well, they predicted a ridiculously cold winter this year and got it right. the mainstream forecasts were in the same neighbourhood, but not as extreme. for example, they predicted it would be cold in the upper midwest but warm in the southern midwest (it has been cold in both places) and cold in ontario but warm on the coast (it has been cold in both places).
meaning that it probably comes down to a variable or two and that, for whatever reason, the almanac was able to predict that the arctic air masses would overpower the probably maritime factors that the mainstream forecasts thought would overpower the arctic air masses.
it would be really nice to actually see how they came to that conclusion, but they won't publish.
i mean, it's easy to write it off as pseudo-science, but the truth is that we can't analyze the method because it's not public. sure, that obviously justifies some healthy skepticism. but it seems foolish to write something off without even knowing what it is.
http://www.ibtimes.com/farmers-almanac-winter-2014-forecast-draws-skepticism-weathermen-1401939
the last question is sort of silly, though. it's widely acknowledged that sunspots and planetary position have an effect. the problem is that the argument often comes up in the context of people arguing against anthropogenic climate change - and the overwhelming evidence that sunspot activity isn't even correlated with the increases in temperatures we've seen. but denying a link between climate change and sunspots doesn't negate the sun's effect on the earth's weather (weather, here, being contrasted with climate). we can connect all kinds of weather phenomena to sunspots. and with positioning, this is a real thing that's widely accepted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
but if they won't publish, there's no way to scrutinize what they're doing. from where you or i are standing, it's as good as magic. but if we knew what they were doing, we might be able to pull something of value out of it.
it's been widely published in wonky sources (and less wonky sources) that sunspot activity recently slowed down to almost nothing, leading up to a magnetic pole reversal that finally happened (after a longer than expected wait) a few days ago. even though the source of the cold is arctic air moving south, you don't have to take an obscure, gw-denying position to acknowledge that that might have had an effect on the cold winter we've had.
it would just be nice to see their calculations opened up so that that could be examined.
the recent magnetic reversal dismisses the fears in the article, but it gets to the point i'm making:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24512-solar-activity-heads-for-lowest-low-in-four-centuries.html
right. but it could give us a nasty winter or two.
then again, the current "nasty winter" would have been normal 30 years ago.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/11/solar-activity-and-the-so-called-%E2%80%9Clittle-ice-age%E2%80%9D/
btw, an interesting question that i've explored a little on this page going way back is whether there may be a way to connect volcanic activity to "space weather". i'm mostly thinking in terms of gravity. there's a really intuitive example with tides being caused by the moon. could all the gravity floating around us, from the sun and jupiter and whatever else, have an effect on the way continents interact, thereby affecting volcanic activity? if so, there's not a contradiction in the two ideas.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
i've posted about coywolves and hybrids here.
this is informative. and remember: nature will not simply roll over as we destroy it.
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/meet-the-coywolf
this is informative. and remember: nature will not simply roll over as we destroy it.
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/meet-the-coywolf
Monday, December 30, 2013
careful with this. sounds like austerity politics to me.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/23/if_the_risk_is_low_let
there's been several examples now of authorities using may day vandalism as an excuse to hold people. putting the politics aside, it seems to be me like the pragmatic thing is for activists to stay away from thugs.
http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2013/12/23/grand-jury-resistor-jerry-koch-bids-for-freedom/
no sane person thinks we should freeze in the dark to make an ideological point.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/24/christmas_for_many_wont_be_the_same_wynne.html
http://libcom.org/blog/pussy-riot-released-pr-stunt-olympic-proportions-24122013
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20835-food-security-can-come-in-tiny-wiggly-packages
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/17/pentagon_reverses_position_and_admits_u
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11244
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/beyond-cute-and-cuddly/story-e6frg8gf-1111114841214
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/23/if_the_risk_is_low_let
there's been several examples now of authorities using may day vandalism as an excuse to hold people. putting the politics aside, it seems to be me like the pragmatic thing is for activists to stay away from thugs.
http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2013/12/23/grand-jury-resistor-jerry-koch-bids-for-freedom/
no sane person thinks we should freeze in the dark to make an ideological point.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/24/christmas_for_many_wont_be_the_same_wynne.html
http://libcom.org/blog/pussy-riot-released-pr-stunt-olympic-proportions-24122013
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20835-food-security-can-come-in-tiny-wiggly-packages
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/17/pentagon_reverses_position_and_admits_u
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11244
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/beyond-cute-and-cuddly/story-e6frg8gf-1111114841214
there has been talk of a reinvasion of iraq for a little while now.
there's a clear comparison in palestine. they ran elections. the americans didn't like the results, so the elections didn't count.
it's sort if the same thing. this maliki guy is a bit of an authoritarian, but the bigger problem is that he's aligned with iran. but of course he is. he's shia. this hypothetical "shia power to replace iran" thing was always a pipe dream, because the threat of oppression by saudi arabia is too great. iran is the lesser evil from a shia perspective and nothing can be done to change the calculus besides take the saudis out of the equation, which would defeat the point in the first place.
so, this shouldn't surprise anybody.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/27/iraq-d27.html
there's a clear comparison in palestine. they ran elections. the americans didn't like the results, so the elections didn't count.
it's sort if the same thing. this maliki guy is a bit of an authoritarian, but the bigger problem is that he's aligned with iran. but of course he is. he's shia. this hypothetical "shia power to replace iran" thing was always a pipe dream, because the threat of oppression by saudi arabia is too great. iran is the lesser evil from a shia perspective and nothing can be done to change the calculus besides take the saudis out of the equation, which would defeat the point in the first place.
so, this shouldn't surprise anybody.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/27/iraq-d27.html
Sunday, December 29, 2013
that seems about right
rural ontarians would vote for a statue of jesus if you put a jersey with an embroidered C on it. it doesn't matter how bad hudak is. the only way to break that block is for the liberals to prop up the CHP. which is always dangerous...
what's important is that the provincial liberals don't make the same mistake the feds did, which is giving up on leftward pressure (rather than giving into it). there's no votes in the pc/liberal swing. the conservatives represent a frighteningly large block of ideological extremists; the true swing vote is on the center-left.
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2013/12/23/ontario_headed_toward_another_minority_government_poll.html
rural ontarians would vote for a statue of jesus if you put a jersey with an embroidered C on it. it doesn't matter how bad hudak is. the only way to break that block is for the liberals to prop up the CHP. which is always dangerous...
what's important is that the provincial liberals don't make the same mistake the feds did, which is giving up on leftward pressure (rather than giving into it). there's no votes in the pc/liberal swing. the conservatives represent a frighteningly large block of ideological extremists; the true swing vote is on the center-left.
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2013/12/23/ontario_headed_toward_another_minority_government_poll.html
https://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/3d-printed-artificial-reefs-bring-back-sea-life-persian-gulf.html
see, this is the kind of thing that could be used in conjunction with indoor growing tactics to maximize yield while minimizing environmental impact.
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-genetic-discovery-bigger-yields-tomato.html
even the early brain signals don't make a lot of sense: what are they reacting to? clearly, our brains don't just make things up, that's preposterous. the only way to make sense of it is to bring in an independent entity, like a parasite, that is in control.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-apple-court-samsung-tablets.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/solar-variability-has-a-small-effect-on-climate-change/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syrian-rebels-have-taken-iconoclasm-to-new-depths-with-shrines-statues-and-even-a-tree-destroyed--but-to-what-end-9021017.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-solar-key-climate.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/thorium-put-to-use-kills-a-few-more-versions-of-supersymmetry/
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-carbon-dioxide-picture-global.html
https://phys.org/news/2013-12-scientists-closer-rna.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/21/amaz-d21.html
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/20/why_obamas_hints_at_intel_reform_are_mostly_window_dressing
http://fpif.org/u-s-determined-re-freeze-thaw-relations-iran/
http://fpif.org/bluster-blowback-beirut/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/pers-d23.html
http://libcom.org/blog/protesters-clash-police-rote-flora-social-centre-eviction-hamburg-22122013
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11237
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20604-detroits-dan-gilbert-henry-ford-or-henry-potter
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11225
http://libcom.org/gallery/1932-ford-hunger-march-massacre
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/19/the_political_science_of_syria_s_war
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/23/the-last-chance-for-peace-in-syria/
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20803-inequality-government-is-a-perp-not-a-bystander
http://intercontinentalcry.org/guatemalas-high-court-affirms-right-of-consent-for-indigenous-and-rural-communities-21455/
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/10/bushs_shrinking_world_george_w_bush
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/suda-d23.html
http://phys.org/news307038787.html
see, this is the kind of thing that could be used in conjunction with indoor growing tactics to maximize yield while minimizing environmental impact.
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-genetic-discovery-bigger-yields-tomato.html
even the early brain signals don't make a lot of sense: what are they reacting to? clearly, our brains don't just make things up, that's preposterous. the only way to make sense of it is to bring in an independent entity, like a parasite, that is in control.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-apple-court-samsung-tablets.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/solar-variability-has-a-small-effect-on-climate-change/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syrian-rebels-have-taken-iconoclasm-to-new-depths-with-shrines-statues-and-even-a-tree-destroyed--but-to-what-end-9021017.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-solar-key-climate.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/thorium-put-to-use-kills-a-few-more-versions-of-supersymmetry/
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-carbon-dioxide-picture-global.html
https://phys.org/news/2013-12-scientists-closer-rna.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/21/amaz-d21.html
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/20/why_obamas_hints_at_intel_reform_are_mostly_window_dressing
http://fpif.org/u-s-determined-re-freeze-thaw-relations-iran/
http://fpif.org/bluster-blowback-beirut/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/pers-d23.html
http://libcom.org/blog/protesters-clash-police-rote-flora-social-centre-eviction-hamburg-22122013
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11237
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20604-detroits-dan-gilbert-henry-ford-or-henry-potter
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11225
http://libcom.org/gallery/1932-ford-hunger-march-massacre
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/19/the_political_science_of_syria_s_war
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/23/the-last-chance-for-peace-in-syria/
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20803-inequality-government-is-a-perp-not-a-bystander
http://intercontinentalcry.org/guatemalas-high-court-affirms-right-of-consent-for-indigenous-and-rural-communities-21455/
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/10/bushs_shrinking_world_george_w_bush
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/suda-d23.html
http://phys.org/news307038787.html
Saturday, December 28, 2013
music video for ‘inertia’
i'm sure this won't be the last traditional music video i put
together, although i don't have much respect for the medium and have no
interest in doing it as something mandatory.
this footage just struck me as very powerful, and fitting to the track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
original video taken from here without requesting permission:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS_oLmWlG8s
this footage just struck me as very powerful, and fitting to the track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
original video taken from here without requesting permission:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS_oLmWlG8s
i'm basically convinced that free will doesn't exist, because parasites.
^ that is legitimately chilling though, albeit sort of touching. the parasite does this long dance that ends with it caressing the dead roach, sort of hugging it goodbye.
and, perhaps my empathy is pathogenic.
hrmmmn.
yeah, yeah. i know. not everybody can appreciate the beauty in this.
so, back to the jennifer aniston romcoms with ya, then.
^ that is legitimately chilling though, albeit sort of touching. the parasite does this long dance that ends with it caressing the dead roach, sort of hugging it goodbye.
and, perhaps my empathy is pathogenic.
hrmmmn.
yeah, yeah. i know. not everybody can appreciate the beauty in this.
so, back to the jennifer aniston romcoms with ya, then.
(no subject)
well, then.
happy things. merry stuff.
weirdness prevails.
hey, check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
those images hit me sort of deeply, so i orchestrated them. there's such an ambiguous overlap between love and parasitism....the video wasn't shot with this is mind, but the exploration it presents of that overlap is just sort of wow.
i cried making it. are the images as powerful as i see them, or am i just insane?
wait, don't answer.
you should come visit.
j
happy things. merry stuff.
weirdness prevails.
hey, check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
those images hit me sort of deeply, so i orchestrated them. there's such an ambiguous overlap between love and parasitism....the video wasn't shot with this is mind, but the exploration it presents of that overlap is just sort of wow.
i cried making it. are the images as powerful as i see them, or am i just insane?
wait, don't answer.
you should come visit.
j
re: roach situation
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord
actually, i got one right away. it's in a plastic baggie - i guess i can bring this upstairs...?
i'm no entomologist, but it sure looks like a roach to me. again, it seems to have come out of the wall looking for water; i caught it near the shower. also, given the pattern i've seen, i suspect it may be the same one i saw a few days ago and let get away into the crack. i really don't think there's an infestation in the unit, but rather a high number near by. when one gets in, it runs around for a few days until i catch it and then i don't see another for weeks....
j
To: the initial landlord
actually, i got one right away. it's in a plastic baggie - i guess i can bring this upstairs...?
i'm no entomologist, but it sure looks like a roach to me. again, it seems to have come out of the wall looking for water; i caught it near the shower. also, given the pattern i've seen, i suspect it may be the same one i saw a few days ago and let get away into the crack. i really don't think there's an infestation in the unit, but rather a high number near by. when one gets in, it runs around for a few days until i catch it and then i don't see another for weeks....
j
ugh. if you must rot your brain with the garbage they call "film" nowadays, can you please have the common fucking courtesy to not monopolize the entire block's bandwidth for hours at a time?
BAN NETFLIX.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/15/bittorrent-says-netflix-is-hogging-bandwidth-not-beating-it
when you contemplate what this technology could be doing, it's flat out revolting to think it's being wasted on middle aged bureaucrats watching jennifer aniston romcoms - to the point that it's starting to strangle service. that's the kind of imagery that makes me yearn for the consequences of nuclear warfare.
i'm pretty sure my upstairs neighbours got netflix for christmas, and i'm going to have to move to dsl as a result. i'll give it a few more days...
BAN NETFLIX.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/15/bittorrent-says-netflix-is-hogging-bandwidth-not-beating-it
when you contemplate what this technology could be doing, it's flat out revolting to think it's being wasted on middle aged bureaucrats watching jennifer aniston romcoms - to the point that it's starting to strangle service. that's the kind of imagery that makes me yearn for the consequences of nuclear warfare.
i'm pretty sure my upstairs neighbours got netflix for christmas, and i'm going to have to move to dsl as a result. i'll give it a few more days...
Friday, December 27, 2013
re: roach situation
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord
they're easy to kill by hitting them with a kleenex box, they don't seem to react to humans at all until they're attacked, but it may be a while before i see another one. as mentioned, they seem to be in the walls rather than in the unit. they never stray far from the hole they came from and try to go back in the hole if you don't get them the first time. when i blocked them off in the bedroom, they went away for months. now that i've blocked the dead radiator, i haven't seen another. i'm not sure what other entry points might exist, but i'll keep an eye out.
j
To: the initial landlord
they're easy to kill by hitting them with a kleenex box, they don't seem to react to humans at all until they're attacked, but it may be a while before i see another one. as mentioned, they seem to be in the walls rather than in the unit. they never stray far from the hole they came from and try to go back in the hole if you don't get them the first time. when i blocked them off in the bedroom, they went away for months. now that i've blocked the dead radiator, i haven't seen another. i'm not sure what other entry points might exist, but i'll keep an eye out.
j
re: roach situation
From: the initial landlord
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Happy Holiday, we have never had roaches but have had occasionally had bugs that are similar. They had appeared briefly from time to time and had originated from the storm sewer drain . I will contact my brother and he can use some product we might still have from a few years ago when we had a few bugs appear. Please try to capture one of the them so we can make a determination of what the bug is.
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Happy Holiday, we have never had roaches but have had occasionally had bugs that are similar. They had appeared briefly from time to time and had originated from the storm sewer drain . I will contact my brother and he can use some product we might still have from a few years ago when we had a few bugs appear. Please try to capture one of the them so we can make a determination of what the bug is.
publishing inrijected (inri022)
this is a collection of rejected tracks from the inri/inriched period. it's just chronologically sequenced.
recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth, drum programming, lyrics, samples, loops, cool edit synthesis, digital wave editing
released feb 27, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrijected
recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth, drum programming, lyrics, samples, loops, cool edit synthesis, digital wave editing
released feb 27, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrijected
publishing inrimixed (inri023)
this is a collection of weird, glitchy remixes from the inri/inriched period that i meant to do something with and just never did.
the cover art is actually the waveform for track 2; similarities to the mirror reflection of the cover of any seminal eponymous records from the late 60s are purely coincidental.
constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, synths, bass, drum programming, vocals, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencing, loops
released feb 28, 1999
the cover art is actually the waveform for track 2; similarities to the mirror reflection of the cover of any seminal eponymous records from the late 60s are purely coincidental.
constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, synths, bass, drum programming, vocals, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencing, loops
released feb 28, 1999
yup. headphones cleaned and as good as new. in the end, i'm going to prove these things are indestructible.
mixes passed through multiple listening tests and the result is acceptable if not always perfect. minor existing problems are source related, and in tracks i'm not as attached to. moving on. finally....
i hope to have the reject cd done by the day, and maybe move into inrimake.
mixes passed through multiple listening tests and the result is acceptable if not always perfect. minor existing problems are source related, and in tracks i'm not as attached to. moving on. finally....
i hope to have the reject cd done by the day, and maybe move into inrimake.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
ugh. i just spent the last several days trying to figure out what the
factors were around certain tracks buzzing only on the laptop, to
realize they buzzed out of the pc, now, too - because the buzz is coming
from the headphones. autechre and htda and even asmz are also buzzing,
albeit at different levels. it's definitely the phones.
these are my beloved phones that i've had since i was a kid and that i just replaced the cord on. and was very excited about having in working order again...
on the one hand, i seem to recall them buzzing like this in the past. yet, they weren't doing this recently up until this week. it sounds like i blew a speaker and i'm sort of blaming myself for it. i was really blaring them.
there's an off chance it could be dirty, but i'm not really sure what to do if the speaker is actually blown. that's twice, now, that i've run up against these headphones being out of order. but i don't have $800 to blow on a pair of phones that are comparable. i don't even have $300 to blow on a downgrade.
the only other pair i have to mix on are a pair of "noise-cancelling" phones that designed for ipods, and they're just too synthetic to get a useful signal from. they're just not useful for this purpose. unfortunately, my previous backups (aiwas) seem to have gotten damaged in the move.
i'm going to try and clean them and let them sit for the night and go from there. it seems bad, though...
even blaring them is...i blared them for years...
i'm wondering if the cord had too strong a signal for the speakers, a different impedance. these phones are 20+ years old, the cord is for newer models. i used the cord support told me to use, but that doesn't really say much..
these are my beloved phones that i've had since i was a kid and that i just replaced the cord on. and was very excited about having in working order again...
on the one hand, i seem to recall them buzzing like this in the past. yet, they weren't doing this recently up until this week. it sounds like i blew a speaker and i'm sort of blaming myself for it. i was really blaring them.
there's an off chance it could be dirty, but i'm not really sure what to do if the speaker is actually blown. that's twice, now, that i've run up against these headphones being out of order. but i don't have $800 to blow on a pair of phones that are comparable. i don't even have $300 to blow on a downgrade.
the only other pair i have to mix on are a pair of "noise-cancelling" phones that designed for ipods, and they're just too synthetic to get a useful signal from. they're just not useful for this purpose. unfortunately, my previous backups (aiwas) seem to have gotten damaged in the move.
i'm going to try and clean them and let them sit for the night and go from there. it seems bad, though...
even blaring them is...i blared them for years...
i'm wondering if the cord had too strong a signal for the speakers, a different impedance. these phones are 20+ years old, the cord is for newer models. i used the cord support told me to use, but that doesn't really say much..
there's a young lady in the neighbourhood that's been bumping into me repeatedly and coming up with excuses to try and start a conversation with me. nervous hands, giggly voice. obvious; annoying, really. unfortunately, anybody that is displaying any interest in any type of interaction that is less than completely random and spontaneous is going to instantly be put in my perpetual ignore filter. see, anybody that is going out of their way to try and get to know me better is making a gigantic mistake, the proportions of which they really have no grasp of. it demonstrates bad judgment. to begin with, my first assumption is cia, and that assumption isn't going to recede quickly. but, i'm ultimately not willing to waste my time when the conclusion is predetermined. it's better if others get the point quickly rather than waste their own time. that's just time i could have spent by myself, doing something i'm more interested in.
it got me thinking, though, as i was turning the corner a block early to avoid crossing paths. it's actually been almost 8 years, now, since i last had any kind of sexual activity. that's probably longer than most people in convents and monasteries (i don't really think most of them take those oaths all that seriously). practically speaking, i think i've revirginized myself.
i don't really think about it, or even really care. my level of cynicism about sex is probably clinical. like, in need of deep psychiatry - or so people would claim. whatever. the reality is probably that i'm absolutely right and the rest of the world is totally naive. i think i'm more likely to convince a shrink than the other way around. it's just a question of coming to terms with the futility of existence. maybe i'm being a little bit buddhist again; again, whatever.
but eight years is really impressive, considering it's just out of absolute disinterest rather than anything ideological or philosophical. i see no reason to think i won't go another eight...
it got me thinking, though, as i was turning the corner a block early to avoid crossing paths. it's actually been almost 8 years, now, since i last had any kind of sexual activity. that's probably longer than most people in convents and monasteries (i don't really think most of them take those oaths all that seriously). practically speaking, i think i've revirginized myself.
i don't really think about it, or even really care. my level of cynicism about sex is probably clinical. like, in need of deep psychiatry - or so people would claim. whatever. the reality is probably that i'm absolutely right and the rest of the world is totally naive. i think i'm more likely to convince a shrink than the other way around. it's just a question of coming to terms with the futility of existence. maybe i'm being a little bit buddhist again; again, whatever.
but eight years is really impressive, considering it's just out of absolute disinterest rather than anything ideological or philosophical. i see no reason to think i won't go another eight...
jessica amber murray
this has been going on for a while now.
1) don't believe the conservatives when they question the validity of climate science. clearly, they're accepting it.
2) there's a big problem with the permafrost melting insofar as it will release absurd amounts of carbon. but if you follow their politics, they see that as beneficial - despite the global consequences.
3) it's not just the russians. the americans don't accept canadian claims over the region, either. any canadian-american alliance on the issue to reject russian claims is american pragmatism that is going to serve the interests of american capital in the long run.
4) the area actually legally belongs to the indigenous people of the region. for all chretien's faults, give him credit for explicitly taking that legally correct position.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11170
a related issue that's going to develop is the question of letting ships pass through the region. there was a bit of a hullabaloo a few years ago when it was discovered that china was sending icebreakers to "explore" the region, completely ignoring canadian claims. in reality, canadian claims over the arctic don't seem to be regarded amongst other nations - again, that includes the americans. the conservatives have made a nationalistic show of the whole thing. but the americans and others see the "northwest passage" as international waters.
eventually, what's going to have to happen is something like this, that allows free passage of merchant ships and restricts military vessels. but our current government, at the least, is likely to fight against it pretty hard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits
dave
State claims over totally undeveloped areas of the world is ludicrious and usually abusive
The very best people who would have a claim over the region are the people who live there and have developed it, and that would be inuit peoples in some regions, and nobody in other regions
jessica amber murray
i tend to agree with that. it seems to rarely be even contemplated inside of canada, but outside of canada the water is generally viewed as an international strait. our government is wrong to assert sovereignty, especially considering that almost the entire area is in the boundaries of nunavut.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavut-irked-by-arctic-sovereignty-talk-1.881954
(of course, clinton was really pushing the american perspective of the area being an international waterway)
this has been going on for a while now.
1) don't believe the conservatives when they question the validity of climate science. clearly, they're accepting it.
2) there's a big problem with the permafrost melting insofar as it will release absurd amounts of carbon. but if you follow their politics, they see that as beneficial - despite the global consequences.
3) it's not just the russians. the americans don't accept canadian claims over the region, either. any canadian-american alliance on the issue to reject russian claims is american pragmatism that is going to serve the interests of american capital in the long run.
4) the area actually legally belongs to the indigenous people of the region. for all chretien's faults, give him credit for explicitly taking that legally correct position.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11170
a related issue that's going to develop is the question of letting ships pass through the region. there was a bit of a hullabaloo a few years ago when it was discovered that china was sending icebreakers to "explore" the region, completely ignoring canadian claims. in reality, canadian claims over the arctic don't seem to be regarded amongst other nations - again, that includes the americans. the conservatives have made a nationalistic show of the whole thing. but the americans and others see the "northwest passage" as international waters.
eventually, what's going to have to happen is something like this, that allows free passage of merchant ships and restricts military vessels. but our current government, at the least, is likely to fight against it pretty hard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits
dave
State claims over totally undeveloped areas of the world is ludicrious and usually abusive
The very best people who would have a claim over the region are the people who live there and have developed it, and that would be inuit peoples in some regions, and nobody in other regions
jessica amber murray
i tend to agree with that. it seems to rarely be even contemplated inside of canada, but outside of canada the water is generally viewed as an international strait. our government is wrong to assert sovereignty, especially considering that almost the entire area is in the boundaries of nunavut.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavut-irked-by-arctic-sovereignty-talk-1.881954
(of course, clinton was really pushing the american perspective of the area being an international waterway)
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
you know, a lot has been said about how the boomers are entering mass retirement, which is good news for everybody, but something that hasn't been pointed out is that the oldest gen xers are entering year 50 - the prime of their existence insofar as making measurable change is concerned.
they're going to have a short time window. i mean, they had their influence muted by the reality that they were dramatically outnumbered by the boomers for far too long to begin with, and they're going to be outnumbered again by the millennials (who seem to be worse than the boomers) within a few decades.
...but this is the generation that was in control of the rise of technology. they're the architects of giant recent shifts in human culture. there's a huge amount of wealth, there, and a very different DIY attitude.
i may be being overly optimistic, but it seems like we're on the cusp of a big change from an industrial economy to a technological economy, and it's coming packaged with a generational shift that has a legit desire to fuck some things up. the haliburtons and standard oils are being phased out for microsofts and googles and ebays.
what i'm getting at is that there is some hope that they may have an interest in finally fulfilling the promise of technology, as seen in the science fiction paperbacks and blockbuster films that they grew up reading and watching.
it's a narrative i'm going to keep an eye on.
well, actually, maybe the window may not be so short.
millennials have fuck-all, opportunity wise.
about the best a millennial can hope for is to climb it's way up a technology firm...
this is hopefully just a start. first, take on the media:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/19/pierre-omidyar-first-50m-media-venture-glenn-greenwald
i mean, i'm not naive enough that i don't realize this is big money with big money interests, but it's precisely because i'm not naive that i realize that media follows the directives of it's founders - see fox news, for example. it's not the end of history. murdoch's empire will be replaced with something else.
...and i think there's some hope, here, with a generational shift, that different principles will be thrust to the forefront.
i mean, there's a reason there was a liberal shift in the middle of the last century, and the popular movements we saw were a *result* of it rather than the cause of it. there used to be a class of wealthy british and american liberals that sought to manipulate public opinion through media. they just died out, and were replaced with something much more conservative.
they're going to have a short time window. i mean, they had their influence muted by the reality that they were dramatically outnumbered by the boomers for far too long to begin with, and they're going to be outnumbered again by the millennials (who seem to be worse than the boomers) within a few decades.
...but this is the generation that was in control of the rise of technology. they're the architects of giant recent shifts in human culture. there's a huge amount of wealth, there, and a very different DIY attitude.
i may be being overly optimistic, but it seems like we're on the cusp of a big change from an industrial economy to a technological economy, and it's coming packaged with a generational shift that has a legit desire to fuck some things up. the haliburtons and standard oils are being phased out for microsofts and googles and ebays.
what i'm getting at is that there is some hope that they may have an interest in finally fulfilling the promise of technology, as seen in the science fiction paperbacks and blockbuster films that they grew up reading and watching.
it's a narrative i'm going to keep an eye on.
well, actually, maybe the window may not be so short.
millennials have fuck-all, opportunity wise.
about the best a millennial can hope for is to climb it's way up a technology firm...
this is hopefully just a start. first, take on the media:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/19/pierre-omidyar-first-50m-media-venture-glenn-greenwald
i mean, i'm not naive enough that i don't realize this is big money with big money interests, but it's precisely because i'm not naive that i realize that media follows the directives of it's founders - see fox news, for example. it's not the end of history. murdoch's empire will be replaced with something else.
...and i think there's some hope, here, with a generational shift, that different principles will be thrust to the forefront.
i mean, there's a reason there was a liberal shift in the middle of the last century, and the popular movements we saw were a *result* of it rather than the cause of it. there used to be a class of wealthy british and american liberals that sought to manipulate public opinion through media. they just died out, and were replaced with something much more conservative.
excerpt from ‘soul of man under socialism’
we need less anarchist writing by economists and philosophers and more anarchist writing by artists. i know. i'll get to it.
i've posted this a few times. i don't absolutely identify with any single strain of anarchist thought, but this is really the closest thing i've seen to articulating my own viewpoints.
" Now as the State is not to govern, it may be asked what the State is to do. The State is to be a voluntary association that will organise labour, and be the manufacturer and distributor of necessary commodities. The State is to make what is useful. The individual is to make what is beautiful. And as I have mentioned the word labour, I cannot help saying that a great deal of nonsense is being written and talked nowadays about the dignity of manual labour. There is nothing necessarily dignified about manual labour at all, and most of it is absolutely degrading. It is mentally and morally injurious to man to do anything in which he does not find pleasure, and many forms of labour are quite pleasureless activities, and should be regarded as such. To sweep a slushy crossing for eight hours, on a day when the east wind is blowing is a disgusting occupation. To sweep it with mental, moral, or physical dignity seems to me to be impossible. To sweep it with joy would be appalling. Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt. All work of that kind should be done by a machine.
And I have no doubt that it will be so. Up to the present, man has been, to a certain extent, the slave of machinery, and there is something tragic in the fact that as soon as man had invented a machine to do his work he began to starve. This, however, is, of course, the result of our property system and our system of competition. One man owns a machine which does the work of five hundred men. Five hundred men are, in consequence, thrown out of employment, and, having no work to do, become hungry and take to thieving. The one man secures the produce of the machine and keeps it, and has five hundred times as much as he should have, and probably, which is of much more importance, a great deal more than he really wants. Were that machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it. It would be an immense advantage to the community. All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery. Machinery must work for us in coal mines, and do all sanitary services, and be the stoker of steamers, and clean the streets, and run messages on wet days, and do anything that is tedious or distressing. At present machinery competes against man. Under proper conditions machinery will serve man. There is no doubt at all that this is the future of machinery, and just as trees grow while the country gentleman is asleep, so while Humanity will be amusing itself, or enjoying cultivated leisure – which, and not labour, is the aim of man – or making beautiful things, or reading beautiful things, or simply contemplating the world with admiration and delight, machinery will be doing all the necessary and unpleasant work. The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. And when scientific men are no longer called upon to go down to a depressing East End and distribute bad cocoa and worse blankets to starving people, they will have delightful leisure in which to devise wonderful and marvellous things for their own joy and the joy of everyone else. There will be great storages of force for every city, and for every house if required, and this force man will convert into heat, light, or motion, according to his needs. Is this Utopian? A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.
Now, I have said that the community by means of organisation of machinery will supply the useful things, and that the beautiful things will be made by the individual. This is not merely necessary, but it is the only possible way by which we can get either the one or the other. An individual who has to make things for the use of others, and with reference to their wants and their wishes, does not work with interest, and consequently cannot put into his work what is best in him. Upon the other hand, whenever a community or a powerful section of a community, or a government of any kind, attempts to dictate to the artist what he is to do, Art either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates into a low and ignoble form of craft. A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist. Art is the most intense mode of Individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of Individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may seem to have created Individualism, must take cognisance of other people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of action. But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.
And it is to be noted that it is the fact that Art is this intense form of Individualism that makes the public try to exercise over it in an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. There is a very wide difference. If a man of science were told that the results of his experiments, and the conclusions that he arrived at, should be of such a character that they would not upset the received popular notions on the subject, or disturb popular prejudice, or hurt the sensibilities of people who knew nothing about science; if a philosopher were told that he had a perfect right to speculate in the highest spheres of thought, provided that he arrived at the same conclusions as were held by those who had never thought in any sphere at all – well, nowadays the man of science and the philosopher would be considerably amused. Yet it is really a very few years since both philosophy and science were subjected to brutal popular control, to authority – in fact the authority of either the general ignorance of the community, or the terror and greed for power of an ecclesiastical or governmental class. Of course, we have to a very great extent got rid of any attempt on the part of the community, or the Church, or the Government, to interfere with the individualism of speculative thought, but the attempt to interfere with the individualism of imaginative art still lingers. In fact, it does more than linger; it is aggressive, offensive, and brutalising.
In England, the arts that have escaped best are the arts in which the public take no interest. Poetry is an instance of what I mean. We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it. The public like to insult poets because they are individual, but once they have insulted them, they leave them alone. In the case of the novel and the drama, arts in which the public do take an interest, the result of the exercise of popular authority has been absolutely ridiculous. No country produces such badly-written fiction, such tedious, common work in the novel form, such silly, vulgar plays as England. It must necessarily be so. The popular standard is of such a character that no artist can get to it. It is at once too easy and too difficult to be a popular novelist. It is too easy, because the requirements of the public as far as plot, style, psychology, treatment of life, and treatment of literature are concerned are within the reach of the very meanest capacity and the most uncultivated mind. It is too difficult, because to meet such requirements the artist would have to do violence to his temperament, would have to write not for the artistic joy of writing, but for the amusement of half-educated people, and so would have to suppress his individualism, forget his culture, annihilate his style, and surrender everything that is valuable in him. In the case of the drama, things are a little better: the theatre-going public like the obvious, it is true, but they do not like the tedious; and burlesque and farcical comedy, the two most popular forms, are distinct forms of art. Delightful work may be produced under burlesque and farcical conditions, and in work of this kind the artist in England is allowed very great freedom. It is when one comes to the higher forms of the drama that the result of popular control is seen. The one thing that the public dislike is novelty. Any attempt to extend the subject-matter of art is extremely distasteful to the public; and yet the vitality and progress of art depend in a large measure on the continual extension of subject-matter. The public dislike novelty because they are afraid of it. It represents to them a mode of Individualism, an assertion on the part of the artist that he selects his own subject, and treats it as he chooses. The public are quite right in their attitude. Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine. In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. They endure them as the inevitable, and as they cannot mar them, they mouth about them. Strangely enough, or not strangely, according to one’s own views, this acceptance of the classics does a great deal of harm. The uncritical admiration of the Bible and Shakespeare in England is an instance of what I mean. With regard to the Bible, considerations of ecclesiastical authority enter into the matter, so that I need not dwell upon the point. But in the case of Shakespeare it is quite obvious that the public really see neither the beauties nor the defects of his plays. If they saw the beauties, they would not object to the development of the drama; and if they saw the defects, they would not object to the development of the drama either. The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms. They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist. A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to them, and whenever it appears they get so angry, and bewildered that they always use two stupid expressions – one is that the work of art is grossly unintelligible; the other, that the work of art is grossly immoral. What they mean by these words seems to me to be this. When they say a work is grossly unintelligible, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is true. The former expression has reference to style; the latter to subject-matter. But they probably use the words very vaguely, as an ordinary mob will use ready-made paving-stones. There is not a single real poet or prose-writer of this century, for instance, on whom the British public have not solemnly conferred diplomas of immorality, and these diplomas practically take the place, with us, of what in France, is the formal recognition of an Academy of Letters, and fortunately make the establishment of such an institution quite unnecessary in England. Of course, the public are very reckless in their use of the word. That they should have called Wordsworth an immoral poet, was only to be expected. Wordsworth was a poet. But that they should have called Charles Kingsley an immoral novelist is extraordinary. Kingsley’s prose was not of a very fine quality. Still, there is the word, and they use it as best they can. An artist is, of course, not disturbed by it. The true artist is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself. But I can fancy that if an artist produced a work of art in England that immediately on its appearance was recognised by the public, through their medium, which is the public press, as a work that was quite intelligible and highly moral, he would begin to seriously question whether in its creation he had really been himself at all, and consequently whether the work was not quite unworthy of him, and either of a thoroughly second-rate order, or of no artistic value whatsoever."
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/
i've posted this a few times. i don't absolutely identify with any single strain of anarchist thought, but this is really the closest thing i've seen to articulating my own viewpoints.
" Now as the State is not to govern, it may be asked what the State is to do. The State is to be a voluntary association that will organise labour, and be the manufacturer and distributor of necessary commodities. The State is to make what is useful. The individual is to make what is beautiful. And as I have mentioned the word labour, I cannot help saying that a great deal of nonsense is being written and talked nowadays about the dignity of manual labour. There is nothing necessarily dignified about manual labour at all, and most of it is absolutely degrading. It is mentally and morally injurious to man to do anything in which he does not find pleasure, and many forms of labour are quite pleasureless activities, and should be regarded as such. To sweep a slushy crossing for eight hours, on a day when the east wind is blowing is a disgusting occupation. To sweep it with mental, moral, or physical dignity seems to me to be impossible. To sweep it with joy would be appalling. Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt. All work of that kind should be done by a machine.
And I have no doubt that it will be so. Up to the present, man has been, to a certain extent, the slave of machinery, and there is something tragic in the fact that as soon as man had invented a machine to do his work he began to starve. This, however, is, of course, the result of our property system and our system of competition. One man owns a machine which does the work of five hundred men. Five hundred men are, in consequence, thrown out of employment, and, having no work to do, become hungry and take to thieving. The one man secures the produce of the machine and keeps it, and has five hundred times as much as he should have, and probably, which is of much more importance, a great deal more than he really wants. Were that machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it. It would be an immense advantage to the community. All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery. Machinery must work for us in coal mines, and do all sanitary services, and be the stoker of steamers, and clean the streets, and run messages on wet days, and do anything that is tedious or distressing. At present machinery competes against man. Under proper conditions machinery will serve man. There is no doubt at all that this is the future of machinery, and just as trees grow while the country gentleman is asleep, so while Humanity will be amusing itself, or enjoying cultivated leisure – which, and not labour, is the aim of man – or making beautiful things, or reading beautiful things, or simply contemplating the world with admiration and delight, machinery will be doing all the necessary and unpleasant work. The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. And when scientific men are no longer called upon to go down to a depressing East End and distribute bad cocoa and worse blankets to starving people, they will have delightful leisure in which to devise wonderful and marvellous things for their own joy and the joy of everyone else. There will be great storages of force for every city, and for every house if required, and this force man will convert into heat, light, or motion, according to his needs. Is this Utopian? A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.
Now, I have said that the community by means of organisation of machinery will supply the useful things, and that the beautiful things will be made by the individual. This is not merely necessary, but it is the only possible way by which we can get either the one or the other. An individual who has to make things for the use of others, and with reference to their wants and their wishes, does not work with interest, and consequently cannot put into his work what is best in him. Upon the other hand, whenever a community or a powerful section of a community, or a government of any kind, attempts to dictate to the artist what he is to do, Art either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates into a low and ignoble form of craft. A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist. Art is the most intense mode of Individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of Individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may seem to have created Individualism, must take cognisance of other people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of action. But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.
And it is to be noted that it is the fact that Art is this intense form of Individualism that makes the public try to exercise over it in an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. There is a very wide difference. If a man of science were told that the results of his experiments, and the conclusions that he arrived at, should be of such a character that they would not upset the received popular notions on the subject, or disturb popular prejudice, or hurt the sensibilities of people who knew nothing about science; if a philosopher were told that he had a perfect right to speculate in the highest spheres of thought, provided that he arrived at the same conclusions as were held by those who had never thought in any sphere at all – well, nowadays the man of science and the philosopher would be considerably amused. Yet it is really a very few years since both philosophy and science were subjected to brutal popular control, to authority – in fact the authority of either the general ignorance of the community, or the terror and greed for power of an ecclesiastical or governmental class. Of course, we have to a very great extent got rid of any attempt on the part of the community, or the Church, or the Government, to interfere with the individualism of speculative thought, but the attempt to interfere with the individualism of imaginative art still lingers. In fact, it does more than linger; it is aggressive, offensive, and brutalising.
In England, the arts that have escaped best are the arts in which the public take no interest. Poetry is an instance of what I mean. We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it. The public like to insult poets because they are individual, but once they have insulted them, they leave them alone. In the case of the novel and the drama, arts in which the public do take an interest, the result of the exercise of popular authority has been absolutely ridiculous. No country produces such badly-written fiction, such tedious, common work in the novel form, such silly, vulgar plays as England. It must necessarily be so. The popular standard is of such a character that no artist can get to it. It is at once too easy and too difficult to be a popular novelist. It is too easy, because the requirements of the public as far as plot, style, psychology, treatment of life, and treatment of literature are concerned are within the reach of the very meanest capacity and the most uncultivated mind. It is too difficult, because to meet such requirements the artist would have to do violence to his temperament, would have to write not for the artistic joy of writing, but for the amusement of half-educated people, and so would have to suppress his individualism, forget his culture, annihilate his style, and surrender everything that is valuable in him. In the case of the drama, things are a little better: the theatre-going public like the obvious, it is true, but they do not like the tedious; and burlesque and farcical comedy, the two most popular forms, are distinct forms of art. Delightful work may be produced under burlesque and farcical conditions, and in work of this kind the artist in England is allowed very great freedom. It is when one comes to the higher forms of the drama that the result of popular control is seen. The one thing that the public dislike is novelty. Any attempt to extend the subject-matter of art is extremely distasteful to the public; and yet the vitality and progress of art depend in a large measure on the continual extension of subject-matter. The public dislike novelty because they are afraid of it. It represents to them a mode of Individualism, an assertion on the part of the artist that he selects his own subject, and treats it as he chooses. The public are quite right in their attitude. Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine. In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. They endure them as the inevitable, and as they cannot mar them, they mouth about them. Strangely enough, or not strangely, according to one’s own views, this acceptance of the classics does a great deal of harm. The uncritical admiration of the Bible and Shakespeare in England is an instance of what I mean. With regard to the Bible, considerations of ecclesiastical authority enter into the matter, so that I need not dwell upon the point. But in the case of Shakespeare it is quite obvious that the public really see neither the beauties nor the defects of his plays. If they saw the beauties, they would not object to the development of the drama; and if they saw the defects, they would not object to the development of the drama either. The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms. They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist. A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to them, and whenever it appears they get so angry, and bewildered that they always use two stupid expressions – one is that the work of art is grossly unintelligible; the other, that the work of art is grossly immoral. What they mean by these words seems to me to be this. When they say a work is grossly unintelligible, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is true. The former expression has reference to style; the latter to subject-matter. But they probably use the words very vaguely, as an ordinary mob will use ready-made paving-stones. There is not a single real poet or prose-writer of this century, for instance, on whom the British public have not solemnly conferred diplomas of immorality, and these diplomas practically take the place, with us, of what in France, is the formal recognition of an Academy of Letters, and fortunately make the establishment of such an institution quite unnecessary in England. Of course, the public are very reckless in their use of the word. That they should have called Wordsworth an immoral poet, was only to be expected. Wordsworth was a poet. But that they should have called Charles Kingsley an immoral novelist is extraordinary. Kingsley’s prose was not of a very fine quality. Still, there is the word, and they use it as best they can. An artist is, of course, not disturbed by it. The true artist is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself. But I can fancy that if an artist produced a work of art in England that immediately on its appearance was recognised by the public, through their medium, which is the public press, as a work that was quite intelligible and highly moral, he would begin to seriously question whether in its creation he had really been himself at all, and consequently whether the work was not quite unworthy of him, and either of a thoroughly second-rate order, or of no artistic value whatsoever."
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
publishing first remaster & re-release of inriched (inri021)
and here it is, finally - done.
the editing here was much deeper than the first cd demo. while i was initially less excited about this one, the end result is comparable - there's one specific track, the 6th, that i just wish didn't exist.
in every way, it's a bit more extreme. the bad decisions were worse; in the sense that i've removed them, it doesn't matter, but in the sense that they remain they're painful. it's mostly related to vocal tracks. but where the first failed on content, this one fails more often on singing. thankfully, there's only two or three tracks that are painful.
the rest of it is actually pretty good. the noisy/experimental/glitch sections are more extreme. the techy parts are more elaborate. the ambient sections are thicker. the silliness is sillier...
as before, the record/demo bounces back and forth between "songs" and "experiments". on this demo, though, the songs are no less interesting than the noise.
the problem with the sixth track is explained on the page. i was being ironic, but not obviously, and it's kind of left me in the awkward position of identifying as queer and yet having a queer-bashing song. *shrug*. it's not queer-bashing, but it would be easier if it just didn't exist...
for the rest of it, i need to reiterate that it is valid, even when it's trite, because it's real. that is to say that it sounds like i'm 18 and less than well-adjusted. if it could be better than it is, it would lack the authenticity of being a demo produced by a troubled teenager. i might not articulate my feelings of being ignored at a very high level of thought or with much compelling poetry, but i'm certainly feeling them and that feeling certainly gets across in my unique and goofy sort of way. likewise, when i go into juvenile shock rock i am actually convincingly juvenile and convincingly shocking (unless i'm trying to be ridiculous, in which case i pull that off just as well).
that means you have to listen to it from a certain distance because a big part of what you're listening to is the spectacle of a demented child being demented, but when you do that it comes off as some of the most idiosyncratic leftfield synth pop i'm aware of. you've never heard anything quite like this.
so, if i could remove the 6th track without killing the flow of the disc, i would. beyond that, the edits that i've made have left me comfortable with throwing this out there as it is - under the existing caveats.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-lp
==
this is very much a follow-up to the previous demo (there's a pun, here) and in fact is largely constructed of "leftover tracks" from that period. this demo may be a bit glitchier/noisier than the last one, jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-lp.
some of these songs are reworked versions of tracks i had recorded previously. in almost all cases, i consider the versions here (and on the previous demo, inri) to be the authoritative versions of these tracks.
the demo is consciously constructed to alternate between "conventional songs" and "experimental pieces", although both definitions are stretched. it generally takes the form of connecting passages. it's meant to give the record the feel of a cohesive work rather than a collection of songs.
lyrically, i'm still a teenager, but i'm starting to grow into myself a little more. there are some points of significant embarrassment on this recording, but it's really only the sixth track that makes me cringe to the point of regret. i was also experimenting with an "ironic distance" type of spoken word style that, in hindsight, doesn't come off so well.
the guitar work is one of the things that separates the sound from a typical industrial aesthetic. i've never been a fan of heavy metal and largely shied away from creating that kind of thing. yet, i found myself connecting more with psychedelic guitar at this point than punk rock. industrial psych generally implies something like trance, but it need not to. industrial hendrix? well, maybe it ends up sounding more like synth pop, which has historical roots in psychedelic music and progressive rock. the point is that the music does manage to carve out a unique space between industrial music and synth pop that i don't know of any clear comparisons to. people have suggested mid-period swans, the legendary pink dots and nine inch nails - only the last of which was a significant influence, and none of which are really that close. a better comparison, although still not a significant influence at this time, would be joy division - who would become a significant influence after this phase. my actual influences at the time would have been more like brian eno (through his 70s and 90s work with david bowie, as well as his work with u2), early prog (genesis/floyd/crimson), peter gabriel, the beatles, radiohead, the smashing pumpkins, REM, sonic youth, the tea party and a bit of contemporary electronic music (prodigy, nin, coil, foetus, autechre, nitzer ebb, ministry, econoline crush, gravity kills, stabbing westward, skinny puppy and side projects). the sense of humour is coming from frank zappa and matt groening, if they are not actually the same person. i wasn't listening to much tears for fears, i don't think, but you can hear them lurking underneath everything.
this material was recorded throughout 1998 and the very beginning of 1999, but some of it was written as far back as 1994. unfortunately, i decided that the songs sounded better in mp3 and consequently compressed everything before burning. i understand now that i was hobbling together a crude mastering process, but it means (unfortunately) that the closest thing i have to the finished tracks are low quality mp3s and a cd-r. these tracks were taken off of a cd-r and run through digital post-production in dec, 2013 in a process that also included minimal editing (mostly the removal of badly placed samples, but also the removal of some vocal sections where it was possible). as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, drum programming, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, vocals, cool edit synthesis, production, found sounds, strategies
released feb 10, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-lp
the editing here was much deeper than the first cd demo. while i was initially less excited about this one, the end result is comparable - there's one specific track, the 6th, that i just wish didn't exist.
in every way, it's a bit more extreme. the bad decisions were worse; in the sense that i've removed them, it doesn't matter, but in the sense that they remain they're painful. it's mostly related to vocal tracks. but where the first failed on content, this one fails more often on singing. thankfully, there's only two or three tracks that are painful.
the rest of it is actually pretty good. the noisy/experimental/glitch sections are more extreme. the techy parts are more elaborate. the ambient sections are thicker. the silliness is sillier...
as before, the record/demo bounces back and forth between "songs" and "experiments". on this demo, though, the songs are no less interesting than the noise.
the problem with the sixth track is explained on the page. i was being ironic, but not obviously, and it's kind of left me in the awkward position of identifying as queer and yet having a queer-bashing song. *shrug*. it's not queer-bashing, but it would be easier if it just didn't exist...
for the rest of it, i need to reiterate that it is valid, even when it's trite, because it's real. that is to say that it sounds like i'm 18 and less than well-adjusted. if it could be better than it is, it would lack the authenticity of being a demo produced by a troubled teenager. i might not articulate my feelings of being ignored at a very high level of thought or with much compelling poetry, but i'm certainly feeling them and that feeling certainly gets across in my unique and goofy sort of way. likewise, when i go into juvenile shock rock i am actually convincingly juvenile and convincingly shocking (unless i'm trying to be ridiculous, in which case i pull that off just as well).
that means you have to listen to it from a certain distance because a big part of what you're listening to is the spectacle of a demented child being demented, but when you do that it comes off as some of the most idiosyncratic leftfield synth pop i'm aware of. you've never heard anything quite like this.
so, if i could remove the 6th track without killing the flow of the disc, i would. beyond that, the edits that i've made have left me comfortable with throwing this out there as it is - under the existing caveats.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-lp
==
this is very much a follow-up to the previous demo (there's a pun, here) and in fact is largely constructed of "leftover tracks" from that period. this demo may be a bit glitchier/noisier than the last one, jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-lp.
some of these songs are reworked versions of tracks i had recorded previously. in almost all cases, i consider the versions here (and on the previous demo, inri) to be the authoritative versions of these tracks.
the demo is consciously constructed to alternate between "conventional songs" and "experimental pieces", although both definitions are stretched. it generally takes the form of connecting passages. it's meant to give the record the feel of a cohesive work rather than a collection of songs.
lyrically, i'm still a teenager, but i'm starting to grow into myself a little more. there are some points of significant embarrassment on this recording, but it's really only the sixth track that makes me cringe to the point of regret. i was also experimenting with an "ironic distance" type of spoken word style that, in hindsight, doesn't come off so well.
the guitar work is one of the things that separates the sound from a typical industrial aesthetic. i've never been a fan of heavy metal and largely shied away from creating that kind of thing. yet, i found myself connecting more with psychedelic guitar at this point than punk rock. industrial psych generally implies something like trance, but it need not to. industrial hendrix? well, maybe it ends up sounding more like synth pop, which has historical roots in psychedelic music and progressive rock. the point is that the music does manage to carve out a unique space between industrial music and synth pop that i don't know of any clear comparisons to. people have suggested mid-period swans, the legendary pink dots and nine inch nails - only the last of which was a significant influence, and none of which are really that close. a better comparison, although still not a significant influence at this time, would be joy division - who would become a significant influence after this phase. my actual influences at the time would have been more like brian eno (through his 70s and 90s work with david bowie, as well as his work with u2), early prog (genesis/floyd/crimson), peter gabriel, the beatles, radiohead, the smashing pumpkins, REM, sonic youth, the tea party and a bit of contemporary electronic music (prodigy, nin, coil, foetus, autechre, nitzer ebb, ministry, econoline crush, gravity kills, stabbing westward, skinny puppy and side projects). the sense of humour is coming from frank zappa and matt groening, if they are not actually the same person. i wasn't listening to much tears for fears, i don't think, but you can hear them lurking underneath everything.
this material was recorded throughout 1998 and the very beginning of 1999, but some of it was written as far back as 1994. unfortunately, i decided that the songs sounded better in mp3 and consequently compressed everything before burning. i understand now that i was hobbling together a crude mastering process, but it means (unfortunately) that the closest thing i have to the finished tracks are low quality mp3s and a cd-r. these tracks were taken off of a cd-r and run through digital post-production in dec, 2013 in a process that also included minimal editing (mostly the removal of badly placed samples, but also the removal of some vocal sections where it was possible). as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, drum programming, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, vocals, cool edit synthesis, production, found sounds, strategies
released feb 10, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-lp
(this was a rant posted in response to somebody pondering a nuclear holocaust)
a concept developed out of the 60s, called mutually assured destruction, pointed out that any future large scale war would be against the interests of virtually everybody. if you accept the idea that war is economic, it follows that that kind of war isn't likely.
the one caveat to that is the idea of population control, particularly in the developing world, but climate change may make that unnecessary.
in short, i don't think there's a serious threat of anything blowing out of proportion. obama buckling to russian pressure on syria just enforces that point. that doesn't mean people shouldn't take the idea seriously; specifically, it doesn't mean that "decision makers" shouldn't behave as though the threat is real. it just means realizing that we're actually not that stupid.
again, the way that that analysis could be flawed is the threat of extremist movements, which could be religious or political - anything ideological. just groups that actually are that stupid. looking at the world, the greatest threat is religious. the americans have pakistan under control, but india is persistently on the brink of hindu extremism. the jews are currently actually pretty prudent but there's a sector of their ruling class that is very frightening. and the saudis are flat out insane.
there's also the republican right in the united states, but they're subservient to the military-industrial complex. the americans can't be too destructive because it would be bad for business. it's a balancing act between ensuring the flow of profits and cutting them off entirely.
i think it's worth cautiously acknowledging that the political situation in russia is somewhat fragile and that, despite western perceptions to the contrary, the most likely successor to putin - at this point - exists on the hard, pro-nationalist right. putin is reacting to populist forces that are further right than him in an attempt to maintain power, not pushing right-wing policies out of his own desire. if elections in russia lead to a shift to a fascist government, the whole calculus of power in asia changes. conflict instantly develops with china, to begin with. that's a wild card, but it's a threat at the moment rather than a reality.
china's expanding nationalism looks scary, but it's hard to see how anything can break in the region, except by accident. it's more just an excuse to build arms. again: it's scary, and if anybody fucks up it could be lethal. but even if such a flare-up did accidentally happen, it's hard to see why it wouldn't be glossed over quickly. well...there might be a proxy war in southeast asia. vietnam II.
the series of proxy wars that we're fighting right now in the middle east and africa - which is between nato, israel, japan (and allies) and the gulf monarchies on one side and iran, russia and china on the other, with india and south america wavering as neutral - is the closest thing to a world war that we're likely to see any time soon. which isn't to say it isn't a world war, so much as to point out that it's been the state of normalcy for roughly 70 years.
this explains the world war that currently is being fought:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
...but it's just an extension of the cold war. and the same basic ideas of MAD apply, even when extrapolated to missile defense.
btw, for those that are all like "that's old news, it died with bush", behold:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_a_New_American_Security
(i put the see also link in wiki. no comment on other wiki entries i've written :P)
and, creepier, the "new american" thing seems to come from a periodical by these fuckers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society
....which is to say that the americans are still trapped in the cold war.
except the cold war is older than the cold war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Japanese_Alliance
this is apparently the actual source of anglo-russian hostilities, driven by the russian tzar being sneaky and the british developing a distrust of dealing with russian officials:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Russian_War_%281807%E2%80%9312%29
yeah. that source doesn't discuss it. but apparently the tsar signed a secret agreement with napoleon that was uncovered by british intelligence, and the british have refused to trust them (except when they had to, like in wwii) ever since.
"Alexander agreed to join Napoleon's Continental Blockade against Great Britain, and in a secret addition to the treaty, Europe were divided into an eastern and a western part, the eastern Russian part including Sweden. Europe was thereby and in this way, divided between the two great empires."
^ that, there:
http://www.multi.fi/~goranfri/bioalexander.html
a concept developed out of the 60s, called mutually assured destruction, pointed out that any future large scale war would be against the interests of virtually everybody. if you accept the idea that war is economic, it follows that that kind of war isn't likely.
the one caveat to that is the idea of population control, particularly in the developing world, but climate change may make that unnecessary.
in short, i don't think there's a serious threat of anything blowing out of proportion. obama buckling to russian pressure on syria just enforces that point. that doesn't mean people shouldn't take the idea seriously; specifically, it doesn't mean that "decision makers" shouldn't behave as though the threat is real. it just means realizing that we're actually not that stupid.
again, the way that that analysis could be flawed is the threat of extremist movements, which could be religious or political - anything ideological. just groups that actually are that stupid. looking at the world, the greatest threat is religious. the americans have pakistan under control, but india is persistently on the brink of hindu extremism. the jews are currently actually pretty prudent but there's a sector of their ruling class that is very frightening. and the saudis are flat out insane.
there's also the republican right in the united states, but they're subservient to the military-industrial complex. the americans can't be too destructive because it would be bad for business. it's a balancing act between ensuring the flow of profits and cutting them off entirely.
i think it's worth cautiously acknowledging that the political situation in russia is somewhat fragile and that, despite western perceptions to the contrary, the most likely successor to putin - at this point - exists on the hard, pro-nationalist right. putin is reacting to populist forces that are further right than him in an attempt to maintain power, not pushing right-wing policies out of his own desire. if elections in russia lead to a shift to a fascist government, the whole calculus of power in asia changes. conflict instantly develops with china, to begin with. that's a wild card, but it's a threat at the moment rather than a reality.
china's expanding nationalism looks scary, but it's hard to see how anything can break in the region, except by accident. it's more just an excuse to build arms. again: it's scary, and if anybody fucks up it could be lethal. but even if such a flare-up did accidentally happen, it's hard to see why it wouldn't be glossed over quickly. well...there might be a proxy war in southeast asia. vietnam II.
the series of proxy wars that we're fighting right now in the middle east and africa - which is between nato, israel, japan (and allies) and the gulf monarchies on one side and iran, russia and china on the other, with india and south america wavering as neutral - is the closest thing to a world war that we're likely to see any time soon. which isn't to say it isn't a world war, so much as to point out that it's been the state of normalcy for roughly 70 years.
this explains the world war that currently is being fought:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
...but it's just an extension of the cold war. and the same basic ideas of MAD apply, even when extrapolated to missile defense.
btw, for those that are all like "that's old news, it died with bush", behold:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_a_New_American_Security
(i put the see also link in wiki. no comment on other wiki entries i've written :P)
and, creepier, the "new american" thing seems to come from a periodical by these fuckers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society
....which is to say that the americans are still trapped in the cold war.
except the cold war is older than the cold war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Japanese_Alliance
this is apparently the actual source of anglo-russian hostilities, driven by the russian tzar being sneaky and the british developing a distrust of dealing with russian officials:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Russian_War_%281807%E2%80%9312%29
yeah. that source doesn't discuss it. but apparently the tsar signed a secret agreement with napoleon that was uncovered by british intelligence, and the british have refused to trust them (except when they had to, like in wwii) ever since.
"Alexander agreed to join Napoleon's Continental Blockade against Great Britain, and in a secret addition to the treaty, Europe were divided into an eastern and a western part, the eastern Russian part including Sweden. Europe was thereby and in this way, divided between the two great empires."
^ that, there:
http://www.multi.fi/~goranfri/bioalexander.html
lol.
i can't compute this one. is google censoring on behalf of the cia or is the moscow times (a legit and big moscow paper) working with the kgb?
http://www.google.ca/interstitial?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.themoscowtimes.com%2Fnews%2Farticle%2Fraids-on-german-ngos-may-harm-ties-berlin-says%2F477544.html
i can't compute this one. is google censoring on behalf of the cia or is the moscow times (a legit and big moscow paper) working with the kgb?
http://www.google.ca/interstitial?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.themoscowtimes.com%2Fnews%2Farticle%2Fraids-on-german-ngos-may-harm-ties-berlin-says%2F477544.html
what i was looking for was this.
apparently, the americans have (unsurprisingly) rejected the proposal.
but, see, it's a cynical ploy in the first place. the russians are trying to build international sympathy in the face of blatant american aggression against them, from containment strategies in the middle east to ops in the ukraine to ballistic missiles hovering over them....
http://rt.com/business/russia-usa-trade-shuvalov-111/
i've laughed at them for being naive, but it's become clear that it's a strategy: every time the americans act belligerent, they respond with fig leaves.
they know it's not going to get a response, but their options are limited. and one gets the impression that they mostly mean it, in the sense that they don't want to fight.
to an extent, i think it seems to be working. we'll have to see in the upcoming months how effective it is.
apparently, the americans have (unsurprisingly) rejected the proposal.
but, see, it's a cynical ploy in the first place. the russians are trying to build international sympathy in the face of blatant american aggression against them, from containment strategies in the middle east to ops in the ukraine to ballistic missiles hovering over them....
http://rt.com/business/russia-usa-trade-shuvalov-111/
i've laughed at them for being naive, but it's become clear that it's a strategy: every time the americans act belligerent, they respond with fig leaves.
they know it's not going to get a response, but their options are limited. and one gets the impression that they mostly mean it, in the sense that they don't want to fight.
to an extent, i think it seems to be working. we'll have to see in the upcoming months how effective it is.
it's nice to realize that my bedroom is perfectly positioned to take maximum advantage of the winter's mid-afternoon sunlight. the last few places i've occupied have been less ideal, to say the least.
it's also sort of neat to realize this right after the solstice.
place must have been built by druids...
it's also sort of neat to realize this right after the solstice.
place must have been built by druids...
jessica amber murray
....and, now, to attempt to have a few drinks without smoking any cigarettes. considering the temperature outside (along with my absolute aversion to indoor smoking), i think i'm likely to do well. we'll see.
regarding the smoking thing...
the packs have been almost entirely cut out. i've bought probably around ten packs, total, since the beginning of september. what i've been doing instead is falling back to these single cigars that can be picked up at the corner store for around $1 whenever i'm about to crack. it's a little more costly on the face of it, but it's a good shot of nicotine so it works for a while. one of the problems quitters will run into is that when they crack once they want another one almost right away; the cigars seem to mitigate that. more importantly, it has broken me of a lot of routines, like smoking after meals. to me, that's the harder part. i know nicotine is a physical addiction (meaning that coming off of it will produce physical effects, like drowsiness) but i don't really feel hooked on that level. it's more about breaking routine...
...and not drinking. i've always been a social drinker, so no people has meant no drinking. i mean, i spend most of my time reading, and i'd rather be sober for that. i prefer marijuana as a creative aid. what i'm about to do is uncharacteristic.
so, i can't claim i'm nicotine-free. but i *have* broken the routine, to the point where i can honestly state that i'm not a habitual smoker anymore.
which is all i really wanted to accomplish in the first place. i don't mind being a social smoker that specifically smokes around alcohol and marijuana. what i no longer wanted to be was a solo smoker. on that point, mission accomplished.
(meaning i'm not going to get too mad at myself if i buy a pack on christmas, just like i didn't get too mad when i bought a pack a few weeks ago when it was over 10 degrees, just as an excuse to hang out outside for the day. stuff like that is enjoying the drug, not being a slave to it.)
mom
Wow! That's Great!...Wish, I could have that much self-control!
jessica amber murray
i don't think it's a question of self-control so much as it's a question of doing what one wants. i kind of strongly believe that smokers smoke because they want to, not because they're zombies. the physical withdrawals are coercive, no doubt, but it comes down to wanting or not wanting to quit.
mom
Addiction Stinks!....And in the end it WILL TAKE CONTROL!.....DENIAL is an addicts BEST FRIEND.
jessica amber murray
well, sure. but the semantics break down when you speak of control. what i'm really doing is giving myself permission to indulge, not controlling myself from indulging.
i guess i have a level of broad consistency in my concept of "self-control" that goes into a lot of areas and that my perspective regarding drugs is more of a consequence of how i see things more broadly. consider governments and this idea that their laws dissuade anti-social behaviour, the idea that laws act as disincentives to control people's desires. this is an idea that is, i think, very wrong. sure, on the one hand, you have the logic of poverty that often triumphs over the laws of social order. circumstances where property crimes exist are often circumstances where it's logical for an impoverished person to steal something or otherwise break property laws. governments can produce laws to catch people when they do this, but the laws don't actually succeed in preventing property crime. they merely succeed in criminalizing poverty. rather, eliminating that sort of crime requires a lot of social work to both eliminate the conditions that lead to it as logical and to create a populace that sees it as morally wrong. once you get to that ideal point, preventing crime is less of a process of people controlling themselves from committing crimes and more of a process of people choosing not to behave in a way that is anti-social. that's the ideal.
the way we treat addiction is sort of a cop-out. i mean, i'm not denying that addicts need to admit their addictions. i agree that acknowledgement is the first step. but actually working through it is a process of transcending the desire, not repressing it.
i think it's possible to use drugs without abusing them.
with alcoholism (and for random readers, that's not something i feel i have a problem with), the way to get beyond it is not to have the "self-control" to avoid it but to develop a desire to be sober.
(and i think i'm being a little bit buddhist, but it's something i connect to accidentally and intuitively rather than consciously)
in a moral sense, i find buddhism more rational than western religion. in the west, we've fallen into a sort of false dichotomy between "master morality" and "slave morality". the irony is that the dude that developed that false dichotomy is also the dude that transferred a lot of eastern ideas into the western sphere. he completely missed the obvious synthesis that was sitting right in front of him.
you need to be careful studying buddhism in the west, though, because most of the literature is misinterpreted hippie nonsense. there's a danger of turning into a new age weirdo.
for example, avoid anything that tries to connect buddhism with science.
i kind of like the idea that "only lost people require religion". which is to say that walking into a church or a temple or a synagogue isn't likely to find you people that understand how to behave morally on an intuitive level, but people that are struggling with it. people that "get it" find the whole thing boring and trivial.
not to put myself above it or anything. not declaring myself perfect. but there's a lot of truth to it. and if one can separate the social help from the control and brainwashing [which is difficult, especially for people in fragile states], i'll accept it could have some value.
what i'd rather see, though, is a resurgence of secular social institutions that strip out the brainwashing. i think there's a really open space here for socialist thinkers to walk into and am not really sure why they haven't, given that it connects quite well to the idea that "the social revolution must come first".
....and, now, to attempt to have a few drinks without smoking any cigarettes. considering the temperature outside (along with my absolute aversion to indoor smoking), i think i'm likely to do well. we'll see.
regarding the smoking thing...
the packs have been almost entirely cut out. i've bought probably around ten packs, total, since the beginning of september. what i've been doing instead is falling back to these single cigars that can be picked up at the corner store for around $1 whenever i'm about to crack. it's a little more costly on the face of it, but it's a good shot of nicotine so it works for a while. one of the problems quitters will run into is that when they crack once they want another one almost right away; the cigars seem to mitigate that. more importantly, it has broken me of a lot of routines, like smoking after meals. to me, that's the harder part. i know nicotine is a physical addiction (meaning that coming off of it will produce physical effects, like drowsiness) but i don't really feel hooked on that level. it's more about breaking routine...
...and not drinking. i've always been a social drinker, so no people has meant no drinking. i mean, i spend most of my time reading, and i'd rather be sober for that. i prefer marijuana as a creative aid. what i'm about to do is uncharacteristic.
so, i can't claim i'm nicotine-free. but i *have* broken the routine, to the point where i can honestly state that i'm not a habitual smoker anymore.
which is all i really wanted to accomplish in the first place. i don't mind being a social smoker that specifically smokes around alcohol and marijuana. what i no longer wanted to be was a solo smoker. on that point, mission accomplished.
(meaning i'm not going to get too mad at myself if i buy a pack on christmas, just like i didn't get too mad when i bought a pack a few weeks ago when it was over 10 degrees, just as an excuse to hang out outside for the day. stuff like that is enjoying the drug, not being a slave to it.)
mom
Wow! That's Great!...Wish, I could have that much self-control!
jessica amber murray
i don't think it's a question of self-control so much as it's a question of doing what one wants. i kind of strongly believe that smokers smoke because they want to, not because they're zombies. the physical withdrawals are coercive, no doubt, but it comes down to wanting or not wanting to quit.
mom
Addiction Stinks!....And in the end it WILL TAKE CONTROL!.....DENIAL is an addicts BEST FRIEND.
jessica amber murray
well, sure. but the semantics break down when you speak of control. what i'm really doing is giving myself permission to indulge, not controlling myself from indulging.
i guess i have a level of broad consistency in my concept of "self-control" that goes into a lot of areas and that my perspective regarding drugs is more of a consequence of how i see things more broadly. consider governments and this idea that their laws dissuade anti-social behaviour, the idea that laws act as disincentives to control people's desires. this is an idea that is, i think, very wrong. sure, on the one hand, you have the logic of poverty that often triumphs over the laws of social order. circumstances where property crimes exist are often circumstances where it's logical for an impoverished person to steal something or otherwise break property laws. governments can produce laws to catch people when they do this, but the laws don't actually succeed in preventing property crime. they merely succeed in criminalizing poverty. rather, eliminating that sort of crime requires a lot of social work to both eliminate the conditions that lead to it as logical and to create a populace that sees it as morally wrong. once you get to that ideal point, preventing crime is less of a process of people controlling themselves from committing crimes and more of a process of people choosing not to behave in a way that is anti-social. that's the ideal.
the way we treat addiction is sort of a cop-out. i mean, i'm not denying that addicts need to admit their addictions. i agree that acknowledgement is the first step. but actually working through it is a process of transcending the desire, not repressing it.
i think it's possible to use drugs without abusing them.
with alcoholism (and for random readers, that's not something i feel i have a problem with), the way to get beyond it is not to have the "self-control" to avoid it but to develop a desire to be sober.
(and i think i'm being a little bit buddhist, but it's something i connect to accidentally and intuitively rather than consciously)
in a moral sense, i find buddhism more rational than western religion. in the west, we've fallen into a sort of false dichotomy between "master morality" and "slave morality". the irony is that the dude that developed that false dichotomy is also the dude that transferred a lot of eastern ideas into the western sphere. he completely missed the obvious synthesis that was sitting right in front of him.
you need to be careful studying buddhism in the west, though, because most of the literature is misinterpreted hippie nonsense. there's a danger of turning into a new age weirdo.
for example, avoid anything that tries to connect buddhism with science.
i kind of like the idea that "only lost people require religion". which is to say that walking into a church or a temple or a synagogue isn't likely to find you people that understand how to behave morally on an intuitive level, but people that are struggling with it. people that "get it" find the whole thing boring and trivial.
not to put myself above it or anything. not declaring myself perfect. but there's a lot of truth to it. and if one can separate the social help from the control and brainwashing [which is difficult, especially for people in fragile states], i'll accept it could have some value.
what i'd rather see, though, is a resurgence of secular social institutions that strip out the brainwashing. i think there's a really open space here for socialist thinkers to walk into and am not really sure why they haven't, given that it connects quite well to the idea that "the social revolution must come first".
Monday, December 23, 2013
roach situation
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord
hi.
i just want to say things are going well here. and merry christmas.
there's actually not what i'd call a "roach problem" in the unit itself. i've seen a few here and there, exclusively where there are cracks in the wall. that is to say that i don't think there are roaches in the unit, but it is certainly the case that sometimes roaches wander into the unit from elsewhere in the building. i saw one the other day near the dead heater in the kitchen, and hadn't seen one before that since about october - when i had seen a few near the hole for the pipe in the closet. when i covered up the pipe, they went away. so, i've filled the cracks around the dead heater up with a pile of old hole-ridden socks i had hanging around for rags and expect that will keep them out of there. it seemed like the roach i saw in the kitchen was actually looking for water, not food. it was attracted to the sink. i'm very careful to ensure all the food in the unit is in the fridge - even like bread and stuff.
i do, however, feel a responsibility to point out that there are roaches in the building. my perspective regarding that is that there are bugs everywhere; i'm content to simply patch up holes when i see them and keep them out that way. but, as a tenant, i think i have a responsibility to inform you that they do seem to have a nest in the building somewhere.
j
To: the initial landlord
hi.
i just want to say things are going well here. and merry christmas.
there's actually not what i'd call a "roach problem" in the unit itself. i've seen a few here and there, exclusively where there are cracks in the wall. that is to say that i don't think there are roaches in the unit, but it is certainly the case that sometimes roaches wander into the unit from elsewhere in the building. i saw one the other day near the dead heater in the kitchen, and hadn't seen one before that since about october - when i had seen a few near the hole for the pipe in the closet. when i covered up the pipe, they went away. so, i've filled the cracks around the dead heater up with a pile of old hole-ridden socks i had hanging around for rags and expect that will keep them out of there. it seemed like the roach i saw in the kitchen was actually looking for water, not food. it was attracted to the sink. i'm very careful to ensure all the food in the unit is in the fridge - even like bread and stuff.
i do, however, feel a responsibility to point out that there are roaches in the building. my perspective regarding that is that there are bugs everywhere; i'm content to simply patch up holes when i see them and keep them out that way. but, as a tenant, i think i have a responsibility to inform you that they do seem to have a nest in the building somewhere.
j
mom
Hi J....How are you? I am fine(fucked up, insecure, neurotic, emotional)...lol. Oh Well....Hate this time of the year! For Sure! Anyways....Did you ever activate that XP? Just wondering? I have a friend that I was going to give it to, if you haven't, of course...Although...I am hearing from a few different people that when it is a home edition...One can have multiple activations of it?? Not sure? You would prolly know for sure...
jessica amber murray
the purpose of activation is to ensure that the purchased product key is used on one, and only one, computer. i'm not currently using it, and don't really see how i could use it, to be honest. i'm running pirated versions...
mom
So, it would be safe to give it to my friend then? But, if you feel that you want it, I will not give it to him.
jessica amber murray
no, go ahead.
mom
K...Thanks!...It will be his Christmas gift then. Just a friend. Not a boyfriend...Very nice older fellow...He just hates his windows 8, and was wanting a copy of XP.
But, You didn't answer me about how you are!?....This time of the year kinda sucks a bit(more than a bit!)...I am living in the bottom of a brown bottle right now...I know....Pathetic!....I have a few left and then am going to go through a bit(more than a bit) of horrible with-drawl...And then will be going to my friends place(his name is Paul)(He is the one I want to give my XP to,(but only if you are sure you don't want it) to cook up the Traditional Christmas Dinner...Nanny&Leo are coming too...Will be soooooo nice to see her(not so sure about Leo though)..LOL... Do you have any plans for that Annoying Day?
jessica amber murray
i actually haven't been to a christmas dinner in a few years, now. for me, it's just wednesday. if anything, i'm irked that the recycle doesn't come until friday, because i couldn't get it all out last pickup.
i'll probably have a sandwich and listen to music.
mom
That sounds quite peaceful to me.... I kinda wish I could just do the same...I have spent more than a few Christmas Days the same...And rather enjoyed it that way. I am a little stressed about my Christmas Day this year. Just hate that feeling!
jessica amber murray
i just have no patience for religious holidays or hallmark holidays. it's merely a wednesday.
mom
I hear you for sure!...Feeling quite the same!.....The only thing I am looking forward to is the yummy turkey dinner(as I am going to be the one cooking it!..And, I do make a yummy dinner for sure!)...What, I am finding that I am feeling a bit stressful about, is that...They are ALL depending on ME to get my old(fairly undependable ass) over there to prepare it!...LOL...What if, I decide to change my mind!(I won't, of course)...Just hate the feeling of it all.
Hi J....How are you? I am fine(fucked up, insecure, neurotic, emotional)...lol. Oh Well....Hate this time of the year! For Sure! Anyways....Did you ever activate that XP? Just wondering? I have a friend that I was going to give it to, if you haven't, of course...Although...I am hearing from a few different people that when it is a home edition...One can have multiple activations of it?? Not sure? You would prolly know for sure...
jessica amber murray
the purpose of activation is to ensure that the purchased product key is used on one, and only one, computer. i'm not currently using it, and don't really see how i could use it, to be honest. i'm running pirated versions...
mom
So, it would be safe to give it to my friend then? But, if you feel that you want it, I will not give it to him.
jessica amber murray
no, go ahead.
mom
K...Thanks!...It will be his Christmas gift then. Just a friend. Not a boyfriend...Very nice older fellow...He just hates his windows 8, and was wanting a copy of XP.
But, You didn't answer me about how you are!?....This time of the year kinda sucks a bit(more than a bit!)...I am living in the bottom of a brown bottle right now...I know....Pathetic!....I have a few left and then am going to go through a bit(more than a bit) of horrible with-drawl...And then will be going to my friends place(his name is Paul)(He is the one I want to give my XP to,(but only if you are sure you don't want it) to cook up the Traditional Christmas Dinner...Nanny&Leo are coming too...Will be soooooo nice to see her(not so sure about Leo though)..LOL... Do you have any plans for that Annoying Day?
jessica amber murray
i actually haven't been to a christmas dinner in a few years, now. for me, it's just wednesday. if anything, i'm irked that the recycle doesn't come until friday, because i couldn't get it all out last pickup.
i'll probably have a sandwich and listen to music.
mom
That sounds quite peaceful to me.... I kinda wish I could just do the same...I have spent more than a few Christmas Days the same...And rather enjoyed it that way. I am a little stressed about my Christmas Day this year. Just hate that feeling!
jessica amber murray
i just have no patience for religious holidays or hallmark holidays. it's merely a wednesday.
mom
I hear you for sure!...Feeling quite the same!.....The only thing I am looking forward to is the yummy turkey dinner(as I am going to be the one cooking it!..And, I do make a yummy dinner for sure!)...What, I am finding that I am feeling a bit stressful about, is that...They are ALL depending on ME to get my old(fairly undependable ass) over there to prepare it!...LOL...What if, I decide to change my mind!(I won't, of course)...Just hate the feeling of it all.
everybody agrees profs are underpaid. the reason is there are too many of them. it's not likely to be popular, but it's the correct approach. *applauds*.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2013/12/johns_hopkins_plans_to_lower_ph_d_enrollment_and_raise_grad_student_stipends.html
https://phys.org/news/2013-12-electron-shapeliness-supersymmetry.html
http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fphy.2013.00009/
http://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.251302
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-unconscious-thought-and-perception-affect-our-every-waking-moment
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/syrian-refugees/story/refuge/
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/elizabeth-may/2013/12/fossil-fuel-economy-has-short-and-painful-future
http://fpif.org/republicans-want-ways-treaties/
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-koch-brothers-reveals-funders-climate.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/14/ukra-d14.html
not likely, but if it's true it would signal a large shift in american foreign policy
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11186
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11169
gotta try what you can. it doesn't address the (spurious) israeli claim of weapons smuggling.
http://rabble.ca/news/2013/12/humanitarian-crisis-continues-palestinians-gazas-ark-gets-ready-to-set-sail
http://fpif.org/spineless-bali/
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/13/jang_song_thaeks_execution_is_even_weirder_than_you_think
if we're ever going to stop the tide of neo-liberalism, the establishment needs pressure on the left.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20653-the-end-of-the-assault-on-social-security-and-medicare
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/16/japa-d16.html
http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/12/stephen-harper-nelson-mandela-and-whitewashing-past
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20657-americas-child-soldiers-jrotc-and-the-militarizing-of-america
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/16/the-bankruptcy-of-the-wests-syrian-policy/
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11192
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/16/pers-d16.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/16/the-black-gold-brigade/
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/16/us_weighing_closer_ties_with_hardline_islamists_in_syria
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/arrest-of-indian-diplomat-in-new-york-sparks-us-india-tensions/2013/12/17/09d1d81e-6714-11e3-997b-9213b17dac97_story.html
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11193
http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18367-three-questions-about-the-motor-city
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11172
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/16/mexi-d16.html
http://fpif.org/mali-conflict-continues-year-french-led-invasion/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/17/obamas-national-security-state/
http://www.cnas.org/blog/understanding-saudi-anger
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/feminist-current/2013/12/crux-beyonc%C3%A9-debate-what-feminism
i'm glad somebody is finally standing up and saying this. i'm absolutely entitled. i'm entitled to my fucking rights. and there's going to be conflict with anybody that suggests otherwise.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/12/in-defense-of-entitlements/
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/16/makes_absolutely_no_sense_david_cay
http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/12/irrational-energy-illusions-and-gold-rush-mentality-case-against-fracking
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/16/care-d16.html
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/16/kerry_s_return_to_vietnam_is_all_about_blocking_china
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/16/this_court_case_could_kneecap_the_nsa
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/16/incarceration_nation
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11199
http://behindthenumbers.ca/2013/12/17/saying-no-to-the-conjurers-trick-of-tax-cuts/
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/17/as_judge_rules_nsa_surveillance_almost
http://halifax.mediacoop.ca/story/nova-scotia-anti-fracking-coalition-worried-about/20452
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/18/patrick_cockburn_us_turns_blind_eye
http://www.socialist.ca/node/2012
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11218
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/17/stephen_harpers_merry_band_of_19th_century_liberals_walkom.html
lol. racism: a pan-francophone value. vive le quebec fascist?
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/17/french_president_franois_hollande_endorses_quebecs_proposed_values_charter.html
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11170
http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2013/12/18/our-mean-mceconomy/
http://warontherocks.com/2013/12/japans-new-defense-strategy/
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/17/exclusive_us_fingers_iranian_commandos_for_kidnapping_raid_inside_iraq
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/the-useu-egyptian-roadmap-to-hell/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/does-obama-want-a-deal-with-iran-or-not/
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/18/ukra-d18.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/the-cia-and-the-washington-post/
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20701-mens-rights-and-revenge-porn-sites-seethe-with-anger-over-womens-autonomy
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/18/debate_is_academic_groups_boycott_of
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/slouching-toward-confrontation-in-the-south-china-sea/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/17/green_rush_industrial_farmland_africa
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/18/mulcair_must_target_ontario_not_justin_trudeau_hbert.html
http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2013/12/political-landscape-freezes-with-winter-cold-december-19-2013/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/18/inqu-d18.html
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20706-iraqs-oil-workers-walk-off-drilling-rigs-and-take-to-the-streets
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/First+Nations+seek+charges+over+Obed+slurry+spill/9302945/story.html
http://www.mediacoop.ca/story/police-power-curtailed-supreme-court-decision/20468
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11217
http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2013/12/19/poll_kathleen_wynne_and_liberals_hold_their_lead_in_and_around_toronto.html
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11229
this aligns well with my theory that it's the germans, pissed about industrial espionage, that are behind the nsa leaks.
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/18/boeing_just_lost_a_huge_defense_contract_thanks_to_ed_snowden
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/18/israel_s_demographic_time_bomb_is_a_dud_israel_arab_two_state_solution
this isn't possible in the long run, and the goal of states determined by religion and ethnicity is not one that is just or worth pursuing.
http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/12/218506.htm
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11224
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/18/senate_panel_approves_bill_keeping_aid_flowing_to_military_governments
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11197
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/19/silicon_valley_scores_victory_against_the_surveillance_state
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/19/the_power_struggle_is_only_beginning_south_sudan
lol. nader's never going to live this down.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11231
well, he's constitutionally barred from running in the next election. something is about to break, one way or another.
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/20/the_end_of_erdogan
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/19/boycott_me_please
http://rabble.ca/news/2013/12/unanimous-supreme-court-ruling-strikes-down-prostitution-laws
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/20/supreme_court_of_canada_strikes_down_federal_criminal_prostitution_laws.html
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11227
http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2013/12/stephen-harper-and-the-middle-class-crisis/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/20/the-incredible-shrinking-presidency-of-barack-obama/
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/20/indigenous_groups_win_right_to_seize
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20609-learning-to-speak-economese
again: this is hilarious. how can they print this?
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/20/the_autocrats_emergency_bailout_fund
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/21/ndaa-d21.html
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20778-under-amazons-cia-cloud-the-washington-post
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/yves-engler/2013/12/canadas-naked-self-interest-foreign-policy
http://libcom.org/blog/2011-nato-bombings-libya-part-one-bombings-18122013
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/21/bang-d21.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2013/12/johns_hopkins_plans_to_lower_ph_d_enrollment_and_raise_grad_student_stipends.html
https://phys.org/news/2013-12-electron-shapeliness-supersymmetry.html
http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fphy.2013.00009/
http://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.251302
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-unconscious-thought-and-perception-affect-our-every-waking-moment
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/syrian-refugees/story/refuge/
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/elizabeth-may/2013/12/fossil-fuel-economy-has-short-and-painful-future
http://fpif.org/republicans-want-ways-treaties/
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-koch-brothers-reveals-funders-climate.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/14/ukra-d14.html
not likely, but if it's true it would signal a large shift in american foreign policy
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11186
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11169
gotta try what you can. it doesn't address the (spurious) israeli claim of weapons smuggling.
http://rabble.ca/news/2013/12/humanitarian-crisis-continues-palestinians-gazas-ark-gets-ready-to-set-sail
http://fpif.org/spineless-bali/
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/13/jang_song_thaeks_execution_is_even_weirder_than_you_think
if we're ever going to stop the tide of neo-liberalism, the establishment needs pressure on the left.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20653-the-end-of-the-assault-on-social-security-and-medicare
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/16/japa-d16.html
http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/12/stephen-harper-nelson-mandela-and-whitewashing-past
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20657-americas-child-soldiers-jrotc-and-the-militarizing-of-america
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/16/the-bankruptcy-of-the-wests-syrian-policy/
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11192
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/16/pers-d16.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/16/the-black-gold-brigade/
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/16/us_weighing_closer_ties_with_hardline_islamists_in_syria
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/arrest-of-indian-diplomat-in-new-york-sparks-us-india-tensions/2013/12/17/09d1d81e-6714-11e3-997b-9213b17dac97_story.html
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11193
http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18367-three-questions-about-the-motor-city
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11172
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/16/mexi-d16.html
http://fpif.org/mali-conflict-continues-year-french-led-invasion/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/17/obamas-national-security-state/
http://www.cnas.org/blog/understanding-saudi-anger
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/feminist-current/2013/12/crux-beyonc%C3%A9-debate-what-feminism
i'm glad somebody is finally standing up and saying this. i'm absolutely entitled. i'm entitled to my fucking rights. and there's going to be conflict with anybody that suggests otherwise.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/12/in-defense-of-entitlements/
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/16/makes_absolutely_no_sense_david_cay
http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/12/irrational-energy-illusions-and-gold-rush-mentality-case-against-fracking
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/16/care-d16.html
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/16/kerry_s_return_to_vietnam_is_all_about_blocking_china
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/16/this_court_case_could_kneecap_the_nsa
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/16/incarceration_nation
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11199
http://behindthenumbers.ca/2013/12/17/saying-no-to-the-conjurers-trick-of-tax-cuts/
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/17/as_judge_rules_nsa_surveillance_almost
http://halifax.mediacoop.ca/story/nova-scotia-anti-fracking-coalition-worried-about/20452
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/18/patrick_cockburn_us_turns_blind_eye
http://www.socialist.ca/node/2012
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11218
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/17/stephen_harpers_merry_band_of_19th_century_liberals_walkom.html
lol. racism: a pan-francophone value. vive le quebec fascist?
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/17/french_president_franois_hollande_endorses_quebecs_proposed_values_charter.html
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11170
http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2013/12/18/our-mean-mceconomy/
http://warontherocks.com/2013/12/japans-new-defense-strategy/
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/17/exclusive_us_fingers_iranian_commandos_for_kidnapping_raid_inside_iraq
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/the-useu-egyptian-roadmap-to-hell/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/does-obama-want-a-deal-with-iran-or-not/
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/18/ukra-d18.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/the-cia-and-the-washington-post/
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20701-mens-rights-and-revenge-porn-sites-seethe-with-anger-over-womens-autonomy
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/18/debate_is_academic_groups_boycott_of
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/slouching-toward-confrontation-in-the-south-china-sea/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/17/green_rush_industrial_farmland_africa
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/18/mulcair_must_target_ontario_not_justin_trudeau_hbert.html
http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2013/12/political-landscape-freezes-with-winter-cold-december-19-2013/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/18/inqu-d18.html
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20706-iraqs-oil-workers-walk-off-drilling-rigs-and-take-to-the-streets
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/First+Nations+seek+charges+over+Obed+slurry+spill/9302945/story.html
http://www.mediacoop.ca/story/police-power-curtailed-supreme-court-decision/20468
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11217
http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2013/12/19/poll_kathleen_wynne_and_liberals_hold_their_lead_in_and_around_toronto.html
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11229
this aligns well with my theory that it's the germans, pissed about industrial espionage, that are behind the nsa leaks.
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/18/boeing_just_lost_a_huge_defense_contract_thanks_to_ed_snowden
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/18/israel_s_demographic_time_bomb_is_a_dud_israel_arab_two_state_solution
this isn't possible in the long run, and the goal of states determined by religion and ethnicity is not one that is just or worth pursuing.
http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/12/218506.htm
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11224
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/18/senate_panel_approves_bill_keeping_aid_flowing_to_military_governments
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11197
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/19/silicon_valley_scores_victory_against_the_surveillance_state
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/19/the_power_struggle_is_only_beginning_south_sudan
lol. nader's never going to live this down.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11231
well, he's constitutionally barred from running in the next election. something is about to break, one way or another.
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/20/the_end_of_erdogan
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/19/boycott_me_please
http://rabble.ca/news/2013/12/unanimous-supreme-court-ruling-strikes-down-prostitution-laws
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/20/supreme_court_of_canada_strikes_down_federal_criminal_prostitution_laws.html
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11227
http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2013/12/stephen-harper-and-the-middle-class-crisis/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/20/the-incredible-shrinking-presidency-of-barack-obama/
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/20/indigenous_groups_win_right_to_seize
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20609-learning-to-speak-economese
again: this is hilarious. how can they print this?
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/20/the_autocrats_emergency_bailout_fund
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/21/ndaa-d21.html
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20778-under-amazons-cia-cloud-the-washington-post
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/yves-engler/2013/12/canadas-naked-self-interest-foreign-policy
http://libcom.org/blog/2011-nato-bombings-libya-part-one-bombings-18122013
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/21/bang-d21.html
how can a head of state be a terrorist? that's a contradiction in terms.
i'll say this again: when this is done, and people read through the history linearly, it's going to look like the military was running an op to root out the muslim brotherhood, which was underground for years.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/19/morsi_charged_with_terrorism_as_egyptian
i'll say this again: when this is done, and people read through the history linearly, it's going to look like the military was running an op to root out the muslim brotherhood, which was underground for years.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/19/morsi_charged_with_terrorism_as_egyptian
translated: this is where they're setting up camp to expand influence in the region to counter the chinese presence.
we're likely to hear of many human rights atrocities committed by american troops in the region.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/19/can_samantha_power_wage_a_war_on_atrocities_in_central_african_republic
we're likely to hear of many human rights atrocities committed by american troops in the region.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/19/can_samantha_power_wage_a_war_on_atrocities_in_central_african_republic
ok.
but the idea that divestment ended apartheid is....it's borderline racist, really. talk about denying agency.
in order for divestment to really work, it has to be at the point of being sanctions. "free markets" do not have the power to do this. only governments or oligopolies (trusts, which still exist) can effectively carry this out.
in promoting this, there's also a danger in falling into the myths of market theory.
but it's a first step in creating government sanctions so long as everybody understands that markets do not have the leverage to get to such an end.
http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/tarsands-divestment-and-its-discontents
but the idea that divestment ended apartheid is....it's borderline racist, really. talk about denying agency.
in order for divestment to really work, it has to be at the point of being sanctions. "free markets" do not have the power to do this. only governments or oligopolies (trusts, which still exist) can effectively carry this out.
in promoting this, there's also a danger in falling into the myths of market theory.
but it's a first step in creating government sanctions so long as everybody understands that markets do not have the leverage to get to such an end.
http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/tarsands-divestment-and-its-discontents
they had a congressional hearing in washington to look into the extent of the extra-judicial criminality around drone strikes in central asia. some kids that watched their grandmother get blown up for the crime of taking her grandkids for a walk showed up, flown in from pakistan.
number of congress-people that bothered to show up: 5 senators.
of those 5 senators, number that were republican: 0.
despite promises by nixon to end it (which probably won him the hippie vote, which probably won him the election), vietnam didn't end until the mid-70s when congress cut funding. instead, nixon attacked cambodia. "hope and change" = secret war. "defoliation". people like to compare obama to carter. no. nixon.
the current congress is a diminished shadow of the one that managed that feat. five democrats...
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/31/these_drones_attack_us_and_the
number of congress-people that bothered to show up: 5 senators.
of those 5 senators, number that were republican: 0.
despite promises by nixon to end it (which probably won him the hippie vote, which probably won him the election), vietnam didn't end until the mid-70s when congress cut funding. instead, nixon attacked cambodia. "hope and change" = secret war. "defoliation". people like to compare obama to carter. no. nixon.
the current congress is a diminished shadow of the one that managed that feat. five democrats...
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/31/these_drones_attack_us_and_the
you can't "enforce democracy". the premise is flawed. what they did was set up an authoritarian system that had some characteristics of democracy.
regardless, agrarian muslims that live in the side of mountains don't have the same concepts of governance and human rights that white, urban liberals in boston do. the whole point of democracy is that these kinds of things can't be abstracted to universals, they need to determined on the ground.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/18/too_much_of_a_good_thing
regardless, agrarian muslims that live in the side of mountains don't have the same concepts of governance and human rights that white, urban liberals in boston do. the whole point of democracy is that these kinds of things can't be abstracted to universals, they need to determined on the ground.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/18/too_much_of_a_good_thing
seems like good news. cautiously.
this is the worst government we've ever had to throw this in the lap of, though. i fear it may backfire.
i'm reminded of the abortion fiasco, with mulroney in power. mulroney decided not to touch it, and it led to two consequences: no abortion laws whatsoever and a new political movement in canada.
harper's not likely to make the same mistake, but he's not likely to build a system that tacitly "permits" prostitution, either, as it would collapse his support base - like not legislating on abortion was one of the primary factors that led to a rebellion against mulroney and the pcs. harper will learn from this in some way...
the wording of the abortion ruling is actually very fragile. the aim of the ruling actually seemed to be to increase funding for abortion in order to make it easier for women to get the certificates. mulroney wrongly calculated that it would be politically more expedient to ignore the issue than to set up a system that would tacitly sanction it. the only other thing he could have done would have been to overpower the brand new constitution, which would have cast him as a reactionary despot.
if harper's aim is to not repeat mulroney's mistake, what that means is approaching it in a way that is not "sanctioning", which means overriding the constitution.
while it's sort of unprecedented, harper isn't mulroney. if harper had his way, he'd burn the charter of rights and replace it with the ten commandments.
so, if this is important to you, now is the most important time to pay attention and get the info out. harper's reaction is not going to be progressive...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/supreme-court-rules-on-prostitution-laws/article16067485/
this is the worst government we've ever had to throw this in the lap of, though. i fear it may backfire.
i'm reminded of the abortion fiasco, with mulroney in power. mulroney decided not to touch it, and it led to two consequences: no abortion laws whatsoever and a new political movement in canada.
harper's not likely to make the same mistake, but he's not likely to build a system that tacitly "permits" prostitution, either, as it would collapse his support base - like not legislating on abortion was one of the primary factors that led to a rebellion against mulroney and the pcs. harper will learn from this in some way...
the wording of the abortion ruling is actually very fragile. the aim of the ruling actually seemed to be to increase funding for abortion in order to make it easier for women to get the certificates. mulroney wrongly calculated that it would be politically more expedient to ignore the issue than to set up a system that would tacitly sanction it. the only other thing he could have done would have been to overpower the brand new constitution, which would have cast him as a reactionary despot.
if harper's aim is to not repeat mulroney's mistake, what that means is approaching it in a way that is not "sanctioning", which means overriding the constitution.
while it's sort of unprecedented, harper isn't mulroney. if harper had his way, he'd burn the charter of rights and replace it with the ten commandments.
so, if this is important to you, now is the most important time to pay attention and get the info out. harper's reaction is not going to be progressive...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/supreme-court-rules-on-prostitution-laws/article16067485/
this is a really interesting debate. swanson takes a sort of libertarian/liberal perspective, whereas jay takes a marxist perspective (with shades of gramsci). it's also interesting on the level of where they agree.
i just want to add that swanson continually cites syria as an example of where popular opinion stopped the war. this isn't a very informed extrapolation of events. it's generally acknowledged that pressure from russia and china prevented the invasion. especially russia. it's not entirely clear what the russian threats were, but i suspect that may be flat out shocking when they come out.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11188
i just want to add that swanson continually cites syria as an example of where popular opinion stopped the war. this isn't a very informed extrapolation of events. it's generally acknowledged that pressure from russia and china prevented the invasion. especially russia. it's not entirely clear what the russian threats were, but i suspect that may be flat out shocking when they come out.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11188
it's slowly become apparent that liberals have taken over the third wave, which was a reaction against liberal feminism.
people that argue in favour of maximizing utility, or think there's freedom in pursuing carnal pleasure, present a problem in building truly free societies. a free society requires a population that is able to suppress it's impulses, not one that is based around the idea of acting them out.
a society that celebrates impulsive behaviour, from shopping through to sex, is actually what we have right now.
it's a larger problem on the left. utilitarianism has been masquerading as socialism for quite a while, now.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20459-betty-dodsons-feminist-sex-wars
i remain in the school of people (punks) that argues that drugs and sexuality are a means of control.
people that argue in favour of maximizing utility, or think there's freedom in pursuing carnal pleasure, present a problem in building truly free societies. a free society requires a population that is able to suppress it's impulses, not one that is based around the idea of acting them out.
a society that celebrates impulsive behaviour, from shopping through to sex, is actually what we have right now.
it's a larger problem on the left. utilitarianism has been masquerading as socialism for quite a while, now.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20459-betty-dodsons-feminist-sex-wars
i remain in the school of people (punks) that argues that drugs and sexuality are a means of control.
the americans don't even pretend they're not meddling, here. there's no curtain over events. it's wide in the open.
could you imagine the leader of the communist party going to canada and making a speech like this?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/dec/17/john-mccain-vladimir-putin-ukraine-protests-bitter-feud
could you imagine the leader of the communist party going to canada and making a speech like this?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/dec/17/john-mccain-vladimir-putin-ukraine-protests-bitter-feud
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