otherwise, it's inevitable - every grocery store becomes a liquor store fist and a grocery store second, because you can markup a bottle of wine by 1000% and have to sell broccoli more or less at cost.
Monday, February 1, 2021
so, you walk into a grocery store nowadays and they're clearly all trying to sell you alcohol - wine, beer, etc. it's expanded from a small part of the store to entire aisles and sections, to the point that it's starting to crowd out other items. are grocery stores going to keep stocking less food and other items, and more alcohol? is the profit ratio that large?
i mean, a freshco or a sobey's is ultimately going to stock the products with the largest returns on them. fresh meat is increasingly rare, which is not such a bad thing, but driven by the economics of it. so, how long before you can't find grapes, because all of the shelf space is occupied by wine? how long before the only way to buy potatoes is via vodka?
the other thing i'm thinking of is how something like this would affect somebody like my mother. i can walk by a giant wine display in a grocery store and not think twice about it. she can't. and, on a bad day, she might just open the bottle in the store and pass out on the floor.
i'm not opposed to the idea of liberalizing the sale of alcohol in principle, but, again, we're seeing what happens when you allow for too much economic freedom in a primitive market society - i just want to blame the problem on markets, and not on freedom. with pollution, you end up with people dying of disease that shouldn't exist, and living with poor qualities of life while they survive. with marijuana, you end up with unlivable and unhealthy living spaces as people act oblivious to the externalities of their behaviour. with prostitution, you'll inevitably end up with corporate pimps pushing the women into conditions of abject slavery. and, with alcohol you're ending up with beer taking over the space of healthy food on the shelves. and, it's all because of the corrupting effects of profit on the general health of a society.
there are going to be some lucky people in a market society that can find some kind of remuneration for some kind of task that doesn't make them want to throw themselves off a building in boredom and disgust, but that's going to be exceedingly rare. and, yeah - you'll find a lot of people that don't have the cognitive abilities to care much beyond the basic labour contract, and are perfectly happy to exchange their freedom for material goods. this is really what the system is designed around and for - people that don't care about how they spend their time, and are just happy to have a job to buy things with - including drugs, and bad corporate media.
but, it's exceedingly difficult to be a legitimately smart person in a market society, because you don't find yourself concerned with whether people think you've succeeded or not, so much as you find yourself up against the impossibility of existing in a way that doesn't make you want to kill yourself. you may have an unending list of satisfying, enjoyable things to do with yourself, but nobody wants to pay you to do them, so unless you have an independent source of wealth, you have no choice but to not have the time to do those things because you have to find some way to pay the rentier class, instead. and, how excited does anybody get about living a life like that?
it's for that reason that the most intelligent people in a market society end up on the fringes of it, while the dumbest end up running the institutions.
if that's efficiency, it's efficiency in the sense of being an efficient algorithm for idiocracy - which is what we have around us, more and more every day.
there isn't a job you could give me that i wouldn't hate, or a labor relationship you could present to me that wouldn't make me loathe my existence, and despise who i am. i admit it would be easier if there was - if somebody would pay me for doing the things that i love. but, i would rather live in abject poverty and exercise the freedom to do what i want than throw everything i love away for material possessions.
and, i insist that's a sign of intelligence - whereas choosing freely to exist in a role you care little for is a sign of a lack of it, regardless of the salary figures attached to it.
so, i always looked at getting a job as giving up on life, and refusing to get one as continuing to resist, continuing to live, continuing to exist.
it would help if i had an income source, granted. but, that can neither be an ends, nor a means to one; it can only be coincidental, adjunct, secondary...
to be free, we must exist to devise our own ends, not to accumulate profit - not for you, and not for anybody else. and, we must be free to be happy...
myanmar is complicated, and it doesn't help to moralize it, despite the fact that that's what you're going to hear about for the next forever because it glosses over the complexities of the situation, but there's a very introductory crash course to the british partition of india with some fuller context, which you won't get anywhere in the news, here:
i am the source, here.
...which i'm going to repost so it's linear and readable:
sept 6, 2020
but, if involving ourselves slows the process down, it's self-serving and should be resisted.
i don't know what you do in this situation. the countries around them don't want them for various reasons, and (unlike canada, which is a colonial state) myanmar does have some self-determinancy in the matter; there's no valid reason why they ought to be forced to integrate a large group of foreign refugees that are not indigenous to the region and that they don't want, and there's valid accusations of continuing colonialism underlying demands by a country like canada that they should.
it's really the bangladeshis that deserve the higher levels of criticism here for kicking out their own, not myanmar that deserves the criticism for refusing them entry. some kind of proper solution really involves working with the bangladeshis to integrate the kind of population that the country was created to absorb, not pushing continuing muslim and indian colonization of what is a buddhist and ethnically different territory.
perhaps the pakistanis could offer them asylum.
but, if canada's ultimate angle here is that it sees them as a source of migration, then it should just start lifting them out and stop interfering in a legal process that it's just making worse by meddling in.
i don't know what you do in this situation. the countries around them don't want them for various reasons, and (unlike canada, which is a colonial state) myanmar does have some self-determinancy in the matter; there's no valid reason why they ought to be forced to integrate a large group of foreign refugees that are not indigenous to the region and that they don't want, and there's valid accusations of continuing colonialism underlying demands by a country like canada that they should.
it's really the bangladeshis that deserve the higher levels of criticism here for kicking out their own, not myanmar that deserves the criticism for refusing them entry. some kind of proper solution really involves working with the bangladeshis to integrate the kind of population that the country was created to absorb, not pushing continuing muslim and indian colonization of what is a buddhist and ethnically different territory.
perhaps the pakistanis could offer them asylum.
but, if canada's ultimate angle here is that it sees them as a source of migration, then it should just start lifting them out and stop interfering in a legal process that it's just making worse by meddling in.
13:59
that said, i don't think that canada has the infrastructure required to facilitate that kind of migration, at this time.
they'll just end up homeless here, where it's much colder, instead.
they'll just end up homeless here, where it's much colder, instead.
14:01
again: the atlantic is not a very good source, but they get the basic point, here.
islam is a violent system of brutal colonization, and it's quite understandable that myanmar is beyond apprehensive about opening the doors - it knows that they will take over, if they'e allowed to, and no educated person can really dispute the point, everybody realizes that truth. so, the indigenous burmese have an absolute right to protect themselves from muslim colonization in the form of bangladeshi encroachment into the region. that's not an act of repression; that's self-defence.
but, you have to work in the various alliances here, as well. while there was some thought that this aung san suu kyi character may provide an opening for the west in myanmar, the country in truth remains under a chinese-backed military dictatorship, which she is mostly playing ball with. so, western support for this group has the effect of destabilizing myanmar for western geostrategic gains, and the canadian intervention may be seen as something less than altruistic when interpreted that way - it's more like we're brown-nosing the cia, which is consistent with the turn we've taken under freeland's foreign policy direction. human rights are just an excuse to curry american favour.
but, i don't think that's our ultimate angle. while everybody else in the world is concerned about overpopulation and carrying capacities, we seem to delusionally want to increase our population levels by bringing in anybody we can. we don't seem to have learned the lesson of ellis island, or the extreme levels of poverty and inequality that such a policy produces. you give us your huddled masses, and they starve here instead; we don't have the infrastructure to be the world's dumping ground.
but, powerful people at the top of our hierarchy want us to be, in conjunction with arab blood money.
my request is that you educate yourself on the topic before you sprout the propaganda that ultimately comes from arab oil sheikhs and bankers pushing for colonization by rohingyas as a way to muslimify the region, at the end of the day - and that we support to contain the chinese, to curry american favour. you may find that the truth is not quite what it seems.
but, we should step back if we're a hindrance to the progress of getting these people a state in the end, even if that state should not be in the geographic area called myanmar.
islam is a violent system of brutal colonization, and it's quite understandable that myanmar is beyond apprehensive about opening the doors - it knows that they will take over, if they'e allowed to, and no educated person can really dispute the point, everybody realizes that truth. so, the indigenous burmese have an absolute right to protect themselves from muslim colonization in the form of bangladeshi encroachment into the region. that's not an act of repression; that's self-defence.
but, you have to work in the various alliances here, as well. while there was some thought that this aung san suu kyi character may provide an opening for the west in myanmar, the country in truth remains under a chinese-backed military dictatorship, which she is mostly playing ball with. so, western support for this group has the effect of destabilizing myanmar for western geostrategic gains, and the canadian intervention may be seen as something less than altruistic when interpreted that way - it's more like we're brown-nosing the cia, which is consistent with the turn we've taken under freeland's foreign policy direction. human rights are just an excuse to curry american favour.
but, i don't think that's our ultimate angle. while everybody else in the world is concerned about overpopulation and carrying capacities, we seem to delusionally want to increase our population levels by bringing in anybody we can. we don't seem to have learned the lesson of ellis island, or the extreme levels of poverty and inequality that such a policy produces. you give us your huddled masses, and they starve here instead; we don't have the infrastructure to be the world's dumping ground.
but, powerful people at the top of our hierarchy want us to be, in conjunction with arab blood money.
my request is that you educate yourself on the topic before you sprout the propaganda that ultimately comes from arab oil sheikhs and bankers pushing for colonization by rohingyas as a way to muslimify the region, at the end of the day - and that we support to contain the chinese, to curry american favour. you may find that the truth is not quite what it seems.
but, we should step back if we're a hindrance to the progress of getting these people a state in the end, even if that state should not be in the geographic area called myanmar.
14:18
"what side are you on?"
i'm on the side of the international working class, that seeks to ease nationalist tensions in the overthrow of capitalism on both sides of the pacific.
i'm on the side of the international working class, that seeks to ease nationalist tensions in the overthrow of capitalism on both sides of the pacific.
14:32
there's even an angle with the gambia thing, regarding the struggle between the west and the chinese for control of resource extraction in africa, although the gambians seem to be playing both sides.
there's a link to a video in here somewhere where obama stands in front of a group of african emissaries and states, without blinking, that america does not intend to steal or extract resources from africa. it's perhaps one of the funniest things i've ever seen.
there's a link to a video in here somewhere where obama stands in front of a group of african emissaries and states, without blinking, that america does not intend to steal or extract resources from africa. it's perhaps one of the funniest things i've ever seen.
14:40
myanmar was lost to the chinese fifty years ago.
and, we have no business there, and never did - not even to back continued arab colonization in the region.
15:11
no, listen: i'm firm on this. anybody arguing that myanmar should carve out an islamic state on it's border are on the wrong side of history, here. the burmese have the right to self-determination, and the right to defend their borders.
but, let's take a step back and remember how the region became the way it did, and why it became the way it did, as well.
so, this is a history lesson post...
most people know the british were in india until gandhi threw them out (i'm being facetiously simple). but, let's remember what the map of british india looked like:
british india, of which the british monarch declared itself emperor (and emperess as it may be), was not merely what we today think of as "india", but also included:
1) pakistan
2) bangladesh
3) burma (now called myanmar)
4) nepal
5) bhutan
this is a huge area, with a very large number of people in it.
even back then, the british fought conflicts in afghanistan against the russians and iranians, in an attempt to expand influence into central asia and cut off the russians from the indian ocean - which the chinese are attempting to gain access to through myanmar, today.
when the country was partitioned in 1948, it was very purposefully split into three regions, as demonstrated by the following map:
the partitions were as follows:
1) green is muslim
2) orange is hindu
3) blue is buddhist
now, there are still muslims in india and burma, it is true, but the reason it was partitioned this way was to give primacy to specific religious groups in the various areas.
so, when the country of canada walks into this space and starts undoing the partition, and trying to bully the burmese into opening up an extra space for muslims, they should rightfully be seen as an imperial agent trying to reassert the primacy of british colonialism.
an area for muslims was already cut out - it's the green area. and, if muslims in the blue area want self-determinancy, they should move to the green areas.
but, let's take a step back and remember how the region became the way it did, and why it became the way it did, as well.
so, this is a history lesson post...
most people know the british were in india until gandhi threw them out (i'm being facetiously simple). but, let's remember what the map of british india looked like:
british india, of which the british monarch declared itself emperor (and emperess as it may be), was not merely what we today think of as "india", but also included:
1) pakistan
2) bangladesh
3) burma (now called myanmar)
4) nepal
5) bhutan
this is a huge area, with a very large number of people in it.
even back then, the british fought conflicts in afghanistan against the russians and iranians, in an attempt to expand influence into central asia and cut off the russians from the indian ocean - which the chinese are attempting to gain access to through myanmar, today.
when the country was partitioned in 1948, it was very purposefully split into three regions, as demonstrated by the following map:
the partitions were as follows:
1) green is muslim
2) orange is hindu
3) blue is buddhist
now, there are still muslims in india and burma, it is true, but the reason it was partitioned this way was to give primacy to specific religious groups in the various areas.
so, when the country of canada walks into this space and starts undoing the partition, and trying to bully the burmese into opening up an extra space for muslims, they should rightfully be seen as an imperial agent trying to reassert the primacy of british colonialism.
an area for muslims was already cut out - it's the green area. and, if muslims in the blue area want self-determinancy, they should move to the green areas.
15:42
as an aside, comparing what is happening in myanmar today to what happened in germany in the second world war is ridiculous and outlandish and anybody making absurd statements of the sort should both apologize and resign.
15:43
the only thing that the world has seen that is remotely comparable to the nazis is in fact isis, and muslim extremism, in general.
when people assert that muslims are victims rather than oppressors, you should ask them how much they got paid by arab blood money to say that.
when people assert that muslims are victims rather than oppressors, you should ask them how much they got paid by arab blood money to say that.
15:44
"but bangladesh is poor and overpopulated. they can't absorb this group of refugees."
then they're going to need to breed less, aren't they?
i'd suggest a one child policy.
it worked wonders in china.
then they're going to need to breed less, aren't they?
i'd suggest a one child policy.
it worked wonders in china.
16:19
or, they could just wait a few years until they sink into the sea.
solves that problem...
solves that problem...
16:20
so, is the cfr a better or worse source than the atlantic? i don't know. that's a pretty daunting insult directed at the atlantic...
if this is the way things are, that is good, as it's also how things ought to be.
again: there's ways to sort of try to blunt the effects on bangladesh by trying to scatter them around a little - to pakistan, to the middle east and, in some small numbers, perhaps to canada, as well.
but, that line was drawn to give the buddhists in the former empire a homeland of their own, and the muslims don't get to encroach on it just because they overbred. they don't get lebensraum by default, just because they're muslims, or because they're brown.
they need to get their population levels under control, not argue that overpopulation gives them some kind of right to spill over into neighbouring regions. and, whatever the solution to easing the existing issues are, they should come with the acceptance that the country was partitioned for a reason, and muslims need to stay out of the buddhist regions.
....at least for now. we don't talk like that on this side of the world, but it's because we've reached a different cultural plateau. and, some level of atheism in the region, an inevitable consequence of higher standards of living, is likely the way to get to a more substantive level of peace.
for now, these religious groups don't like each other, and their various autonomy needs to be respected.
i'd say the same thing if you flipped the situation over.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/what-happens-if-rohingya-stay-bangladesh-forever
if this is the way things are, that is good, as it's also how things ought to be.
again: there's ways to sort of try to blunt the effects on bangladesh by trying to scatter them around a little - to pakistan, to the middle east and, in some small numbers, perhaps to canada, as well.
but, that line was drawn to give the buddhists in the former empire a homeland of their own, and the muslims don't get to encroach on it just because they overbred. they don't get lebensraum by default, just because they're muslims, or because they're brown.
they need to get their population levels under control, not argue that overpopulation gives them some kind of right to spill over into neighbouring regions. and, whatever the solution to easing the existing issues are, they should come with the acceptance that the country was partitioned for a reason, and muslims need to stay out of the buddhist regions.
....at least for now. we don't talk like that on this side of the world, but it's because we've reached a different cultural plateau. and, some level of atheism in the region, an inevitable consequence of higher standards of living, is likely the way to get to a more substantive level of peace.
for now, these religious groups don't like each other, and their various autonomy needs to be respected.
i'd say the same thing if you flipped the situation over.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/what-happens-if-rohingya-stay-bangladesh-forever
19:33
i hope that this government gains a little perspective and pulls back before this becomes an albatross for them.
we are not taking the right position on this; we're just embarrassing ourselves, in a rush to contain the chinese.
we are not taking the right position on this; we're just embarrassing ourselves, in a rush to contain the chinese.
19:37
===
got it?
so, you might want to take note of the fact that the chinese did this after obama too, indicating that they have reason to think that this administration is looking to generate instability in myanmar via the rohingya issue, or other issues on the thai border. so, read this as pre-emptive. we'll have to see if it works, or if it's an indication of a starting geopolitical hot point and another pointless war over the next four years.
despite it's reliance on chomsky, the modern left seems to have no concept of where it came from.
Freedom without socialism is privilege, injustice - socialism without freedom is slavery, brutality - bakunin
stated differently,
liberalism without socialism is barbarism; socialism without liberalism is slavery
and, it's important that the left remembers this constantly, or it will lose over and over and over.
going out there and railing against individual rights isn't going to get you anywhere; nobody wants that, and it misunderstands the theory, anyways.
if you go carrying pictures of chairman mao, you ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow - john lennon
what is ice?
you can't come to reasonable policy until you understand what this is: it's a human resources agency for capital. republicans take advantage of it's role in that context to fear-monger, whereas democrats (who are the historical party of the types of capital that ice works for) obfuscate and deflect, to make it hard to understand what they actually do - which you will learn is not what you expect, when you look into it and read up on it.
ice does not exist to protect the border and does not exist to protect the community. nor is it carrying out white supremacist policies under the direction of nazis (obama was deporter-in-chief, recall). it exists to do the dirty work of mostly agricultural capital in managing, controlling and regulating the flow and cost of labour.
and, you'll never fix it until you get it.
so, i had to do some groceries today,...
i mentioned previously that i wasn't sure if my keyboard difficulties were the result of a spill - which did happen, but seemed minor - or the consequences of accidentally installing this "adobe update" that seemed to be pushed down from some kind of intelligence network via the google servers (i'm on a chromebook, so google controls my os via a network domain relationship, which i clearly need to get off of), and was obviously absurd.
see, i spilled a little water on the keyboard and in the process of drying it mashed the keys a little. maybe you've done that - you're more concerned about getting the water out at that point, and you stop worrying about the state of the machine. i should have turned it off, first. nonetheless, i think i ended up pressing one of the shortcut keys to install the update being pushed down. oops - but it might be a big oops, partly because i'm now in the awkward position of being able to point to the spill as occam's razor (you spilled water on your machine jessica, deal with it), when it just doesn't add up as the cause. i fully realize that i sound ridiculous acknowledging that the keyboard stopped working after the spill, and not believing it caused it. but...
first, this seems to be coming from google, so i think it's government that's going after me, and i don't know what level or even what country. that was a few weeks ago. the adobe update - which showed up every time i rebooted and sat in the system tray - has since stopped. chrome banned flash years ago, and nobody's used it for anything in eons.
i mentioned that the keys that stopped working were also curious and showed no real pattern. so, the t button - nowhere near the spill - stopped working, meaning i can't launch crosh. backspace, in the far corner, stopped working, but delete didn't. the refresh key stopped working, so getting to developer mode was impossible. the shift, ctrl & alt keys stopped working on only one side, which seemed like a half-finished job. so, if it was about the local spill, it didn't add up; if it was about the internal logic, it didn't add up. it seemed more like somebody picked specific keys that would stop me from utilizing the machine fully, and also seemed designed to stop me from editing my own writing.
which means that the entire usb channel from the keyboard in is compromised.
so, i tried to reformat it a few different ways, ran into some roadblocks and put it aside.
when i came in today, it seems like they finished the job. the mousepad doesn't work anymore, the function keys that were working have ceased functioning, both delete & backspace are broken and even the arrow keys are out. i haven't done anything further - and that was all fine before i left. so, if i were to get into the bios on the device, i wouldn't be able to do anything in it.
initially, the keyboard didn't work at all, but i took the device apart and realized they plugged the ribbon back in upside down. that didn't just happen, obviously.
so, i don't know what to do next. what would you do?
what, exactly, am i doing here that is drawing this kind of attention to me?
is this all really the consequence of being an independent thinker? are they really this fearful of independent thought? or, are they so incompetent that they actually, truly, honestly can't figure out that i'm not a russian spy?
i couldn't call the cops if i wanted to do; it's the cops doing it.
i have a usb mouse, and am using a usb wireless keyboard. they destroyed the last wired usb keyboard i bought. i guess i will have to buy another one.
in the meantime, i'm going to see if there's anything i can do to try to retake control of this. it's now entirely useless as a mobile device, and i'll have to find a way to get another laptop of some sort, it seems (i do not want a phone - you can't type on a phone, so it's useless to me). but, that's hardly a priority for the moment, given the pandemic.
it's clear enough what's happening, but i really don't get it.
Sunday, January 31, 2021
temporary full january, 2021 backup archive (not source material - to be permanently deleted when pdf uploads)
saturday, january 1, 2022
monday, january 3, 2022
tuesday, january 4, 2022
wednesday, january 5, 2022
thursday, january 6, 2022
friday, january 7, 2022
saturday, january 8, 2022
sunday, january 9, 2022
monday, january 10, 2022
tuesday, january 11, 2022
wednesday, january 12, 2022
thursday, january 13, 2022
friday, january 14, 2022
saturday, january 15, 2022
sunday, january 16, 2022
monday, january 17, 2022
tuesday, january 18, 2022
wednesday, january 19, 2022
thursday, january 20, 2022
friday, january 21, 2022
saturday, january 22, 2022
sunday, january 23, 2022
monday, january 24, 2022
tuesday, january 25, 2022
wednesday, january 26, 2022
thursday, january 27, 2022
friday, january 28, 2022
saturday, january 29, 2022
sunday, january 30 2022
monday, january 31, 2022
the government is not trying to stop the spread of the virus with these measures, it's trying to punish people for trying to escape the lockdown, and not engaging in some kind of self-flagellation, or collective suffering.
it's very religious in undertone.
and, that's deeply concerning - and sort of frightening.
i don't want to live in a society like this.
it's very religious in undertone.
and, that's deeply concerning - and sort of frightening.
i don't want to live in a society like this.
i didn't have to cancel plans to the caribbean (or reduce my caviar intake due to low supply), but the choice of specific destination seems chosen more out of calvinist frugality than scientific data.
it's a typically right-wing response from this government.
i have my hands full, and this is outside of my class interests. but, somebody (the ccla?) needs to file a s. 6 challenge.
Saturday, January 30, 2021
if video killed the radio star, the video star is on it's deathbed, now, as well.
and, we can see the construction of an entirely different set of talking heads, as well - even old people like chomsky & wolff, and goodman, who aren't allowed on tv, are legitimate internet stars. it's a different animal, and it's of minimal help to draw comparisons.
my grandmother has never abandoned her radio as her source of information. she can't remember much for more than a few seconds nowadays, but she still listens to her cbc on her ancient, and probably carcinogenic, old radio, which is roughly the same size as her stove and would require multiple large men to move from place to place.
and, despite not having particularly different politics from each other (she's a very liberal old woman, in the true sense of the term), we often had difficulty following each other because we had such disparate framing.
the medium is, in some ways, the message. and, while, i'm not a digital native, i had to go to the computer lab at school to type book reports until i was roughly 15, i've fully embraced the internet as a complete and total source of information, for better or worse.
tv is about as relevant to me as radio is to most of us, and that's becoming a norm that the world needs to adjust to.
when i imagine tucker carlson in my mind, which i don't do that often, but, when i do, he's wearing that stupid bowtie, or on crossfire or something like that.
and, i still can't see stephen colbert out of character.
that's where my brain is, and criticize me for it if you'd like, but don't strawman me about it.
i have never paid for cable tv in my adult life, and i've spent most of it without a television set in my living space at all. i used to watch some tv when i was a kid, but that ceased almost totally in the late 90s - and that is easy to deduce by my cultural references, which are to things like seinfeld and the simpsons, which i understand, and not to things like curb your enthusiasm and the office, or even south park, which i've never seen a single episode of, except at bars or half awake at friends houses.
i simply don't watch television and haven't for half of my life, at this point - and for essentially this entire century.
so, when you talk to me about tucker carlson, i think of this young jerk on cnn who often appeared on gretchen carlson greta van susteran and, yes - seemed to be hiding something. i've never seen his show in more than five minute internet clips for research purposes. i've deduced that he's quite bright (unlike many of his contemporaries), but borderline evil.
nor have i ever watched rachel maddow for more than a few minutes at a time, for research purposes. msnbc is actually kind of heavy on restricted access due to property rights, in canada. i've deduced that she's obviously a cia agent - and i'm not just saying that. rachel maddow is obviously a deep state intelligence operative.
you can see what i actually watch relatively easily because i post it here or comment on it. and, i only bother when i'm eating.
but, i get the general direction that these things are moving in and need to ask a legitimate question, one that maybe only somebody that's as distant from the discourse as i am could possibly formulate:
is the contemporary mainstream liberal press legitimately so unappealing to actual political leftists, that demagogues in right-wing media legitimately are more representative of a genuine left than they are? as an honest libertarian socialist, or left marxist, or whatever you want to call it, must i admit that i really am closer to tucker carlson on the spectrum than i am to rachel maddow? and what does that imply for the legitimate left moving forwards?
but, i am out of your spectrum, and that's all i've ever said for years, now.
where do i get this stuff from, then?
i'm an independent thinker, believe it or not. i post my sources when it's reasonable to do so, but much of the analysis here comes from nowhere but my own mind. i'm an analytical thinker, but i'm also an artist, a creative type, and that shouldn't be surprising.
and, if i'm confounding you that's fine - it means i'm doing this right.
please approach my arguments for what they are, rather than attempt to categorize me into a misleading corner. that won't pan out in the end, it'll just make you look stupid. trust me.
what is the elite concerning itself with, here?
and, don't confuse yourself - it is and has always been the elite making these arguments.
do you think they care how the democrats advance their agenda?
we hear so much in the media about how to stop the next donald trump.
they're more invested in trying to stop the next bernie sanders - and don't delude yourselves into thinking otherwise.
and, does the filibuster have anything to do with the civil rights movement or opposition to it?
nope.
that's like arguing that you should ban hammers because some idiot can't find his toolbox and uses them to solve every problem.
and, it's even a classic logical fallacy - the kind they teach you about in first year.
remember that woman in texas that stopped abortion legislation with a filibuster? i never see the republicans use it, it's a tool used almost exclusively by the left. what do "progressives" have to say about losing a tool that has worked, in situations where nothing else has?
bernie had some weird positions last cycle, but he was right to be cautious about doing away with that, and i'm curious as to how that comes down.
i don't see abolishing the filibuster as a particularly left-wing position....
"biden moves on the nuclear treaty, but it's just a start"
laugh track
i can sort of grasp that my absolute aversion to being around somebody that clearly tried very hard to be and legitimately wanted to be my friend may come off as galling or unbecoming. i don't fucking care, but i kind of get it.
so, if you're just going to insist on being me, i'd rather spend the time by myself.
to the extent that i'd want to spend time with anybody at all, i'm more likely to be attracted to opposites - people that counterbalance my weaknesses, and not people that accentuate my strengths. the latter is just inefficient and pointless.
not only do i not need the affirmation, i don't want it at all.
i've been sorting through the last six months worth of posts tonight, and deciding that i'm going to put this all together into a smashwords download when i'm done. this is going to be a novella-sized book...nutrition science with flair.
you can put it on your coffee table.
first, i'm going to clean up a final fruit bowl post that puts everything together, and it may not post for a while still, but i want it to at least be on the way.
so, i don't have my amino acid posts done - i need threonine, tryptophan & phenylalanine/tyrosine still - but i'm working on something.
my coffee numbers are all wrong for some reason. i think i adjusted some of them to 350 and some of them to 700. i didn't show my work, and i should have - i showed it for everything else - so i can't figure out what i did, sometimes.
so, i need to go back to boron and figure that out, but i'm going to post my sources and calculations here so i can figure it out next time.
boron:
h t t ps : / / o d s. o d . ni h . g o v / f a c t s h e et s /B o r on -H e a l t h P r o f es s i on al / #h 7
then, .07*3/3 = 7%. i don't know why it says 3.5%, but i'm fixing it in the next update. i may have halved it accidentally because i was shifting from 700 ml to 350 ml in the chart, but, if that's what i did, it was a mistake.
nitrates:
i took the data for the water and multiplied it by .35 instead of ,85:
3.5*.35 = 1.225 mg
that's correct.
fluoride:
this is data from the water in windsor, which i got from the city.
.125*.35/4 = 1.09%. fine.
sodium
i initially used the same data source as the water:
(((3.86 + 8.58)/2)*.35)/1500 = .145%.
but, then i changed it to the usda data, and entered the following:
3.56*4/1500 = .949%. that would be correct for 700 ml, but. not for 350 ml, which is nly:
3.56*2/1500 = .474666666%
so, that has been corrected.
potassium:
the number i have is 7.4, which seems to be calculated from the usda data, but incorrectly:
87.2*4/4700 = 7.4%, and that would be fine for 700 ml.
but, for 350 ml, i actually want:
87.2*2/4700 = 3.71%.
so, i'll need to update that as well.
the k:na ratio numbers at the bottom level had to change, then, too.
magnesium
i did the same thing with magnesium, which needs to be halved from 5.08 to 0.02542857142, which i'm going to enter as 2.54%.
silicon
Friday, January 29, 2021
valine
valine is a "branched-chain amino acid" like leucine and isoleucine, and again seems to end up with coA as the end point. i don't see any derivatives or transformations worth measuring separately, and i seem to be getting quite a lot.
water - 0
=============
raspberry - ?. raspberries have very low amounts of amino acids, low enough that nobody bothered measuring it, or that it couldn't be measured. i have not been able to find data, but it's minimal across the board.
guava - 87*.3 = 26.1 mg
banana - 55
strawberry - 19
avocado - 161
kiwi - 39
soy - 67*4 = 268
ice cream - 217*.825 = 179.025
yogurt - 474*.5 = 237
yeast - 612*5/20 = 153
vector cereal -
all bran cereal - 726*.45 = 326.7
wheat bran - 726*.07 = 50.82
sunflower seeds - 1315*.08 = 105.2
flax - 1072*.12 = 128.64
algal oil - 1020*.1922*.0517 = 10.1354748
===============
100*(26.1 + 55 + 19 + 161 + 39 + 268 + 179.025 + 237 + 153 + 326.7 + 50.82 + 105.2 + 128.64 + 10.135)/1820 = 96.6274725275
i'm getting antzy again, do i even want to finish this?
yes.
now that i'm over the weird hump with methionine & cysteine, let's see if i can get the essential amino acids finished tonight, before i get through some end of the month stuff after that. and, i'm going to have to pick up back where i was, or something - i don't even know.
i'm completely lost, right now.
i think i had resigned myself to suicide and sort of given up. i was in such a rut. with the complete collapse of any concept of social existence, i completely stopped caring about life sometime in the summer, and sort of found myself lost in setting up a diet, as a kind of way to cope.
if my fruit meal is so great, why not eat it twice a day? well, that's not a bad question, i guess.
i'm horribly depressed about everything and need to get out to a show to exist....this is a life, right now, with everything shut down, that isn't worth living....
there's a line of thinking that the chinese economy is best described as "neo-confucianist", which is actually a kind of casino capitalism with large overlaps with calvinism. the chinese are not the same as us the way that the russians or iranians are, it's an inherently different culture, but the jarring thing about them is how similar they are to us.
and, what he's saying about wages is true, but that's fordism.
also, to tie into previous posts, let's remember that nationalizing the railroads was one of the prime goals and accomplishments of 19th century populism. historians of populism will present it as a farmers revolt against the banks, and i tried to explain that they get the class analysis completely wrong when they do that. wolff's deconstruction of that point is quite useful, here, and backs up my points on the topic.
the other thing i want to point out is that the united states once had 10% growth rates, too, and that it's a function of the development level and technology level more than anything else. really, everything that has happened in china over the last fifty years happened in the united states a hundred years earlier, and if you could find an even less developed economy that needed to be built up even more, you'd see growth rates there hit those levels, too. it's consequently worthwhile to recognize that china's embrace of capitalism has no future but the same thing we saw happen in america; that is capitalism, it undoes itself in the end. as such, it is predictable that rising wages in china will inevitably lead to outsourcing in countries like vietnam, which is contributing to lower growth rates. and, in the end, you'll end up with chinese workers complaining that africans and malaysians stole all their jobs, as shanghai falls apart in post-industrial decay.
you sleep with the devil, right?
so, what wolff has forgotten is that america built it's wealth through state control, as well - not through free markets. chomsky & hudson are better sources on this topic; they'll both explain the point that china got rich by following the example that america followed, not by reversing it. but, they're crystal clear that america was, at the time, a state capitalist economy, as well - something wolff tends to obscure, to try to build them up as a counter-model.
now, that said....
i'm not measuring these meat-only molecules - carnosine, carnitine (ok,i am measuring carnitine), taurine, etc - but i'm running up against a choice this weekend, as i get to the last little bit of salami: do i want to do away with this, and go full ovo-lacto?
i've gone ovo-lacto or ovo-lacto-pesco before, and a big part of what i'm doing is trying to figure out if it's actually practical or not. i have no moral opposition to eating eggs (although i wish i could afford to buy them from better sources), and while dairy is kinda iffy, milk is too central to too many things to drop it. it really doesn't seem like i need to eat animal flesh, but these byproducts are not replaceable.
one of the things i've been toying with, though, is whether i want to replace a $10.00 stick of salami with a $10 roasted chicken. the reason i didn't do that previously is that the salami was being consciously utilized as a high-density source of fat in a diet with almost no fat in it. but, i've added things like avocados and, in the process, reduced the amount of salami down to something quite minimal. as that logic recedes, more traditional arguments about the superiority of poultry over processed pork begin to assert themselves. so, while eating chicken as a supplement with eggs opens up some ancient and silly questions in terms of ordering the food preparation (well. which one?), it may be the better option.
you'll note i never added the salami to the chart because i never really intended to hold to it. it's a holdover from the old pasta meal and the days where i mostly alternated between melts and tomato sandwiches and consequently needed a high density source of protein; it's run it's course and should be replaced, or discarded altogether.
i might not stick with it in the longterm, but i'm probably going to do it at least once. and, there's some unassailable logic to it - if i add just a bit of actual unprocessed chicken in the 36 hour cycle, it's no doubt getting me a bit of these extra molecules at minimal to no harm, even if am technically getting enough to synthesize via the high protein onslaught in all three meals. that could be a tipping point, giving me that extra bit of amino acid base to produce those extra anti-oxidants, or those extra neurotransmitters.
so, yes - i think i've proven to myself that meat is not required.
but, i'm still toying with what is optimal and whether that little bit of chicken is worthwhile or not.
methionine + cysteine + taurine + glutathione (sulfur containing amino acids)
Methionine is a nutritionally indispensable amino acid required for the normal growth and development of all mammals (1, 2), whereas cysteine is conditionally indispensable (3, 4). In addition to its required role in protein synthesis, methionine supplies the methyl group for numerous methylation reactions and the sulfur atom for cysteine formation (5–8). Through the intermediate S-adenosylmethionine, methionine is the source of the methyl groups of choline, creatine, and both DNA and RNA intermediates (1, 5, 6, 8). Cysteine is involved in the protein synthesis and biosynthesis of taurine, sulfate, and glutathione (6).
so, the amino acid here that is considered essential is methionine, but it seems like the major purpose of methionine in the diet is actually to act as a source of sulfur (in conversion to cysteine) or as a methyl donor (via s-adenyl-methionine, or sam); taurine and glutathione are actually both derived more directly from cysteine, which is formed by the combination of serine & sulfur (from the methionine). it's really serine that is the precursor here, not methionine. as such, if i'm concerned about synthesizing cysteine, i need to ensure i'm getting enough serine.
serine is apparently primarily converted from glycine, but glycine is then apparently mostly converted from serine, so that doesn't help. rather, it seems like i should aim to get sufficient serine levels directly.
but, then, i should just focus on getting cysteine directly. right? yeah.
so, the main thing i'd want to do with methionine, proper, then, is use it to build s-adenosyl-methionine which is the form that methionine seems to be used as most readily. methionine also plays a role in synthesizing some neurotransmitters (including acting as a precursor to choline, where necessary), but this is a general role for amino acids, and they seem to be converted back and forth fairly easily. i'm actually going to do some more research into neurotransmitters as it's own unit topic, and may add further requirements to ensure i'm generating enough of them. for now, i'm going to assume that the rdis for the amino acids & vitamins, together, are enough to ensure i'm getting enough brain food. if i get extra methionine it could potentially end up as cysteine, but excess homocysteine (the intermediate) should be avoided - which is partly what all the extra betaine is about. b6 & b12 also help in clearing out excess homocysteine. so, i want to get a little extra methionine, but broadly keep it down a little.
so, the two main derivatives of cysteine are glutathione (with glutamic acid & glycine), which is one of the few known antioxidants that actually functions in vivo but cannot be absorbed in tact and must be synthesized, and taurine, which, due to the lack of red meat in my diet, can only be derived from cysteine. i'm phasing taurine out because i just don't get it in my diet, but i'll be working the 100 mg/day requirements into the cysteine requirements as a subcomponent.
rdi:
this is unsettled science, at this point. i've looked at a number of sources and built up the following chart:
eu: 10.4 mg/kg for methionine, 4.1 mg/kg for cysteine
usda: 19 mg/kg total
di buono 1: 21 mg/kg total + taurine & glutathione requirements
caveat:
Therefore, the total SAA requirements found in the present study represent the amount of dietary methionine needed to fulfill all the functions of methionine in vivo. However, it cannot be concluded from the present study whether the amount of cysteine required for the synthesis of glutathione, taurine, or sulfate was achieved with methionine intakes at the breakpoint for protein synthesis. This is an important consideration for deciding on appropriate dietary reference intakes for SAAs; additional research is required on this issue.
di buono 2: 10.1 mg/kg for methionine (lower bound) + 10.9 mg/kg cysteine (upper bound)
Results: The mean and population-safe (upper limit of the 95% CI) methionine requirements in the absence of exogenous cysteine were found to be 12.6 and 21 mg·kg−1·d−1, respectively. The mean and population-safe methionine requirements in the presence of excess dietary cysteine were found to be 4.5 and 10.1 mg·kg−1·d−1, respectively, representing a cysteine sparing effect of 64% in a comparison of mean methionine requirements and of 52% in a comparison of population-safe methionine intakes. Furthermore, the difference between population-safe intakes with and without dietary cysteine establishes a safe cysteine intake of 10.9 mg·kg−1·d−1 in the presence of adequate methionine intakes.
milk study 1: 36.3 mg/kg total, with a cys:met ratio of ~ 1.25
milk study 2: cys/met ratio of ~ 1.42
further sources:
2) the survey: https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/136/6/1682S/4664458
---
that's a messy pile of data. some comments are necessary.
i posted this earlier:
i think a part of the reason this is confusing - and the survey states as much up front - is that the language they're using is often inexact, to say the least. the ideas are not being presented clearly. so, let me work through this and try to get the ideas clarified, first.
their argument is that cysteine can "substitute" for methionine if it's present in sufficient quantities that you can prevent the conversion of methionine to cysteine. but, this isn't actually a substitution process at all. it's more like a blocking process. they should by talking about transsulfuration-blocking, not cysteine-sparing.
they then erect this idea of "total sulfur requirement", which is the amount of methionine you need without any cysteine, and subtract out the minimum obligatory amount of methionine, which they decide is the amount of methionine you need to do methionine things. the argument is that what's left should be the amount converted to cysteine, but, as i've said before, that doesn't actually make any sense, and i'd advise against citing that deduction. i guess you could use that number as a crude upper bound, but you don't actually know how much non-essential methionine gets converted, so you can't actually say anything besides that. the amount of cysteine you need to block conversion could very well be half of that. worse, if you go back to the first study, it mentions that they don't know that the amount of methionine cited is truly sufficient for what i'm measuring - they explicitly poi\int out that that number may be insufficient to produce enough taurine and glutathione. so, you can only deduce that you need some amount that is less than 10.9 mg/kg of cysteine to block transsulfuration from occurring at levels that may or may not be sufficient to meet cysteine needs.
so, what's the right experiment, then, even if i can't find it?
what you should do if you want the answer i'm looking for is measure the maximum amount of methionine that gets converted to cysteine, and base your cysteine requirements on how much you observe your body transsulfurate. so, what you want to do is give the subject massive levels of methionine & serine with zero cysteine and zero cysteine derivatives and see where the breakpoint occurs. that will determine total dietary cysteine requirements, independent of methionine. i'd want to take that number and build an rdi for cysteine on it. then, i could subtract that out from the total sulfur requirements to get a methionine rdi.
the confusion is likely stemming from methionine being seen as essential and cysteine being seen as inessential. that may be technically true, in terms of the chemistry, but cysteine seems to be the more valuable chemical, so it should really be what the requirements are built around. methionine may be indispensable, but only at much lower levels, and only as an after thought, in the presence of sufficient cysteine.
so, i'm taking a giant step back and asking a different question - has anybody tried to measure how much total cysteine your body requires, independent of methionine? let me figure that out first...
so, the way that this has been approached up to now has generally been to look at the two of them as "sulfur containing amino acids" and try to determine the total amount of sulfur required by the body. as methionine can convert to cysteine, but cysteine cannot convert back to methionine, and specifically cannot convert to sam, methionine is labeled as "essential", while cysteine is not. unfortunately, cysteine requirements are then generally approached with the intent to minimize methionine requirements by "sparing" them, which is really a blocking process - what di buono 2 really does is determine how much cysteine you need to take before your body decides it has enough that it can stop converting methionine to cysteine, but it doesn't tell us how much cysteine we need, altogether, if we aim to minimize our methionine intake to methylation and stop transsulfuration from occurring, altogether. so, this is ultimately a very conservative argument that ignores the implication that we may have evolved these pathways - we transsulfurate in only one direction - for a good reason, and that maybe excess cysteine is a better idea than excess methionine because of it. as mentioned, excess homocysteine is bad news for your arteries; loading up on cysteine seems like a better idea. yet, it means that we need to ensure we get enough methionine in it's own right, too, because it remains essential, in the form of sam.
the second question - how much cysteine we need, altogether, if we aim to minimize our methionine intake to methylation and stop transsulfuration from occurring, altogether - is the one i'm seeking an answer to, and it doesn't seem to be a question that has been asked. rather, the question that has been asked is the third one, "what is the minimum methionine requirements in the presence of sufficient cysteine, whatever the latter is", and we have two answers:
- 10.1 mg/kg (di buono 2 ) & 10.4 mg/kg (eu)
these are relatively close, but let's take the bigger number. then,
methionine: 10.4*70 = 728 mg
to go back to the second question, then, the bounds are 4.1 mg/kg (eu) and 10.9 mg/kg (di buono 2 ). 10.9 is explicitly an upper bound, although they acknowledge that the upper bound may not be sufficient. i've previously calculated that 100 mg/day is a reasonable target for taurine production, so that should be added to the derived upper limit, whatever it's determined to be. so, these numbers are in truth only marginally useful. if nobody wants to ask the question i'm asking, what else can we do?
one thing we could do is look at human breast milk for clues.
i've found two studies, both of which determine that there is more cysteine than methionine in breast milk, which suggests that humans have indeed evolved these pathways in some sort of complicated manner; it doesn't seem to be an accident that we only transsulfurate in one direction, given that our mothers give us an excess of cysteine, and just enough methionine to act as a methyl donor. the two studies provide ratios of 1.25 and 1.42. while an upper bound of 1.5 is nice and round, i am already exaggerating by using 70 mg/kg, so let's take an average instead. then, (1.25 + 1.42)/2 = 1.335 and, adding in the 100 mg/day for taurine (https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2020/10/taurine-is-something-that-im-sort-of.html):
cysteine: 10.4*1.335*70 + 100 = 1071.88
in total, that would be: (1071.88 + 728)/70 = 25.71 mg/kg
this number is higher than any of the numbers presented, except the numbers in breast milk. however, note that (1071.88 + 728)/50 = 35.9976, so a more realistic body weight estimate takes me much closer to the sulfur levels in breast milk, which are no doubt way more than enough. at 125%, that's 1.25*(1071.88 + 728)/50 = 44.997 mg/kg, which is approaching the upper limit in the next section; 1.25*(1071.88 + 728)/55 = 40.9063636364, 1.25*(1071.88 + 728)/60 = 37.4975, 1.25*(1071.88 + 728)/65 = 34.6130769231.
after much hair pulling, i believe this is sufficient.
upper limit:
this article sets it at 46 mg/kg:
1.5*46*50/728 ~ 474%
.5*46*50/728 ~ 158%
i'm going to use the same ratio for cysteine.
1.5*46*50/1072 ~ 322%
.5*46*50/1072 ~ 107%
so,
methionine (728 mg):
per meal: >50, <158
total: >150, <474
cysteine (1072, includes taurine + glutathione):
per meal: >50, <107
total: > 150, <322
methionine
water - 0
=============
raspberry - ?. raspberries have very low amounts of amino acids, low enough that nobody bothered measuring it, or that it couldn't be measured. i have not been able to find data, but it's minimal across the board.
guava - 16*.3 = 4.8
banana - 9
strawberry - 2
avocado - 57
kiwi - 17
soy - 16*4 = 64
ice cream - 81*.825 = 66.825
yogurt - 169*.5 = 84.5
yeast - 184*5/20 = 46
vector cereal -
all bran cereal - 234*.45 = 105.3
wheat bran - 234*.07 = 16.38
sunflower seeds - 494*.08 = 39.52
flax - 370*.12 = 44.4
algal oil - 1020*.1922*.0135 = 2.646594
===============
100*(4.8 + 9 + 2 + 57 + 17 + 64 + 66.825 + 84.5 + 46 + 105.3 + 16.3 + 39.52 + 44.4 + 2.64659)/728 = 76.8257678571
cysteine
the usda has 0 for cysteine in soy milk, but that seems to be wrong. here is a different source:
h ttp s : / / w w w . r e s e a r c h g a t e . n e t / fi g u r e / D i e t a ry - so u r c e s - o f - c y s t e i ne _ tb l 1 _2 2 3 9 5 9 3 0 5
water - 0
=============
raspberry - ?. raspberries have very low amounts of amino acids, low enough that nobody bothered measuring it, or that it couldn't be measured. i have not been able to find data, but it's minimal across the board.
guava - ?
banana - 11
strawberry - 6
avocado - 41
kiwi - 21
soy - 113*1.6 = 180.8
ice cream - 29*.825 = 23.925
yogurt - 52*.5 = 26
yeast - 102*5/20 = 25.5
vector cereal -
all bran cereal - 371*.45 = 166.95
wheat bran - 371*.07 = 25.97
sunflower seeds - 451*.08 = 36.08
flax - 340*.12 = 40.8
algal oil - 1020*.1922*.0062 = 1.2154728
===============
100*(11 + 6 + 41 + 21 + 180.8 + 23.925 + 26 + 25.5 + 166.95 + 25.97 + 36.08 + 40.8 + 1.21547)/1072 = 56.5522826493
methionine + cysteine
met: (4.8 + 9 + 2 + 57 + 17 + 64 + 66.825 + 84.5 + 46 + 105.3 + 16.3 + 39.52 + 44.4 + 2.64659) = 559.29159
cys: (11 + 6 + 41 + 21 + 180.8 + 23.925 + 26 + 25.5 + 166.95 + 25.97 + 36.08 + 40.8 + 1.21547) = 606.24047
tot: 728 + 1071.88 = 1799.88,
(559.29159 + 606.24047)/1799.98 = 0.64752500583
....but i'm not measuring this.
Thursday, January 28, 2021
sorry, the previous study had a ratio of 1.25.
the 3:2 ratio came from this study, which is very old:
it's actually 1.42.
does human milk contain taurine or glutathione?
taurine: yes, but i'm going to stick with my previous deductions, of 100 mg/day.
glutathione: you can't absorb it, so it doesn't matter....
so, the milk studies should suggest a ratio of around 1.25-1.5. 1.5 would be a nice, round upper limit - and i'd have to add in the 100 mg/day for taurine on top of it.
that means if minimum methionine requirements are around 10-11, minimum cysteine requirements would be 12.5-16.5 + 100 mg.
this is starting to stabilize.
ok, so i'm going to try to get this done tonight. again.
listen, if you follow the source material, it's clear enough that this is a question without a clear answer. so, i'm currently compiling a list of best guesses, and i'm going to try to find a solution that takes them all into account.
here's another observation: if you check out this link, humans are very different than any other animal (except rats) in the cysteine:methionine ratio of their milk. we actually have more cysteine in our milk than methionine! again - is that a hint? i'm going to take it as one.
if the ratio of cysteine:methionine in human milk is about 3:2, maybe that's something to strive for, roughly, in the absence of better data. it's consistent with what i'm deducing, at least.
these other mammals, including cow and goat, are all leaning heavily towards methionine balance in the ratio. even cats - which are obligate carnivores and have very high taurine requirements - had higher levels of methionine. so, the obvious answer that cows eat grass and mothers eat all sorts of stuff doesn't really fly. it's kind of curious. but, it's a good hint...
the manhattan project was a bipartisan, cross-national collaboration to put science at the forefront of the country's future, that policy makers could cite to work up feelings of national purpose in order to shatter opposition with.
the new deal was a highly contentious - if entirely necessary - set of policies that has largely been undone over time and instantly sets 40% of the country against it every time you mention it.
so, of course fake left media pundits point to the new deal instead of the manhattan project. why would you expect otherwise?
so, he came down here and i could smell it on him. but, the more i state the logic and facts of the situation, the angrier he gets about it. he's made his position clear - he's just going to yell and deny. yell and deny. yell and deny.
hopefully, i got under his skin enough to get him to adjust a little. that's all i want. i don't care what he does in some abstract universal sense, i care if i can tell, in it's specific & direct effects on me.
i have never, ever smoked inside, either. this is the worst situation i've been in since i was 15.
when i got a place with sarah, and we were splitting on rent, i even forced her to smoke outside. she was paying $500/month to smoke outside, while cohabiting with a smoker. that was in 2004, and that's how insistent i've been on outside smoking, for my whole life.
every place i've ever lived in was outside smoking, exclusively.
this is why: it makes me viciously sick, and i know it and have for decades.
yes.
i'm serious.
it's baffling, but it seems like my landlord signed a non-smoking lease with me in absolute bad faith. he tricked me into moving in here, and chain smokes inside with the doors closed. then, he feigns shock and surprise when i accuse him of smoking, and lies to my face about it.
it's baffling.
the only sense i can make of it is that i signed a lease with the police - and that the cops up there, which actually seem to rotate, don't give a fuck. i got tricked into moving into some kind of heavily monitored holding cell, and am basically under perpetual surveillance. the thing is that this adds up with everything else.
it's the only way i can make sense of how or why somebody would behave so absurdly.
it's frustrating that it's come to this, but this might be the closest thing i can get to actionable evidence in a situation where a landlord smokes inside with the doors closed and the blinds drawn, and then lies about it when confronted about it.
i think these are the first pictures of me that i've published anywhere since about 2017. these are my 40 year-old, very skinny, totally unfake and makeupless lips:
do you see the red rash around my lips?
what's happening there is called contact dermatitis, and is essentially an allergic reaction to second-hand smoke. and, i know that because i went through it for much of my early childhood over and over. i used to have to go to school looking like that every day, due to my mother's smoking habits. it's in exactly the same spot (when i was a kid, it was often more widespread) and is exactly the same rash, triggered by exactly the same process.
for whatever reason, it doesn't happen when i smoke outside - it's exclusively a reaction to second-hand smoke.
so, i can complain about migraines, and i can hack and wheeze. and i can get overwhelmed by the stench and puke, but so long as he just lies about it, there's nothing i can really do.
if i break out into a rash, though, i can present that as evidence - and, then, everything else becomes actionable, too.
obviously, i don't like the rash. but, it might be a blessing in disguise in a case where i've been trying to generate evidence for, literally, years, and can't.
the best thing that could be done is a massive manhattan-project style investment drive from the feds, but that doesn't seem likely.
as such, americans are best off supporting local representatives to protect their own backyards than federal ones. and, that's how you get regulations passed in places like kentucky, to protect the local watershed.
from what i can see, these are fairly modest proposals, which he likely only has limited jurisdiction over. see, this is the part the discourse forgets - in the united states, this is mostly a state-level issue, which is why california and kentucky are on such divergent paths. i don't think that biden can end coal production in appalachia if he wants to.
that said, from the perspective of capital, there is a big difference between funding new industries and ending old ones. we have three things to look at:
1) government funding for profitable new industry will be welcomed by capital. that's the kind of thing you're likely to see substantive action on, and it's a step, at least. you have to give consumers a real choice before you blame them for rejecting it; right now, this is a supply-side issue, primarily. shifting that is helpful. so, call it what you want - investment, welfare - but it's probably the crux of what you'll actually see this government focus on.
2) shutting down out-of-date, unprofitable or obsolete industries is a normal part of capitalism, and large parts of the carbon economy are moving in to that category. what biden can do here is take credit for this by spinning it. and, the democrats aren't competitive in the regions where it's a concern, anyways, so the political fallout is of minimal concern - just like the liberals don't really care about losing votes in saskatchewan.
3) shutting down profitable sectors of the economy that are causing large amounts of pollution. this strikes me as highly unlikely; that essentially won't happen..
i also want to call on the canadian government to allow for cross-border traffic to access vaccines in the united states, given the increasing lack of availability of them here - which i suspect is actually blowback from our border policies.
there is a distinct moral problem in telling people they can't leave the country to get vaccinated unless they can afford and access a plane ticket out.
my argument against mask laws was always that the flimsy masks they were mandating were useless - and that was well understood by the medical community, despite the disinformation in the mainstream press about it. the mask mandates were worse than a placebo, they were mass public panic. and, the way they were being pushed down was - and still is - concerning. why did the media collectively refuse to look at actual evidence, and push nonsense instead? surely, the mask industry was not that powerful...
if you're going to mandate n95s, i can't really make that argument anymore, because the science is that they should substantively reduce transmission, if they're used properly - a substantive caveat, sure, but the point remains.
i still want to catch the virus - if i haven't already - though.
does that mean it's now technically airborne?
when i met him, he wore basketball jerseys and listened to the worst kinds of hip-hop; he was derogatorily referred to by the other kids as a "spic" or a "wigger" and, while i never took part in stuff like that, he was about the last person i'd have seen myself hanging out with. at the time, you'd have seen me in zero shirts, blaring fixed or garbage in my phones.
he does a science project at my house, and he's walking around in nine inch nails shirts, all of a sudden. and hanging out with my friends, too. like, it was a complete shift in identity...
maybe he just lacked something of his own, maybe i'm explaining the point better than i realize; maybe he was caught between cultures, and i gave him a way out he hadn't had before.
but, i'd rather forget about him.....
in the 11th grade, the teacher assigned him to be my work partner for a science project, and he ended up at my house. we had to build a potential energy driven car powered by elastics.
i built the car. he hung out with my dad.
but, i couldn't get rid him for 15 years after that.
and, he was actually upper middle class - wealthier than i was - so it wasn't that.
i dunno what it was.
and, you know what the really odd thing about it is?
this false projection of me that he modeled himself on wasn't, like, some cooler version of me, or something. i could at least sort of get that.
it was the version of me that my parents wanted me to be.
so, imagine trying to juggle that - not only do you need to deal with rejecting your parents' false expectations of you, which is relatively normal, but you need to deal with the bizarre reality that your friends have exactly the same false projections.
i guess i can look back and realize that i obviously wasn't doing a very good job of projecting myself, was i? but, i think the broader truth is that people see what the media programs them to see, and the weird underlying reality is that they were watching the same tv programs.
like, he'd randomly show up at my place out of nowhere and ask for guitar lessons, or want to read the same book i was reading, or listen to the same record i was listening to...
and not for a week.
for years.
the obsession was bizarre, but you see the point of delusion - he's maybe the only person i knew in that period that didn't realize i was queer. and the only person (besides sarah, for somewhat understandable reasons) that reacted negatively to it, in the end. nobody else actually cared.
the only one that didn't see how obvious it was was the one that worshipped a false projection of me, and modeled his entire life on it - the one that seemed to think he knew me the best.
*shrug*
that second guy actually spent most of his life trying to emulate me, to the point that i repeatedly had to get away from him. i dunno; it was always weird to me that this guy put me on this bizarre pedestal, that i never fully understood.
it's weird to have this longterm friendship with this person that almost worships you, and that you largely don't even respect at all. like, i thought he was a complete buffoon from the time i met him until the fifth or sixth time i tried to explain to him that, despite his reverence for this projection that he imagined i was, and that i actually despised, i didn't actually have the slightest bit in common with him, and never did. i could never really fully grasp why he seemed to see me as this person that...i mean, if i was actually the person he imagined i was, i would have killed myself in disgust.
but, the fetish didn't end until i went firmly on hormones - that's what it took to break the false projection into pieces, after 15 years or whatever it was.
but, he just copied me for like half of his life regarding almost everything you could imagine. and it was tiring and frustrating and sort of pathetic - given that i was trying to reinvent myself as somebody else, the whole time.
in the end, if he got something out of it, whatever. but, i'd probably hate him more as a 40 year old fake me than i ever did or ever could back then.
the actual funny thing about my reaction to zizek is that i'm pretty sure my admittedly chomskyian reaction - it's almost identical. - was actually produced before chomsky produced it.
i had some friends from high school come over. one of them got through grade 12 with a d average and was on his fifth or sixth try at trade school (he had wealthy parents, so they kept sending him back to fail, like, marketing and advertising courses. the truth is less that he was flat out dumb and more that he didn't care about much besides final fantasy. he was the singer in rabit is wolf.) and the other had a film degree from a school in thunder bay, and had demonstrated almost no interest in much of anything before i lent him a couple of books (some dante & some machiavelli) when he was recovering from a broken leg suffered in a bus accident in south america. it was the second one that decided he wanted to be a philosopher after reading some dante while on his death bed. well, i mean, i can think of worse things to do with yourself. i haven't talked to him in years, but i think he ended up teaching english as a second language in korea. his spanish was always better than his english...
anyways, these guys - pothead goofs with minimal formal or informal education that were more articulate about tool than they were about lacan. - show up with this zizek video and decide i have to watch it, 'cause i was the smart one, and they needed my approval, or something.
so, i watched it with them, mostly in silence. and, they waited with baited breath...
i was just like "well, what was the point of that? he just rambled for forty minutes about nothing.".
they decided i didn't get it.
that was in 2007, i think.
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