temporary full june, 2021 backup archive (not source material - to be permanently deleted when pdf uploads)

saturday, january 1, 2022

sunday, january 2, 2022

monday, january 3, 2022

tuesday, january 4, 2022

wednesday, january 5, 2022

thursday, january 6, 2022

friday, january 7, 2022

saturday, january 8, 2022

sunday, january 9, 2022

monday, january 10, 2022

tuesday, january 11, 2022

wednesday, january 12, 2022

thursday, january 13, 2022

friday, january 14, 2022

saturday, january 15, 2022

sunday, january 16, 2022

monday, january 17, 2022

tuesday, january 18, 2022

wednesday, january 19, 2022

thursday, january 20, 2022

friday, january 21, 2022

saturday, january 22, 2022

sunday, january 23, 2022

monday, january 24, 2022

tuesday, january 25, 2022

wednesday, january 26, 2022

thursday, january 27, 2022

friday, january 28, 2022

saturday, january 29, 2022

sunday, january 30 2022

monday, january 31, 2022

so, i should just focus on finishing the clean for right now and get to doing things on friday.

i mentioned before that it's just a handful of papers left. really. then i can get back to a normal once a month cleaning routine...

i can find some clinics that are open, but the blood labs are closed, so i'll need to wait until friday, anyways.

you know, i thought everything was closed tomorrow, and everything is actually open. can i find a clinic open?

the reason this bill didn't pass is that the government didn't want to pass it.

the idea that the conservatives - who have 20 seats in the senate - were able to block the conversion therapy bill is absolute bullshit.

the liberals in the senate, whatever they call themselves nowadays, could have easily overruled the conservatives, had they decided to - and if they weren't stupidly split into competing factions.

is the heat wave in the west due to climate change? if so, why now?

over the last five or six years, we are at a low in the solar cycle, which meant that polar air was pushing down into north america, blocking some of the effects of the warming oceans. what you had was this epic battle, and the oceans generally won, but it kept the warming in check.

now, the solar cycle is entering an uptick, which is going to bottle up the cold air into the polar regions and allow the warming oceans to wreak havoc. and, these are the kinds of things we're going to see more often.

the solar cycle will flip back in time, but the damage may already be done, if the feedback cycles kick in.

so, this is the time frame that we actually have - 12 years or so. that's all we've got.

so, where was i?

i was finishing cleaning. that's step one, tonight - and it actually shouldn't take too long.

so, i slept all day again. i guess i needed a lot of rest.

it rained this morning, but i could have salvaged the second part of the day if i didn't sleep through it :(.

tomorrow's a stat holiday in canada, and i was hoping to get a lot of things done before it, but i was forced to sleep, instead. it could work out in my favour if i'm up bright and early on friday morning, as most people won't be.

it's going to cost me $200 to get a celiac test.

i may be able to sequence my genome for $300.

the latter is a better investment, for sure.

fasting for non-medical reasons is retarded.

my gastrin came in at 39, which is lowish but not clinical. i want that more around 50-75 when fasting; it came in at 76 after a meal.

so, i'm not producing as much gastrin as i'd like and that might be some key information, although where i go with it is less clear. 

the osteocalcin came in at 18, which is on the higher end of turnover markers. but, i was fasting, so my body may have been using my bones for minerals. this seems to be a delicate metric - 18 is considered to be normal, 19 is considered to be osteopenia and 22 is considered to be osteoporosis.

i would have liked this number to be a little lower, and the most likely cause is indeed estrogen deficiency combined with not eating. ii wish i had done it without a fast... 

so, should i do it again? not yet - there's other markers to look at that don't cost $70.

so, i tried to wake up this morning and get some things done today and my body just knocked me right out, instead. i put up no resistance, on this day.

having the bone thing clarified lifted somewhat of a weight from me and relieved a lot of stress. i think i needed a hard reset.

but, let's try to have a long day today and get those things done tomorrow, instead.

and, should i get a dna test?

the chart on the right is the data from nhanes that the lab probably should have used. what are the categories? "white male" is not the best for me, probably - something like west asian or mediterranean would be more accurate. but, that -1.9 shifts to a -.5.

the data on the left is about chinese men, and it's almost a flat 0.

final conclusions on this: finish the blood tests and follow through with the endo. get as much data from the lab as is possible. but, i've never broken a bone and should avoid dramatic reactions.

i just need to make sure i'm walking enough. 

that is all.

this is the third machine in that study and would give me a z-score of around -1.1.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Women-femoral-neck-BMD-standard-values-DCS-900_tbl11_236104423

so, using this study as reference, i can construct z-scores of:

-0.87

-1.1

+ 0.78

for normal female reference values, which i'm going to use as a baseline because i'm estrogen dominant and it's the most applicable chemistry.

that suggests that i'm in a normal reference frame for women my age, relative to a reasonable concept of error.

but, i still want the calibration.

ok.

so, that study was about comparing three different machines.

this is from the same study, using a different machine - and is closer to the values i got from the local diagnostic. 

the takeaway is that these machines are doing something rather crude and that, while they may present small standard deviations, they're also operating in a substantive amount of error. you should approach this as a starting point and use some caution.

so, i should follow through with the blood tests, but be a little more relaxed about it - it's probably fine, and there's probably not much i can do, anyways, besides make sure i'm walking in addition to bicycling.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Women-femoral-neck-BMD-standard-values-DPX_tbl8_236104423

this is japanese data, and would suggest my bmd of 0.784 is pretty good for a 40 year-old woman.

i want to standardize the data, though; yes, i could calculate this myself, but i want them to do it so it's calibrated.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Women-femoral-neck-BMD-standard-values-QDR_tbl5_236104423

i still want the following data from the centre, if i can get it:

- under 50 z-scores for white female reference.

am i white? not really - not genetically. this is a great example of the fallacy of doing medical diagnostics on a person based on their skin colour. i haven't had genetic tests, and i don't know if my bone density is likely to be dominated by my white irish genes, my caucasian jewish genes, my central asian finnish genes, my native american genes or my hypothesized malagasy genes. there's absolutely no reason to think that i got the irish genes for bone density just because i have...i actually have a mediterranean type complexion, at least in the summer. i'm not ghastly white....

looking at me and deciding i'm phenotypically white, therefore i have caucasian bones genes is completely fucking absolutely scientifically wrong. but, it's what they did.

regardless, i'm going to ask for a white female reference 'cause whitie's got weakling bones. it's the lowest end of variability.

- t-scores for white male and female references

i can guesstimate it's around -.5 as the difference between a z-score and t-score in context is that the z-score removes the variability in the data for the oldest and weakest. but let's see it.

- z-scores for white male and female references in he next highest age category, presumably ages 50-60. 

biking is great for your heart, which has been my focus because there's heart issues on my dad's side - dead grandfather, dead uncle and probably-would-have-got-him-if-cancer-didn't dead dad. i've known for years that this was my biggest challenge, and my heart is in excellent shape because i addressed it.

i never gave a passing thought to my bone density; now that i have, i need to make sure i'm walking, too, and not just biking everywhere.

so, i'm too relieved to get pissed off.

but, it's a valuable lesson, regardless.

but, as far as i can tell, the best thing i can do for that specific little hip bone is walk more.

my doctor told me over the phone that my lumbar spine t-score was -1.9, using female reference values. he therefore diagnosed me with osteopenia over the phone and scared the fuck out of me.

when i picked up the data from his office yesterday to try to get a better handle on it, i learned that my lumbar spine z-score was -1.2, using male reference values. as a 40 year-old, that is more or less exactly where it ought to be in an "under 50" pool of references - i've had about ten years worth of loss, so i should be on the lower end when compared against young people. 

my total femoral z-score was even better, at -0.8. that is probably above average for my age.

that -1.9 was a z-score for my femoral neck, and it's a little concerning, but still in the normal male reference frame. could that be caused by heavy biking or overuse? like, have i worn it down, actually?

but, i therefore don't have osteopenia at all. what i have is a doctor that doesn't know how to read bmd test results. and, this is both relieving and annoying and clears out a lot of the bloodwork i was concerned about.

i'm going to follow through with the endocrinologist, regardless.

catherine mckenna was one of the more capable and well spoken ministers in the trudeau government, and her departure should be seen as both a disappointment and a failure within the pmo. i would have interpreted her as an acceptable potential successor to the prime minister.

when core members start dropping off like that, it's suggestive of a lack of focus in government and evidence that the whole thing is beginning to unravel. in which case, i'd say good riddance to justin trudeau, at the unfortunate expense of his far more capable supporting staff.

so, my doctor skipped town again...he seems to do that in the sunmer. 

listen, if i could find a better doctor in this city, i'd jump at it.

as it is, i'm going to go to a clinic to get these blood tests ordered, instead.

so, this might be just a tad too warm for me. 

i start feeling it around 38-39ish, so i'm ok with turning the air on when it gets above 40.

maybe.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-businesses-close-1.6082448

so, i had this huge pile of mail from the student loan office that i didn't bother opening until now, and spent hours ripping the plastic out of the envelopes in order to recycle them. why do they still put plastic in envelopes in this day and age? i mean, if your'e going to waste the paper, i can at least recycle it. but, stop sending me plastic envelopes, you assholes.

that's what i did tonight, and it's at least almost done.

it's always the little things that take the longest.

i have this giant stack of papers strewn across my floor, but it's the last thing.

and, i'm not exaggerating the destructiveness of this last persian-roman war or the depth of the dark age that set in after it, either. this is well understood, and all the sources over centuries all point it out.

one of the things that archaeologists point out is that there was a "destruction horizon" that set in previous to the arab invasions. what that means is that cities were destroyed on a large scale, and never rebuilt - the abandonment of the region by rome (which may have been shortlived in initial intent) is something you can see in the archaeology of what happened. and, so they talk about how the character of the region changed from an advanced, urban society into an agricultural society. and, then the arabs moved in - which makes sense, because they were migratory, and would have walked into open grazing land.

there were diseases that would have also contributed to the depopulation.

and, you could even suggest that this was essentially the apocalypse, in the sense that the prophets had some grasp of geopolitics. to be clear - i'm not suggesting that god destroyed the earth, and islam is the antichrist (even if it's tempting). i'm just pointing out that the prophets were ranting and raving in the context of existing geopolitical facts, and that this kind of massively destructive war between europe and iran, that would leave the levant demolished, was predictable as far back as biblical times. the fact that they saw it coming doesn't mean that prophesy was actualized so much as it demonstrates it was obvious.

that dark age, like others that occurred after similar destruction horizons (like the late bronze age collapse) takes a few centuries to lift. and, when it does, islam is this formed thing, with a set of myths built up around it - almost all of which are dated to centuries after the fact. but, you try to question that in the region, and you lose your head - and that's been true for over a thousand years. so, the myth, as it emerges from a dark age and a civilization collapse that preceded it, just perpetuates itself.

you can believe that mohummad existed if you want. i don't really care, so long as you don't try to legislate your morals on me. and, i'm able to separate these things, even if i see the causality.

but, there's really no actual good reason to, and the correct scientific answer is that he's equivalent to a fictional character, even if he did.

is the idea that the arab invasions never actually happened just revisionist nonsense?

in fact, it's standard revisionist nonsense - what they teach you nowadays is that arabs didn't conquer the region, so much as they migrated into it. that change in mindset actually isn't obscure, anymore. nobody teaches the standard "islam conquered via the sword" thing anymore, except to debunk it.

as usual, the truth doesn't lie in any specific caricature of peaceful caravans or bloodthirsty conquerors, so much as it is something in between. you have to understand the roman-persian conflict (an ancient war, that goes back to thermopylae) to understand the arab expansion, and that is difficult because the destructiveness of it set in a dark age that the rise of islam exists within. your own critical thinking skills aside, this is a period where the world's two largest and most advanced civilizations fought themselves to bloody pulps, and both caved in on themselves. islam only emerges, historically, in the wreckage of this - and as a consequence of the simultaneous collapse of these two major civilizations.

so, the story is that the muslims drove the romans out of the middle east, but if you understand the history then you know this doesn't add up because the romans had already been driven out by the persians, who were aided by a semitic revolt. what happened a few decades before the supposed life of muhammad - and this is real history, however obscured - is that there were major revolts in egypt and the levant over a type of christianity that was considered different than the type practiced in constantinople, and the persians took advantage of it by offering the heretics military support. so, there was an alliance between the heretics in the region (who were numerically dominant) and the persians (who were the sworn enemy of the greeks, and therefore of the greco-roman byzantines). it is in fact well understood that heraclius had to make some concessions to stop them from breaking off, and that those concessions would have included enough autonomy to avoid these sorts of conflicts.

the details of the exact relationship between constantinople and the heretic bishops in the semitic speaking regions will no doubt be forever shrouded in the dark age they occurred within,  but nobody doubts that the conversion to islam was inextricably linked to the christian infighting that was taking place, that there was some concept of pan-semitism and anti-roman sentiment underlying it and that the arabs could not have held the region without the active support of the semitic christians living there at the time.

once you realize that the story that was told was at best an exaggeration, the jump to complete fiction is a matter of degree. is most of it true, some of it true, almost none of it true or absolutely none of it true? and, the fact is that if you insist on a purely evidentiary approach, there's essentially no evidence for any of it, and quite a bit of evidence that almost all of it is flawed.

...but i would claim this isn't even necessary, as when something reads off as fictional bullshit, it probably is. it simply doesn't get past my bullshit detector, and it never did.

you will never succeed in using capitalism to undo the effects of capitalism, and you will never succeed in using power to undo the consequences of statism.

fake leftists that suggest the validity of either of these fallacies pose threats to basic concepts of humanity and will inevitably lead to the wholesale slaughter of millions if allowed to enforce their will on others. they need to be violently rejected as fascists by all legitimate voices on the left.

they are not allies, and are often not even poorly thought through reactionaries. these are groups that actively want to oppress others, that are out to consciously hurt people to advance their cause.

they should be treated like any other fascists, and there should be no pretending that that isn't what they are.

this is probably the best white stripes song.

their "history" is complete bullshit.

deal with it.

this is very likely the correct approximate theory, although my understanding is that it still requires a fair amount of perfection to get right.

mohummad, like jesus, was essentially invented by the local military authorities for the purposes of generating a national identity.

so, i don't really want to have stupid debates about whether god spoke to this goof, or not - it seems to be exceedingly likely that he's entirely fictional in construction in the first place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossroads_to_Islam

what do the polls say?

that not much has changed - and for good reason, as they haven't done anything, they've just been sitting on their thumbs waiting to regain their entitlements, while systematically undoing the constitution.

what the polls say is that the outcome of the election will be determined during the course of it, and that there's a wide range of outcomes to project, depending on how the election unfolds.

but, i'm going to repeat my previously suggested wildcard - the demographics of the country have really been upended, and i strongly doubt it's in the liberal party's favour.

if the liberals cannot win back a majority on try #2, trudeau will no doubt be forced to resign, and that will kick off a leadership process in the party, which will freeland will certainly lose. trudeau is her strongest and really only substantive level of support.

that is what i actually want to see, so it's what i'm endorsing - a weakened mandate, and a slimmer majority.

let's send a message to the pmo that it is subservient to parliament, and force them to listen.

my position on the upcoming election is that i want to see justin trudeau resign and replaced by a member of the liberal parliament that is not chrystia freeland (who would be even more right-wing than trudeau is). i don't think he's very bright, and i don't think he's very liberal; he's more reagan than kennedy. but, my disinterest in trudeau's myopic brand of conservative faux liberalism doesn't mean my political positions have changed. and, the conservatives have certainly not moved far enough to the left to appeal to me, either.

i've always been on the very far left of the liberal party, which is a position that is sort of untenable and subject to rather extreme levels of abuse by the party, itself. there are pragmatic, functional reasons why i don't just vote for the ndp - the reality is that i don't agree with the ndp on much of the actual ballot issues, and it's because they often end up to the right of the liberals. i don't want to abolish the senate, for example (although i really don't like what trudeau has done to it, either). i've voted green a few times, and that's much closer to the vision i want to see. but, i'd rather see preferential voting (because i like the riding system.) than proportional representation...

i don't see a good option, right now, and the most exciting outcome is really for the liberals to be forced into actually doing what they said they would do by not holding the balance of power, to undo it. but, i can't vote for trudeau as a person, as a personality. i wouldn't vote for him if he was running for city council - i just don't respect his abilities or his intelligence.

so, i would like the liberals to remain in a minority parliament. much of the policy that the liberals produce in these situations nowadays may be phantasmic, but the chimera projected by a liberal minority remains the most appealing animal that the parliament is able to produce.

i will probably cast a protest vote for my local green candidate, and the ndp will probably hold the riding.

but, i would plead with the voters of canada to actually reduce this government's minority, so that the liberals need to rely on not just the ndp but also on another party, such as the bloc. in his tendencies to lean towards conservative decisions at every opportunity, mr. trudeau has not only not earned a majority, but has proved he needs even greater oversight and even greater deference to parliament.

a second trudeau majority will be a return to the days of stephen harper, if we ever really escaped them to begin with. and, his singular mandate was to be anything but harper.

so, my endorsement is anything but liberal.

don't give them a majority - they haven't earned it, they don't deserve it and we will all regret it.

i don't have anywhere near as many cds as i used to. so, i thought they'd all fit nicely on the giant wood bookcase i bought for $15 in march.

nope.

i looked around on kijiji and there was nothing, but i was lucky to find a 72" bookshelf on sale for $50 at walmart, with free shipping. i've been shopping around for a few months, and these items are usually close to $200. so, it's a god deal. and, coming...

so, i think i should be able to get all of the books on the two small cases and all of the cds on the two big ones. there will be extra space on the second cd case for extra books or whatever else.

and, it'll be here in a few days.

that's a major annoyance finally resolved, then. in my last apartment on bronson, i had.....6 bookshelves, in total - 1 taller and wider bookcase for cds (with 7 shelves), a medium case beside it for paperbacks and general textbooks, a tall case around the corner for vinyl and burns, a big case in my bedroom for binders and rough work and two very small cases for math, physics & programming textbooks. and, i had space.

i replaced the third case a few years ago, and now have two medium cases for books instead of one medium and two small. i'm going to have two tall cases for cds, instead of one. that leaves the big case for binders, but what i've really replaced that with is a couple of tables.

if i can get a last one, it's actually going to be for in the kitchen to put loose things on, as this place lacks sufficient cupboard space.

if these items survive - and i see little reason to think they won't - then i should have that problem solved, moving forwards. finally.

if you haven't been reading this since 2014, i initially wanted to build a custom shelf in the previous basement, but i kept getting foiled by bad weather, low funds and eventually clutter from troubleshooting the interference. i couldn't do anything in the last apartment. and, i've been waiting to clean this place forever...

but, it's solved, now.

so, i spent friday sitting down and posting to the releases timeline blog (https://jessicamurrayreleasestimeline.blogspot.com/), and in the process rewound back to late 2017. i'm going to do a little more of this before i put it aside for next week.

what i spent saturday doing was finishing the cleaning i started on wednesday night. i've now got most of my books out of boxes and on to shelves for the first time since 2011, and the same is true of most of the cds. the last step is to cut some wood for the shelves, and i should be able to do that as soon as this annoying month-long rain storm passes. i have enough wood in the space for two shelves, and i'm going to need 6. that should be cheap.

getting the books and cds out is a step towards resuming the alter-reality (i know.), and a step towards the place being clean and normalized again. so, it's huge progress, even if it seems silly.

the rearranging and reordering in this place should be more or less done by the afternoon, which will let me sit back down and refocus.

but, no doctor would ever diagnose me with anything of the sort.

and, none ever has.

i mean...

do i hate people because there's something wrong with me?

or, do i hate people because there's something wrong with them?

you're all a bunch of worthless, pieces of shit - and i'll defend that thesis with a fair bit of force. but, i'll acknowledge the possibility of something underlying it, even if i'll argue it's so weak as to be otherwise imperceptible. 

so, it's probably a little of both.

...but it's mostly the second option.

i'm more concerned about the effects of exposure to smoking on my sex hormones, as that's something that seems to actually be real.

rules are designed for and embraced by dumb people that lack critical thinking skills and a developed sense of individuality.

i don't care about rules very much and don't have much interest in following them, but that's a sign of heightened intelligence, rather than a suggestion of decreased intelligence.

and, no, i don't have any symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome, and nobody has ever suggested that i do.

- i was a shy child

- i was a passive child

in fact, they sent me to karate to try to toughen me up.

- i'm also a shy, passive adult. if anything, i have distinct problems with an inability to be assertive, and an inability to get angry when i need to be.

- i was a gifted child in elementary school

- i passed a test to skip grade 4, but the principal cancelled it due to staffing issues

- i have degrees in mathematics, computer science and law

i have never been diagnosed with a learning disability, and nobody has ever suggested or suspected that i might have one.

i am particularly disinterested in people, which might place me into some kind of high-functioning asperger's category. i'd accept something like that. but, these kinds of mutations underlying autism are actually legitimately random and can't be assigned to any particular cause. there's actually no specific reason that people are born on the autism spectrum - it's literally completely random, bullshit luck.

so, i mean, people can say stupid things if they want. we live in a free society.  i'd be happy to sue them for defamation, if such things were to be made aware to me. but, it's more important to me that we look at the facts, and the facts are that such claims are without any factual - or any logical - basis.

if you honestly think i'm retarded, it suggests that you're probably not so bright, yourself.

so, my mom finally admitted that she smoked when she was pregnant with me. there was also a period of early drinking, when she didn't realize she was pregnant - and she's a heavy drinker, when she drinks.

i've asked her that more than twice, and she always denied it. i can understand a level of embarrassment, and tying it to a level of perceived consequence - if there's nothing wrong with me, right? but, it's a very likely cause of low testosterone, and fits very neatly into the puzzle.

i don't remember her pregnancy with my full sister, but she used to sneak smokes when she was pregnant with my half-sister. quitting smoking is hard, and it was clear she didn't intend to keep with it afterwards.

so, here's a sequence of events to help me understand how to react to the bmd:

- my mom smoked during pregnancy, as well as when i was an infant and into childhood. i wasn't removed from the situation until i was about 13.

- that would have stunted pubertal development, and reduced testosterone production.

- removing me from the situation at 13 seems to have only had minimal effects.

- along with what i realize today was a poor diet based mostly on restaurant leftovers and frozen food (like microwaved burritos) due to generally preparing my own meals (my father was at least attentive enough to ensure there was sufficient amounts of food, so i wasn't hungry, even if that food was very frequently of low quality), i probably never developed substantive levels of bone mass. my stepmother was faux lactose intolerant (she had some kind of weird issue with milk products due to it's fat content, pretended she was lactose intolerant and banned dairy from entering the house), so you had to fight with her to get dairy in the house. there was never milk around, although i successfully lobbied for cheese - although she only allowed low fat varieties. my mom at least made sure i got dairy. 

- so, i went from second-hand smoke to no dairy, and the latter may have even been worse.

- i remember having sore joints from walking in the 00s (in my 20s), before i went back on hormones.

- that seems to have gotten better after 2010, and seems to have gotten much better after 2016 (when i increased my estrogen dosage)

- the switch to generic seems to be decreasing absorption, but it's probably merely unmasking a pre-existing condition.

short term solution - more estrogen.

and, let's measure it first and then react.

i talk to the doctor again on monday and can order growth hormone tests as well as some other things. hopefully, osteocalcin will be here soon.

at this point, my response is "thin the herd".

i don't care at all anymore, if i ever really did to begin with.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7981772/covid-19-infections-death-unvaccinated/

the number of biological men with absolutely no hair on their chest at all due to genetics is estimated to be around 5%, and the variation is heritable.

i cannot explain this with heredity - the men on both sides of my family are all very hairy. my dad's side is italian and jewish - very, very hairy people. 

so, again - was i switched at birth? was my mother raised by somebody who wasn't her father? these are possibilities, however obscure.

but, the fact is that the most likely cause is low testosterone - and if you want to get around it, you need to question my ancestry in some manner.

i'm still waiting for resorption and turnover markers, but my formation markers are fine - indicating i'm not having difficulty producing bone, at least. i'm going to test gh and igf-1 directly fairly soon, but it doesn't seem to be a problem with calcium or d or thyroid hormones. and, the point of taking estrogen is to protect against resorption, so it makes little sense to think that's what's going on, either - but i'm testing and we'll see.

it's almost certainly that my bones never developed properly, and i initially pointed to malnutrition and smoking (which likely both contributed), but it turns out that poor bone development during adolescence is actually relatively common in pre-treatment transwomen. so, i'm a statistic here - there's a pattern for this.

the idea is that we often don't really go through puberty, so our bones never really develop properly as a result of it. and, did i go through puberty? not really, no.  my dad was a man ape, in terms of body hair. that's 100% genes. but, i've never grown a single hair between my belly button and my adam's apple - not even fuzz, not even vellus hair. i had no interest in dating or having sex with anybody at all. and, i had a distinct lack of aggression as a teenager, as well.

these are unreliable markers, granted, and i can't do tests on my long evolved adolescent self to be sure, but they seem to point towards a general picture of incomplete or stunted puberty, likely due to low testosterone development. and, that might be why i was able to suppress it so much when i went on the cyproterone. there were times when they couldn't even measure any serum testosterone with blood tests - it was statistically 0.

what they've found is that the subsequent estrogen therapy often helps increase bone density in pre-treatment transwomen because it's actually undoing the hypogonadism present due to lower than average testosterone.

so, i'm tentatively coming to this diagnosis of low testosterone as a teenager as being the primary cause of poor development, with exposure to smoking and poor nutrition as potentially exacerbating factors. of course, teenage boys convert their testosterone to estrogen to build density. but, if there's no testosterone, there's no estrogen. so, it's another reason to argue that you want to get kids on hormones as young as possible.

and, that means i'm best off going on high dosage injectable estrogen to start, and potentially moving to forteo after it's effects have been measured. if the diagnosis is hypogonadism as a teenager, let's try hypergonadism as an adult to attempt to undo it, as a starting point.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6709704/

fit test #2 was also negative, and the gastro thinks there's nothing wrong with me.

his view was that low stomach acid isn't actually a thing (i'm not so sure...), and the idea that i'm bleeding from too many avocados is crazy talk (he's probably right on that, but i need to hold the thought, regardless).

he wouldn't schedule a virtual scope because he's decided there's nothing wrong with me; i'll have to schedule that with my family doctor, and i'm going to - it's better than spending $150 for a celiac test.

ok.

so, that's that - i'm officially cleared by the gastro. but, i'm not done yet.

i'm about to call the gastro to get the second fit results and presumably schedule a virtual scope.

let's see what he says about the likelihood of low stomach acid, and where his head is at regarding these results.

he is the one that spooked me. i guess he's required by law to tell me the chances of a tear during a colonoscopy, which were one in a thousand - numbers he thought were low.

1/1000 is not unlikely - it means tears happen all of the time. those are not good odds for an unnecessary procedure, and i'm qualified to tell you that. odds of colon cancer at my age, given that i've been on a low meat diet since my early 20s, are much, much lower.

and, we'll see soon if that was the right calculation or not.

whoever is doing these harvard science talks seems to have a distinctly pro-einstein, distinctly anti-copenhagen bias.

i'm actually in agreement, but it's a little unusual to see it.

so, i'm not allowed to broadcast links again, and i actually suspect it has something to do with the stupid law they just passed to force google to pay these useless, parasitic "journalists" that mostly broadcast state propaganda, as though it's the link that's the content of this space, rather than the deconstruction of them.

there are no ads on this site; i've never made a dime from my analysis, and don't want to make money doing this, as it's just a corrupting factor. i do this for free, i give it away for free and i don't want it polluted by advertising. so, you can do the math - take your cut of nothing, as you will.

but, it's just a category error to begin with. i'm not hosting content - it's just wrong to look at it like this.

what i'm doing is either referred to in academia as a commentary, or is just basic research and essay writing. the only reason i post links - and i post them frequently, and don't intend to stop - is either as references (which is frequent) or so that the reader understands what i'm commenting on or am otherwise deconstructing. i'd lean strongly towards the idea that link sharing is advertising, but that's not what i'm doing - i'm not link sharing, i'm not advertising and i'm not hosting. all i'm doing is telling you what the topic of my deconstruction is, and then i'm posting original writing around it.

so, this is something that will need to get fixed on the backend - this site has nothing to do with the new regulations, and restrictions around broadcasting posts the way i'm doing it are not covered by the legislation.

that said, the way to get around it right now is to go back to posting links with spaces in between to avoid the algorithm

so, instead of posting a link to my bandcamp site, i'll have to post it like this:

h t t p : / / j a s o n p a  r e n t . b a n d c a m p . c o m  

i can then immediately hit the back button in the browser, and replace it with a link, leaving the broadcast in my inbox.

that means you'll need a site like this if you're following along via email:

https://www.browserling.com/tools/remove-all-whitespace

today is also a friday, so i'm going to start with the alter-reality. finally.

it's still in the form of loose ends, though - i'll be working on the following this morning, in order to clear out the facebook page and shut it down:

https://jessicamurrayreleasestimeline.blogspot.com/

so, that sleep was something i needed.

i need to catch up this morning.

most places in the world provided some kind of subsidy while the economy was shut down.

the amount provided by the government in the united states was not sufficient to prevent people from resorting to criminality out of desperation.

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/6/24/biden_gun_violence_police_funding

for all the rhetoric in the fake left media and these kinds of ennui bourgeois youth movements, the reality is that biden's black conservative church attending base wants more policing on the ground to reduce violence in their communities.

and, if you tell them he just wants to put them in jail, they'll call you a communist nut.

it's shown time and again that the people that understand the realities of systemic racism in the united states the least are in fact the black americans that the system takes advantage of the most.

so, he's going to pass some awful bill that'll throw more black kids in jail. the left will point out that it's racist, and blacks will keep voting for him to keep them safe.

we need to break the hold of the black church on the population if we want to get anywhere in the south.

https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2021/06/to-reduce-crime-joe-biden-wants-to-fund-local-communities-and-the-police/

sounds like the lamest msm bullshit in the world.

https://www.cp24.com/news/google-canada-signs-deals-with-eight-canadian-publishers-for-google-news-showcase-1.5483554

i've been quiet on the narrative for a few days.

i finally got the other room completely cleared out last night, and i'll have catch-up writeups going back to the 15th fairly soon. but, i've been doing minimal amounts of sleeping the last few days and need to get in the shower and get some rest.

yes, hormone therapy will change your bone structure, but it's most effective if you take hormones when you're very young. if you wait until you're an adult like i did, it takes years to see a result.

but, i've been on them for years...

it's just the specific places they measured around the hips. this is one of the very few examples of statistically meaningful sexual dimorphism in humans. if they tested my arms, it would be less of a difference. so, i wonder if i can even ask for that, too.

you know, i'm looking at how bmd is calculated and i suspect the number i got may have been crunched poorly.

the femur was -1.2 (which is a little bad, but not terrible for a 40 year-old) and the lumbar spine was -1.9 (which is very bad for my age). but, that's a big difference. why is my spine so much worse than my hip?

at first, i thought that it was actually worse than stated because they used female references. as male bone density peaks at a higher rate, i'd have to have even worse scores if they used a male sigma.

but, it turns out that the calculation has to do with the area measured, and women should have wider hips than men. so, while men may be expected to have higher bone density, women are also expected to have wider hips. what that means is that if you plug my numbers into the formula then you end up with a density divided by a much smaller frame than i actually have. that is, a woman my age, height and weight would be expected to have much wider hips than i have, so i would be a very narrow-hipped woman, which would suggest a problem, and that might have exaggerated the results; a cis-woman with my hip size, compared to my age and height, would have either been estrogen-deficient as a teenager, or be suffering from severe osteoporosis.

that said, my body shape would also be unusual for a man my age - hormone therapy has made my hips wider than most men and narrower than most women. i'm actually moderately hour-glassed in a dress - most comparable to a thin, tall, lanky woman.

it may be hard to get a good reading for that reason.

so, i'm going to call them in the morning and ask for the full test results, analyzed via both sexes. they don't give you absolute numbers, it's just a standard deviation. and, i may find that this is not as severe as it looks.

i've never broken a bone and don't feel as though my bones are particularly weak.

i think it would be a good idea for the united states to tax owners of vacant property, as well.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/23/brian-higgins-trudeau-canada-tax-495739

in fact, i'm going to officially propose that as a means of protest - instead of the normal drunken nonsense, let's have a series of funeral marches, instead.

we should all be collectively embarrassed right now and have a day of mourning for our sad state of affairs, instead.

the true north enslaved and locked down.

do you want to celebrate this dystopian hellhole?

no thanks.

to put it another way - when you live in a policed state, there's not much to celebrate about the country you inhabit.

with the horribly unfree state of society right now, there's not much to be proud of.

i mean, you can sit in your backyard and have a beer and watch tv.

if you want.

you can't do much else...

canada day is a silly, stupid demonstration of half-witted nationalism, which is something i oppose to my core. but, it's also a reliable party in the middle of the summer. i don't see any harm in it, so long as you don't get stupid about it.

but, it's cancelled this year due to the pandemic and discussions about whether you should cancel it or not due to something else are irrelevant - it's cancelled, regardless.

it's a culture rooted in the total glorification of war.

what the fuck would you expect?

again: gun violence in the united states is a cultural problem, not an economic problem. you don't solve cultural problems with economic policies. and, you don't change the country's culture by restricting the supply of weapons.

i don't like guns. and, i'm never going to stand up for gun owners.

but i'd like to see some policies that are likely to actually work in reducing gun violence, and approaching a cultural problem like an economics problem is never going to be one of them.

so, when you've got gi joe up there talking about restricting the supply of weapons? it's a fail.

if you want to know why there's so much gun violence down there, just look at his election campaign.

if there's a threat to democracy in this country in the form of right-wing variants of fascism, it's coming from the trudeau government, itself.

the man is a fascist dictator waiting to happen, and he barely even hides his intent.

so, i'll say it again - if the trudeau government is concerned about the far right in this country, it should begin by examining itself.

if they're going to bring in this kind of bullshit, they can expect me to viciously attack them as a bunch of open, far right extremists and literal, brownshirt fascists.

free speech is left wing.

restrictions on free speech is right wing.

crackdowns on free speech is far right extremism - it's a part of the definition of fascism.

and, if you're confused, just look at where bismarck stood and look at where marx stood and figure it out - look at which side was on the right side of the french assembly, and which side was on the left side of it.

this is supposed to be the liberal party, but we've been expecting these extreme right-wing crackdowns on free expression from this government for quite a while now.

if this government is concerned about the far right in this country, it should look in the mirror, first.

but, it's ultimately a waste of everybody's time, because it will get struck down in court. and, that's really my only response - don't waste my time with unconstitutional bullshit that nobody thinks will stand up for a month.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/liberals-to-introduce-new-hate-speech-bill-possibly-bringing-back-controversial-section-13?__vfz=medium%3Dstandalone_content_recirculation_with_ads

i'm obviously opposed to voter suppression laws, and i've actually written a lot about that here. but, this is something that leftists may want to be a little bit subtle about.

why are the democrats fighting these bills? is it because they care about the rights of minorities to express themselves in demographically changing areas across the south? or is it because it's in the self-interest of the democratic party to do so? it's obviously the latter, as nothing ever changes for the better for these demographics when the democrats win (just like nothing changes for the better for rural white blue collar workers when the republicans win).

now, let's suppose that the democrats succeed in ramming through their act. while the democrats may win some elections, nothing ultimately changes much besides the right for blacks to affirm the status quo by voting for right-wing democrats.

but, if the democrats fail to ram through their act, and the demographics continue to change, then the ingredients for a more substantive movement are in place, as the system will have denied representation to the region's growing majority. it's when you have that disconnect between popular will and actual governance, and no way to work through the system to change it (however ineffective that is) that you see more substantive movements develop outside of the system, which is what the left needs and wants.

so, i mean, sure - voting suppression is undemocratic. i oppose it. these laws should be passed.

but, it may be in our own self-interest to allow the laws to pass, to try to build a movement that can circumvent the status quo democrats, and try to more effectively radicalize people on the ground.

and, this is the kind of thing i mean when i suggest that the republicans are increasingly the lesser evil - as the democrats just become a party of stasis and status quo elitism that turns people's brains off and sends them back to work, putting republicans in place may actually be more helpful, to generate a reaction.

they have to be traditional republicans, though. the reason a trump fails in that equation is because he's not a conservative, and is going to lead to conservatives joining the opposition - and watering it down. we don't want to join forces with conservatives, we want to demonize them and generate a backlash against them, because the policies we need to organize around need to actually be leftist in character in order to actually be worth pursuing. if your big tent movement ends up about restoring dignity to government or some other conservative bullshit tropes, which is inevitable under a big tent, then you've lost before you start.

but,in a place like arizona or georgia where the sitting governors are not these post-ideological nihilists that generate substantive opposition from the right but good ideologocal conservatives that can rally the base and are just getting outnumbered, it's really more helpful to keep them in place to react against - as the movement won't pull in disgruntled conservatives, because conservatives have no reason to be disgruntled.

it doesn't seem like biden has the votes for this, and the kneejerk against it appears to be ramming itself through. that's an opportunity to take advantage of to rebuild a left outside of the democratic party, and beyond the big tentism that has sacrificed leftism to pragmatism and status quoism.

so, i've got two fixed mixes from the art show demo ep up on the isomorphism ep. these mixes were normalized when burned in 2004, and i'm going to leave them that way. but, these are the original mixes:

1) file actually from 2003 (nulls with art show demo rips, after volume adjustment):

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/into-oblivion-art-show-mix

2) this was built yesterday morning from 2003/04 source to null with volume-adjusted cd rips, except for clipping in the initial track (from the normalization):

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/planetary-isomorphism-art-show-mix

that will probably be inri084, but i'll be sorting through that over the next few days.

i got some more tests done today, so let's update.

================

my next set of requested tests will be to do with low stomach acid and so far includes:

- aluminum 

i also need to check for bone resorption markers, on top of the bone formation markers:

- hydroxyproline urine, total + free (covered)

- c-terminal telopeptide (not covered)

-  deoxypyridinoline - urine  (dynacare only) (not covered)

+

- oxalate urine (covered), if i'm doing urine

there's apparently a long list of these, neither corporate lab seems to cover many of them and they're all of questionable value. let me just do the one, plus osteocalcin, for now. but ask if he has good ideas about that...

instead of igf-1, which is not covered, i could check for gh first. so,

-growth hormone <----formation marker, pre-cursor to igf-1 and potentially a fix

let's check for lyme disease, and ask about other parasites like giardia.

and, let's check this again (monthly standing):

- vitamin d

- calcium +  albumin

- magnesium

- phosphorus

- alp

- b12

- ferritin +  iron + iron sat + tibc

- estradiol + progesterone + estrone

- cholesterol + cbc +  gastrin + reticulocyte

- pth + tsh + calcitonin + gh + cortisol + insulin

i'll take those out of the list as they become less of a concern.

for the gastro:

i'm still concerned about diverticulitis, but if the likelihood of tumours is minimal due to the cea test, i should ask for a virtual scope instead. that way, we can figure out if i need antibiotics or surgery without risking a tear, or agitating it further. ask about gardia fecal testing. also ask about low stomach acid (gastrin) & salicylates.

for the endo:

i need to do some more research on pth, as well, and what the following combo suggests:

- calcium, 9.6 (highish but normal)

- vitamin d, 35 ng/ml (lowish but normal)

- pth, 55 pmol/l (highish but normal)

- calcitonin, ?

- gh, ?

i can grasp by looking at the numbers that highish pth with lowish vitamin d makes sense, but it's not clear to me if that's clinically relevant, perfectly healthy or even just a random coincidence. and i think i need to wait for calcitonin to draw conclusions.

- i need to do research on how sporadic sleeping schedules might affect cortisol and if it might affect bone density.

- up estrogen intake to estrogen injections and estrace pills, until the testicles are taken out. do another bmd scan and try the formation medication after that?

=====

these tests are pending at lifelabs:

- asca   <---crohn's

- amino acid fractionation <-----this can provide a lot of info

- gastrin (on fast) <----- low stomach acid while fasting?

- osteocalcin <----bone turnover markers

- calcitonin <--------thyroid still

this test is pending from dynacare:

- fit test #2  <----colon cancer

these tests can be done next time i go to dynacare <----not right away

- celiac ($90) <-----maybe. last thing to check....

- igf-1 ($70)  <-----formation marker. wait for other markers, first. mostly of use if i try formation medication or as a metric for fracture risk and as a reaction to gh results.

- b-alp <----- formation marker. take with others.

- glutathione?

- pyruvate?

not yet ordered:

- psa: ($35 at lifelabs ) <---cea result makes this pointless right now.

this test is covered by ohip but is not offered anywhere in the region:

- serum oxalate <----iron blocker

- pyruvate <----manganese

this test is only available in a california lab:

-hepcidin <----hormone that regulates iron absorption

these absorption tests were skipped, for now:

- vitamin e

- vitamin k   <----inr, ptt fine

- selenium

- molybdenum

- manganese

- iodine  <----?

- copper serum <----ceruloplasmin fine

and, here's my list for absorption regarding my diet:

a - absorbing at high levels

b1 - next time

b2 - next time

b3 - next time

b5 - next time

b6 - next time

b7 - next time

b9 - absorbing at high levels

b12 - absorbing, and increasing stores

c - absorbing, at saturated levels

d - absorbing, but a tad low. i should check again soon.

e - pending  (paid)

cholesterol - perfect

k1 - pending (paid)  <----but ptt, inr, fibrinogen normal

fluoride?

aluminum?

sodium - absorbing & regulating

potassium - absorbing & regulating

magnesium - absorbing & regulating

phosphorus - absorbing & regulating

chlorine - absorbing & regulating

calcium - absorbing & regulating

chromium - next time

manganese - pending (paid) <----but,  pyruvate kinase is coming immediately

iron - not absorbing in food, but absorbing in pills

nickel - next time

copper - absorbing & regulating

zinc - absorbing & regulating

selenium - pending (paid) <----- need to find access to glutathione test, not priority right now

molybdenum - not available <---but pancreatic function is normal

iodine - pending (paid) <-----note that tsh is lowish. checking pth. no sign of goiter. dietary sodium is low...

mercury - low

lead - low

if you want a simplistic argument, the fact is that the chinese were actually there first - and the turks moved in after, from the north.

the people indigenous to the tarim basin are called "tokharian" in the western sources (which are recent, exclusively - neither greeks, nor romans, nor venetians had any contact with these people) and "yeuzhi" in the ancient chinese sources. they were white buddhists that spoke a unique branch of indo-european, but utilized sanskrit as a liturgical language. so, they were culturally most similar to the iranian and indian cultures to their south.

the second people to enter the region were the han chinese, who conquered it during roman times in order to control the trade routes in the region. while the chinese did not always have direct control over the region after the initial invasion (during roman times), the indigenous tokharians almost always accepted the chinese as legitimate overlords, and saw themselves as satellites of chinese civilization. it is actually from this region that buddhism spread to china.

it is not until many centuries later that the turks came in and displaced both the han chinese (who had administrative colonies in the region) and the indigenous tokharians, who continually aligned with the chinese emperors to try to resist turkification.

the region consequently became turkish first and then muslim second through a process of colonial replacement, cultural imperialism and violent coercion.

now, you can argue that that was a long time ago and it doesn't matter anymore, but why is that a different argument when applied in the tarim basin than it is when applied to british columbia?

regardless, my request is just to get the fucking history right - and stop sounding like an ignoramus when you're talking about this. the idea that the uighurs are indigenous to the tarim basin is not just wrong, but offensive in it's absolute ignorance of the history of the region. it's like suggesting that the spanish are indigenous to mexico, or arabs are indigenous to malaysia. stop doing it...

i don't really like either, but i'll side with buddhists over muslims roughly 100% of the time.

sorry.

ok.

can you please stop referring to the uighurs as indigenous people? it's simply a false statement - historically, ethnically, geographically, culturally. it's just wrong.

we went through this with the turks in the caucausus region as well, who are nowhere close to indigenous to the region.

in both cases, we're dealing with invading tribes that entered the region in the middle ages. it's not even ancient history. the displacement is recent.

these are the people that are indigenous to the region, and they no longer exist because the turks killed them all before they moved in:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocharians

turkish-speaking people occupy a rather large part of central asia, today. they are indigenous to almost none of it.

when justin trudeau claims that "parliament is dysfunctional", what he really means to say is that he doesn't feel like he's accountable to it.

he is our dauphin, after all.

and he thnks he's the king - which is a delusion we're going to have to strip him of fairly soon.

so, what having a rebuilt version of the isomorphism from late 2003 means is that i can salvage a demo version for the single when it comes up. it's the same version as on the art show demo, but it's not normalized (which makes combining the three tracks i cut it into back into a single track very difficult).

mid 2004 was my first re-release phase, so i've now come to the first point in the discography where i started to look backwards and consolidate. while i didn't realize it then, i had made it through the second period of my discography and was starting the third period in earnest. to an extent, i was processing the process that sent me across the country on an absurd trip with no purpose; in that sense, period 3 doesn't really start until june of 2004, but it leaves that year (may of 2003 to may of 2004) as a lost space, where i was both finishing period 2 and starting period 3. the ftaa material that closes in june, 2004 is really period 2; the trivial group material started in late 2002 is really period 3. so, this was a transition period...

the re-releases will appear in the grid as stubs, and i'll try to be as comprehensive as i can be. i'm also going to want to put together some kind of compilation that collects the edits i created in that first moment of looking back, as there are enough for an ep, at least.

further, there were a number of mix cds created at this time that i tried to pass around in novel ways, such as exchanging for cigarettes (i got you to take my cd, didn't i?). i'm shooting darts in the dark with this stuff, and i've known it for years. they could have releases, as well.

but, the next serious release will be the isomorpshism single as inri084ish, so lining this up (which is what i did tonight) will set me up for any potential remixes that are coming.

so, i'm finally lining up the core part of the isomorphism in cubase tonight, from source files initially pasted together in cool edit.

this will release in mid 2004 and is essentially done, i just need to file it first.

so, here's my shortlist on period 3.1, which i'm currently filing for the night:

inri075: re-record list of acoustic demos that is tbd

inri076: audiomulch noise collage

inri077: finish demo version of lost symphony left stranded on tape (not final version)

inri078: all versions of lost symphony, including a new 2021 version to be started imminently

=========================

inti079: no further edits. done.

inri080: no further edits. done.

inri081: no further edits. done.

i really wish i could just stop sleeping.

i'm behind on everything because of it.

so, after months of persistent hydroxyapatite treatment, that one split tooth does seem to finally be reconnecting to itself, although all that shit that the dentist put in there seems to be getting in the way. and, unfortunately, it might recombine right over the coffee stain. we'll have to see if that works itself out, eventually.

and, the one that seemed like it was clearing up is not almost entirely free of stain and apparently rebuilding.

my tentative conclusion is that this does seem to work, but it's overwhelmingly slow and requires great patience.

again: the tactic is to find  source of hydroxyapatite (i'm using crushed cow bones) and use it as a daily topical. i've posted numerous peer reviewed articles that your body will absorb it intact, but it was kind of a hail mary to hope it would actually rebuild a periodontal pocket, which is what i have from some fairly bad recession that was probably worst about 10 years ago and that i'm trying to avoid merely painting back over.

i'm holding off on the gums until i figure out the iron issue, and the bone issue is probably related as a root cause.

mercury was minuscule.

that's good to know.

the early quantum physicists were actually all buddhists, a largely unknown and overlooked fact that really explains how we got to where we are with this. and, that was something that was kind of common amongst educated germans at the time, which tied into the (debunked) aryan master race hypothesis.

colitis antibodies were undetectable.

this is a crude metric and doesn't mean i don't have colitis. however, combined with the cea test, it would indicate that i'm not dealing with any sort of invasive cells or unwanted growths.

and, then, after i win the case, i'll get vaccinated.

you may not understand, but your kids will thank me for it.

the principle that governments do not have the authority to make decisions regarding an individual's bodily autonomy is a legal reality worth standing for, and i'm not about to let it fall to the wayside in a fit of hysteria about catching a cold.

i will not get vaccinated, out of spite, because you're trying to force me to.

i will travel to countries that will allow me to.

i will stand up for my rights through legal challenges when i return home.

and, i will win and have these fascist rules overturned.

do you understand?

to recall.

record #1 (06/1998): https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3

record #2 (01/1999): https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched

record #3 (12/1999): https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous

record #4 (11/2000): https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/deny-everything

record #5 (12/2001): https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

record #6 (12/2002): https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2

record #7 (05/2004): https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa

publishing inri081

this is a big deal - the 7th record is now released.

and, i'm up to mid 2004 in terms of the rebuild structure.

i need to spend the night filing.

==========

when it was released in the summer of 2004, this would have been my fifth official recording, after inri, inriched, inridiculous and deny everything. sarah and i moved into a place for the beginning of may; she was working overnight (22:00-6:00) in a diner, so it gave me time to read and record. things seemed like they were starting anew, so i took the time to sort through the discography and reassemble what i actually had. 

a decision was quickly made to unpublish the first three records in favour of a zappa/keneally-style disc of cut-up guitar shorts that i called inricycled, and start seriously at deny everything. the written music that now exists in this space only existed in the form of completed scores, during this period. so, the only other things i had were the rabit is wolf demo, the recently completed reflections ep, some classical guitar stuff and a bunch of these noise demos. this was consequently the extent of the truncated discography, in mid-2004: inricycled (as it was then), deny everything (as it existed then), the rabit is wolf demo, reflections and a 5-track version of this ftaa disc. 

now that i have republished the three inri demos as instrumental recordings, stripped the deny everything lp of samples and converted the rabit is wolf material into two instrumental discs, taking this project to it's final conclusion becomes the process of removing samples from the 2004 demo, and converting it into my 7th completed original lp. 

the ftaa project was supposed to be a combination of political poetry and sample art projects that presented a vaguely "anarchist" political messaging. my concept of anarchism in 2004 was mostly economic, and mostly about presenting an alter-globalization alternative to the rising tide of "free trade" blocs that focused more on local worker control than on the outsourcing of cheap labour to countries with poor labour standards, which is what this term "globalization" actually means, in an economic sense. so, it was supposed to be about syndicalism, and it was supposed to be a *very* noisy and very abstract project. 

but, then 9/11 happened at about the same time as i was starting with this and the entire anti-nafta left just evaporated, as the war took over the popular movements and the more socially conservative aspects of the union movement dissented against the backlash and started looking elsewhere. we seem to forget that the real origins of the shift to the right amongst unionized workers is really cultural, and comes from a disconnect that developed in the anti-war left after 2001; a very large number of workers felt the country had been attacked, and wanted to respond with force. 

i kind of came in somewhere between. i was certainly opposed to the war, and for the right reasons, but i also felt that globalization was a bigger problem and deserved more attention. i think a lot of organizers on the left kind of got tricked by the size of the anti-war protests, into thinking there was more of a path in opposing the war. and people just kind of forgot about the trade issues. and, i also felt that the civil rights breaches that the government was ramming through were bigger issues than either the war or the trade protests. 

so, the record kind of shifted along with the realities around it's construction into something that retained a broadly anarchist ideology but was really more about reacting to the onset of fascism in the united states. so, the initial 5-track release included a track with a poem about the war in afghanistan, a sample collage about the incoherence of using more trade to undo the problems created by trade, a sample collage decrying rights lost in the 9/11 attacks, an instrumental noise collage raided from the then unreleased (and expected to remain unreleased) curious george suite and this sprawling 25-minute exploration of the collapse of liberal democracy into statist authoritarianism and cultural fascism. 

but, as with the other recordings, the samples have been removed to leave an almost entirely instrumental recording. i have retained the poem in the first track because the track is much stronger with it, which is an unusual decision for me. 

however, the initial intent of the record is salvaged on inri067, spoke: 

jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/spoke 

now, if you want to hear the record exactly as it was initially released in 2004, you'll need to take a look at the aleph disc, as you would need to do in order to hear the initial pressings of my other early recordings, as well. this is intentional as i believe the record is stronger in it's current incarnation and want to present it that way as final. 

i have added instrumental versions of atom's and taught to twist the affected so low as bonus tracks to the lp in order to make it comprehensive. that is, the lp now has the strongest versions of all of the ftaa material. 

these tracks were written and recorded from 2000-2004, mostly as throwaway experiments over the course of an afternoon. the counter-example is the seventh symphony, trepanation nation, which was reconstructed repeatedly over the years 2001-2014. this record was initially constructed in this form (minus the last two tracks) in june, 2004. reconstructed and resequenced in theory (but not in fact) at the end of sept, 2019 from parts that were rebuilt over 2014, but not actually reconstructed, resequenced and uploaded until june of 2021. finally re-released on june 20, 2021. audio permanently closed on . finalized as lp025 on . this is my seventh official record; as always, please use headphones. 

released june 1, 2004 

j - electric & acoustic & classical guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, vocals, electric mandolin, live drums, drum sample manipulation, drum programming, piano programming, noise generators, granular synthesis, ring modulators, sequencers, sampling, sound design, digital wave editing, composition, production 

greg - drum performance sample source on track 5 

sean - ring modulator on track 5

yeah, i must have saved the source file for this as an mp3 and decompressed it.

for this particular track, it's so noisy that the artefacts are almost a positive addition.

yeah, that creative software acts like spyware. you can't get it off the machine. that wasn't a problem before because the drivers for the older card (which didn't support asio at all) were integrated into xp. so, i'm just reinstalling immediately.

all i need to do is line up the sample in harry to take it out and the 7th lp releases. finally.

and, then i need to finish sorting through the drive.

...and i had two copies of my h2o driver....oops....

i had to take a nap...

i needed to get two phase inversions done this afternoon. one was easy and the second doesn't want to line up, but the creative card wasn't syncing right with cubase. so, let's try again with it removed from the machine.

so, the recording machine has been a bit more stable recently, until i did two things:

1) opened cubase

2) searched the 2 tb drive

i just proved that the audigy does not work properly over asio, so it's of minimal use to me, anyways. it's coming out. immediately.

i suspect that xp may have problems with drives larger than 1 tb, which i'm going to try to deal with by breaking the 2 tb drive up into smaller partitions.

i don't like sleeping...

i wanted this build of my 7th record done last night, but it's just a few more bits.

so, if you want the instrumental version of the renaissance piece that starts like divine amoebas, it is on the single. 

but, unlike everything else in my discography except stress, this is a vocally driven conceptual work and not a piece of pure music and i need to leave it that way.

broadly speaking, i've removed vocals from these records because i'm not comfortable with them. i rebuilt most of the inri-era vocal tracks for a series of singles, but they are broadly hard to listen to, so leaving them on the singles is the right way to do it. deny everything only had one vocal track to remove, and that was the right choice, partly because i had the electric folk version, which appears on the 5th record as the only salvaged vocal piece for the official lps. the 5th and 6th records were both built in 2014 for the first time, without vocals. and, the trivial group 2xlp will have vocals removed because they're mostly cringey, too - but left on the singles. 

unlike the others, i can't argue that that the vocals for like divine amoebas are cringey or hard to listen to. they don't interfere with the music, which was built around it. rather, i'd be separating the sound from it's content in a way that ultimately doesn't make sense.

so, i'll uploaded the 2021 rebuild for it. that's the right answer.

and, i'm going to replace some files on the amoebas single so they flow a little better, then, too.

a part of me is resisting the idea of removing the vocal mix from the ftaa disc.

let me chew on it  a bit, first.

publishing inri080

so, inri080 is done up to finalizing...

====

as mentioned below this, inri080 is now released - and this one's done to start. 

i needed a way to release an updated, corrected version of this tune, as i'll be removing the vocals from the 7th lp, which is set to release imminently. the version on the art show demo is normalized, but i'm leaving it like that. so, this fills a gap that opened up. 

the first part of the track (quantum psychosis) was written on heather's acoustic guitar in sarah's bedroom one night when i was there by myself and recorded directly to four-track tascam at the same time. several electric guitar overdubs were added either right away or very shortly. i digitized this in 2004 and do not know where the tape went; it is presumed lost, in 2021. 

the second part of the track was constructed more or less all at once in january, 2004 for the purposes of creating an art show demo. i had just finished reading a couple of books on afghan history, and had imagined this idea already, so i just implemented it all in one go. i haven't altered the recording substantively, since. 

the demo doesn't appear to have found an audience in it's initial presentation. 

the track itself is fairly esoteric. if you're not following the lyrics, it's a narrative of the history of afghanistan, starting from the achaemenid period and ending in the nato occupation of afghanistan. afghanistan used to be a very wealthy and very buddhist place, but it was utterly destroyed by the mongols in the 13th century and never fully recovered from the devastation. the track then climaxes in an epic 14-minute romp that sonically depicts the transmigration of the soul. afghanistan has historically usually been a buddhist region; it is unfortunately currently being occupied by foreigners that are non-buddhists, but their ancestors would no doubt forgive them for it.

this is a comprehensive collection of the different versions, as of mid-2021 and i don't expect to expand it further. 

written and recorded from 2001-2004. all versions here constructed over early 2004 from sound written in 2001 (the piano part) and/or recorded in late 2003 (the vocal quantum psychosis folk section) or early 2004 (the transmigration section). compiled and uploaded on june 19, 2021. as always, please use headphones. 

released february 1, 2004 

j - electric & acoustic guitars, effects, drum programming, vocals, noise generators, piano programming, noise generators, digital wave editing, composition, production 

special thanks to heather's guitar, which was just sitting in the corner minding it's own business before i picked it up to jam a bit.

if we're going to have identity politics, let's identify as atheists and unite on those terms and force the system to conform to what we want, rather than the other way around.

listen.

atheists are clearly the dominant demographic right now, but we're apathetic by nature and tend not to really care much about religion one way or the other. most of us don't even see at as worth being afraid of - it's too irrelevant to even fear.

i'm not representative of anybody; i'm always twenty years ahead of everybody, and what i'm trying to do is wake atheists up a little and get them to realize the threat that's in front of them - and know they won't unless pushed. and, that's probably the actual truth, that you're going to have to really push people hard to get them to react, and even the pandemic restrictions have only created a muted reaction because they really aren't enough to have people feel as though their rights are being taken from them, yet.

if you just take it on face value, if you eliminate the obvious symbolism that is going right over your average atheist's head, then wearing a mask is a triviality, right? i mean, who cares - it's just a stupid mask. what's the big deal?

it's when you take it to the next step that you're going to get people going "heeyyyyyy. wait a minute. you said i had to wear a mask to protect from diseases, but now you want me to lie on my face and mumble this nonsense facing...which way? why that way? this is lame. and weird. so, fuck off."

the premise of incrementally converting people relies on the assumption that they understand what's going on and will submit to it; if they don't even understand what the fuck is happening, you're just going to get a delayed reaction.

so, every time i go to google news it's something else. now, the who wants to ban alcohol. right. well, that's the kind of thing that'll get people out of their seats.

it could be a good thing in the long run if it wakes us up and convince us to be more politically aware. a cohesive atheist voting bloc might seem like a pipe dream, but it just might save the world if it's coerced into existence by the "liberals" organizing on the religious right.

while this may classify as a terrorist attack, it's important not to try to utilize it as a means to bring in even more authoritarian laws.

the fact is that you can't predict these kinds of things, and you need to get at root causes - which means finding ways to get rid of religion - if you want these kinds of attacks to stop.

so long as you have religion, you will have violence against queer groups, and queer groups need to grasp that and take the initiative in protecting themselves.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/driver-crashes-into-crowd-at-pride-parade-in-florida-1-dead-1.5477958

and, no, i don't want to see greater integration between british and muslim legal traditions - i want to see the populations in the middle east rise up, overthrow their governments and throw muslim jurisprudence in the dungheap of history.

this is a parasitic system of law without any redeeming value at all, and which must be resisted from corrupting the system we have in place.

like i needed another reason to not vote for them, right?

i miss dalton mcguinty.