and, what to say about the blithering hypocrisy of somebody like joe biden, who is more responsible for these types of deaths than almost anybody else still alive and still working in washington?

not much.

not much at all.

what a surreal joke.

please don't get confused - please don't let them confuse you.

hate the police force and the politicians that enable them, don't hate derek chauvin for doing what he was trained to do.

so, we can lynch derek chauvin if you want, if it makes you feel better.

and, we can lynch the next one.

and the next one.

but, it's a stupid way to approach a complex issue that solves nothing and just entrenches divisions.

and, the bankers are laughing at you for it.

a systemic analysis and a reorganization of the police force, with a specific focus on training, would be far more useful than punishing the automaton for doing what he was taught.

and, what we're seeing in the reaction is a classic, textbook fail on the fake left - they blame a bad actor and seek retribution, rather than acknowledging that the problem is systemic and addressing root causes.

blood lust isn't healthy, especially in context because, as stupid as it was, it was clearly unintentional.

to be clear: he should have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter, yes. he killed a man due to his stupidity. but, the sentence should not be severe, and i would expect it won't be.

so, are you going to televise the execution of derek chauvin?

ok, so i got through the contents of the second drive and ultimately put it away for now as an extraneous backup. i have something like ten snapshots of a 300 gb drive scattered across a dozen different types of media, some local and some not. this is partly why i'm convinced i probably haven't lost anything - it would just be hard to delete everything. and, if i catch them...

i haven't effectively caught them yet, though - i don't have that smoking gun.

but, that means i need to put it all together, now.

the other thing i spent the night doing was a takeout snapshot, and i'll have to consolidate that, as well.

while i still have a few external drives to sort through, that means i've gotten most of what i wanted to pull down off the internet for archiving and have gone through a couple of the external drives. another day or two and i'll be focused strictly on local filing, and then i think it'll pick up a lot.

the russians don't want to fight us. really.

but, we don't give them a fucking choice. we really don't...

the chinese, on the other hand, no doubt already have an invasion plan written.

but, this is how empires always fall, isn't it?

ugh.

ukraine is clearly a failed state. it has no real national identity, and it's reason to exist is rather dubious. so long as it's sitting there, it's going to be a battleground.

if i was in russia, i'd be half tempted to manufacture a polish separatist movement on the other side of the country, just to split the thing in half. they'd be writing off some of the wealthier parts of the country, at least for now, but they'd be destabilizing the poles while they were at it, and that might be a net benefit in the long run.

this methodical cat-and-mouse type game they're playing is very russian - very careful, very chess-like. it's how they do it. it's the long game; they sit and wait for america to make mistakes, then react to them. and, we all know america is prone to making mistakes.

but, what happened in 2014 is evidence that there's a major flaw in this approach, namely that it's vulnerable to a sneak attack. if the americans wanted to, they could undo a decade worth of careful reconstruction in a week, like a bull in a china shop. and, all evidence suggests they very well might.

that said, the russians are expanding at the minute because they've calculated that they can - that biden is weak, or senile, or distracted or maybe even just flat out stupid. but, they're doing this because they think they can get away with it, which is dangerous - because they might be wrong.

there's going to be a hot war there sooner or later if things carry on as they are.

they're at least realizing that they have a chance to move, right now. and, i think they should cause some shit in poland and get some kind of normal boundaries back in order.

...because the idea that germany is going to get it's leibensraum as it expands into eastern europe in the 21st century is absurd. it's not sustainable. and, the sooner we re-establish a normal border between slavs and germans, the less likely it is that a major war develops.

and, it's just a reminder, as i'm compiling a list of minerals to check for, that they already checked me for everything, and it all came back fine.

- my sodium's fine, if a tad lowish (138 mmol/L). i don't eat a lot of processed food.

- i can absorb magnesium, and it's at the high end of normal (.93 mmol/L)

- the phosphates are at the high end of normal (1.42 mmol/L)

- chlorine is in the middle of the range (102 mmol/L)

- potassium is at the high end of normal (4.5 mmol/L)

- calcium is at the high end of normal (2.4 mmol/L)

so, i can clearly absorb everything else.

i should be getting 25-30 mg of iron a day, meaning i should at the least be able to absorb around 1 mg, which should be more than enough. but i'm not. why not?

what's left to check for is:

- good metals: zinc, chromium, molybdenum, copper, nickel, manganese

- selenium & iodine

- bad metals: mercury, arsenic, lead, aluminum, cadmium

i'm curious about zinc. if i come back zinc + iron deficient only, it might suggest too much calcium. 

i also need to check for vitamins a, b1, b2, b3, b5, b6, b7, c, e & k, as well as for choline & betaine.

i need to ask for a reticulocyte count. this, if i understand correctly, should rule out bleeding once and for all.

i need to ask about the shoulder/spleen thing, though. it's still sore.

and, i haven't brought the hepcidin thing up, yet, either.

see, i think this is what's wrong, but i don't know how to test for it...

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/04/a-genetic-cause-for-iron-deficiency/

today's post is the covers disc, inri032.

i can't sell this, but i don't want to pay to have it available, so it's up for $1. but, these are largely only covers or remixes in name, and i consider this an integral part of my lp sequence.

=========

something that happened in the late 90s, when fans of bands started getting together and talking on the internet, was the phenomena of the unauthorized remix. schemes were hatched all over the internet to create remix records, tribute discs, fan collaborations and whatnot. in hindsight, given what the internet turned into, it was actually a refreshingly productive use of networking. 

different artists have reacted in different ways. i got yelled at by the now deceased singer of god lives underwater for one of these. trent reznor, on the other hand, eventually went so far as to set up a competition (which i didn't take part in, as i'd moved beyond the idea by that point). 

once i'd put a few remixes/recreations together, and received more positive feedback doing it than with any of my own songs, i began to realize that if i could get somebody's attention then i could construct myself a launching pad. it seems like that's what a lot of people were thinking; it didn't work out, but i did end up with a number of remixes. 

unfortunately, i've lost a lot of them. about a third of them ended up on a cd-r i threw together at the end of 1999. a third just sat on my hard drive, and a third disappeared into the internet. i'm putting them all together here under the title of the 1999 release, 'inrimake'. the initial release ended after "the day inri messed the world up"; the last four songs are 'bonus tracks'. i've further split off the first two tracks to a standalone ep, liquify (inri32) (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/liquify), partially because they never fit here properly and partially because it pares the augmented version down to under 80 minutes. 

now, i should point out that i was very much going for the *abstract* remix sound rather than the club-friendly mix. you can't really dance to these. you're not supposed to. you're supposed to blare them through headphones and trip out into them. 

in terms of my own work, this record very much extends a bridge from the inri period into the deny everything period, to the extent that it arguably realizes the goals of both phases better than either phase does. 

this record may be released physically, one day, should the proper legal issues be resolved. right now, i'm only making it available as an almost-free download. 

recorded sporadically, and without cohesive intent, over '98 and '99. originally compiled in the fall of '99. augmented and minimally altered in january, 2014. released on jan 3, 2014. finalized as lp006 on sept 21, 2017. as always, please use headphones - but note that they are especially mandatory for this recording. 

this release will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1998, 1999, 2013, 2014, 2017). 

released october 15, 1999 

j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, drum programming, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencers, loops, text-to-speech synthesis, remixes, reconstructions, reinterpretations

so, am i getting vaccinated?

not now, no.

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/current-covid-vaccines-could-be-ineffective-by-nex

this is essentially a half-hour rant by michael hudson, but it's worth listening to.

my only comment is to remind people that the united states entered world war two to stop the russians from cleaning up, and not to stop the germans from taking over the world. it was a race to berlin.

...and, because he's not just an incompetent clown but also an arrogant one, he will insist he knew better than all of the scientists and all of the reports and all of the evidence, until the day that he dies.

or, at least, until the day he loses an election.

this is specifically what i was looking for:

While aggressive measures (e.g., widespread antiviral use and restriction of movement) to attempt to contain or slow an emerging pandemic in its earliest stages were previously considered possible on the basis of modeling, experience from the 2009 pandemic has resulted in general agreement that such attempts are impractical, if not impossible.

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/flu-influenza/canadian-pandemic-influenza-preparedness-planning-guidance-health-sector/table-of-contents.html

but, trudeau was smarter than everybody else, ignored everybody and asked god for divine guidance, instead.

of course.

...because that's what you'd expect an incompetent clown that was elevated to power based on his father's achievements to do.

every time, too.

never fails.

it took me some time to find this, so i'm going to tag it with "white paper" and remind myself to search for "canada.ca".

april 3, 2020

if this was supposed to be the plan, it actually seems to me as though they only got through the first couple of pages of it, and kind of winged it from there.

in fact, most of the things i've been calling on them to do are explicitly mentioned in the guidance plan, it's just not being followed.

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/flu-influenza/canadian-pandemic-influenza-preparedness-planning-guidance-health-sector/table-of-contents.html

at 07:37  

i thought there were some posts where i quoted from it more thoroughly; either my memory is blurry around that, or somebody deleted them. and, i can only again call on whoever is doing that to stop, or face the censure of history for it, in the end.

"but, a travel ban is common sense."

you expect that kind of backwardsness from doug ford - and we certainly got it.

you expect better policy from the liberal party of canada, and what trudeau has done is fail the legacy of his forefathers and tarnish the reputation of his party.

fail.

he's a failure.

and, we all, collectively, failed in putting him in power.

he should have stepped down before this even started, and should have at least known to relinquish decision-making authority to somebody competent when it did.

the lesson to future politicians is clear enough, though.

never listen to evan solomon.

ever.

at all.

i pointed out roughly a year ago that the white papers that came out of sars - written not just by the canadian government, but the canadian government under a liberal leader - strongly urged against travel restrictions, because the economic effects associated with them would be disastrous, and the efficacy would be minimal to non-existent.

and, the white papers were right - surprise!

...and justin trudeau, taking advice from evan solomon through a filter of trumpist logic, was wrong. no surprise... 

it's the perfect example of the dunning-kruger effect, and the best example against aristocracy we've had plopped in front of us in decades.

in the end, we'll let history sort this out. for now, we'll need to wait until we have an election before we can get rid of these border restrictions, and the evidence in front of us isn't going to matter much.

can he cite any actual  peer-reviewed science in his verbal diarrhea, full of specious reasoning and empty aphorisms?

noooo.

listen: mr trudeau is the last person in the world that i would ask to defend a policy. he's just a bad actor. what he says is irrelevant.

but, in the end, the party is going to have a lot to answer for in pushing through these disastrous policies that are not only not supported by the basic science, but are actually explicitly contradicted by it.

so, you have a choice in who you want to believe here,

- decades of peer-reviewed science

- or justin trudeau's personal hunch, apparently as incredibly influenced by trumpism, on a politically populist level

you can pick your epistemology, here.

but, don't be surprised if i insult your intelligence if you pick the wrong choice.

as mentioned, i don't expect the border to re-open until after the next election, whenever it is. the party has painted itself into a corner, politically, it has nothing to do with the science (which very unambiguously argues against the efficacy of border closures, and even argues they're counter-productive), and nothing to do with whether it's been effective or not (and it clearly hasn't been - we're going to be the last country in the developed world out of this, and may get beat by the likes of india and mexico).

https://www.cp24.com/news/trudeau-defends-canada-s-travel-restrictions-as-effective-but-open-to-doing-more-1.5395376

yeah.

and, this could get messy, as they may react by cutting up the school boards, if they lose.

and, there's another angle, as well - the english schools in quebec are mostly very upper class. it's really the only reason they exist at all - it's a powerful, wealthy minority. do they want the influx of muslims and sikhs?

https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/quebec-will-appeal-bill-21-court-ruling-exempting-school-boards

and, again - do you think that's a conservative argument?

i don't.

i'm not somebody that's going to mince words or present weaselly arguments to you, i'm blunt about it - i don't think "religious freedom" is a thing and i don't think it should exist in the constitution at all and i'm explicitly on the side of removing it and i hope we get there, in time.

but, i actually honestly cannot support the idea that belief is a legally relevant concept.

the fact that you believe something should have no legal relevance, whatsoever - what's important is whether what you believe is objectively true or not. the court should have no reservations at all in telling you that what you believe is false and irrelevant.

nor should one's beliefs have any relevance at all in whether they are exempt from any laws.

if i could undo that part of the constitution, i'd delete it completely in a second. it was a mistake. but, until we get there, i can only support weakening it as much as possible.

i actually kind of miss the discreteness of people going out to a field, or in a back alleyway to smoke. the stigma around it was kind of a good thing, as it meant that people made sure they were smoking somewhere that didn't bother the people around them.

overt drug abuse isn't a good thing, and we'd do ourselves a favour to resurrect a concept of discretion around use.

it shouldn't be socially acceptable to just light up a blunt wherever you want - you should be expected to get away from the world a little, if you want to do it.

listen, if you want to smoke drugs then smoke drugs, just don't smoke them in my apartment, please. i'll smoke them sometimes, too - away from where i live.

but, a day to celebrate marijuana is pretty stupid.

and, the way people act on 4/20 fits the technical definition of retarded pretty much perfectly.

i have no qualms in dubbing this retard day, at all - even if i'm known to smoke a little on this day, away from the retards, from time to time, myself. 

not this year - there's no concerts, and i want to be doing something more productive, right now. so, go smoke over there, please.

(points away from where i'm breathing)

i tried to nap but it's like inhabitably dry over near my bed, right now. i don't know if it's just because the heater is on full blast in the cold snap (which i like) or if it's because he set up some kind of contraption to suck the life out of the air, but it's too dry to sleep in there, right now. so, i'm dragging myself.

and, when it's dry, it's dusty, which triggers my asthma. i've had three attacks in the last 48 hours.

it's also retard day today, although it's not really bad right now - it was this morning, but it was more tobacco than pot.

but, i've decided that if i'm missing anything over june then i'll have to find some other way to rebuild it. 

in the long run, it's more important that i'm able to write into the word document in a linearly coherent manner, and i'm wondering if that's not the better way to do it.

for now, i want to move on.

now, that said, this ruling has the potential to backfire because it's going to push religious minorities into the english school boards. so, you'll end up with english speaking religious groups rather than french-speaking religious groups, which is a potential nightmare for the people supporting the policy. for that reason, you should expect the quebec government to appeal it, on the grounds of sovereignty that i previously articulated. 

your religious beliefs are just your political views, nothing more and nothing less.

i'm sorry, i thought this was at the supreme court - it's still in quebec superior court. so, much of what i said is sort of reversed, in context.

the ruling makes sense. and, i agree that this dress code should be specific to public sector employees when they are at work, and not apply to day-to-day life.

i'm sorry, but i reject the entire premise that religious freedom should be protected by the law at all. this is a dress code, a church is a political organization and this woo about religious belief should be struck from the law altogether. do you think that's a conservative argument? because i don't.... 

but, i actually think that the supreme court will be more likely to overturn the exemption for english boards than overturn the entire law - that's a quebec thing that doesn't apply in broader generality. you can ask the quebec courts to rule on the quebec charter and deduce that english schools should have minority rights, but when you ask the supreme court to rule on the canadian charter, the issue becomes 100% about quebec sovereignty.

like i say - i think the issue is about political symbols in the workplace because i reject the idea that religion is different than politics. that's why i support the ban. but, that's not going to be heard in court. and, while i got the court wrong in my initial analysis, this ruling was predictable, nonetheless - and is likely to be upheld on appeal.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-21-religious-symbols-ban-quebec-court-ruling-1.5993431

see, i can understand how google might get confused with this device, but that device said it's been logged in since january.

wouldn't google have logged the device out by now if it was a ghost?

but, i can't do anything about this, and i know it.

like, it might be that this poor guy has to deal with chain-smoking cops in his house because i'm down here.

but, i think he's probably a cop, too - but doesn't smoke, himself, just merely has to tolerate it from the other one.

and, i'll say this again - can you please get a cop that doesn't smoke up there?

there seems to be at least two people up there. one is a woman that smokes heavily (and i truly hate to the core of her being) and is 100% a cop and the other is the guy i rented from who i don't think smokes and i'm not completely sure is a cop.

i only ever see and communicate with the guy and i'm not supposed to know the woman is there - but i can both hear her and smell her.

they seem to do shift work, so that there's somebody awake up there 24/7.

so, i mean, it's been months. what have they been doing?

just listening? reading? editing posts? deleting comments?

are they logging into my email and scrubbing it?

i don't even know.

i mean, i have no idea what they're actually looking for, i'm just deducing they think i'm some kind of a spy.

it could be even dumber than that.

i should probably change my password, but they're just going to create problems again until they steal it again. or, maybe google is actually letting them in, anyways. i don't think that's helpful.

there's nobody to call to report it to - it's the fucking cops doing it. if i asked them to investigate, they'd just cover it up.

but, this is what your tax dollars are spent on - overwhelming surveillance of a transgendered artist on disability, that is severely interfering with my productivity. and, they'll have history to answer to, in the end. 

let this be an expose of the damaging aspects of the security state, by proxy.

again - what does a person do when they come face-to-face with these things?

it's just absurd.

logic doesn't help.

yeah, i just removed a secondary login from a chrome os device from the google security page that was dated to january 12, 2020. this device had the same ip address as me, uses the same isp as me and has the same os i do.  that means one of two things:

a) i orphaned a login from that time. but, i only have one device running chrome os down here. why didn't google identify that device with this one?

b) the cop upstairs is logging into my account from a spliced line, which i already know exists by monitoring my isp traffic.

it seems like the latter is the truth.

and, like i say - the idiots actually, honestly, seriously think i'm a russian spy, to the point that they're physically hacking my account from upstairs.

so, what do i do next, then?

i mean, if they aren't just removing posts but are actually going into my email and deleting copies of those posts, what can i do about this?

what i'm going to do is plead with the people responsible to fuck off. i have no power, here. i can ask google to be just, and that's about it; i can ask the enforcement agencies to reconsider if what they're doing is reasonable. if what i'm posting here is substantive enough to justify this kind of heavy-handed manipulation, it's surely of historical value. and, there must be a way to rebuild it.

i've made this request before - please put the deleted emails back where they were, and please rebuild the posts that were removed.

and, take this statement as a warning: you will be condemned by history, if you don't.

that's right - or you will suffer the fate of yourself. but, i realize the absurdity. i understand that all i can do is yell.

so, i sat down yesterday morning and tried to figure out when i first put this hard drive away, and then wondered if i could rebuild the logic around it and then realized that i didn't seem to have a record of posts after june 19, 2020 up until the end of july, 2020 for some reason. no archive. at all. 

that said, i have some posts dated to late july that correctly count the number of posts in july. i also have a backup archive in my email dated to nov 11, 2020.

now, that date is important to take note of because it was the day that my youtube account was temporarily suspended. so, i backed up my blog as a precautionary step.

i've spent the last 24 hours cross-referencing that backup with the posts and with my email and, once again, i can't find any missing posts. but, the backup was taken after my site was suspended.

it's just very, very weird to me that i don't have any record of anything between june 19, 2020 and july 29, 2020, even if i'm pretty sure that nothing is missing for july (and i have it backed up to november, 2020, now). i was definitely backing up posts over may and over the first part of june. i seem to have stopped for an unclear reason, when i got back from my bike ride to leamington.

oddly, posts are uncharacteristically low over the last part of june, as well.

that was also the week i bought a quarter, which is a naturalistic explanation - i was posting less because i was stoned. but, that doesn't seem quite right, either. and, surely i would have tried to catch up, right?

so, if they were going to delete posts, what would they delete posts about? my reaction to the pandemic? posts that could be misconstrued as being pro-trump (i was never such a thing...)? conspiracy theories?

no - none of that seems to be missing.

it took me some time to figure it out, but it seems to be a post i made to the fox news site suggesting that the russiagate scandal was a cia plot that got my account temporarily suspended. and, if anything is missing near the end of june, 2020 and the start of july, 2020 it would appear to be posts about the we scandal, where i suggested that it was obvious that the whole thing was obviously a money laundering scam.

here's the daunting thing about this: it's not just posts that might be missing, it's email archives of those posts. the email archives exist to document the posts. that's the point. so, when i go into my email and notice that there's no archives at all for over a month...

it helps me answer the question: who is harassing me? who's responsible for all of this cyber-harassment i'm dealing with?

it might be the pmo, or some canadian enforcement agency acting under the guidance of it. the americans wouldn't care about that.

sorry, to clarify - she was put on the bench by mulroney in 1989 and elevated to chief justice by jean chretien in 2000.

this ruling might very well baffle and shock people.

i've posted this a few times, but i'll post it again because it's relevant.

when trudeau won in 2015, one of the things everybody was hoping for was that the liberals would shift the court further to the left. the existing chief justice, beverly mclachlan, had of course been appointed by the last progressive conservative prime minister, and had evolved into an unexpectedly left-libertarian chief justice. i'm a big fan, actually. but, we kind of fluked out - she was appointed by the right.

shortly after he won, she had to retire. she was 75. it's the law. so, the liberals had their chance. great, right?

now, if you think merrick garland was bad, get a load of this...

you'd have to ask him what he was thinking, but, in some kind of fit of post-partisanship or something, he actually asked a former member of the social credit party (kim campbell) to pick the next chief justice. this wasn't a red tory, or a moderate conservative - this was a woman from the furthest right reaches of the conservative spectrum. see, but she was a woman. and, in trudeau's silly post-ideological fantasy world, her gender was more important than her politics.

and, she predictably picked the most conservative judge in the list.

so, now we do have a right-wing court - because trudeau asked the conservatives to pick the justice for him. and, this might be the first ruling that makes him look decidedly stupid, for doing it.

there's a lot of complicated components of this case, and i do support the law and hope it is upheld. when everything gets whittled down, it's probably going to come up to an oakes test - it's probably going to be ruled unconstitutional, but then the court will need to determine if it's a reasonable restriction of rights in a free and democratic society, which i would argue it is. 

unfortunately, our constitution also has a veto in it and, while i support the law, i don't like that quebec wants to use the veto for this purpose. to me, that's the more substantive issue here, the trivialization of the notwithstanding clause.

my take on this is that hijabs should actually be banned under the public service employment act, and this extra layer of law is superfluous (at least insofar as it applies to federal workers). but, the right precedents to cite are the precedents related to the "political activities" section of the public service employment act. the crux of my argument is that overt displays of religion are a form of political propaganda, rather than some kind of intrinsic belief, or something. and, that's just secularism taken to a post-modernist next level: i don't even accept that religion is a valid idea. your church is just a political group, and should legally be treated the same way that we treat a political party. no woo about religion in law, please - let's be strictly rational about this and interpret a church or a mosque as what it is....and membership in a religion as what it is, too.

i think that this argument would be successful, in court.

but, the government of quebec does not appear to have taken up my arguments on this point, so i don't expect the ruling to have anything to do with it. they're insistent on arguing for the concept of sovereignty, instead, and i suspect that they'll get it - but i don't like how they're doing it.

of course, quebec has a charter as well, and these arguments would not be effective at a lower court. those who oppose the ban may have made a tactical error in going to the supreme court and letting quebec cry "anglo domination!" rather than a local court, where their issues could be more directly considered. too late now...

so, that's what i'd expect - yes, it's unconstitutional, but they used the veto, and tough titties. the subtlety in the ruling will likely lie in whether they do an oakes test or not, and what it looks like, and i'm going to hold off on that because we have a relatively new justice. i would not expect mclachlan to save the law via an oakes test, or at least not via the arguments the government is using (and, to be clear - the government doesn't care about this, it's just pushing the point about autonomy). this new guy is decidedly less libertarian, and he might deliver a ruling that seems a little uncanadian to most people that grew up with mclachlan leading the way.

and, that's something we're going to have to get our head around - trudeau shifted the court dramatically to the right, and doesn't seem to fully understand it. he may be more upset by the ruling than anybody, tomorrow.

so, i expect the law to stand via the veto, and i suspect it'll stand via the oakes test as well, but i'm less confident about the second point.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-21-religious-symbols-ban-quebec-court-ruling-1.5993431

today's post is inri031, and i really wish i could remix this from scratch to take the vocals out, but alas - here it is in a slightly better form than it once was.

=====

this track was initially a part of inrimake (inri032), but it never really made sense to put it there. that's a remix/cover album, and this is two forgotten experiments. it makes more sense to spin it off here. 

this track was meant to be a new beginning, but, instead, exists in a sort of purgatory. musically, it's radically different than anything else labeled 'inri'; thematically, it's a logical extension of inri. i really wanted this to be a fresh start, but in the end i had to leave it in the inri pile. in places it's sort of evil, in other places it's just a little too precious. 

my dad swapped houses in mid 99. again. this would be a frequent annoyance over the next few years. i can date this clearly to the summer of '99 as the first thing i did in my new basement. that change of surroundings contributed to the feeling of wanting to do something different... 

while it is an original track, it ended up on the covers disc for two reasons. first, the lead guitar loop that cycles through the track came out of a stoner jam session in the basement of a friend of mine. it's sort of hilarious to realize it took three years for another human being to get an influence here, even if it was a throwaway jam session. that was really just an excuse though. the real reason it was on inrimake (inri032), rather than on inridiculous (inri033), is that it fits in better with the prog theme of that disc than the noise theme of the other one.

the lyrics have been a problem since they were recorded. sex sells. shock sells. i had to psyche myself up to do it. it's all tied together, though. where was i going with this, anyways? 

'99 was the summer between grades 12 and 13 ("oac"). yes, ontario had a grade 13. get your laughs in. it was actually a pre-university year. universities would take the grades from the "oac" year as the entrance requirements. we didn't do SATs or anything. most universities have something like this for "mature students"; the weirdness is in making high school kids do the extra year. a few places (like quebec) still have similar types of pre-university screening... 

anyways, i'm going into the oac year and i haven't even really given the whole vocation thing a passing thought, other than to reject the idea of defining my life through the concept of labour. there were a few weeks in the summer where i had sort of decided not to go to oac at all. i was actually *excited* about escaping school, focusing on a minimum wage job and spending my free time smoking pot and writing music. i really didn't want anything more out of life than this. and, if i happened to get lucky and sell some records, even better. i was eventually talked down from this position through a process of bribery. that didn't magically construct vocational aspirations, though; i ended up overloading on oac credits for the simple reason that i didn't know what i wanted. 

(i ended up grudgingly accepting entrance into a software engineering program, literally switched to cosmological physics within a few weeks, switched to math after that, then bounced around from music to english to women's studies and ...) 

so, again, i'm stuck between grade 12 and 13 and really dreading what the future holds. finding a way to sell some music would be an escape from this. i concluded that, tactically, my best approach at the time would have been to focus on something sexually explicit that gains it's power from it's shock value. there's a bit of desperation underlying this. 

so i wrote a sort of graphic depiction of sexual domination within a male homosexual context. see, the thing is that it isn't very convincing. it isn't very convincing because it's contrived for profit. i'm being bluntly honest about the logic that produced this track because seeing myself in the mirror like this actually had a large effect on me. once i realized what i'd created, i was completely disgusted with myself. in it's initial form, liquify was the first 3:36 of this track. it sat on my hard drive for several weeks, waiting for me to finish questioning myself - who i was, what i was doing, whether it was worth it. 

i came to two conclusions. 

the first was that contrived music sucks. i realized i wasn't going to get anywhere faking it, anyways. if i wanted to build an audience, the only serious approach i had was honesty. 

the second was that, even if it works, being fake isn't worth it. i was rejecting the beaten path because i didn't feel i belonged on it. accepting some kind of Official Alternative Beaten Path wasn't solving anything. 

so, i should just do what i want, and tell anybody that doesn't like it to fuck off. 

the second part of this track flowed from that epiphany. it's a pure prog workout, discernible from 1972 solely in it's updated use of technology. probably for the first time, the notes really mean something to me, here. if you listen, you can tell. 

the ending scene of the jim carrey masterpiece, the truman show, fades the track out. it's meant to document the importance of the film in helping me work through what i was working through. as of january 2014, i've mildly modified the track to fade out the truman show ending, which was just a little too cheezy & precious. 

so, yeah. there's a few more inri tracks. but this is really the point where inri dies. 

-- 

the first five minutes were initially a different track, and are split off here for the final version to document it. i didn't initially commit to this pairing; i always intended to finish the first section as a separate track. it really wasn't until 2014 that i finally decided against it. 

the version that ended up on 'inrimake' was a slightly less finished mix than the version that i archived as mp3. i must have further altered the track between the time that i burned the inrimake disc (october, 1999) and the time that i saved the track to mp3 to archive (january, 2000). i didn't notice this when i edited the track in 2014. but, i've brought the newest version in for the final remix. 

-- 

when i ran through the discography in 2014, i stopped on this track for a few days and ultimately had to admit defeat around it. i wanted to turn the vocals down, but the mix was simply too saturated to do anything about it; everything i tried had a set of unintended consequences, and it just seemed prudent to not touch it. i was able to get around these concerns for my final mix, which is dated to sept, 2017. i've also split the instrumental section off and given it the title that i used for early versions of inricycled. 

recorded over the spring and summer of 1999. originally released on inrimake in october, 1999 (with an accidental phase reverse). the first section was modified further at the end of 1999. minimally altered and split into it's own ep on january 3rd, 2014. spliced further, appended to and remastered over sept, 2017. re-released and finalized on sept 28, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

the lead version is now on the outtakes compilation, inrimoved (inri042): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrimoved 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2014, 2017). 

released august 1, 1999 

j - guitar, effects, bass, synths, piano, loops, drum programming, vocals, samples, cool edit synthesis, sequencing, digital wave editing, digital effects processing, production

i would rather call on the conservative party to get it's house in order.

whatever that means.

while i'd like to get rid of doug ford as well, now is not the time for political bickering.

schreiner's the one with his head on straight, here.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7769145/ontario-premier-doug-ford-covid-resign/

it's about time that the left started opposing some of these measures, and this might be the only place in the world where we have the left being the left and the right being the right. at least we haven't entirely succumbed to the backwardsness and orwellian redefinitions.

yet.

and, i actually think this is important, because you're otherwise going to have a loaded spectrum, where people that oppose these restrictions have nowhere to turn but the far right.

so, we figured it out, like i asked you to however long ago.

good.

that said, it's a baby step - they're still supporting specious travel restrictions, for example. but, let's not lose this toehold on the correct side of the spectrum - let's get this right.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7765156/ontario-covid-19-restrictions-ford-david-fisman/

i will read it.

just not yet.

i'm not into reading a 780 page budget right now. sorry.

if i had stopped and talked to them, i might have very well been told i was lying and then attacked and framed, anyways.

it's why i had to react.

this is just an illustration of why i chose not to stop as i was being chased down the street by some hooligans that worked for the local freshco, and why i'm filing a human rights case against them.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/woman-who-shot-freshco-arrest-video-says-incident-was-important-to-record-1.5992532

you're talking like there isn't a thousand years of jurisprudence to help figure out how to respond to scenarios where speech may be harmful. and, this is the problem - you asked a media critic to discuss a legal issue. and, we're asking corporations to play the role of the judicial system. because property - as always.

fwiw, the laws in canada are not very different than the judicial precedents in the united states. it's not precise, but it's not a bad approximation. there have been some embarrassing decisions, but that is true in the united states, as well. hate speech is broadly free speech in canada, so long as nobody is in imminent harm. we also have more or less the same constitutional protections. that said, i would personally like to see the laws liberalized substantially as they provide for the possibility of abuse of power.

in order to be prosecuted for hate speech in canada, the crown needs to show:

1) that the communication was public. so, private communication isn't covered.

2) that the communication is likely to lead to a "breach of the peace". which is a generalized concept of harm.

in order for somebody to get prosecuted under that law in canada for posting things to social media, they'd have to be a public leader of some sort. a facebook or twitter post is arguably even private communication, and if you can convince a judge that it's public communication, you'd have to convince them that the person has enough influence to actually generate a crowd.

about the only person in the country that is going to care much about somebody running their mouth off on social media is the prime minister.

shit.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/17/joe-biden-golf-482664

you know, if i didn't know any better, i might think that biden's actions suggest he wants to run again in 2024. and, that's probably a good thing, even if he dies before then.

see, the idea of a one-term presidency - a lame duck presidency - is that it can go either way. you can either get a guy that is going to do what he always wanted to do, and fuck it because he's not facing reelecion, anyways. or you can get a guy that doesn't give a fuck because he's done anyways, and see you later guys...

but, biden seems concerned about re-election.

oddly.

which maybe brings up the actual point: he doesn't have a list of things he always wanted to do, because all he ever wanted to do was get elected.

i don't suspect this lasts long - he's going to figure it out one way or another, or somebody is going to figure it out for him. but, so long as he genuinely seems concerned about popular opinion, now's the time to get at him, somehow.

that window is likely minimal - i suspect he'll be golfing soon.

i need to get this point across, because it's not getting across.

i was born in 1981 - not 1991, not 2001. 1981. so, how old am i? who are some other people born in that year?

1) beyonce, and google images of her at the grammies to see that she's now an older lady

2) britney spears, who has looked older than her years for quite some time, now. i don't have wrinkles like that, thankfully.

3) paris hilton, who has aged relatively well, but is definitely not going to pass as a young person anymore

4) meghan markle, who has maybe aged better than all of them, but is definitely not going to be mistaken for a young person

5) natalie portman, who appears to be experiencing hair loss.

6) ivanka trump, who is actually the counter-example, here.

7) jessica alba

8) serena williams

these are women that are, without exception, entering or already in middle age - and that cannot pass as young people.

and, if you want to be silly and compare me to a dude, look up how old these guys look

1) justin timberlake

2) tom hiddleston. yes. i'm the same age as tom hiddleston.

3) casey neistat

4) devendra banhart

5) brandon flowers

and, you'll note i was born 13 days into 1981, so who was born in 1980?

- kim kardashian

- christina aguilera

- win butler

- tegan quin

- jessica simpson

- conor oberst

i'm trying to pick easily recognizable people. i'm not really a fan of any of these people. but, look at those people - or bring your existing preconceptions of them to your mind - and then look at me and put the proper references into place.

i wasn't born in the 90s. i was barely even born in the 80s.

so, congratulate me for looking young - thank you.

but, understand that i have the health requirements - and habits - of somebody that is a little older than i look, and not somebody that is literally half my age.

i don't know exactly who's doing this - if it's the local cops, csis, the cia or some combination of the bunch, but they seem to honestly think i'm up to something that i'm not up to at all.

i can only guess, but they seem to think i'm a russian spy of some sort.

like, i'm not joking. and, i think it's just utter incompetence that's driving it.

unfortunately, it doesn't want to read the backup drive on the ancient hard drive after a reboot. that's fine, i'll try again later.

the second disk i'm checking is the hard drive i was using up until last summer, when i decided it was hopelessly compromised, and i'd have to winlite the os to make the laptop usuable. i don't have any reason to think the situation has improved much, but i'm at the point that that's something i'll need to do. for now, what can i get off of it?

it's left how i found it - with a chkdsk that found the email box i was sorting through and the registry that kept corrupting. this was part of what made me convinced i was being attacked - it was, specifically, the registry that kept "corrupting", and usually when i'd left the house, or sometimes even when i was in the shower. i think it was even once when i was sleeping.

let me just back this all up first and then deal with winlting (or vliting it) later. i specifically need to completely wipe out anything related to any sort of remote access or domain access, as it seems like they were trying to slave the machine to an external domain by using remote access as a backdoor.

and, i need to be able to set it up so i can reinstall it quickly, as well.

while i want to get that laptop back online, i'm not at this point convinced that it'll be safe to do it.

yeah, i'm fading. but, somebody smoked a joint upstairs, too. am i losing hemoglobin or reacting to second-hand marijuana? or both?

i'm preparing for a disaster in my blood test this week.

for now, i need to clean up after it every time it happens and hope it pisses him off enough that he stops doing it.

you do know that when i do meet my end, it's going to be completely absurd and ridiculously ironic, right?

i'm prepared for that.

and, it might mean outliving everybody around me in order to do it.

if i end up dying from this - or even suffering serious health consequences from it - what kind of conclusions do you draw from that? what kind of investigation needs to be done?

- i went to the hospital because i was suicidal

- they didn't take me seriously and called the police to drag me out by force instead

- in the process, they rupture my spleen

- i file a complaint against the police, only to have them delete the video, apparently maliciously

- i then die from the injuries ten months later

it's so absurd, i'd love it - if i wasn't the victim of it.

no, really.

it's an answer that actually makes sense.

as i was getting dragged out of the hospital by the police (for "upsetting" people for being trans.), my spleen may have been crushed. since then, i've been dealing with falling ferritin levels because i'm slowly bleeding to death. and, now the fact that my shoulder hurts and it won't go away is a symptom of that.

how's that for retarded? huh?

if my spleen is in fact damaged, the only physical confrontation i can point to is when the police dragged me out of the hospital for refusing to leave after indicating i was suicidal, and not being taken seriously.

in neo-liberal canada, police injure you!

in neo-liberal canada, you go to hospital to get hurt!

ugh.

i can read the data partition, but not the os partition, so i'm probably safe just getting what i can off the data partition and putting it back away, again. there's unlikely to be much useful on the os partition, but i don't want to format it, just in case.

i think i'd have to find a way to ghost it and see if it works, but it probably won't. 

the chkdsk tells me there's insufficient space, but there should be sufficient space. regardless, i can't make extra space if i get a crc when launching it. what that error actually means is that it can't read the drive, either. short of cloning it, it's fucked - and i'm not seeing the value in doing that, right now.

this was the drive that i used on my main laptop years ago, before i switched to the hp laptop in early 2014. it's the drive i was fighting with in the first part of 2014, as documented in this space (and in the music journal). after switching to the hp laptop, i briefly toyed with trying to set this machine up as a guitar effect processor, but i never got around to it. and, then the hp died, and the backlight went out in the compaq, rendering it useless as a mobile device.

the os partition should have the os as it existed last time i installed to it, in 2014. it should just mostly be program files, but what's on the desktop? 

virtually anything worth saving should be on the data partition. i just wanted to make sure, first.

i have a large amount of these drives to sort through, and this is the kind of thing i'll be doing for the next couple of days.

thankfully, i think i'm more bloated than gaining weight, which seems to be why iron pills produce (short term) weight gain - they kind of plug you up a little bit. it's starting to clear, and i'm seeing the bloat come down. 

but, that upper back pain around my shoulder won't go away, and googling "pain in left shoulder" on google brings up a burst spleen as a potential cause. ack. the scary thing is that this does add up. and, if my spleen is busted, i'm done for, right? the only positive thing i have to say about that is that i should be dead by now if that's it.

it's just something else to bring up at the next appointment. is there a test for that, or something?

i'm not having difficulties breathing, either. maybe it's just a little burst? a half-burst spleen? ugh.

i got to sorting through these files and the first drive is being annoying in throwing out a crc. i wrote this drive off some time ago, but can i get anything off of it? but, i'm doing something, at least.

ok, i think i'm awake. let's give this a shot.

today's post is inri030, and we pivot dramatically tomorrow as i move into grade 13 and start to pull things together better.

=====

this little sample collage went a long way over the years...in the end, it needed a home of it's own. 

the initial collage, from september 1997, is actually the first computer music experiment that i have. years of addiction to 'civilization 2' had me imagining soundscapes during events, and they began to arrange themselves in my mind, in patterns. if you were even alive in 1997, you might want to think back to the realities of technology: i had a dial-up internet connection, trivial access to software and little idea of what i was even looking for. when i finally did find a shareware copy of cool edit '96, i realized what i was looking for. at this time, what i had available to me was what windows came with, and what windows came with was the windows 95 sound recorder. 

it would be harder to find this executable nowadays than you might think, unless you have a windows 95 cd (or perhaps a set of windows 95 floppy disks). it was clearly not designed for sound art, but it did have a crude copy and paste operation. really, it had some potential, it just lacked a tactile gui. 

i'd like to pretend that the poor syncopation is some kind of artistic statement, but the truth is that it is a consequence of the interface. you could tell the program to loop or to slow or speed down samples, but you had to make a good guess as to where to paste it in - often with the aid of some napkin math. what i was able to get out of the program is perhaps wholly idiosyncratic, but i would not recommend it at all. not even in the conscientiously goofy retro sense. 

really. don't do this. i plead of you... 

once the background collage was completed, i initially intended to turn the track into a goofy electro-swing thing, with punk rock guitars, but i found the out from the computer to be noisy and the in from the 4-track to lack dynamics. so, sending the track to tape created too much noise and trying to record in over cool edit seemed to suck the life out of the guitars. i would later realize that this was gear specific: i was using a stock soundblaster from c. 1995 and a stock floor digital effects processor that needed to be warmed up by the tape. a version with vocals was recorded in january of 1998, but it was discarded in favour of the pure collage, which i decided worked well enough on it's own, in a quirky, yet subversive, kind of way. when i burned my first demo cd in june of 1998, i used the strict sample collage (shaped slightly for continuity). 

i was assigned an electronic music project in the winter semester of 1999 and intended to use this track, as it narrates the absurdity of a war situation (and even kind of sounds like the 30s). however, i couldn't hand in the first part of the collage because it was lifted directly out of the sample. in the initial context it didn't matter - it was entirely atmospheric, purely conceptual - but it was imperative that it be removed in the academic context and be replaced with something i could assign myself writing credits to. so, i took an isolated experiment with score writing off of the first demo and fused the tracks together, creating a fully original hybrid written/sample piece. this was done twice due to reasons that i don't fully remember, but partly to remove the glitchy cricket sounds in the background; in the end, the second version did not have the sample overlays that the first did, which are only available in the 'early warning' version. 

the track was remastered in 2013, along with the rest of the early material, but it didn't work out for any of it, in the end. at the end of 2014, i was able to recreate the originally intended version (with punk rock guitars) by taking advantage of a much newer soundcard, as well as noise reduction and digital mastering software. it was this version that was used in the reconstruction of my first record in january of 2016, but i again had to modify the lead-in; this time, i created an ambient sample collage to rise from the ashes of what i had to destroy. 

meanwhile, the initial sound card experiment had also been dramatically updated by the newer technology. the lead track was created on oct 26, 2016 to simply explore the idea of what merging the two completed components together would sound like. in the end, it seemed necessary to release this, in order to be comprehensive. 

the track is really more about mental journeys undertaken during long overnights of civ 2 than it is about anything explicitly anti-war, although the ideas intersect and the latter certainly evolved from the former. this is really actually a little bit of a window into what is going on in my own mind, as i'm conquering alien land masses at 3:30 on a wednesday morning. 

initially created in sept, 1997. remixed and reimagined repeatedly over 1998 and 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. partially reclaimed dec 8, 2014. rebuilt and resequenced on jan 9, 2016 out of material that had been remastered over 2013-2016. reimagined again on oct 26, 2016 out of material that was created in jan, 2016, but not released (and finalized) until sept 13, 2017, in order to properly fit into sequence. as always, please use headphones. 

the album version of this track appears on my first record, inri (inri015): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 1998, 1999, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017).

released july 1, 1999 

j - guitars, effects, bass, orchestral sequencing, windows 95 sound recorder, digital wave editing, sampling, production 

the rendered electronic orchestra includes piano, electric guitar, orchestra hit, pizzicato strings, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and synth pad.

i don't think that anybody wants to increase consumption taxes on online purchases, do they?

i mean, if you're going to tell me i can get a 15% discount by walking to the store, i'll gladly go for a walk, instead.

while i understand that taxing businesses is sometimes going to result in higher prices for consumers (it depends. it's not this monolithic thing, like conservatives would have you believe.), these taxes should really be made hidden, so as to allow the companies for flexibility in pricing. otherwise, online retailers will be forced into an uncompetitive status quo where they can't compete with brick and mortar stores because there's an extra tax added on to the digital purchase. is that intended?

erecting the "trudeau tax" and creating a distinct line item for it is also a great way to lose an election. just ask brian mulroney.

i'd rather see broader increases in corporate taxes than focusing on tech companies, but they currently take up a lot of the market and it's a step in the right direction. this may be political rather than economic, but i'll take it.

i'm happy to see them move away from the unworkable idea of a "wealth tax", as well, as the reason people like warren promoted it is was to allow for an escape mechanism. concrete and easy to calculate proposals like increases in corporate, income and property taxes are good enough - we don't need these weird, esoteric ideas like wealth taxes.

but, they should seriously reconsider whether they think it's a good idea to have a line item for the tax anywhere. just tax them at the profits stage.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-s-budget-to-include-digital-and-luxury-levies-but-no-wealth-tax-reuters-sources-1.5392475

stop.

we don't have the name of a single babylonian mathematician, or a single egyptian architect or a single assyrian astronomer. we have the names of their kings, but not of their scholars.

everything we might have salvaged from these cultures is hidden in the lineage of the greeks, as they emerged from the dark age that their ancestors may have caused.

and, that is what aesop is - a collection of very, very ancient tales that were saved from the brink of destruction; thank the greeks for this, do not criticize them for it.

there was even a species of elephant that was living in the middle east at that period of time.

the point is just to point out that if the logic is "aesop wrote about elephants, therefore he was african" then that is flawed to the point of being juvenile. like most of what you hear from the afrocentrics, it's just flat out dumb.

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

while it is true that the conclusion may be that the greek contribution to ancient knowledge is exaggerated - and the egyptian and babylonian is understated - i think this is a silly pissing match that is missing the point: had the greeks not saved the knowledge in this way, however it is that it happened, and however it is that they found themselves in the position to do so, it would have been lost altogether.

so, when you read these ancient greek texts, you should keep that in mind - you're probably reading ideas that are in truth very, very ancient and are being presented to you in the form of the earliest bottleneck we have.

the true authors will never be known.

but, i'll refer you to my fundamental theorem of poeticity: all history becomes poetry, in time.

i'm sorry, i can't resist this.

was aesop black? this appears to be a recently floated pseudo-scientific idea by these specious afrocentrists, that just spew out bullshit at every opportunity. basically, they think everybody was black, and there's no use in trying to correct them when they're wrong - they don't listen..

the long-held academic consensus on the matter is that aesop was obviously not a historically real person at all. while i'm not particularly critical of the dorian hypothesis, the reality is that greece was a pretty viciously hierarchical class-based society, whether you accept it or not, with a group of unclear composition and origin called "helots" at the bottom of the system, and that were probably at least partly living there before the greek-speaking peoples moved in from the north, dorian hypothesis or not, as per gimbutas, ultimately (you could cite some nineteenth century scholar here instead, but gimbutas is the one that actually proved it). it's probably not a coincidence that you had helots in greece and untouchables in india. if aesop was described as physically unappealing to the dominant greek culture, the description probably relates to a physical appearance that was more mediterranean in phenotype. the greeks of this period would have had less time to mix with the people that previously inhabited the regions they invaded (a mixture of caucasian and earlier indo-european groups), and would have looked and sounded far more like their proto-slavic and proto-iranic ancestors than the greeks of today do. they clearly looked down upon the definitely not indigenous but probably more mediterranean looking helots, who they considered to be their slaves.

that said, something happened in greece starting about 800 years before the common era, as they emerged from a dark age that set in around 1200 years before the common era - all of the writing of the ancient world seems to have been consolidated in greece in the form of a series of texts attributed to a collection of greek names, which we label as philosophers. while the western tradition is that there was a flowering of reason and rationalism in greece during this period that we consider foundational to our later culturally central tradition of empirical science, that traditional perspective has been upended by more modern science, which has provided for example after example of supposed greek innovation that seems to be more encyclopedic in character than originally thought. many of the ancient greek texts seem to be collections of existing texts that were older than classical greece more than they were texts written in the classical greek period, itself. the historicity of socrates has long been questioned, but plato himself may not have existed, either; along with pythagoras, euclid and many of the other greek names we all know from our early education, these names may actually represent the names of schools or cliques or even archivists, or may have even been as fabricated as bourbaki, which was an attempt by leading french mathematicians to essentially fuck with history. we really don't know how old a lot of this writing really is or where it really comes from; what we know is that it emerged from greece at the recovery stage of a very bad destruction horizon, and that, when the dust of the bronze age collapse settles, all of this knowledge survives there, when it was destroyed everywhere else. greece emerges from this dark age as the leading, dominant intellectual culture on the planet.

as my background is in mathematics, i'm most qualified to talk about the way this emerges within the history of mathematics, which demonstrates itself primarily through the cult of personality named pythagoras. pythagoras was more than a mathematician; he was also a cult leader and the originator of a specific type of buddhist-like philosophy that was massively influential on both the platonic tradition and on the mystery religions of the time period, and by extension on christianity. pythagoras was likewise traced backwards to a thracian sect that may have had indo-iranian origins, and may have moved into greece from the steppes rather late. the purpose of this blog post is neither to discuss pythagoras' life nor the school of pythagoreanism.

the issue that i want to draw attention to is the historicity of pythagoras, which is more attested to than aesop but is still tentative, to say the least. what we know is that the pythagorean cult attributed any mathematical advances they developed to their great master, rather than themselves. while this is generally acknowledged as making a history of mathematics during this period somewhat difficult, it also obscures the fact that pythagoras was attributed with the total combined mathematical innovation of the ancients, as well. coming out of late antiquity and into the early european dark ages, after the collapse of roman imperialism in the west, pythagoras becomes this quasi-mystical figure, to which all mathematics in the pythagorean tradition, past and present, is attributed to.

it is thought today that the pythagorean theorem was first derived in egypt and only became attributed to this cult of pythagoras as a process of saving and compiling existing writing in the face of the aforementioned lengthy dark age that set in as a consequence of a period of revolutionary over turn in the region that had something to do with a movement southwards of greek-speaking peoples into the eastern mediterranean basin, which the local cultures referred to as "sea-peoples". this movement is correlated with a massive destruction horizon, but it is not known if the destruction was caused by the greeks themselves or if the repressed peoples of the middle east used the situation as an opportunity to rise up against the tyranny of their ruling class and overthrow their cruel masters. whatever actually happened, the result is that wide swaths of the eastern mediterranean were burned to the ground and then left unpopulated and utterly destroyed, while greece itself eventually managed to prosper in the chaos. when the dust settles, literacy only really remains extant in greece, and the entire region becomes centered in greece as it's intellectual and cultural anchor. in a process we don't fully understand, all of the existing mathematics from many centuries previous become collected and archived in greece in these compendiums, which are given names like euclid and pythagoras; they are simply destroyed, elsewhere. for that reason, these names of euclid and pythagoras (and others) represent the totality of all surviving mathematics up until the bronze age collapse - and greek mathematics as it's own thing develops from that departure point, as the country emerges from the dark age caused by the collapse.

but, it was not just in mathematics that we saw this happen. did socrates, plato and aristotle actually exist or were they merely literary tools to develop the culminated perspectives of the ancient world into a series of discourses to be taught to people alive at the time? it's the latter that seems more likely.

it's when you realize this process of consolidation that was occurring at this time in greece that what aesop is becomes more apparent - not a person, or a collection of people, but a way to compile stories that are intended to teach a moral lesson to the reader. these stories would have had dozens of authors and come from all over the ancient world over a period of time that likely stretched back centuries or millennia before the bronze age collapse. it would not be possible to pinpoint the origin of these stories with much detail, or determine their authors, who would be lost; many would likely even be evolving stories that took on the character of the cultures that adopted them.

while elephants were not unknown to the greeks in antiquity (and the ethiopians were known for being sunburned and having flat noses), and there is really no reason to think a greek wouldn't or couldn't write a story about an elephant, if there are stories about elephants attributed to aesop then it is far more likely that the story came from some distant and unknown african source and was preserved in aesop's compendium of moral stories than it is that there was some person named aesop of african origin. if stories are told about aesop's unsightly opinion, this is likely an ironic insult generated by racist greeks to remember that these were the stories of a slave morality that they only begrudgingly admitted the validity of, at least at first. the greeks would accept the slave morality, in the end.

but, argument with afrocentrics aren't going to get you anywhere. at all.

there's a story we teach our children called the boy who cried wolf, which is about a child that asks for help repeatedly, only to have none required - until a wolf actually shows up, and nobody believes it.

i was yelling as loud as anybody through the 00s that the war on terrorism was a lot of imperialist bullshit that was rooted in lies. and, it should be clear that i haven't dropped my general skepticism. but, what happens when a horde of dark age zealots intent on rape and slavery and pillaging and slaughter actually shows up in the middle east, and starts raping and enslaving and slaughtering people?

you don't believe them, anymore - and, to an extent, i don't blame you.

but, it happened, nonetheless.

they had an opportunity to address the problem before i needed injections, but this is how the system works - it's organized stupidity. 

nope. slept right until 18:00, and now it's time to eat and take my pills, again. ugh.

what day is it? sunday night?

so, i've been barely able to stay awake for more than 2-3 hours at a time since thursday. while i suppose there are other possibilities, what this is most consistent with is the idea that the iron pills aren't working, my ferritin levels have depleted and my hemoglobin levels are now falling.  

what do i do? 

i have an appointment this week and i will get a lab sheet to check if the pills have reversed the decline. if they haven't, i'll have to go to the hospital for injections or a transfusion, depending on how bad it is. i already know that they're going to take a blood test if i go to the hospital immediately. so, should i go to the hospital and let them do the bloodwork, or wait for the lab rec? and the answer is that it depends on how certain i am about the hemoglobin being low enough for injections or transfusions - and i need, at the least, to eat before i can figure that out.

i may have to take myself back to the er this morning.

no, i'm awake. sort of.

in the attempt to ensure i'm absorbing more iron, i'm also drinking a lot less coffee. that could be a part of it.  if so, the decrease in caffeine is affecting me more than the increase in iron.

it's also quite warm in here, and i'm not complaining about it. i'm not reacting to the iron - it's gone up from 20 to 24 degrees, and that thermometer is a good distance from the heater (where my bed is). i'm actually happy about it. but, i find that warmer temperatures help me sleep better...it's when it gets under 20 that i can't sleep. again: that's probably southern rather than northern genes. for all the talk of humans dominating plains in africa (which is  probably a myth), chances are higher that we spent a significant portion of our evolutionary existence escaping from lions by running up trees. there are even a few primates that are nocturnal, although they have much better eyesight than us and these things are probably related. but, if i'm generally sleepy when it's warm and sunny and more alert when it's cool and dark, i don't think that's some kind of pavlovian reaction - i think it's just reflective of a slightly different genetic background that i don't actually fully understand. my dad's rare, recessive south asian blood type is perhaps of relevance, here.

i just took my noon iron so i can't take any more coffee until the afternoon. and, i skipped my breakfast because i was sleeping. so, you see how these things are building up on themselves - every time i'm awake enough to get ready to start the day, and do things like eat breakfast to get it going, i end up falling asleep before the day starts. and, then we start all over again.

i could sit here and struggle to type through the exhaustion, but i'd rather nap for a few hours and get started with a big cup of coffee around 14:00-15:00. we'll have to put breakfast off, today.

nope. passed out again. fuck. i'm wasting my life sleeping :(.

did i pick something up?

well, i'm not sick. i'm just exhausted. 

but, i'm going back to sleep for who knows how long.

yeah, so that's what i'm doing this morning, if i can stay awake - i need to get back to organizing the pc, and then to finalizing the journal for august, 2013.

- i need to organize the pc before i can get to working on period 3 over the weekend, and that's very soon. next week, potentially.

- i need to organize the pc and get the master document up before i can focus on the blogging section, which is the weekly task

- and, i wanted to scour documents before i got back to the alter-reality

the landlord and i decided that if we're going to defrost the fridge then we should do it at the end of the month. so, i'm going to put cleaning on that side on hold until then.

let's hope i can get something done this morning.

ok, so i think i've at least caught up on eating long enough and am awake enough to actually do something.

today's post is inriℵ3, which is the second flac dvd compilation, of inri015-inri029.

====

purchasing this release does not come with a download. 

inri015: written and demoed in multiple stages from 1994-1998. initially constructed in this form in june, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in dec, 2013. reconstructed and resequenced jan 6-10, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. re-released jan 10, 2016. audio permanently closed on aug 10, 2016. finalized on oct 10, 2016. lp001. 

inri016: created in the summer of 1998. released as a standalone ep on nov 16, 2013. audio permanently closed on oct 12, 2016. release finalized on oct 27, 2016. 

inri017: initially written over the course of 1997. recreated and expanded over the course of 1998. lead track first sequenced in this form in feb, 1999. further remixes generated over the course of 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013, and another in late 2015. remastered in november, 2016 from various sources, 1997-2015. finalized & released on nov 17, 2016. 

inri018: initially written in 1997. recreated and reconceptualized in late 1998. salvaged somewhat at the end of 1999. remastered in 2013. compiled & released on nov 13, 2016. finalized on nov 19, 2016. final album version added as a bonus track and refinalized on dec 15, 2016. 

inri019: written and demoed from 1996-1999. initially constructed in this form in january, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. compiled on nov 13, 2016. sequenced on nov 22-24, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. released on nov 24, 2016. release finalized on nov 27, 2016. symph002.. 

inri020: initially written in 1993. first full recording in 1996. recreated in dec, 1997 and again in jan, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed on july 2, 2015. remixed on july 15, 2015. reconceptualized & remixed repeatedly over november & december, 2016. released & finalized on dec 13, 2016. 

inri021: written and demoed in multiple stages from 1993-1999. initially constructed in this form in feb, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced over november and december, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. finalized & re-released on dec 15, 2016. lp002. 

inri022: recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. released dec 27, 2013. corrected to normalize for stereo in september, 2014. expanded incrementally between dec, 2014 and dec, 2016. merged with inricycled b and then finalized and re-released on december 16, 2016. 

inri023: constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. released dec 27, 2013. the first two tracks were corrected to stereo in sept, 2014. the last two tracks were added for re-release as a remix lp in dec, 2016. re-released & finalized as lp003 on dec 17, 2016. 

inri024: initially written and recorded between 1996-1999 and remixed over the summer of 2015, with a lengthy pause due to malfunctioning electronics. final compilation date is jan 3, 2016. finalized dec 17, 2016. lp004. 

inri025: this idea was developed in parallel to the inriclaimed project over the summer of 2015 and first compiled on nov 27, 2016. released & finalized on dec 17, 2016. lp005. 

inri026: initially written in the fall of 1997. recorded in the winter of 1999. remixed in late 2013 and again in early 2014. this track was separated from my second record in january, 2016 but the single was not completed until it was remixed one last time in sept, 2017. released & finalized on sept 10, 2017. 

inri027: streamed to disk in one take on the afternoon of march 9, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. 

inri028: constructed over a few days in april, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. 

inri029: recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999. published on november 30, 2013. re-released (with new hidden track) and finalized as symph003 on sept 13, 2017. 

originally created from 1996-1999. this compilation is dated to june 30, 1999. slowly remastered, reconstituted, compiled, reconstructed, released and finalized from 2013-2017. compilation finalized on sept 13, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

released june 30, 1999 

j - guitars, effects, bass, bass synth, pick scrapes, synthesizers, piano, flute, drum kit, drum programming, orchestral & other sequencing, sampling, vocal relics, mic noises, vocoders, octavers, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, found sounds, paper, strategies, soundraider, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound design, noise generators, noise reduction, light-wave synthesis, metronome, loops, a broken tape deck, tapes, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, vocals, chance, production 

the various rendered electronic orchestras include piano, organ, electric guitar, orchestra hit, pizzicato strings, synth pads, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, electric bass, sitar, tubular bells, tinkle bells, synthesizer effects and flute.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/flac-dvd-disc-volume-2

i remain completely exhausted; i just slept all night. and all day....

so, if the iron is getting my stores up, it's not giving me any more energy. we'll have to see, but i don't think it's working - or i think it's working very, very slowly. like, barely. at this rate, it could take years.

i've gained a little bit of belly fat, though, and am not happy about it. that is apparently an understood consequence of taking iron pills - weight gain. i'm happy to gain weight in my hips and around my breasts, but i don't want to gain weight in my stomach, and i don't want to build muscle. so, i'll have to weigh the pros and cons, and that might be a reason to go off of them, if they don't start working better pretty quickly. and, i may have to stop eating for a week or two to lose the weight.

i'd rather be skinny and anemic than fat and ironic.

but, for right now, i'm going to have to eat again and try to get started on something again and hope i don't just fall asleep again.

he did actually answer the question - he lost the primary and is succumbing to what he perceives of as democratic legitimacy. that was his answer - if you want this stuff done, you gotta win an election first.

now, is he right though? does the fact that he lost the primary tie his hands? it sort of depends. i mean, he has to understand his mandate, to an extent - which is both to push for the things he campaigned on and to listen to the people that disagree with him. he has a mandate to push these points, certainly, but only up to a point, in the end.

something's that come out of this is that jimmy doesn't have much interest in democratic legitimacy, as a concept. this is all just about jostling for power, and that ought to be in a long list of grievances directed toward him. he wouldn't respect the will of much of any democratic body that disagreed with him. so, when does he get to be king, right?

but, let's not forget what the point was - it was understood by all that there is no actual leverage here, merely the power to call congresspeople out, and force them to lay out their hands. and, that logic simply doesn't apply in the existing senate.

so, the real question is what it is that bernie can actually do while maintaining the position he's in, and the answer is relatively limited. there's still nobody else in the senate that i'd rather have in that position. so, be patient.

you kids ever heard of joseph mccarthy?

deathtokoalas

"we did it ourselves"

who is we here? 

are we talking about inclusion via nationalism or via class?

what i would say is this: they got up and left. and, they did it because of the disparity in labour conditions.

and, we - the working class of the world - need to unite across national borders to tear down their capitalist structure in both countries, at the same time.

Eencog Neeto

Bad news for you. You are alone in your fight, China is a communist country where the corporate is being ruled by the working class party.

deathtokoalas

that's laughably ignorant.

and, it's important that we get this point, because the only way out of the mess we're in is through entrenched international solidarity. we have to stand together, and stop letting them play us off each other. it's our only tactic.

Eencog Neeto

Well, there can be no social justice as long as you allow anyone to be a leader of your body and mind. Been like that since the dawn of ape.

deathtokoalas

i have no idea what that means, at all.