Be Very Angry

An open letter to conservatives.

Wed, 13 Oct 2004 15:39:48 GMT

Hey,

I voted for Kerry. I think it's really important that as many people vote for Kerry as possible, and I've been engaged with this election for a while now, writing letters and talking to family members and friends, making donations from my meager pay where possible. I have a full-time job and a dog and I'm getting married soon, plus I live in Maryland, a blue state, so I have limitations on my time and impact, but within those limitations I am doing whatever I can to get Kerry elected.

Obviously you think I'm wrong. I think you're wrong. Let's not mince words--you might think I'm a communist or an elitist or some other right-wing epithet who's out of touch or selling our country to Europe or something else. The left has words for you guys, too, words I'm sure you've heard a lot.

I'm not a communist and I'm not an elitist--I believe in standing up for what I believe in as an individual and hitting the streets to do it. I admire the effort you guys put into what you believe in. I think if we all took responsibility for the choices they make and for the well-being of their community the way you guys do, the world would be a much better place, regardless of the ideology that calls you to action.

There's this idea out there that we're enemies. I never declared war on conservatives--in a lot of ways I embrace conservative values. I think everyone does.

I think the idea that we're enemies is a profitable idea for some people. It makes for ratings and web traffic and little George Bush and John Kerry action figures, ad revenue, endorsement contracts and concert tickets, donations into church boxes and from atheists alike. Not only that, but it's so much easier to oversimplify the other side and paint them as "the destroyers of everything we hold dear" than to actually listen to what they have to say. What makes it really easy is that enough people buy it that 99% of the time, all that anyone has to say is "I'm right and you're stupid" which is bullshit--so why should anyone listen?

What does this battle royale cost? A lot of energy, good will between Americans, and most importantly, a substantive discussion about the values we share.

So. Do I really think you hate black people? Or that you think women should by nature be subservient to their husbands? Do you really think I want to promote abortion? Or that I want to let Europe decide what we do?

Racism is wrong. So is sexism. We should be working to end abortion and poverty, and anything else that kills children. We are the greatest nation in the world, for all our flaws and should decide what we do ourselves. The best way to do that is to open discussion about what we should do, let the ideas duke it out for supremacy.

Liberals believe these things. Some things have to change--racism, sexism, poverty, abortion rates. Some things should stay the same--a dedication to family and community, personal responsibility, a strong American presence in the world. Conservatives believe these things.

Maybe we disagree on the ways to make them happen. I trust, though, that the reason you guys are out there putting out anti-Kerry records is because you think it'll make the world a better place. The anti-Bush records come from the same place. We're actually on the same team.

I firmly believe that legislating abortion policy is not the way to end abortion. The highest abortion rates in the world are in Latin America, where it's very illegal. The lowest rates are in Belgium and Denmark and the rest of Northern Europe, where there are no laws against it. The difference? Poverty levels and education levels. The American abortion crisis is not the result of PhD candidates having rampant sex and using abortion as a contraceptive--there might be some people out there who do that, and repeated abortions like that should be illegal. This is a poverty thing, though, and making it illegal, like keeping drugs illegal, only serves to put poor people in jail or kill women. John Kerry knows this. He can reduce abortion better than George Bush can.

I feel strongly that Kerry is more likely to win the war on terror. He's got a good understanding of a war that is being fought against enemies that are not tied to a single plot of land. He will pay attention to intelligence and react intelligently. He understands that if you have to use a missile defense shield, it's already too late, that we should be spending that money on finding the terrorists that exist, shutting down their funding, and preventing people from becoming terrorists in the first place.

What else matters to you? Let me know and I'll tell you what I think. Apparently you're voting for Bush, so tell me why--I might be wrong about this stuff, and it's worth talking about, it's worth arguing about, because it's really important that we get this right.

If conservativism is an approach, a philosophy, then I guess what I'm more interested in, then, is how you feel the Republican party--and particularly the Bush administration--represents a conservative approach.

I don't think that "deficits don't matter" and I believe that personal responsibility and small government demand decreases in spending, like cold-war era military expenditures designed to defeat armies instead of to win guerrilla wars.

The concepts of universal health care sound at first glance like big government to me, but putting the welfare of individuals in the hands of corporations like HMOs is dangerous--the HMOs are beholden to stockholders, whereas every government program is ultimately beholden to we, the people. It profits an HMO to give as little care as possible for the highest expense allowable. That leads to a decrease in the quality of care over time, and people's money going increasingly to an overblown and inefficient structure. It's expensive and wasteful.

Kerry's plan to provide a shock absorber sounds like the smallest government way to save us all a lot of money.

In today's NY Times they had questions for both candidates to answer in the debate tonight. One aimed at Kerry was this: 5% of the population pays 56% of the nation's taxes, but they don't use 56% of the nation's resources. How do you explain this?

I think this is probably the source of the biggest split between liberals and conservatives. I wish someone would clear it up for once and for all, but I don't have that kind of an audience, so I'd like to give my view on it.

It seems really unfair. Especially a progressive tax--why should the wealthy have to pay a higher percentage than the poor or the middle class? My dad is a big tax hawk and I grew up fiscally conservative, socially liberal, identified as Republican until I was 20 or so. It's given a really pragmatic approach to this.

Taxes are funds used to pay for things which are in the public good. Prisons, for example, and roads, the police force and the fire department, registration of vehicles and of voters and, some day perhaps, of firearms.

In a lot of cases, we use fees to solve these problems. We seem to agree that whoever benefits from certain things should have to pay for them. You pay a fee at the DMV to get your license renewed, because it costs money to keep track of all that stuff. We all agree that some people should be kept off the road and we've decided, through the democratic process, that drivers should pay for this.

Sometimes taxes fill in for fees. If you buy a bottle of French champagne and a wheel of cheese, for example, the tax you pay on that transaction, at least in theory, goes to pay for importation regulation which keeps our ports safe, as well as for
food & alcohol regulations that guarantee that it's not poisoned. We could decide to stop paying these things, as a society, but we've decided it's better for everyone if we pay people to ensure the public safety.

So ideally, we should pay for what we get. If we use resources that have to be kept safe or regulated in some way, that have to be controlled (and some things, like plutonium and grain alcohol, do have to be controlled) or maintained (like our roads and rails, or telephone lines), whoever uses those things should pay for them.

One way for a company to increase it's profit share is to get the public to pay for stuff it uses. But companies aren't just companies, companies have people behind them, every step of the way.

Bill Gates may only drive 1 of his 26 cars, but he has paid lots and lots of drivers to cart his software all over the country. I almost never drive--I use public transportation and pay my fees to use it. So Bill Gates may be using the road definitely tens of thousands of miles--maybe hundreds of thousands--for every mile I go. He makes money off of this. He actually DOES use a higher percentage of the public resources and so should be taxed at a higher rate.

Equally with the police force--someone with a lot to steal is benefiting far more from the existence of the police than someone below the poverty line.

A lot of these we should all be willing to pay for, but I really believe in paying your own way, and not trying to get the public to foot the bill. Taxpayers don't pay to clean up MY toxic waste sites--why should they be forced to pay for somebody else's SuperFund site? Because the company won't pay for it themselves--which means the shareholders won't pay for it themselves. That, to me, is dereliction of duty as a citizen.

I don't think I'm a liberal. I believe in common sense and fairness and taking responsibility for your actions and not spending money you don't have. I don't know if that's a conservative approach to it--it seems like one to me.

fahrenheit opening night

Thu, 01 Jul 2004 19:14:37 GMT

not sure if this will work (if the allow external linking) if not, check it out at http://www.michaelmoore.com/_media/f911opening/baltimore%20md.JPG

how bomb is that? representing the democratic wing of baltimore.

our posse.

anyway, hope y'all are rockin out.

how many band names can YOU reel off?

Wed, 30 Jun 2004 21:29:05 GMT

man alive can you piss away some time on here. and still not read a single entry of anyone's. damn.

the dog ate my fuckin wallet. which i reacted to pretty well at 6 am when i found out,

but that was before I wasted a full hour wandering the inner harbor (worse than it sounds) trying to find a wallet to no avail. you stupid dog!

and i post lyrics less often than i used to. i think i've stopped finding sublime truth in lyrics as much as i used to, which i attribute to one of a number of things.

A) i was wrong and lyrics don't have truth
B) i've stopped listening to good music and started listening to crappy music
C) i've curbed my listening to all music of any kind and starting finding my truth in nonfiction essays and the occasional novel and
(1) i'm gullible enough to believe whatever truth something offers OR
(2) i'm smart enough to glean whatever truth is available
OR D)i'm finally smarter than most musicians

which it's probably C)(2) or D) because I'm full of myself.

Speaking of which, i sure do like to pontificate a lot in here. which might explain lulls in readership, although I'm guessing it's probably my utter lack of consistency of posting, which mostly comes from having found the utter ideal in ego gratification in a mutually respectful relationship and consequently developing as a full person no longer in need of the fickle gratification offered by external gratification, i.e. YOU, dear and loyal reader.

yep, don't need you anymore is why i stopped showing up. plus a real live job. and a long time in the middle there without having an internet.

and then, with my consequent and newfound fully-formed ego, i realized, "hey, wait, just because i don't need them doesn't mean they don't need me!" and so out of the bigness of my heart, i still show up occasionally to tell you how it is. it's an almost utterly one-sided relationship. i'd like a bigger audience, sure, but i wouldn't pay attention anyway. i'm like a little kid who closes his eyes and yells at the top of his lungs, every time i post, "DON'T BE STUPID!" "PAY YOUR TAXES!" "KILL THE RICH!" without regard for who I annoy or if anyone even cares.

poor cheryl.

but in the long-standing tradition of
A) tooting my own horn
B) sounding smart
check it out:

i have some interesting (to me) thoughts on why people get pissed when their favorite bands make it big. members of every community define themselves by lifestyles, aesthetics, and ideologies, maybe, but in transgeographical (not a word?) communities, members identify themselves by a number of similarities and differences, the measurable detritus of the mode of cultural engagement of the community.

National identities forged on the basis of a common language or cultural knowledge (can you sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"? welcome to America.), are actually identities rooted more deeply, in the solitary lives of the members of the community. The shared cultural signifiers are accepted as proof that a person spends her life doing similar things to the rest of the community, knows similar fears and remembers similar triumphs.

Knowing the names of bands is not intended to simply be a name-dropping contest--the significance of the requisite band list has been cruelly abused as exclusivist pretty regularly (I among its detractors on more than one occasion). Instead, knowing the names of bands proves, to an extent, that you are invested in the community; namely, that you have either A. done your homework and evidently want in badly enough to be deferential about it, or B. have actually been in long enough to know what you're talking about from the sheer osmotic stink given off by your fellow social exiles, and of course, from spending a lot of time and money going to shows and listening to records.

Every band name, then, functions simultaneously a signifier for the experience of the band and the culture the band allies with, shorthand for all the characteristics that are coincident with it (think about someone who actually likes Minor Threat and then someone who never stops talking about Rilo Kiley, and then someone who claims to like Chicks on Speed, and then someone who quietly likes Joan of Arc, and for me at least, that will say a lot about someone), a little linguistic exercise, and a unique password that carries all the rest of that with it. The function of password is a pretty complex one, containing all the information it does. An easy, safe one, for a long time, was Death Cab for Cutie. A lot of people like Death Cab for Cutie, and until recently, the band was confined to those in the know. They were kind of baseline, in a way, a separate peace, encompassing a lot that indie rock kids had in common. The name itself was kind of a passport to inclusion.

The loss of a band name to a Newsweek article is a big deal. The currency is no longer valid. Now ANYONE can jump in and pretend to be hip.

That matters. Part of the purpose of a shadow culture--one that parallels but does not engage overtly with mainstream culture--is to provide a shelter from outsiders as well as a sense of ownership of one's culture. It's a profound experience, and it can be very positive, as long as it doesn't last forever for everyone. It can work kind of like training wheels to being a healthy citizen engaged with mainstream culture. A band moving on brings with it a sense of abandonment--it forces you to brush against your own limitations and the limitations of your culture, which can feel like the vast and uncaring coldness of space after the warmth of inclusion that comes with a good indie experience.

The truth is that it's a good thing when bands cross over into mainstream. It changes the world, and makes it more like your culture--which is better for the world, and for you. It also forces you to engage with the world, which is important, because if you're a member of a subculture, mainstream culture needs your influence. That doesn't make it easy.

Subcultures are important, though, and tend to be self-propagating, so I don't worry about the death of indie rock. New geniuses come along to supplant the old ones and right the newly made wrongs. Sooner or later, everyone outgrows the scene. Hopefully, that happens willingly, and we take the experience we had and use it to push us onward. Sometimes (and probably more often than not), it happens without our consent, and we feel old, robbed off our youth, misplaced, passed by, unprepared, resentful. The band didn't mean to do that, and shouldn't be held accountable. Instead, we have to take the truths we've gained and apply them. If we do, then the subculture can expand to make meaningful change, and undo the wrongs of the mainstream as well as our own.

And that's why hardcore sex is impossible in space. It's not just the lack of gravity--it's more and less than that. (Bet you wish you read the lj-cut).

Peace.
--stop.

t-shirts and a pedestrian little play-by-play. or, trying to get back into the swing of things.

Mon, 28 Jun 2004 18:32:00 GMT

on an upbeat note. yesterday was rad. helped jim and heather move--into a crazy huge loft apartment in laurel, md--and then raldo and i went to get fabric from G Street in Rockville and it was a delightful adventure. fun to the max. we actually accomplished the goal of getting fabric for bridesmaids' dresses (silk is expensive!) and then we went to A.C.Moore and got stuff to finish the invitations plus I bought five cheap t-shirts to screenprint with my first design. we'll see how they turn out, but in the meantime, here's the look to tantalize your fashion jones:

another design coming soon, i swear. so yeah, so then we looked for dining room tables. tomorrow is devin's birthday and he's kind of hard to shop for, but when cheryl and i moved out, he had to go back to his modest little dining room table and it's dwarfed by the vastitude of his dining room, and so their parents and we and rebecca and rick are chipping in to buy him a dining room table. i think he and cheryl are going to go look at tables tonight.
we, though, without him, were stumped and out of our budgetary realm, so we left empty-handed and raced home and took the dog to the park where she had a wonderful good time and was (mostly) well-behaved. she runs off now, but when we wander off, she races to catch up...so she's learning quickly.
and then we went home and jim and heather came over to take us out to dinner in appreciation of helping them move. so we went to the mt. washington tavern because the desert cafe was closed and it was a lot of fun.

i slept like crap thanks to the burger and beer and the dog being rambunctious, but it was a superlative day.

I really hate Ann Coulter - more political diatribe.

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 16:59:01 GMT

I just started listening to Ann Coulter's Treason on Audio book from my local library (didn't shell out cash for it, thanks), and let me tell you: that lady is CRAZY. And vastly misinformed. A few things that strike me particularly:

I wish I had the cojones to generalize as broadly as she does. She's not a fan of qualifications like "some" or even "most." Instead, she throws the whole weight of everything she feels behind whatever she says, with all the delicacy of smashing a lily with an angrily hurled cinder block. I kind of understand why-the air around her is filled with this desire to act rashly, to ignore nuance and, well, for me at least, to just punch her in the face. She inspires even the most ardent fence-sitter (who has to be even kind of ambivalent about staying on the fence) into a guttural, goose-stepper bent on destruction of something, anything. Which hey, maybe that's her superpower. Maybe she has the god-given ability to emanate a dualism field, where nothing of any intelligence can survive for very long. The evidence is there-there are a lot of ways to be kind of right, and she consistently misses them all.

I stole these from blogcritics.org's review of the book, because I don't have a physical copy of the book and I'm lazy: "The only important lesson from the Vietnam War is this: Democrats lose wars." "It is a fact that the Democrats have been responsible for every unmitigated foreign policy disaster since World War II." "Conservatives are devastatingly clear, consistent, and logical, while liberals are whirling dervishes of inconsistent positions." I tried to tell Cheryl about it, but I had to keep explaining that I wasn't exaggerating. I paraphrased Treason thusly: In every conflict over the last century, liberals have sided unanimously with the enemy because their defining characteristic is that they hate America. And she actually means this! She's manifestly retarded, which is not a criticism, but a diagnosis.

"Devastatingly clear, consistent and logical" are three characteristics I certainly think of when I think of conservatives. I keep trying to realign my axes and redefine my terms to figure out what's going on, but it becomes such a trashfest that it's hard to tell what she's talking about. The only way the stuff she's saying could possibly be true is if it's all tautological, if you replace the word "liberal" with "traitor"-then it becomes, "throughout history all traitors have been traitors" which we can kind of agree on. That's the only way it can even be, well, not exactly in the same ballpark but at least playing the same sport as "devastatingly logical."

I was trying really hard to give her the benefit of the doubt, as well: because that's what we liberals do, we hand-hold paranoid retards even when they are dangers to themselves and others. But every time I pull myself back to my normal, devastatingly clear, consistent, and logical self, then the dualism field kicks right back in, and I start cracking my knuckles and looking for empty beer bottles, lacing up my steel-toe boots, unpacking the garrote, reaching for the Louisville Slugger and rediscovering my punk roots by busting up some psycho's face for making the world a worse place. I thought I was over all that.

The most frustrating thing of all is that I am very, very good at talking to people with whom I apparently vastly disagree, in working with them to find a middle ground, a fundamental point of agreement. I like building consensus and mutual respect, finding a way for everyone to work together and maintain their integrity. Pro-lifers, I get it-I respect it, even if I disagree and think they're doing more harm than good. By acknowledging them, understanding where they come from, I understand myself better, come out with more conviction than before, and occasionally pull a convert or two with me. Rational gun owners, I can usually work with well enough to get everyone to acknowledge that there has to be a line where we draw the 2^nd Amendment shut and that that line should, potentially, be assault rifles-I'm good at convincing people that we fundamentally agree.

But as I listen to Ann on the CD, I try different rhetorical tacks, and I hit walls every time. Any physical scientist, experimenting, should know what to do if all your experiments fail. It means your premises are false-you've missed something fundamental. These aren't rounding errors, I'm not off by decimal places-the real and apparent desire to cut somebody is what you might call a big deal.

So I know what it is now. It's that we don't agree at all. We don't want the same thing. This is true between me and a very small number of people. Most conservatives legitimately love America, and want the best for everyone in it. Most Americans, conservative and liberal, actually do believe in freedom of speech, in freedom of the press, in freedom of religion. Some people may think it distasteful to criticize the President, but most people think you should have the right to do it.

There is a small but vocal minority of conservatives who keep moving the rest of them to the right. Here's what I discovered about that minority: they hate America.

I know, I know. It sounds ridiculous, like something we're not allowed to say. What's more, I think they know they hate America, and have known it for a long time, and said, effectively, "We all want to live in a different country, but we like having all this stuff, so let's pretend the country we want to live in is called 'America' and then accuse liberals of hating it. Then little by little, we can pass laws and when people disagree, we can say, 'that's because you hate 'America'' and they'll all back down! Little by little, we can forge a new nation!"

The America that Ann Coulter loves is no America the world has ever known. Half of us in this nation are liberals. At one time, some 60% of Americans identified themselves as liberal. Hating 60% of Americans, in the democratic republic that is our country, seems to be the same thing as hating America. Unless maybe you mean you love 40% of Americans, plus all the stuff, except maybe garbage dumps, which (even excluding Staten Island) might put you over the 50% of total mass of America-one way you could say "I love America," I guess. Also if by "I love America" you mean "I love the parts of America that have a conservative majority," except that the economic policies of conservatives hurt most conservatives, so okay, I got it. By "I love America," your average rabid right-wing moron means, "I love the parts of America that have a conservative majority, and when I love something, I like to squeeze it and watch it suffer while taunting it with the promise of wealth, because stretching my loved ones on the rack makes them stronger." Granted, there's a lot between the lines of "I love America," but it's decipherable-not exactly devastatingly clear, consistent and logical, but decipherable.

But the reason I want to break Ann Coulter's face is that she hates America. She hates everything I love about this country, except maybe our military force (which is pretty kick-ass, although I think it makes a better show-room piece and potential-whacking-stick than broom-handle to the bums of our third-world friends, or as Ann might call them "inferiors"). She hates freedom! See, this is the crazy thing! She actually does hate freedom! In her world, there is good and evil, right and wrong, and when it becomes that dualistic, there is no freedom. Freedom absolutely REQUIRES the freedom to make mistakes.

From an interview, regarding liberal reaction to a post-9/11 world: "Anytime anyone would point out that the Democratic Party as a whole was not really helping with their naysaying and carping objections and demands for more discussion and no pre-emptive attacks and of course Saddam is despicable, but we must do nothing, they'd turn around and scream, 'This is McCarthyism. Don't you dare challenge my patriotism!' So it was sort of an odd world in which they feel free to burn the American flag and say, 'That's our First Amendment right; you can't say anything about it,' but if anyone criticizes them that is the one subject that is off the tables for political debate: the relative patriotism of the two parties. Well, why can't we talk about that? The Democrats claim, lyingly, that they are better on civil rights, that they are better on, quote, 'women's issues.' Why can't we say that the Republicans are the superior patriots?"

You can say anything you want about me burning the flag. Shout your fucking head off. Doesn't change a thing. And you know what? Anytime anyone would point out that the Democratic Party as a whole was not really helping with their naysaying and carping objections and demands for more discussion and no pre-emptive attacks and of course Saddam is despicable, but we must do nothing, they were being an idiot. I naysayed and carped and demanded not only more discussion, but a whole change in the tenor of conversation, with demilitarization and , and look who was right, you shriveled, shrill hag. While you were slavering for war at any cost, the rest of us were fighting to save the soul of our country.

And just because you don't get it doesn't mean it isn't there.

And what's more, you ain't never seen a liberal like me. You can attack my patriotism all you want, call me whatever you like, we can duke it out, have a shouting contest, whatever you want. I don't know what kind of wussy liberals you know from whatever hole you crawled out of, but just to make sure you're perfectly clear, there's a different breed out there. We are angry and determined, unwavering in our vitriol, and steadfast in our love of country. We're more American than you. I do not equivocate. I embrace reason. I understand the symbols of my nation and I can embrace them without fear or irony. I am so American that I can burn the flag and it runs redder in my veins. I am so American that I can spot a traitor when I see one, and you are sullying the fabric of my nation. You are a traitor. I am so American that I know you are wrong about America-that the America you long for will never be. I am so American that I have no fear of hatred. I spent my whole video-game-addled youth harnessing and honing the power of anger, my fury has seen its destiny in the service of all that is good, I can wield this hatred like a flaming sword of vengeance, and, Ann Coulter, I hate you.

I'm tolerant, I really am. Of people terribly unlike Ann Coulter. And she's free to say whatever she wants, we're still gonna eat her soul.

And that's without even touching the content of her arguments.

art and the feeling of a big bad hockin' loogie. plus dogs.

Fri, 11 Jun 2004 20:48:54 GMT

we got a puppy!

she pees on stuff!

and when i procrastinate, i make album covers for records that don't exist. let me know if you've got a real one you've recorded. it would be cool to have designed a real live album cover.

rock and roll music.

peace, yo.

oh yeah, also I got a screenprinting kit so I'm designing and making t-shirts, theoretically. if people want to buy them, that's cool. I'll put designs up. as though anyone reads this, what with me being in absentia for so, so long. but anyhow, they're gonna be bad-ass, so get in line, chumps.

seriously, peace.

tha stopp.

Progressive Taxation - A Primer

Tue, 20 Apr 2004 21:15:24 GMT

I'm not sure if this is the rationale for progressive taxation (rich people pay a higher % than poor) that is commonly accepted, but it made sense to me so I wrote it down. If you read, it'll explain why progressive taxation makes sense not just to liberals, but to everyone.

I think that anecdotal evidence runs rampant. It turns into just saying whatever you can to defend your opinion, instead of trying to look at what's going on, and using that to form one.

It gets me pretty riled up, because people on both sides of pretty much every debate pick a tag line and turn it into a cliche and then we all "rah rah death tax" "rah rah no WMDs" "rah rah liberal media" "rah rah fair and balanced my rear" and it's all a load of crap. And we all sound stupider than we really are, I think.

I'm a liberal, I'm proud to say. I grew up Republican, and switched once I realized that A. I'm socially liberal- "gay people are people too, as are blacks and jews and hispanics and women, contrary to popular belief".

That said, the "double taxation" defense doesn't really hold that much water. Whenever I buy things, I am taxed twice--income tax and sales tax. If it's liquor, then there's a sin tax as well. If it's foreign liquor, then there's usually some sort of import tariff as well. There is no rule that says something shouldn't be taxed twice--in many cases, it should be taxed multiple times, because the taxes go to regulations that keep the shipping lanes clear, that fix the roads the goods are shipped on, that maintain infrastructure such as the telephone lines used to access my credit card account, the water used in the bathroom of the liquor store, et cetera, etc.

So why should we tax? Because the government is more representative of ALL of us than any private enterprise. It's not perfect, but even as imperfect as it is, it still functions more to benefit the interests of the constituency than any business can, simply because that's why it's there. Financial success, enterprise, doesn't require broad voter appeal.

That said, why should we tax people who make a lot of money more than those that make just a little?

1. Because they can afford it. 30% of your income for a multi-millionaire is a lot more money than 30% of your income for a single mother making 17,000/yr. For the millionaire, that doesn't take a chunk out of livelihood. Neither does 35%, neither does 40%. For the single mom, that means she has to work overtime just to put food on the table.

This seems to be countered very often with the "bootstrap" theory, which goes something like this, "why should we penalize people for succeeding? If they work hard, aren't they entitled to reap the rewards of their hard work?"

Which hey, yeah, in theory, everyone agrees with that. A lot of people buy into it. The problem is that when it comes to taxes on the roads, for example, I use less of the roads than someone making a million, five million dollars, because other people are doing that guy's work for him. Every truck shipping Microsoft products anywhere is using roads in the name of Bill Gates, as is every Best Buy using electricity, as is every customer service representative using phone lines for customer support. Bill Gates makes far greater use (and puts a far greater burden) on public infrastructure, and on the populace, than the average citizen. Since he gets a better return from society, he can reasonably be expected to give more back to society.

Some would say that philanthropy fills this role, or should fill this role. The problem with that is that it takes money from the constituency, invests it in the infrastructure; stockholders and executives reap the rewards and then spend the money earned in part from the investment of our (citizens') taxes on their own (necessarily unrepresentative) agenda. Taxation on the beneficiaries of our society serves as a check and a balance on our corporate leaders. Not only that, but it also, much like anti-trust legislation, prevents their income from hitting a terminal velocity and spiraling out uncontrollably.

We are all educated as citizenry in the function of the government. Checks and balances are lauded in school courses on government. We should value those same checks and balances in financial and social dynamics, as they prevent us from rushing headlong into any system that grossly misrepresents us as a population.

An inheritance tax is such a check. It is designed to prevent a few wealthy families from ruling the whole show, which is very important.

It's important because minority rule hurts everyone. We need to be careful and maintain our dynamic equilibrium in order to maintain individual freedoms, a representative government, scientific progress and technological innovation, and consistent, steady business growth. Rules like these help everyone.

What I Read Today in the Newspaper

Tue, 20 Apr 2004 13:52:04 GMT

Best quote in today's NYTimes:
"If you don't separate males and females, the females just die," Mr. Plath said. "Males constantly harass them. It's copulating, copulating, nothing but copulating and the females can't feed." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/science/20FISH.html

From Poop to Black Gold
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/science/20OBOX.html

Using MRIs to See Politics on the Brain. A la Clockwork Orange.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/science/20SCAN.html?th

Colin Powell, Where Was Your Spine We Know and Love?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/opinion/20TUE1.html?th

Voters, Dick Cheney's Got You in the Crosshairs. The NRA goes "Quack quack."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/opinion/20TUE3.html?th

Clean Air Languishes in These Partisan, Partisan Times. Ah, Greenhouse, Home Sweet Home.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/opinion/20BROO.html?th

And the big stuff of today:

Again, the Bill of Rights is Smarter than the President. Bully for Noncombatants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/opinion/20COLE.html?th

Guantanamo Bay Found To Be Located Outside Syosset, NJ. Executive Branch Reportedly Pissed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/opinion/20HANS.html?th

I’m not saying I have it right. Just that maybe we have it really wrong.

Thu, 08 Apr 2004 17:56:02 GMT

As a child, I read Superman comics. Every several issues—probably every five or so—he stopped rescuing children from burning buildings for long enough to have his photo taken. Most people whose lives he touched, though, had nothing but a memory of his presence as a fundamental force in their lives. We had the privilege of seeing a hero in action without his knowledge and he had the benefit of scripted situations that would show in a chosen light. The point remains: I knew integrity as a child.

The Superman of my forefathers lived in a different, less nuanced world. The scripts did not set out to challenge him. They humanized Superman by the time I got around to getting into comics. My Superman taught me about the difficulty of knowing what the right course of action is and the importance of taking it. The morality of his situations have becomes complicated. The chips being playing for are vast and consequential. There is not a lot of margin for error. In Superman, they often explore the trope of power and responsibility. What happens where power comes into the wrong hands is well-worn territory, but as we have gained a fuller understanding of truth and justice, Superman and his writers have grown, realigning good and evil.

The gravity I felt at age thirteen is hard to reproduce. These stories were real stories—they weren’t just morality plays, but Petri dishes of humanity, of powers beyond our scope but not beyond our comprehension, that served to crystallize ethical systems, to personify them and face them off to beat the allegorical shit out of each other—and sometimes, surprisingly, to meaningfully refrain from beating said allegorical shit out of each other. I surrounded myself with heroes and watched as my impression of the ethics of humanity became embodied, and as my ability to tell who was trustworthy and who was not became sharper, I, like those Superman affected in the comic book, felt my desire to make the world a better place deepen.

I take pride in being good. When I have fallen short, it has led to some of the most profoundly sad moments of my life—moments that have, I am again proud to say, led to significant and positive life change. As a normal individual, my struggle with right and wrong, with good and evil, has primarily been an internal struggle. As I have become a full and active citizen, that struggle has evolved, as it often does. There is no spinning of my life, no press releases with carefully chosen words, and no ideological mantras to soothe a troubled spirit, and as I earn a fuller understanding of the world around me, I feel a responsibility to effect change.

My heroes share this personal battle for good. When you examine their motives, personal profit does not suffice. Power, for them, is always and only a means to an end. The same goes for money. The end, of course, is to improve the quality of life and to preserve life, I guess.

If you’re the most powerful man in the world, whether it’s the Presidency or not—if our system is built in such a way that people can become the most powerful people in the world without having that heroic constitution, then the system should be changed.

I’m not saying I have it right. Just that maybe we have it really wrong.

Wed, 31 Mar 2004 21:01:04 GMT

Which poem are you?

Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

You're probably strongly political, and a pacifist. Hey, and you're also slightly depressing. You think a lot of things suck and are pointless. Congratulations!

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Dead on. I friggin love this poem. Check it out. "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold Dig the end rhyme.

air america radio

Wed, 31 Mar 2004 20:52:10 GMT

you know what's crazy? thanks to the Bush administration, i predict the word "traitor" will become a compliment.

check it out: Air America Radio.

They're rocking the airwaves in four major cities. Baltimore is not one of them. So now I'm online, listening attentively.

It's good stuff. Prove to the moronic, fatheaded, heartless conservatives that we want to hear the other side of the story, and that we want to hear it loud, and mean, and bloodily, brutally honest.

Rock.

writing

Tue, 09 Mar 2004 21:44:54 GMT

okay, so I'm busting my ass for my upcoming GRE in Literature in English test (less than a month to go and I gotta get cracking). Ellie, I read your essay about Lou a while ago and never got back to you. Sorry! It ruled. I should have commented.

Nowadays I'm busier than busy. Work, study, sleep. Which kind of rules because I can feel myself getting smarter already. It's been too long since I've studied, and I've never been this hardcore before.

Check it out. Two poems. I'm trying out some meter for the first time ever, in one of them. The other makes heavy use of caesurae. Jenn, tell me what you think. Same goes for everybody else.

Peace
--Stop.

Promontory

It's loud out, on the porch, the resonance
of eardrum-shattering blasts from on the lake
sends Trixie into yelping paroxysms,
under the bench, alone and scared. From times
long past the noises seem to come, like beasts
best left to die--vast, lumbering, painted beasts
of sundry heritage, strange motley shrieks
and long, curving, percussive retorts. The dog
knows something isn't right about these things:
the way they disappear, the way they stream
out on the lake. The docks are set aflame
and candles float, cling desperately to life,
but all are drowned come morning. None remain.
For now my mother sits inside a boat
with candles waxed to plates surrounding her.
My aunt makes comments. This happens every year.
"And once they made it straight across the lake,"
but not this year. I'm only seventeen,
but I can say I've never seen this done.
Tomorrow morning, my brother and sister and I
will pull the ruined fireworks from the lake,
the brightly colored melted plastic tubes
and soggy cardboard. Every year's the same
but something soon is going to change.
Something soon is going to change.

True Romance

I descend, down stairs
you don't even know. That landing has seen bloodshed.
We make nice.
You're talking to yourself again, you don't even know it,
and you catch it. Half an hour later, you catch yourself at it.
Where do you go? Who do you tell?
Has everybody else noticed?
Tie your wrists, down, woman,
give yourself a chance to breathe
and stop your wringing--
there is time enough to worry once you know
how many know that you are losing it at last.

There are tears that will roll down,
your cheeks glistening in the moonlight.
The sound of your feet tapping the concrete steps outside,
with no one around. It's darker now.
You can't see a thing. Your arms hold
your insides in. I stand behind you.
My knees touching your sides, as
my hands fall to rest on your shoulders.
Everything is amber behind where we sit,
where we stand.

Cruel memory, cruel tricks, cruel harbor.
Who are your children? Where were you born
and raised? What was your first pet's
secret nickname that only you gave him?
Who are your friends? Where are they now
right when you need them most? And how
are you supposed to know what's real and
how are you supposed to know what's real
and how are you supposed to know what's
only going on in your head?

Who are your friends? Who are your children?
These are my hands, These are my arms.
This is pain, this is pleasant.
Where are your shoes? Those are called "shoes."
What is my name? My name is "Alex."
What is your name? Your name is "Sara."
These are your hands. These are your arms.
Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself.
That is a smile. Here you are. Those are tears.
This is crying. This is laughter. I am so sorry, Sara.
This is pain, this is pleasant. Here you are. This is real.
This is real. This is real.

Fri, 06 Feb 2004 18:50:35 GMT

pies

i have a lot to say. maybe later. no one reads this anyway, so we'll see.

Sun, 01 Feb 2004 06:06:18 GMT

I'm in Ithaca, NY, visiting my brother and sister at Cornell University. Laugh while Rome burns, you. Laugh. All his roommates are white males. They're almost all engineers. I lost it. I couldn't help it. I like to think that I'm levelheaded, but I'm not.

These are supposed to be the leaders of the free world. These are supposed to be the most intellgent, the most well-informed members of our society. And they're fucking morons. They look at society and they see problems--problems they encapsulate as intellectual objects, separate themselves from, and then expire. Then they march on daily, without making a single adjustment and it inspires nausea.

You have been the beneficiaries of a system that is unfair. And because you have succeeded, strived and passed the test, you proclaim it fair. You lie to ourselves, you debase humanity. Laugh. Laugh while Rome burns. Laugh as people suffer. I pray for your failure.

Dear Mr. President.

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:59:54 GMT

Dear Mr. President,

I want an apology, you lousy, ignorant, bullheaded, rampaging, myopic, lying, worthless, destructive, murderous, villainous, oppressive, cruel, barbaric, ethnocentric, partisan, subversive, demagogical, swindling, bullyish, incompetent, insubordinate, unholy and vile puddle of filth.

I want an apology for every time you have taken my name and soiled it, run it through the mud. I want reparation for the damage you have done to me, a citizen of this great nation. You have stolen my pride and you have fouled the names of the dead. I want there to be consequences, for someone has made it increasingly impossible for me to live at peace with my world. No one has the right to do that, to steal someone's peace of mind.

You are every rapist; you are every thief. No word is strong enough for you--you who have killed brothers and sisters of mine, who have sent them off to their death, by electrocution, by explosion, by friendly and unfriendly means. You have been divisive and you have been unjust. You have lied and cheated and dodged and you are the worst example of a human being that I have ever seen.

I want to have kids. One boy and one girl, I hope. My fianceé studied French, Spanish and Italian. She loves people. She's fascinated with them. She has a heart bigger than you can imagine, because it encompasses the whole world, and not just the blackness that encompasses those with something to give her. We plan to have kids. She wants them to speak as many languages as they want. She thinks it's a good way to see how other people live. I think it broadens the mind. I agree with her that it provides access to other cultures, and so it helps us to know ourselves better, and to love more people.

You make that dream harder to realize every day, you pig, you filth, you swine. You are stealing our dreams. I hope that my children are as broad-minded as they can be, that they understand fully as much as they can. I hope this for them, because it is a guarantee that they can never be like you. The only way I can imagine that you can stand to look at yourself is that you are ignorant, and narrow-minded, and you have never seen anything. Having never seen a heinous, vile villain, you don't recognize it when you see it.

I only hope the destruction you inevitably wreak upon our nation does not kill me, because within me, and others like me, lies the only hope for my children. That is where America lies. I am proud to be an American, and what America means to me is the opposite of you. Within me lies the memory of an America worth being proud of. It may not be the America that has always been--it may not even be an America that will be, for everyone. But it is an America worth striving for, worth working for, worth earning. It is not an America you would know, you swine, you debased and stricken beast, you soulless vomitous excuse for a human being. And it is an America you can never sully.

When people burn flags, "my captain", cruel tormentor of my children, it is not America that they burn. They are America. It is most decidedly you that they are burning. America is always burning the evil that exists within it. Sometimes it smolders and sometimes it flares. But it will ruin you, you unworthy, illegitimate, ignoble fiend.

I want you to give my children their future back. And then I want you to crawl back into whatever hole you came from and rot, rot, rot.

Boy am I glad I'm not you.

Regards,
Jason Delaney
Citizen and Patriot

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Where's the Apology?
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: January 30, 2004

George Bush promised to bring honor and integrity back to the White House. Instead, he got rid of accountability.

Surely even supporters of the Iraq war must be dismayed by the administration's reaction to David Kay's recent statements. Iraq, he now admits, didn't have W.M.D., or even active programs to produce such weapons. Those much-ridiculed U.N. inspectors were right. (But Hans Blix appears to have gone down the memory hole. On Tuesday Mr. Bush declared that the war was justified — under U.N. Resolution 1441, no less — because Saddam "did not let us in.")

So where are the apologies? Where are the resignations? Where is the investigation of this intelligence debacle? All we have is bluster from Dick Cheney, evasive W.M.D.-related-program-activity language from Mr. Bush — and a determined effort to prevent an independent inquiry.

True, Mr. Kay still claims that this was a pure intelligence failure. I don't buy it: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has issued a damning report on how the threat from Iraq was hyped, and former officials warned of politicized intelligence during the war buildup. (Yes, the Hutton report gave Tony Blair a clean bill of health, but many people — including a majority of the British public, according to polls — regard that report as a whitewash.)

In any case, the point is that a grave mistake was made, and America's credibility has been badly damaged — and nobody is being held accountable. But that's standard operating procedure. As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths. And administration officials have consistently sought to freeze out, undermine or intimidate anyone who might try to check up on their performance.

Let's look at three examples. First is the Valerie Plame affair. When someone in the administration revealed that Ms. Plame was an undercover C.I.A. operative, one probable purpose was to intimidate intelligence professionals. And whatever becomes of the Justice Department investigation, the White House has been notably uninterested in finding the culprit. ("We have let the earthmovers roll in over this one," a senior White House official told The Financial Times.)

Then there's the stonewalling about 9/11. First the administration tried, in defiance of all historical precedents, to prevent any independent inquiry. Then it tried to appoint Henry Kissinger, of all people, to head the investigative panel. Then it obstructed the commission, denying it access to crucial documents and testimony. Now, thanks to all the delays and impediments, the panel's head says it can't deliver its report by the original May 11 deadline — and the administration is trying to prevent a time extension.

Finally, an important story that has largely evaded public attention: the effort to prevent oversight of Iraq spending. Government agencies normally have independent, strictly nonpartisan inspectors general, with broad powers to investigate questionable spending. But the new inspector general's office in Iraq operates under unique rules that greatly limit both its powers and its independence.

And the independence of the Pentagon's own inspector general's office is also in question. Last September, in a move that should have caused shock waves, the administration appointed L. Jean Lewis as the office's chief of staff. Ms. Lewis played a central role in the Whitewater witch hunt (seven years, $70 million, no evidence of Clinton wrongdoing); nobody could call her nonpartisan. So when Mr. Bush's defenders demand hard proof of profiteering in Iraq — as opposed to extensive circumstantial evidence — bear in mind that the administration has systematically undermined the power and independence of institutions that might have provided that proof.

And there are many more examples. These people politicize everything, from military planning to scientific assessments. If you're with them, you pay no penalty for being wrong. If you don't tell them what they want to hear, you're an enemy, and being right is no excuse.

Still, the big story isn't about Mr. Bush; it's about what's happening to America. Other presidents would have liked to bully the C.I.A., stonewall investigations and give huge contracts to their friends without oversight. They knew, however, that they couldn't. What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things?

on discourse

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 18:35:19 GMT

on discourse.
and we are like children,
yes,
we are like children,
stumbling hard, trying to find
a way to talk about things
that makes the things we talk about
end up alright.
we are like children,
trying to put our finger on the name of the word
"bird" is the word and we can't
quite
make
it
click.

"mostly-stagnant" they call it,
and no one knows what they're talking about.
Bové, you can spin in endless circles
and your arms will never touch the ground,
not with all that gesticulating you're doing.

hit me in the face with a rock.
please.
somebody.
hit me in the face.

for we are like children,
we are children, we joust with pick-up sticks
and we slaughter our innards
with language, and that's what you're trying to say.
only we also enslave and set free those same innards.
we open their gates.
you don't want to say one to cut off another,
and that, my friend
is stagnation.

there is slaughter without life and there is slavery without freedom.
and the intellect can be these.
meander, meander, meander, meander, meander, meander.
dally, dally, dally, dally, dally, dally.

i am a child.
hit me in the face.
hit me in the face with a rock.
i can take it, really. we all can.
hit me in the face with a rock.
please. hit me in the face.
hit me in the face with a rock.

and quit your whimpering.

why I believe life is necessarily good.

Tue, 16 Dec 2003 19:03:35 GMT

I have not revised this at all yet. I want to see people tearing it apart first.

Okay, this is complex, and hard to get across. As I stated before, these are all articles of faith, so they’re basically opinions—unprovable, use to taste.

Experience necessarily goes in one direction. While time may be static, if you’re a being with even a semblance of free will, then there must be evidence for causality. This happens and leads to that. It’s impossible to prove causality (then again, when you get really rigorous, it’s impossible to prove anything), but it’s essential to our frame of reference. The direction in which experience moves is often referred to as “time’s arrow.” The direction of experience is the only direction in which causality makes any sense, and it’s necessarily the direction of increasing entropy. How are entropy and causality related?

Entropy increases. It’s one of the big ones, the granddaddies of thermodynamics. It’s the second one, to be precise. It’s a really big deal as far as implications are concerned, because it means that things become increasingly chaotic, that every glass you ever own will some day be shattered, et cetera. Experience has to move in the direction of increasing entropy, or else the causal chain would be reversed. Baseballs would inexplicably fly into the outstretched arms of fielders. Every once in a while, debris would come together to form buildings that would reerect themselves and cause a giant mushroom of smoke to collapse in on itself, while shards of metal flew together to capture the collected smoke. The metal casing would then fly up into the air, into the waiting bay of an airplane, which would fly the encased smoke safely home to be stored and then dismantled. The uranium would be fed back to the mountain; the metal would be melted down and infused with rocks. You get the point. Entropy increases, therefore destruction increases. Free energy dissipates.

The upshot of all this, or the implication taken to the nth degree, is that the universe is getting colder, and bleaker, and everything in it will be dead and cold and bleak, some day. It’s not exactly an upbeat picture. I, personally, am hoping it doesn’t expand forever, that someday the arrow slows down and reverses and snaps back, the universe collapses in on itself, compresses and bangs again. But that’s another story for another time, and I’ll probably never know, so I can just hope and that’s cool. For now, though, and for the foreseeable future, the universe is getting colder and bleaker. In a system where the volume is expanding, the free energy is decreasing, so everything is slowing down, breaking down.

Life appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics. Many people have used this as evidence for the existence of a creator, although there are just as many theories that do not require a creator. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s happened, and we’re all here, one could potentially argue that it doesn’t make sense. It’s certainly been a long time since anything in my food has turned, of its own volition, into a creature and asked me why it was here, who I was, and whether I believed it would be reborn after it died. I mean, that sort of thing, it just doesn’t happen every day, not here at least. The chances of it happening are almost infinitesimal.

To go from chaos to order, well, it happens all the time, here, on this planet of wonder. Usually it just goes back to chaos, though. Snowflakes form and then they land, they turn to drifts. Then they melt and cascade into the ocean. Mountains are formed and then destroyed. The temperature skyrockets and plummets. States revert and revert, without any sentience required. All these things violate entropy, without even beginning to consider life, let alone intelligent life. Atomic soup becomes molecular soup. But for molecular soup to cross that line, to break through a barrier to a point where it can be called life, the chances are astronomically small. Gargantuan in their tininess. The pequeñitude is so vastly, mind-bogglingly huge that I am far too lazy to calculate it. That’s how long it would take. Which maybe isn’t saying a lot, but still. A very much more diligent person than I wouldn’t even bother to try calculating it. We’re talking seriously miniscule, diminutive, lilliputian, wee.

It’s not infinitesimal. And the molecular soup was vast and the years were long. And the sun, as important in this thing as the second law of thermodynamics, kept shooting out cosmic Stuff. That thing is freakin’ relentless. Massive, colossal, enormous amounts of radiation came spewing through a thin atmosphere of noxious gases. It was global warming at its peak. Practically all the atmosphere was Carbons Dioxide and Monoxide, free hydrogen and water vapor. (This atmosphere, a reducing atmosphere, is only one theory, and does not rely on physical evidence. Though the geological record shows evidence for an oxidizing atmosphere for millions of years, it is current theory, based on modern geology, that without plants to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, there was no free oxygen.) Geological evidence shows that the Earth was very, very hot. The seriously questionable facets of the spontaneous creation of life lie mostly here: it’s really improbable. AND things just don’t assemble themselves, not with all the stuff they have to contend with.

Life is here, though. While it is vastly improbable with the amounts of ambient energy (not to mention all the other conditions) evident today, there is a lot of hydrogen and carbon on this planet, and it was all boiling. And there were storms and lava flows and a whole lot of other stuff that make today’s natural disasters look like cotillions. It was like a whole planet full of Doctor Frankenstein’s Laboratory. One giant freaking Petri dish. Any good skeptic, and any good scientist, has to tell you that this kind of evolution is far from proven—there are a few things that stand in the way, and the evidence is necessarily hard to come by, seeing that rocks this old are almost nonexistent, thanks to the aforementioned geological tumult. If you don’t believe in evolution, then you probably aren’t paying very close attention, but even if you don’t believe in molecules-to-man evolution, the evidence for subsequent evolution is overwhelming. We have opposable thumbs and vocal chords. We have vestigial tailbones. Evolution is, at heart, order from chaos. Even if you don’t believe in evolution of any kind, that’s fine. Look at any systems, economic, ethical, biological. In this pocket of the universe, things build. It is not always about intentional order, either, it’s about incidental order. It’s shards flying up from the floor and turning themselves into wineglasses. p.s. if you want to know more about the history of us, pbs rules.

Entropy has to increase. It’s not a suggestion, and while I’ve talked about violating it, you can’t REALLY violate it. Chaos -> order requires free energy. In most of the universe, you won’t find it. In the blackness of space, it’s cold. Things do nothing but die. Which means for the magic to continue, you have to live in the red. You have to spend more than you have.

The Earth is continually radiating heat into space. If you looked at it through the eyes of the Predator©®™, it’d be like a giant red ball compared to the blue of the space around it. We give off a lot of heat. It’s got a history of being hot. 4.3 billion years ago it was “a glowing red hot ball of seething magma.” (Check out The Heat History of the Earth for more information) Crazy. We are on an oasis of heat in a vast desert of almost inconceivable cold. And there is an immense amount of energy in this little oasis, and being blasted at our oasis. There is more than we can use. It goes to waste, it just fritters out into space and raises the local temperature from 2.725 to 2.7250001 degrees Kelvin. Because there is more energy than we can use, because there is a practically endless supply (at least for the next several billion years—which is 2,000,000,000 – 3,000,000,000 and humans have been around for 500,000 of that, so frankly, we have a few things to worry about before we worry about a lack) of free energy. It is raining pennies from heaven. It may be an unlikely situation, and it may not last forever, but for the time being, we have all that we could want to fight the fight against entropy.

Every day that we receive more energy than we can use is a day when we can build more than we need, that we can improve the status quo, make shards into wine glasses and scrap heaps into Boeing 747s. With enough energy, you can do just about anything! Alchemy is possible now, although it’s horribly inefficient. But inefficiency be damned. We’ve got an energy surplus and it’ll only last so long.

We have to conserve Earth’s resources. There are still things we can’t do, and there are species on this planet that are far better at storing energy than we are. And the sun can shoot all the energy it wants at us—if we don’t have plants here to fix it, then we’re in trouble, because try as I might, I can’t photosynthesize, can you? Some of our machines work pretty well, too. Hydroelectric power is essentially solar power, since the sun creates the water cycle. Geothermal power isn’t, but the Earth has enough heat to last 4 to 5 billion years—by which time the sun will have turned into a red giant, destroying the Earth anyway, so smoke em while ya got ‘em, I say. Tap that stuff. There’s only so much in the way of fossil fuels, which is basically stored solar energy, but if we can use the fossil fuels we have to increase our capacity to harness solar energy, then we can guarantee ourselves energy to spare for the rest of our blessed human existence.

Life in an energy surplus truly is blessed. Every day is better than the last. We live without fearing entropy. If we’re smart, there can always be plenty. People say that pleasure is relative, and it seems to play itself out. If cars were building themselves out of nothing, across the universe, there would be no pleasure in working to have one. That’s not the case, though. Most of the universe is bereft. Life as we know it, though, is essentially good, Blessed Redeemer or not. The very nature of our universe is that life is good.

Man, this crap is fascinating.

Thu, 11 Dec 2003 19:52:24 GMT

some days, the words that come to mind don't make any sense. but you gotta write them down anyhow. it's odd that there's so much anger and pain in my writing, because i'm generally an irritatingly upbeat person. i hope someone's enjoying these, but if not, well, it nicely kills the time.

-------------------------------------------------

the heart attack, it started.
last night.

it's hardening, disheartening. these people were artists.
their footsteps were rings around which we slept.
but i, but i, but i, but i,
i swear i never would've let this transpire
if i had had any clue what they meant to do.

grease on the veil,
keep your arms well inside the yellow line.
you want meaning, i'll give you meaning,
you little.
try this for size, your hands at your sides,
life is like a giant vise that cracks your arms,
leaves them shattered, hanging limply,
and no one call tell the difference,
not from looking. tubes of flesh
hold shards of glass, useless, shrieking,
painful to say the least.

find some meaning there. go play.

here's to your health,
i hope it treats you well,
please don't kill us all.

armed with asterisks and
plans to grind, he's stable...
and quite out of his mind.

hard as stone and sheltered
from the storm, they're hopeless...
they know they can't go home.

cable frays and snaps and
strangles sound. we stumble...
and end up on the ground.

armchair hands along with
armchair hearts. he's dying,
he sleeps in fits and starts.

do, dum, dee dum. dooooooo do, dum, dee dum.
watch the plane as we spin beneath
your feet and scramble out of reach,
there's no apology that you can hear
loud enough to drown out squealing fears.
in truth, they're not at all sorry.
if they had the chance they'd kill you again.
you should have seen the way you danced around,
your overeagerness will be your end.

you
can't be cool
if you
care at all,
so don't
care at all
so you
can be cool,
no, you
can't be cool
if you
care at all,
so don't
care at all
so you
can be cool.

some of us are doomed. we couldn't care at all, and it'd never be enough, we're always nothing.

in lieu of being cool, you learn to bleed, but loudly, again, and meaning it.

honestly, 1330.

Mon, 08 Dec 2003 21:46:04 GMT

honestly, 1330.

i am trapped in a song.
there are walls that are rolling,
with peals of laughter that change;
they filter out of pain and are replaced
with beautiful longing.

my hands are always there, in front of me.
i stare into vast distances,
but i swear i can't see a thing.

my nails are bitten to the quick.
honestly, i can't remember
how many times i've written down the words
the rhymes, the nouns and verbs that grasp at nothing
more than they grasp at my heart
and hold it down, as it breathes for air,
and falls asleep.

and i'm not sorry that i'm not changing.
i'm not sorry at all.

i am trapped in a place where i can't remember where i came from.
i can't even remember that i can't get out.

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 20:36:58 GMT

my stubborn heart

my heart is a heart that can go anywhere.
i sent it to you because i thought you'd like it,
but if you decide you haven't the time,
i just want to tell you:
i don't care.
i don't care.
i don't care.
my heart is a heart that can go anywhere.

my heart is a heart that can float on the air.
i sent it to you over a frozen sea.
i thought it might find a place warm over there.
but if you decide you haven't the time,
now that i realize you don't need a thing
and want nothing more than to be left alone,
i just want to tell you that i don't care.
i don't care, baby.
i don't care.
my heart is a heart that can float on the air.
i don't care.
i don't care, darlin'.
my heart is a heart that can go anywhere.

my heart is a heart that will never come down.
i handed it to you with a bow and a nod.
you thought it was better kept far underground,
so you dug it a hole and you covered it up.
you ran away and left it for dead.
that's okay, baby, i couldn't care less.
my heart is a heart that will never stay down.
it digs its way right back out of the ground.
i don't care, honey, no,
i don't care.
my heart is a heart that can go anywhere.

i don't care,
no, i don't care.
my heart is a heart that can go anywhere.

i fume.

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 16:26:59 GMT

be very angry.

there are people doing things in your name. things that would make you physically ill if you saw them happening. there are babies with no arms, children with no limbs, because people threw grenades or dropped bombs. and if you ask them they will say you asked them to.

that effing pisses me off.

be very afraid.

there are people who are mightier than god. because god doesn't exist. but rich people do. and they determine the path of the world to an inordinate degree. they make decisions that affect vast numbers of people. and they don't ask your opinion, not really. they can buy and sell your ass.

read a lot.

the less tv you watch, the less you'll have a fat ass. if the socially ingrained fear of physical unattractiveness isn't enough to motivate you, think about it this way. companies wouldn't give you free tv if they didn't think it was worth it. they invest millions in advertising because they get more in return. television isn't free. they've bred an army. everyone is at the gunwales, rowing his heart out, for sugar water and fried beef.

don't be like that. if you've got to be entertained, pay for it. that way you know what you're getting. or better yet, go to the library. you've already bought ALL THOSE BOOKS. everyone chipped in: clue to the clueless, so did you. therein lie the tools that will lead you to glory. you can cripple kings and tyrants with enough soap. or a long enough lever. or a loud enough voice or enough friends, romans and countrymen.

plus there are no commercials.

don't be afraid.

they may have been born into it, but that doesn't mean they're invulnerable. we've got a lot going for us. we're smart and we're angry, and we're afraid of what will happen if we don't. slavery doesn't exist because it was unjust. justice wins--it's got staying power. injustice can only last so long, it frays at the edges, it's a comet, burning itself alive, melting at the sides.

the proverbial flame of righteousness is one that stokes itself. it is a flame that burns without consuming. and everyone is tinder. set it all on fire.

and i'm not even political.

i'm just a guy. i like stuff. music and books and hanging out. goldfish - the cracker thingies. i like puppies and bunnies and kitties and babies and grassy knolls and sunsets and sunrises and the occasional fistfight for fun just because. i like beer and i find women attractive whether i like it or not, and i am in love.

i have never suffered and i have never been to war. i have lived happily and well. i have made mistakes and i have been irresponsible. i have done good things and i have acheived some things worth being proud of. i am not a dove and i am not a hawk. i am not pro-choice and i am not pro-life. i don't want to ever have to decide like that. i don't want to say "i'm not like that" any more. we cut ourselves apart, we align against each other and we are all of us DYING. i will not do that. i will NOT do that. i am just like you. I AM JUST LIKE ALL OF YOU. i am sad and i am tired and i am happy and i am well.

i'm just a guy. my parents taught me that if you're right, you're right. and they taught me how to know if i'm right. if nothing else, do no harm. etc. etc. etc. everyone gets this stuff. we're all on the same side, here, in theory.

so i don't believe in god and maybe that changes a lot. so you do. so what. let's not pick apart and decide why we should hate each other. instead, let's consider what we can all gain from coming together. from thinking alike. from talking about things.

i'm pissed off. i refuse to say vast sweeping statements about right and wrong, because it's never that simple. but doing nothing is still doing something, and is it really something you want to be doing?

let's not say "all these things are wrong" or "all that has to stop." instead let us say this is wrong and it has to stop.

maybe i'm pretentious, naive and misguided. i love you all. we must each do what we can.

Mon, 10 Nov 2003 20:00:09 GMT

life is so easy if you just quit trying

"Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me the most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come."

sticks and stars and ashtrays.
cars and fast desserts.
my hands are flashbulbs; i can't see the road.
and nothing never goes nowhere.
a plank on a wall, as many tennis balls,
hold it
for as long as
you can.

my toes are my artists,
the curb is my freeway. the axles are ankles,
the hands are fantastic,
relax and
just
let go.

watch the sun rise and set
it rises and sets
and rises-sets
and rises-setsandrises-setsandrisessets.
my irises burn after days we spend
in the grass with future so bright.
wrinkles are worn:

into leather
like birthday candle decorations where everything burns to the ground.

so you stand, leaning into the wind
at full attention and with your hands wrenched and limber
flags are parading around you, cascading
down to the ground. trampled upon, they end up torn
and forgotten for two hundred years. you can't slow down.
the brakes were born busted and the user's manual,
stupidly,
written in allegory. and metaphor.

i don't believe in metaphor. it's a liar. it's boring.
give me the blunt, unbridled truth and let me see if i make it.

carve a name into the passing air and see whether it matters.
there are lines, and there are lines, and there are lines,
and you can never list everything,
but you can sure as hell try.
And God, dear God, why, oh why, did I never learn to rhyme?
or have I merely for-gotten?

It waxes and wanes, and waxes
and wanes, and waxes and wanes,
and waxes.
And wanes. It waxes and wanes.
It waxes. It wanes and waxes.
It wanes.

My hands are tired and my nose is cold
and my heart is, as always, on fire,
it smolders this time, unstoked and downtrodden,
there's that old iris burn again,
my eyes are getting worse and I'm still young,
I'm smart enough, and I'm sorry, and I'm wrong.
How many lines can you hold it for, like sex,
holding onto it as long as you can, each one
feels good until you lose itttttt and you
wait for the rhythm to return. Your eyes closed,
you feel good, you try to figure out what's doing
what. She wishes she could know everything, the
same way that I wish the whole world before me
would come slamming into the back of my skull,
that I really were some kind of consummation,
that the weight of the world were on these
angular, sharp shoulders. She wants all the
answers. She wants to understand. There's an explanation,
she's right, for every natural disaster,
a rock that starts an avalanche, an epithet
that sets the night to ending up quite badly.

I wish I could give her the answers instead of buying her pop nonfiction. It's the best
I have to offer in compromised circumstances. I can tell her what I believe in, and it's
nothing. Your reasons presuppose something that I'll have no truck with:

It's in my ankles,
and the curb,

The angles I hold as I shoot off into the afternoon.

The lessons that come at the end of every sentence are liars.
They lie and they're liars. They lie.

They are liars and they lie. They're liars
and they lie. They are liars. They lie.
And their liars, they lie and they're liars.
They lie.

I'm in it. The drapery is draped across the drapery,
and this is a baseless globe I skirt around, aflame.

I bet you ten dollars I can hold ten tennis balls for ten minutes.
Let me up against that wall.

letter to Dick Cheney

Thu, 06 Nov 2003 18:58:50 GMT

From: Delaney, Jason
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 1:58 PM
To: 'vice.president@whitehouse.gov'
Subject: EPA lawsuits

Hi Dick.

I can appreciate the fact that you're trying to be considerate of your friends, that Ken Lay is only one of many buddies you made over a lifetime of business. I, too, have friends, and if I were in a position to help them out, I would do what I could. They're your friends--you want to help them.

Your position as Vice President of the most powerful, and the greatest, nation on earth, affords a unique opportunity to open doors for people, to cut through red tape. Along with that power, I hold you uniquely responsible for the fortunes and misfortunes that effect our great nation.

I consider it remarkable that you would appoint those who would benefit most from changes in environmental policy to positions where they would have influence over said policy, that you would choose advisers and consultants who have vested interest. It seems myopic at best, and criminal at worst.

We have entrusted our nation to you and our President, and I fear that that trust has been multiply betrayed. I doubt very much that you will ever read these words, or that you would take them to heart, even if you did. You didn't get to where you are by listening to the concerns of those who don't contribute to campaigns. Nonetheless, your decisions affect those around you, and while strategic agency-shuffling may protect you from prosecution under the laws of our great nation, I would like you and Mr. Bush to know that I still hold you responsible, in my heart, for every person who suffers as a result of air pollution.

There is only so much I can do, and I do it. Their blood is on your hands. Kick your heels together over the recent decision to drop the cases. I hope your stock goes up and that it keeps you warm at night, that you can spend it on something that will help you forget your dishonesty, your coldness, your inhumanity, the illness and deaths of our children and their children and their children's children. I sure am glad I will be able to someday buy my grandchildren a lot of cheap, poorly-made toys to take their attention away from the fact that they can't stop coughing. Lung cancer's not just a river in Egypt, my friend and fearless leader-in-vice.

Be a man, Dick. Prove me wrong. Prove me wrong.

Regards,
Jason

Jason Delaney
Citizen, Patriot
Baltimore, MD 21209
443.310.5511
jasonjdelaney@netscape.net

Tue, 04 Nov 2003 13:53:29 GMT

try not watching television for like 6 months. give it all up, in fact. stop watching tv, stop going to church, stop going to the movies or parties or whatever. if you're in school, taking something like 21 credits is a good time to try this, and you'll do really well in school.

then go back and see what happens. it's weird. not all of it, but lots of it.

take back the things you decide you like and cut loose the ones you don't.

if everybody did this, once every five years, then stupid traditions would die a well-earned death.

you know what's really creepy? if you ever get a chance to watch people watching tv--specifically sitcoms. it's CREEPY. seriously. they sit there, with a beatific smile on their face, then you hear the laugh track, then they laugh like convulsing and stop abruptly, back to the beatific smile. i've done, and seen people do, the same thing on hallucinogens and it was creepy then too.

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 18:13:44 GMT

I miss you already, Elliott. You were too good to be true anyway.