significant enough to justify the cost in brain cells incurred but so be it. And it's one of those small epiphanies that one could come by simply by asking a trusted friend but when it pops into the head unannounced it feels like a revelation. Put simply: I am full of shit. There's a lot going on in those five words. Much more than meets the eye. Banal on the surface to be sure. The slightly more interesting thought followed: people kind of like it. There are different ways in which one might be full of shit. And my variety is generally harmless, maybe even entertaining at times, and it helps, I think, that I am self-aware enough to recognize it. Makes it rather more palatable in comparison to the more loathsome flavors of bullshit. And it has produced benefits I think. I have expanded my circle of friends as I discovered last night. That was, to be honest, the true revelation. Interesting perhaps insofar as it runs counter to what one might expect. A good barroom anthropologist would just shake her head at my naivete but I can't help but wonder what might have been had I realized this earlier in life. But that's a useless lament and the wrong kind of bullshit. I've learned something and I aim to use it. Here's to forty pals.

30/30

Today begins the final thirty days of my thirties.

In my forties I shall endeavor to assume a means of comportment appropriate to an wizened experienced gentleman like myself. Certain demeanors require a little authentic weathering, a musty decadence, that the youth, and their cartoonish attempts at facial hair, simply cannot appropriate despite their feigning and fawning efforts.

Old is old motherfuckers. You can't fake it.

Oh no, you can't take that away from me.

But. Thirty days.  Dios Mio! I can have a lot of fun in thirty days. Yes I can.

a summer morning's reverie

this poem brought to you by the subject lines of the crap in my work email:

floated down
scissor ocean
in the lost continent

It's kind of sad that the malicious malware infected spam is some of the most interesting reading in my work email.

sesquicentennial

Read an interesting article about the upcoming sesquicentennial of the Civil War. I was reminded that I'd thought it would be fun to get back to Gettysburg for that. But being who I am I considered reasons for not doing it, one of which was, well it would be more fun to be there for the bicentennial. Then I realized that I will almost certainly be dead when that rolls around. Barring the singularity or any other wacky sci-fi shit that I am not banking on. Yup I'll be dead. I won't be. So it's 150 or nothing. There's a reason for a trip!

It's a smash!

Oh those British critics can make me laugh:

"Hulk. Smash!" Yes. Hulk. Smash. Yes. Smash. Big Hulk smash. Smash cars. Buildings. Army tanks. Hulk not just smash. Hulk also go rarrr! Then smash again. Smash important, obviously. Smash Hulk's USP. What Hulk smash most? Hulk smash all hope of interesting time in cinema. Hulk take all effort of cinema, effort getting babysitter, effort finding parking, and Hulk put great green fist right through it. Hulk crush all hopes of entertainment.

The bit about Tim Roth's ambiguous groin is especially amusing, and the conclusion wise: "Film take away two hours of critic's life. Critic not get time back. Ever. Rarrrrr."

soup

It's a good thing that no one but me is here at work tonight because there are tears running down my face. And I am out of breath. Nothing has made me laugh this hard in a long time. I wish I could say why. I'm pretty sure whoever did this is a little g genius.

roots...

I don't generally talk much about politics here, but I had a depressing reaction to this Washington Post article about the virulent racism Obama volunteers have experienced. Most of the incidents the article recounts occurred in Indiana and Pennsylvania. I'm from Pennsylvania of course and I knew that Obama would lose the state--I was actually pleasantly surprised that the margin was not larger. This article bothered me because everything felt so familiar to me. Painfully familiar. Intolerance, bigotry, xenophobia, racism, that's where I'm from.

The Beverly Hillbillies reconsidered

For whatever reason, I have, on several occasions of late, found myself watching reruns of The Beverly Hillbillies. I remember liking it and I have been reminded why. The writers rightly recognized that plot is fairly unimportant in a twenty-plus minute situational comedy. Instead they aimed for absurd humor and incisive social commentary. They mostly succeeded on both fronts. They also had a philosophical streak. Honest, it's there. If I were ever to have to try and teach causality to undergrads again, I do believe I would make them watch an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies.

let me explain...

You see, I am trying out this new wonder of technology whereby I can email posts to the old blog. Probably not new to some of you, but I don't make it a point to keep up with all the latest doohickies and whatnot. I do get an occasional urge and thus...I can now communicate the most minute and unimportant of thoughts without having to bother with all the blogger rigamarole.

one small step

toward utter triviality!

ah, fuck it.

oh boy

I'm sorry but I can't resist. This is just too fucking funny.

3/5/08: my white pain

After acquiring a Masters Degree that will not increase their salary or hiring desirability, many white people will move on to a PhD program where they will go after their dream of becoming a professor. However, by their second year they usually wake up with a hangover and realize: “I’m going to spend six years in graduate school to make $35,000 and live in the middle of nowhere?”

After this crisis, a white person will follow one of two paths. The first involves dropping out and moving to New York, San Francisco or their original home town where they can resume the job that they left to attend graduate school.

In my case, this is just true enough to hurt. It leaves out divorce, horrible depression and substance abuse but that probably just confirms my whiteness.

1/30/08: My name ain't Earl!

My white trash cousin Jake from Philly came to visit recently. He's a great shame to the family but I enjoy his company. He fit right in at Billy Bob's, my favorite bar out in Tucker. He even managed to score a half-gallon of hand-crafted North Georgia moonshine while he was here.

puppies make me happy

This picture made me happy today. That's right. Puppies. Boxer puppies. Maybe you don't like puppies. Because you're a monster. I like puppies. And sometimes pictures of puppies cheer me up.

21st century American theology?

"My God is a God who wants me to have things. He wants me to bling. He wants me to be the hottest thing on the block."
Mary J. Blige

better call him up...

Jesus on the mainline

tell him what you want...

I have fifty a piece on the Bears, Rams, and Chargers and I need to win them all. This will keep the Dark One, Sallie Mae, from claiming my soul for a few weeks. I would like to end my day enjoying the affections of a beautiful young lady.

Done and done. What a swell Sunday. Thanks Jesus.

Better call him up and tell him what you want.

Alito and ideology

This Alito guy is an interesting case:

• In February, Alito wrote an opinion that reopened the case of a black murder defendant in Pennsylvania because the prosecutor had removed 13 of 14 blacks from the jury pool. This strongly suggests racial bias had infected the trial, Alito said.

• Last fall, overturning a federal judge, Alito ordered a school district to allow an emotionally troubled New Jersey boy to transfer from a school where he was harassed by "bullies" who called him fat and "queer" and threw rocks at him outside class. Alito said school officials had ignored the effect of "the severe and prolonged harassment" on the young man.

• In April, he spoke for the appeals court in reopening the asylum request of a Chinese woman who showed evidence she had been forced to have an abortion before fleeing China.

• In September, Alito ruled for public housing tenants in Philadelphia who said officials had violated their contract by raising their gas rates during the year.

Doesn't sound like the lowest common denominator conservatism of the Limbaugh/Delay/Dobson crowd. Everyone who worked for him seems to agree that he is no ideologue. So is the LCDC crowd all hopped up simply because he is not pro-choice in his personal leanings? If abortion is the driving issue of politics as professional wrestling in America, what will people do when technology eventually makes it a moot point?

addendum: A Washington Post editorial points out that Alito's abortion rulings are not as simple to read as simpletons on both sides of the debate would like to claim.

...Judge Alito's record on abortion is more complicated than the caricatures would suggest. His opinions imply a discomfort with legal abortion and suggest that he may be more willing than Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to uphold restrictions on abortion. But his writings also reflect an effort to diligently apply Supreme Court precedent in a changing and controversial area of law. They offer no definitive word as to how he would vote on whether to overrule Roe if presented with an opportunity.

Step Right Up

I find it depressing that one of the best-selling non-fiction books in our country--16 weeks on the NYT bestseller list and currently #21 at Amazon--is a pathetic mix of conspiracy mongering, psuedo-science and new-age bullshit that all adds up to good old fashioned con artistry. How fitting then, that it's author is indeed an ex-con. That his whole schtick is so painfully transparent--the book itself is little more than an advertisement for his websites which of course require paid memberships to view--has not dissuaded the many Americans who paid for this load of snake oil. This profile of the author in today's WaPost distressed me. Part of me figures that anyone dumb enough to swallow this deserves what they get.* But there sure are a lot of them and that seems to imply something ominous about the state of our culture.

*Alright, I'm not a complete curmudgeon. It troubles me that some of the people buying this book are sick people who will get a lot sicker if they follow its advice. And all the while this vile fucker is getting richer everyday.

nefarious theories

Ok, I think I've got it straight. Hurricane Katrina, indeed the entire recent onslaught of hurricanes, was caused by the Yakuza using technology originally invented by Tesla. Sounds a bit peculiar, granted, but hey...there's proof. Heheh.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – A Pocatello weatherman who gained attention for an unusual theory that Hurricane Katrina was caused by the Japanese mafia using a Russian electromagnetic generator has quit the television station.

You can read the whole article here. And better yet, you can see this weatherman's website here.

Of course there are alternative theories. It might not be the Japanese mafia, it might be...you'll never guess...the government of the United States of America:

One U.S. project that is looked on with deep suspicion by the weather control crowd is the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Gakona, Alaska. The government-run web site for this project states that its goal is "to further advance our knowledge of the physical and electrical properties of the Earth's ionosphere."

To those who are wary of government activities and familiar with the legends around Tesla's weather control research, this remote site with its huge array of radio antenna bouncing electrical waves around in the ionosphere seems awfully darn suspicious, and dangerous.

You can read the whole thing in the Macon Telegraph, which apparently is tuned in to some of the stranger frequencies coming from the world of conspiracy theories. You should also check out the HAARP website, but mysteriously, when I tried to open it, it wouldn't. So I can't provide a link right now. Clearly nefarious forces are at work. Or just google HAARP for all sorts of...fun?

I probably should not poke fun given my own lowgrade weather schizophrenia,* but this shit always gets me. The truth is there ARE nefarious forces at work in the world. We all know that. And I have no doubt that the military is sinking lots and lots of money into weather research and would in fact desperately love to be able to control the weather. But ominous forces who secretly control the world are not the root fear that informs conspiratorial thinking. Nope. In fact, they are a preferable alternative to a more potent set of fears. Namely that we are living in a world in which we have no real control and are subject to destructive natural forces that are completely indifferent to our suffering, our fear, and our hope and that therefore imply that there is nothing at all behind any of this. No God, no Karma, no meaning. Nothing. And that, for many of us, is the ultimate horror. So the conspiracy theory serves as a patchwork solution to an urgent metaphysical and existential dilemma by providing a narrative, the hope of resolution and the promise of some larger purpose that might redeem our suffering.

Or maybe that's just what THEY want me to think.

* Given my propensity to obsess over, and complain about, the weather I feel I should acknowledge that September was a beautiful month here. Warm and dry and not too hot. I shall remember it fondly come February and March.

morning reading...

"What a book a Devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low & horridly cruel works of Nature. My God, how I long for my stomach's sake to wash my hands of it."

That's Darwin. A little grim.

The following is our president. A little funny. (Ok, it's actually a poem pieced together from things W has said--the assembly by Richard Thompson of the Washington Post. You may have seen this before, but it's the first time I'd seen it and it made me chuckle):

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER!

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet
Become more few?

How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.

I know that the human being
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope,
Where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!

Make the pie higher!