The Great Abyss

Shortly will another year
Pass away and disappear
Set thine house in order, man
Life is but a fleeting span

The end of another year is usually the time to look back at the momentous events of the past 12 months. It is also the time to take stock of one's mortality, especially if that one is at the post-child rearing, looking-forward-to-retirement in another decade or two age. And with thoughts of mortality comes the question of what's next after mortality.

To fully explore my current state of mind on this subject, it is helpful to go back to the beginning of my religious indoctrination. We are all subject to this, every child in every society. It is a tradition and, like our political views, our religious beliefs are inculcated by our parents and then either accepted without question and clung to forever, or rejected. Or something in between.

As a child I was raised "Roman Catholic". This was my parents' religion, and it was of course, their parents' religion. But my mother had a falling out with some priest over some issue before I was born, so we didn't attend church regularly. My mother's mantra was "I believe in God, but I don't believe in the Church". Although I was baptized and went to catechism, my religious experience was pretty much limited to praying every night to a small statue of the Virgin Mary on a bureau in my room. I prayed the Lord's prayer and often added an addendum prayer to please watch over me and my family. Sometimes I would make a special request, such as asking to let me do well in a little league baseball game the next day. Eventually, I developed a social conscience, and my faith in religion as a force of good was severely eroded by the wars and suffering it caused. Then there were the unsettling questions like how there could be so many religions if there was only one God. The realization came to me that religion was a ritualized superstition, gradually discarded as I got older and more widely-read. Prayer was left unsaid except for an emergency, basically when someone's life was in danger and science and technology in their current state were being stretched to the limit. My faith had gradually been transferred to laws of physics as I learned of them and better understood them. The supernatural was still lurking there behind the curtains of the natural world.

So it remained until my final religious epiphany came. Fittingly, it happened on a mountaintop. A mountaintop dedicated to scientific exploration; Cero Tololo in northern Chile, an observatory overlooking the Pacific Ocean. With little humidity, far from any cities, and at several thousand feet elevation, the sky is dark. So dark that the Milky Way galaxay, our island of life and light in the vast and eternal darkness of space, casts a shadow on the ground when the center of the galaxy shines directly overhead. From this perspective, you can see our galaxy as any other more distant edge on galaxy. There are one hundred billion galaxies like ours, with one hundred billion stars each. The image presented is profound and awe inspiring to the very core of your being. What are the odds we are the only ones alive and that someone, somewhere else isn't looking back from this void? I was inspired to write a poem from this experience.

From solid ground I stare
Upwards through the Great Abyss
Asking the meaning of creation
Seeking acknowledgement of struggle

But this infinite power
Whose sparse molecules shined above
Gave nothing more of an answer than
Overpowering, Silent Ambivalence

I demanded redemption from the void
To have my nearly impossible random chance
of Existence given a momentary glance but

The gaze never shifted
It looked away and past
On parallel paths
Unable to receive me

And yet I felt not rejection
But the most profound acceptance
As part of Creation
And a part of the infinite

Love in a vacuum
Redemption in space


Our molecules, in fact all elements heavier than hydrogen or helium, were forged by the pressure and heat at the center of a long dead star. That, and many other wondrous processes described by the laws of physics, is how and why we exist. We need no other purpose than that we appoint to ourselves, for better or worse. The concept of religion became something new, and something very distant on the night I got my answer on that mountain.

Change you Can Deceive With?

Well, you knew it was coming. The day of reckoning. And I'm not talking about November 2010 and the mid-term elections. I'm talking about the growing feeling that President Obama has become one of THEM, rather than one of US. A Washington insider/Wall Street water carrier like all his predecessors, which he promised not to be (like all his predecessors). I must admit, I never expected a radical change from what had gone before. If you go back and read some of what I wrote in 2008, you will see that I never expected even a slight change in the most importnant policies. So I am not disappointed.

No, I never believed in much of Candidate Barack Obama's promises to forge a new kinder, gentler brand of capitalistic economy. Only young, idealistic people who hadn't been around long enough to become old and cynical actually fell for the schtick. Now they are learning the hard way, the Rahm Emmanuel way, of how it is Wall Street uber alles. And the rest of us get no bailout, only empty speeches.

What irks me is not the fact that it is business as usual. What irks me is that there is no need for business as usual and every need to break with the past. There is a dramatic, pressing need to chart a bold new course away from the Wall Street chicanary and towards a self-sustaining economy based on paying people a living wage. Candidate Barack Obama needs to find President Barack Obama and give him a good dose of soaring rhetoric from last year's campaign trail. Or forget them both and let's exhume the withering, skeletal remains of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to give some life to actual change worth believing in.

As it stands, there's far too many entrenched, powerful bastions of corruption in the way of real reform. What is making people angry these days is the lack of fire coming from the White House directed at these bastions, and the unnecessary capitulations towards them without putting up any fight whatsoever.

Then there is the whole, baffling effort at bi-partisanship. What is the point of trying to placate people who will not only never support you, but actually do everything they could to obstruct what you are trying to do? That doesn't make you look magnanimous, it makes you look WEAK, if not downright foolish. The lastest fiasco along these lines is another disgusting cave-in to Joe Lieberman. Instead of letting him play God with thousands of peoples' lives, Obama should tell him to get on board...or else. Remind him that you gave him support in his primary challenge and that he was allowed to keep committe chairs DESPITE his campaigning for Republicans. Tell him that his ass is OUT and that every Democratic resource will be used AGAINST him in 2012 if he decides to oppose actual health care reform. This is supposedly the Rahm way of doing things. We need to see some of that right now. Or else you can bring back the Republicans in 2010 and the country can go into a real depression. Torches and pitchforks, anyone?

Santa's Elves: Always on the Move

Ahh the Christmas season, when the birth of the almost-officially state-sanctioned Messiah is honored by the mass purchase of toxic-painted plastic from across the wide, wide ocean. As one of the Wise Men said, "cheap labor maketh the world go 'round". And so those good, sturdy Taiwanese and Mexican toys we fondly recall from our youth are now a memory. One wonders where in the world the source of our grandkids' amusement will come from when such junk can be churned out more quickly and cheaply in another dank and dangerous elve's sweatshop.

Out

Call 202-456-1111 ASAP and tell the President to dial back the Cheney/Bush looting of the treasury and sacrificing on the altar of the MIC even one more life in a self-defeating war. End the bullshit. Now.

Half the Story Has Never Been Told (Until Now)

Thanks to Howard Zinn for writing the definitive "People's History of the United States" and bringing this work to television next month on the History Channel. For those unfamiliar with the book here's a quick review.

We have of course read countless versions of the standard scholastic historical texts telling us about the Founding Fathers throwing off the yoke of British colonialism, and establishing a paradise on earth of freedom and liberty. Here is the other, darker and more realistically detailed side of the story. A chapter titled "A Kind of Revolution" details the exact how and why of the merchant/plantation owner quest for self determination that resulted in annual commemorative fireworks displays. Similarly illuminating are chapters on the Civil War, which was fought at least as much for the interests of northern industrialists as it was for the issue of slavery, and the mobilization of workers during the awful conditions of exploitation in the late 19th/early 20th century industrial age. The epic labor struggles are included here and are from a perspective that is seldom if ever seen; that of those on the other side of the National Guard bayonet charges. Yes, believe it or not, governors and presidents of these United States used our own military to crush strikes and kill workers at that time. Why is this part of U.S. history barely mentioned or completely ommitted from most history texts? Later chapters bring us up to date on how both political parties have essentially melded into one when it comes to foreign policy and the barons of Wall Street. A cursory look at the day's headlines proves the veracity of the line of reasoning that is present throughout the book. An added bonus is the classic quotes peppered throughout the text from all eras. These allow the voices from the other side of the story to be heard loud and clear across so many years. This should be required reading in all schools. But especially in those places that want to teach Creationism.

Go here to get more information on the upcoming TV show.

Please Don't Eff This Up (Any more than you have to)

A quick couple requests of some top Democrats: Harry Reid would you for once in your life please stop being such an ineffectual wussie. Barack Obama would you please tell the Republicans to either get on board or go jump off a damn cliff already. Get this DONE and get it done THIS MONTH.

That is all.

Nostalgia

Why do things always seem better after you are 10 years removed from the situation? Music, relationships, life in general...all seem so much better once they are all relegated to the cobwebbed section of your mind. Memory has a way of erasing the negative and accentuating the positive. If only the mind would allow things to look so shiny/happy when you are actually living in the moment. Anyway, I always wondered why when I hear a song that brings me back a decade or more, I get this warm, fuzzy feeling when I know damn well I had just as many problems and worries (and probably more) than I do now. At least I can tell myself I am older and wiser than I was back in the day. So here is Lyte and Missy taking me back to the '90s groove. Ahh the 1990s, things were soooo much better then. Yeah right! Well actually the music was MUCH better than the crap passing for entertainment these days. That much no one can argue with!

Why Can't We be "Too Big to Fail"?

Banks get bailed out, people get kicked out. That's a lesson I learned during the financial crisis of the past year. I have seen families in my town go through the humiliation of having their furniture carried out and piled near the curb in the rain. Some of them were kicked out the day before Thanksgiving last year. The scene has been repeated ad nauseum and continues to this day, while 2 trillion dollars of our tax money is largely unaccounted for. This was money given to the banks by their buddies, in our name, to not only help the biggest (read greediest) of them stay solvent, but also to ostensibly give loans to people who need them. The only chunk of that 2 trillion that has resurfaced has been in the form of big bonuses for Wall Street execs! What a surprise! Did we truly expect anything less, given the track record of these people who, thanks to the revolving door between big business and government, are all intimately interconnected?

Meanwhile, the foreclosures continue with no end in sight. Disappointingly, but not really unexpectedly, the policies of the current administration are all too similar to Bush and Clinton before, which is why it is so laughable and frustrating to hear the wingnuts call President Obama a socialist. Here's the socialism he is presiding over: The ill-advised speculative risks of large financial corporations are socialized, while the ill-advised financial decisions of the underclass are paid in full. And the cost to them includes the emotional trauma of the innocents; children whose lives are disrupted. How do you even put a price on that?

If you are in or near Chicago this weekend, let the bankers know you are paying attention.

Please make this STOPPPPPPP

Some of you may have seen this story. It goes to the heart of my problem with the fashion industry, i.e., their continuing attacks against women and girls' self-image by pushing these unreal (literally) photos of glamorous stick figure-women. My question here is...who really thinks the feminine ideal should be that of a prepubescent boy? Besides child molesters. No heterosexual man would find a bony ass attractive (unless they are hung like a fruit fly, but I digress). Real men want curves, especially in the hips and butt area! I apologize in advance if this sounds homophobic or anti-caucasian, but I think the problem comes from two places...old white women and gay men. They are the two demographics that dominate the fashion industry here and in Europe and they are the ones imposing these ideas of the feminine ideal on the rest of us. These old Salukis (google it) hang out at the gym and starve themselves to maintain as flat an ass as possible and they expect women of child bearing age to look just as dried up and barren as they do. Gay men like the young, svelte, narrow-hipped boy look. So young women are brainwashed to the point of anorexia and bulimia to meet these standards. I've had enough of this bullshit! Bring back real women models with butts and breasts NOOOOOWWW!!

Their Money or Your Life

The United States is the laughingstock of the world these days, thanks to the health insurance companies that have thoroughly subjugated our democracy. The changes that the large majority of people want are being drowned out by a lunatic fringe that represents about 3 percent of the population. Meanwhile, thousands of people die every year thanks to the for-profit industry that dominates health care in this country. This state of affairs is nothing short of domestic terrorism, and it is supported by some Democrats and virtually all Republicans, who are being showered with one million dollars a day to keep things exactly the way they are. Washington, D.C. has proven itself again as nothing more than the world's largest whorehouse. Then there is the wonderful mainstream media, which is conglomerated with the same insurance companies that brought us this horror show. Which explains why they don't ask one obvious question: Why can we have trillion dollar wars, yet we can't have single payer or the public option? Why don't we hear anything about the deficit when the next 100 billion dollars leaves the treasury for Iraq and Afghanistan? No, we only hear about it when it comes to actually saving people's lives rather than killing them. What a disgusting joke of a civilization we have allowed ourselves to become!

The Real Swine Flu: Why Capitalism Must be Eradicated From the Face of the Earth

Here's the state of the nation on May Day 2009: the financial terrorists that ruined the global economy still aren't in jail. In fact, not only are the immune from criminal prosecution, they have been rewarded. With our money. Billions of dollars of our money. The so-called socialists in our government gave it to them. It seems hard to believe, until you realize how things work here. While the less fortunate (lower class schmucks) die from lack of adequate health care, the power brokers in the world of finance own both political parties and all the branches and of our federal government and get to be bailed out on our trillions of dimes. It's a good thing most people aren't paying attention or there just might be a real revolution here. We can always blame the Mexicans for spreading some scary virus or whatever other diversion CNN is trumpeting. It helps to get our minds off our retirement/college funds being wiped out and our home foreclosed on.

April is National Shooting Spree Month: Have you hugged your Assault Weapon lately?

"I'm not afraid of Al Queda, I'm afraid of Al Cracka"

~ Chris Rock

Ahhh Springtime, the time of flower blossoms, birds singing...and violent, bloody, bullet-riddled rampages. Why is it that a time of year known for the renewal and promise of life is also the time most likely to result in mass murders? The sad litany of place names includes Waco, Columbine, Oklahoma City, Virginia Tech, and about a dozen more places have been added so far this month. The problem appears to be that we we have a lot of guns and a lot of crazy people, and we tend to allow that combination to occur more often than most places on earth. But it's more than just crazy people, it's a societal ill that is borne out especially harshly this year. With the economy tanking, the alienation and contradictions of a very cold system of competition is intensified. Not only has the safety net for the lowest 98 percent of the economic order been torn away in the last 30 years of bipartisan attacks on us native working schmucks, but the fallout from the loan scams have added to the ferment. Things get bleaker each Spring it seems as the greedfest of Wall Street is relied upon by our government to drive the economy. As long as that remains the case, and there is NO sign of it changing anytime soon, the Easter Bunny will need to wear kevlar.

Another scary development is the recent gun buying binge of right wing lunatics. These are the people that are genuinely afraid that Obama is a Muslim who will outlaw the Jesus-declared right to own a machine gun, and then ship them off to concentration camps where their women flowers will be pollinated by swarthy Muhammadians or some such outrage. So they stock up on ammo and semi-automatic weaponry. The good news is that statistically they are much more likely to accidentally kill themselves than purposefully kill anyone else, but the bad news is that they remain a danger to innocent family members and to you and I. If only the authors of the Second Amendment could have foreseen these nutjobs and edited the document to read:

A well regulated Militia*, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

* a well regulated Militia does NOT refer to some beer-swilling yahoo with his car up on blocks and an old washing machine on his front porch who wants an assault rifle because he thinks he saw a black "heldicopter" watching him!

Our Long National Nightmare Continues: Neocons Still in Control

"Now is the time...for Babylon to fall"
~Aswad, "Three Babylon"

The very cautiously tepid attempts of the Obama foreign policy team to give the appearance of being a sea change from the strident genocidal maniacs of their predecessors are a sure sign that U.S. foreign policy is still firmly plowing down the same disastrous path at nearly the same speed. The Neocon agenda is the de facto bipartisan agenda of our foreign policy, which is largely controlled by two main forces, transnational capital and Zionism. That much has not changed one bit and until it does, there will be nothing to celebrate for the long suffering of the world.

So it is safe to assume that all the worst aspects of our entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan will not be brought to any real conclusion in the next decade, or longer. More blood and treasure will be lost in the drifting sands of time. New fronts will open up with new conflicts as regions are made safe for those who control the flow of international capital. Meanwhile, there are some positive developments in Africa and Latin America where democracy continues apace in providing change we can actually believe in.

The repressive policies of the IMF and World Bank that caused so many financial meltdowns in Africa and Latin America, the so called "emerging nations", are being soundly rejected and sent to the dustbin of history. These nations are now truly emerging as they throw out the representatives of corrupt oligarchy and the policies of their puppetmasters. For the first time since the Monroe Doctrine, we are actually letting the people decide how they shall be governed without invasions, coups and assassinations in our self-annointed sphere of influence. We have gone an entire 5 years without forcing a coup in this hemisphere! An incredibly long time for us. Perhaps we are finally reaching a new level of maturity and "leaving such childish things behind"?

If only we would be as wise and mature in our dealings with the problems in the Mid-East.

The Pressing Need for an American Nuremberg

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

~Robert Jackson, chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg

Forget about the economy...for now. Forget about the environment...for now. Forget about every pressing issue that has resulted from 8 years of disastrous policies. The single most important item on the agenda of the incoming administration is the prosecution of members of the current administration for torture and other war crimes. This must be at the very top of the list. Nothing takes precedence over this country declaring it is a civilized nation that does not allow its leaders to initiate wars of aggression or to torture prisoners. The invasion and occupation of Iraq, based on "faulty intelligence" was a con game that had the explicit support of many Republicans and the implicit support of many Democrats. The international community and most people in this country are well aware that this is an international crime, perhaps the worst since the United States involvement in Southeast Asia. In additions to the thousands of deaths and injuries that have resulted from the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the United States has been torturing prisoners and subjecting others to rendition to other countries that have tortured them. If we let those guilty of these crimes go unpunished we not only set a dangerous and unnacceptable precedent for the future, but have also permanently decreased our international standing as a country interested in the most basic form of justice.

There is very important history to be made in the next few months. We must demand our leaders to be wise and brave enough to forge ahead in what is right and just. We must demand those guilty of torture and war cimes be prosecuted.

Go to this link and demand that the incoming administration prosecutes those responsible for the war of aggression against Iraq and for the torture of prisoners. We must restore some sense of morality as a nation before we can do anything else.

I'm Declaring War on Dumbfuckistan

My official declaration of war, made just moments ago:

From my base camp in America, before it's too late, I announce with solemn heart, weary mind and indomitable spirit, that I do hereby declare a state of war with the place in the human mind known as Dumbfuckistan. This decision is neither made lightly, nor in haste. Indeed, this state of affairs has been building for eight long years now, and that slow percolation only recently resulted in the pressure needed to set off an all out explosion, a desparate need for action. It is indeed a desparate state of affairs that the country is on the precipice of renouncing even it's lofty words of attempting to be interested in equality of opportunity. So we have come to this; religion used as a blunt instrument of force to secure a future for well to do Republicans. Identity politics used to divide and conquer a low income, low information lower class programmed to think in Balkanized terms of self-disenfranchisement. I am thus consumed with a righteous hatred. No, I don't hate the average Dumbfuckistani, who is for the most part a passive, grazing creature, sometimes even amiable, but nonetheless more dangerous in its ignorance than any other beast on the Plains or in the mountain forests. My hatred is reserved for the state of mind fog that the Dumbfuckistani remains in, even after being painfully raped and violently mugged for nearly a decade. It is this that must be eradicated, and given no quarter. For desparate times require desparate actions, and I must take up mental and moral arms against the virulent corruption, environmental destruction, torture, state terror, perverted Christianity, bald-faced lies, incompetence due to cronyism, war profiteering, etc., etc.,that the Dumbfuckistanis have allowed to fester for 8 years too long. This is war, a total war, an all-consuming war. It is war that has been fought before in this country. It is a war recognized by the Founders as altogether necessary when times require. Now is one of those times, and I am confident in the victory...of good over evil!

What Would YOU Do

What would you do if you
Knew all of the things we knew
Would you stand up for truth
Or would you turn away too
And then what if you saw
All of the things that's wrong
Would you stand tall and strong
Or would you turn and walk away

I see a message from the government, like every day
I watch it, and listen, and call 'em all suckas'
They warnin' me about Osama or whatever
Picture me buyin' this scam I said "never"

Now ask yourself who's the people with the most to gain (Bush)
'fore 911 motherfuckas couldn't stand his name (Bush)
Now even niggas wavin' flags like they lost they mind
Everybody got opinions but don't know the time
'Cause Amerikkka's been took - it's plain to see
The oldest trick in the book is make an enemy
A phony evil so the government can do its dirt
And take away ya freedom lock and load, beat and search
Ain't nothin' changed but more colored people locked in prison
These pigs still beat us, but it seem we forgettin'
But I remember 'fore September how these devils do it
Fuck Giuliani, ask Diallo how he doin'
We in the streets holla- 'jail to the thief' - follow
Fuck wavin' flags bring these dragons to they knees
Oil blood money makes these killers ride cold
Suspicious suicides people dyin' never told
It's all a part of playin' God so ya think we need 'em
While 'Bin Ashcroft' take away ya rights to freedom
Bear witness to the sickness of these dictators
Hope you understand the time brother cause it's major
So now you askin why my records always come the same
Keep it real, ain't no fillers, motherfucka blingin'
Mine eyes seen the gory of the coming of the beast
So every story every word I'm sayin' 'Fuck Peace'
See you could witness the Illuminati body count
Don't be surprised these is devils that I'm talkin' bout
You think a couple thousand lives mean shit to killers?
Nigga I swear to God we the ones - ain't no villains
Or any other word they think to demonize a country
Ain't no terror threat unless approval ratings slumpin'
So I'ma say it for the record we the ones that planned it
Ain't no other country took a part or had they hand in
It's all a way to keep ya scared so you think you need'em
Praisin' Bush while that killer take away ya freedom
How many of us got discovered but ignore the symptoms?
Niggaz talkin' loud but ain't nobody sayin' shit'
And with the 4th Amendment gone eyes are on the 1st
That's why I'm spittin' cyanide each and every verse
I see the Carlyle group and Harris Bank Accounts
I see 'em plead the 5th each and every session now
And while Reichstag burns I see the public buy it
I see the profilin see the media's compliance
War is good for business see the vicious make a savior
Hope you understand the time brother cause its major

Batshit Crazy

The elections of 2008 are rapidly approaching and bringing a looming sense of guarded optimism. Well they were until recently. Now they have the added bonus of comedy.

The Republican Party has finally gone totallly insane. Mind you, they are still evil and capable of scaring enough low information voters to make the 2008 elections a lot closer than they should be. But they have reached a level of desparation that is actually heartening to see. The choice of "Mooselini" to the ticket was bizarre. Until you realize that Creationists/Rapturists make up a large part of their vote. I'm not sure whether that's funny or scary. It was very scary that in 2004 this group gave us four more disastrous years. But Americans are not that stupid anymore! They won't fall for the same bullshit as they did four years ago.

I hope.

Dick Cheney is the One True Antichrist

I got a chain email a while ago from a Hillary supporter that claims Obama is the Antichrist. Recently, as expected, the wingnuts have been reviving the meme since Obama hasn't assuaged their fears that he is not a true warmongering, torture-endorsing, tax-protesting, electric chair switch-pulling nutcase disciple of Jesus Christ, Our (Their perverted) Lord and Savior.

What's truly amazing is that wingnuts are so into projection and have been so out of touch with reality for so effing long is that they can call Obama, someone who actually is not out to destroy the world, the antichrist, whilst they ignore the mass murders and economic catastrophes foisted on the world and nation of our own Dick Darth Duck! Mutherfukkin' Cheney. A guy who has so much clout he can shoot someone in the face and make THEM apologize TO HIM for it. Think about it. That's right, think. Something the wingnuts and the corporate media have conditioned us not to do. As the classic blues song goes: That's EVIL, evil is going on wrong!

So wingnuts, please spare us the pathetic projection and STFU for the next several months...no make that decades. Thanks.

On Olympic Coverage and My Grand Plan for the Future of Telecommunications

NBC's Olympic coverage so far has been less than impressive. In fact, it's been a steaming pile of bullshit. I wanna see real Olympic sports like boxing, sprints, long jumping, etc. Not water polo or horse riding or fucking volleyball. Especially not volleyball, which has been on wall to wall coverage today. They spent 6 hours on indoor volleyball then another 6 on beach volleyball. Who gives a fuck!? The entire premise there is to set up a spike. That's it. That's the entire strategy. Jesus hopping Christ on a pogo stick, they broadcast 12 hours of that today! Setting up a spike!

Why are there so many lame ass sports that have been added to the Olympics in recent years? Badminton!? This is a gold medal sport? WTF is next, lawn jarts and bocce ball? Who wants to see this shit? Do soccer moms really wanna see this? Is that who NBC is pandering to? There's GOTTA be a way to see the sports I wanna see, w/o having this shit dictated to me. Here's my idea:

INTERACTIVE TELEVISION.

Imagine combining your PC and TV and picking ANY sporting event (or movie, or music video) that you want to see ANY time you want to see it. It would be like Youtube, except better. You can get anything that exists in all the archives of all the entertainment outlets, anything that was ever recorded. There would be a kickass search function, better than google, that would identify that long ago song or movie whose name you can't quite remember, but all you had to do was type in (your TV would come with a keyboard/text message/remote type thing that I haven't fully thought out yet) and voila! There's that movie you saw when you were a kid that you vaguely recall, but always wanted to see again. And of course, it would also allow you to bypass the crappy excuses for Olympic sports that saturate NBC's current Olympic coverage and let you get right to the stuff you want to see. Freedom of choice! Where is it? Is this not the land of the free!? Interactive TV now!!

Thank you internet for letting me vent.

On Presidential Role Models

“It’s impossible for a chicken to produce a duck egg. It can only produce according to what that particular system was constructed to produce. The system in this country cannot produce freedom for the Afro-American. It is impossible for this system, this economic system, this political system, this social system, this system period. ...And if ever a chicken did produce a duck egg, you would say it was certainly a revolutionary chicken.”
~Malcolm X

“What can a cloth suit tell me about the wealth of a soul?”
~ Randell Robinson

This presidential election of 2008, still being decided, has often been spoken of in terms of history. Even more so, it has been constantly spoken of, by virtually all the candidates as a watershed for "change". In actuality, barring a miracle, the only historical change that there may be...maybe... someone other than a white male elected President of the United States this year. This change, important yet ultimately superficial, in these days of greatly diminished expectations, is cause for rapturous awe, and a strange mix of delirious optimism and great anxiety. We have given up on a fair system. We have long given up on even a slightly less bloodthirsty imperialism (which we are actually supposed to be proud of!) All we have to hope for is a symbolic victory, one that gaurantees no substantive change in policy in terms of what really matters.

I will not downplay the power of the symbolism. The United States, with something other than a white male as president, will look a lot different. It will even feel a lot different. Alas, I fear it won't actually be much different. We will have a duck as president. Perhaps a female duck, or a black duck, but a duck just the same. This system can only produce one species. Only if we change the internal workings of the system or the interaction with the environment can we force a mutation. We are told to hope...to wish for...to dream of...this significant change. For in 2008, the greatest expectation is a role model that will inspire the next generation to actually accomplish the substantive change that is needed now and has been needed for many past generations. This is what diminished expecations give you...dreams deferred. No thank you. I won't believe in presidential role models until there is some substantive reason for believing.