photo credit: Azalea Long

Check out this quote in the September 2008 edition of National Geographic in the Letters Section. He is writing in response to last month’s amazing feature about China:

In 1998 I was a 19-year-old student in Hangzhou, China. The doors were “open,” but no one really had come through them yet. I remember thinking, if everyone here lives like Americans, the planet is screwed. The photo of the suburbs is my prophetic nightmare realized. Jackson A. Long North Oaks, Minnesota

The greatest act I ever committed towards my understanding of social economics (which is still too involved and conceptualized for me to grasp on an expert level) was to read Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell.  In that book, the main thing I learned is that Economics is the allocation of scarce resources which have alternative uses.  It’s a battle for survival by securing the resources the planet offers for human life and comfort and it takes place on an unconscious level at all times around us every day.

The world cannot live like America does because America can’t live like America does.  My country has been living so far beyond the margins morally, politically and economically that it’s amazing we’ve made it this far.  One thing about my country–every citizen is still born with the heart of an immigrant along with a portion of their hunger.  We have heart.  The intellect is usually our short suit.  Not that there aren’t brilliant people here in my country–it’s just that they haven’t figured out a way to execute that brilliance in a team-based environment whose ultimate goal is social justice.

The second best thing I ever read was the book The Law by Frederic Bastiat.  That little book is an absolute blessing to the concept of social justice.  In it I learned that the fundamental source of all law is the individual’s inherent right to protect their lives and their property from infringement by other citizens.  In this Maxim of Human Law, it is established that a citizen’s property is an extension of their body and is protected by the fundamental right of self-defense.

From this individual right, each of us agrees to partition a little of it away to a social authority (The Executive Branch in our country).  Our Executive Branch enforces the laws that our Elected Representatives pass.  The current problem is that we have elected representatives who want to be career politicians and they go to Congress and rot away on the fat pockets of special interest groups.  And we have a judicial branch appointed by the Executive Branch and approved by the Legislative Branch.  All of these people are supposed to be creating and maintaining a social structure that allows as many individuals as possible to be protected in terms of their lives and their respective properties.

That’s all government was meant to do when America was founded not even one revolution of the comet Pluto around the Sun ago.  Like everyone else, we hit some hard times in the 20th Century.  We sacrificed almost a generation of our young men’s minds and hearts to a global war against tyranny.

The ironic result of all this is that, according to Bastiat, when the collective body of Law for any society steps over the boundaries of protecting peoples lives and property from being infringed upon  by other citizens; the social order has crossed the line of tyranny.  We will know when the people have taken back control of the process of government when you see the IRS abolished.  Seizing the product of someone’s labor before they even have an opportunity to barter with you on its value and their compensation for it; it essentially slavery.  Not to be too dramatic about it.  But on an intellectual level, we must agree on this.  According to Bastiat, when any governing body seizes a portion of someone’s payment for work they rendered, prior to them even receiving the funds–the Massa’ is still crackin’ dat whip.

Honestly, I have no idea what to do about the global economy.  That is neither my passion nor my expertise.  There are far brighter people out there capable of juggling these concepts even when they’re on fire.  But I do know that we must change our habits and living situations as Americans before we ask anyone else to.  With the evolution of digital entertainment delivery and social networking, there is no reason for the ridiculous amount of travel we have to do for business.  There is high definition delivery of video and audio for a reason–let’s  get smart and start using it.

We also need to outlaw plastic sacs at grocery stores and start carrying our shit out of the store the Costco Way and have our own boxes and bags available at the ready for getting them into our houses.  We need to pay off our unsecured debts–they eat away at our labor and curb our creativity.  These are my first draft suggestions but I’m open to the ideas of others as well.

In the end, pay what you owe and don’t step on your neighbor’s toes–this is the fundamental definition of creating social justice in your world.

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In 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a paragraph and murdered religion.  Sure, it was a slow death but a death it was.  He wrote:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

He predicted that in the absence of religion as an organizing force of society, the Will to Power would rise first in nations and then in individuals who would lead those nations.  He didn’t predict the exact personalities and I’m talking FDRStalinHitlerMussoliniChurchill blues here people.  But he did a pretty solid job of calling the rules of the game.  And those leaders during WWII had some serious power, Jack.  And they each brought it about by willing it to be so.  If you’ve never read the book Will by G. Gordon Liddy (of Watergate and talk radio fame), go pick up a used copy today; that dude forgot more about willing a situation  into  order than you’ll ever know, scrub–so don’t even try to compete.

The Will to Power was all that existed to compensate for the subcutaneous insurrection that took place when Nietzsche declared the idea of god, the image we each have in our minds, to be deceased and dysfunctional.

Joseph Campbell once gave the best explanation of the problem with religion.  He said something like: God, the word “God,” is a metaphor which points to a mystery that absolutely transcends all our knowledge.  The categories of thought which break reality into constituent individualites which are then analyzed and responded to cannot contain the experience of what the word “God” is pointing towards–something completely beyond our knowing.  The great mystery.  The void.  Sunyasha. Paradise.  Heaven. Bliss.  Nirvana.  Shall I go on?

Listen to the Tool song Lateralus and you’ll feel what I’m talking about on this.

Anyway, Campbell continued by saying that if you want to think about God you may say, “Is God one or many?”  One or many–these are concepts still within the categories of thought, what the Indians call Maya.  The metaphor is pointing to something–and you can’t even say “thing” because things are in time and space.  It’s pointing to some transcendent unknown beyond the entire structure and nature of our five senses and ability to analyze.  Campbell taught that all religions were constellations of metaphor and ritual which when acted within could put the individual into accord with this unknowable reality.

And the difference between an atheist and a theist is that the theist believes these religious constellations to be historical facts that actually happened and aren’t just symbolic of a higher truth we can all reach through different methods of worship and thought.

And the atheist knows that the metaphors are not facts, so they’re lies (hence, “God is Dead”).  Both theists and atheists are slaves to the Petulant Worship of Faith or Reason which have nothing to do with reality in the moment.  With truth for its own sake.

So once you see the structure and nature of experience and its ending (death) as an accepted fact, you understand that the purpose and meaning of the metaphor is pointing toward infinity  and you can be chill with it like John Coffey in The Green Mile.

What happens when you sit with something or someone long enough?  You get to know them.  How many of us are brave enough to say we’ve really sat down with death and accepted it for the concrete steel titanium fact that it is?

And finally accepting it, doesn’t a great freedom spring up in the moment?  Can’t you feel it in your chest lifting you, prompting you to breathe in and capture this moment like a Ferrigno biceps flex with both arms.

Who knew it could be so liberating finding out and accepting every one of us is on death row without reprieve and that we have an opportunity to rattle our cups against the cage and make some good old fashioned fucking noise before we go?

We then may look around ourselves and see our children for the blessings of energy, commitment, and love that they are.  Thank any deity you can toss a corn hole bag at if you have someone at home who loves you unconditionally and will take whatever bullshit you’re dishing out assuming you’re willing to accept theirs also.

The Will to Power will finally die out in the early years of the 21st century and good riddance.  The light of Science may yet shine on our society in benevolent ways instead of the malicious shadow its been casting since the Gatling gun was invented.

Science as an institution is based at its core on constantly proving itself wrong and challenging its fundamental precepts in order to move forward and gain a larger and deeper understanding of the outer space universe of sociology, physics, and biology.  And I can feel a new social-spiritual uprising upon us, a phenomenon which intelligent historians and sociologists like Paul Johnson (my favorite historian by far) call “Great Awakenings.”

I submit that we are in the presence of the beginning swell of the next Great Awakening in the history of our human species and that this one will wipe clean the hatred, bigotry and unforgivable ignorance currently plaguing our collective mind.  It will neutralize, once and for all, the Will to Power as the primary driver of human social and psycho evolution and bring on the age of the Micro Tribe, a social unit of physical and technological structure where we draw circles of trust around ourselves and those we love and interact with the world through these trust fields.  Compassion and reason will be the currency of this new age while fear and ignorance collect dust in the back our minds and hearts.

Elysian Fields are there for individuals with enough courage to sit with and accept the ultimate fact of existence–death.  And despite the inevitable destruction of oneself, still see beyond it to the enormous opportunity of seizing this moment to live a life of betterment for yourself and all of those around you.

Peace and prosperity don’t just happen.  They have to be willed into existence at the same time by a lot of people.

So what the fuck are you waiting for?

Photo Credits:

1. photo credit: Blanco-Larsson
2. photo credit: Rubink1
3. photo credit: citizen higgs
4. photo credit: deep_schismic

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The quality of food I eat is important to me. Three years ago, my wife and I made a decision to cut all foods out of our diets that contain High Fructose Corn Syrup. That shit is of the devil and is a poisonous scourge on the land. A year or so ago, we made the move to organic foods wherever possible even when it meant spending more money. Costco has made this choice immensely easier on us as they carry many brands of high quality organic foods. Then one of my boys at work suggested to me that I read The Omivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan (see link in sidebar) and this book is seriously fucking with my head.

First of all–everything we eat is based on corn. Corn is fed to cattle, to chickens, to pigs and corn is the major source of all food additives. And our corn production is, of course, based on non-renewable fossil fuels. That’s the bad news.

The worse news is that the industrial corn-based mass food production model is also loaded up with pesticides, carcinogens, butane in some cases and shit that is needed to preserve the foods during their transport all over the world (also based on fossil fuels). 1/5th of all oil use in our country goes to the processing and transportation of our food supply. Add to this the awful treatment of cows, pigs, and chickens as they are bred in captivity in tightly confined areas, sleeping, eating, living and dying in their own shit which inevitably gets into the processing of the meat and must be irradiated to mitigate its illness-inducing effects (sometimes resulting in death).

The organic movement, while perhaps morally superior than the industrial, has itself become a victim of industrialization. Even though the majority of organic foods and meats may be without hormones, antibiotics and the treatment of the animals can be marginally better–the foods still have to transported using fossil fuels and the same methods of transportation and cold storage the fully industrial model uses.

This is something that has been eating at me for a while–the absolute unsustainable model of food production. Sure, it’s nice to have the choice of nine million items at the grocery store but when eight million five hundred thousand of those items are essentially corn broken down to its basic elements and rebuilt and repackaged as if they were true variety; is it worth the magnanimous cost to the environment and our own personal health?

And I think about buying local–fruits, vegetables, milk and meat with the realization that I would be on the surface giving up some variety in exchange for the peace of mind of knowing the beef I’m eating came from one cow or that the ear of corn I’m eating was pulled from the ground by a Mexican migrant worker hired by a native Ohio farmer.

Any of you have any experience in this area or have an opinion about eating organic locally?

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So apparently, Ron Paul’s a racist (hat tip to Infidel753).  At least that’s what the smear meisters out there want us all to believe.  Paul was editor of a newsletter back in the late 80s that had some morally questionable viewpoints espoused.  Here’s the thing–Paul didn’t write the articles himself, at least none that I’ve read.  Just because PBS airs a special on abortion or Creationism doesn’t mean it supports either position.  I thought we lived in a country where the free exchange of ideas (even bad ones) is heralded as the mark of the intelligent.

I’ve said this before–I don’t care whether Paul believes that little purple men seeded the planets with the super sperm of a carsniferious snagblot and that the secret to life is, in fact, the number 42.  I care about whether the man would allow his beliefs to permeate his politics and undermine the Constitution.  See, the 9th Amendment is something that far too many politicians (and disastrously even more citizens) forget about and it is something which needs to be brought back to the forefront of modern thought.

Speaking of modern thought–it turns out that the  real reason that Warner went Blue-Ray had less to do with siding on the better positioned format (HD-DVD is a much more marketable name than Blue-Ray in my opinion although both are similar in performance) and more with a $400 million dollar payola it received from Sony after the $120 million dollar envelope was passed to Fox and they turned.  It seems the whole loss of Betamax back in the 80s has stuck in Sony’s craw and they aren’t about to let their Blue-Baby go the way of those short video tapes.  If you ask me, the whole thing stinks and I’m sticking with HD-DVD for now (I believe hybrid players are going to make the whole bullshit affair moot very shortly).

And finally, to the three arsholes who filed a $5,000,000 lawsuit against Microsoft for the problems that XBox Live has had over the past month or so–grow up you selfish pricks!  We all went through it.  We all were forced to play our solo campaigns while the Live servers went through their growing pains.  We all sucked it up and so should you have, you litigious whiny little thumbsuckers.  Now, thanks to you, we don’t get any information on what the problem was and how the Live team is marshaling their resources to solve it.  I appreciated Major Nelson’s and e’s candor and open exchange. They admitted it wasn’t acceptable and made honest efforts to communicate why to us.  Now, thanks to you, we’ve entered into a litigious hell hole where nobody talks, nothing gets communicated, and we’re in the dark.

Seriously guys, knock it off.  The world is filled with too many lawsuits and we just want to game.  Have faith that the Live team will do what’s right and get everyone back into the Team Deatmatch we all love so deeply.

Since I like to end things on a note of absolute coolness–watch the new Star Trek XI teaser trailer.  Enjoy your weekend everyone, I’m laying wood down in my first floor and will be incommunicado for a couple dizzays.

Peace!

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I knew this kid when I was growing up, his father was a taxidermist and he stuffed all the family pets when they died. They had five or six stuffed dogs, a couple cats and a turtle. I remember being completely creeped out seeing these glass-eyed former Rovers and Dixies and Buttercups, but now I’m thinking I didn’t appreciate the opportunity for character study.

I mean what the fuck was his father thinking?

Yesterday, we finally went and viewed the Bodies exhibit in Easton here in Columbus. I have heard about this exhibit for years and have wanted to see it since I first heard about cadavers in various stages of dissection being posed dribbling basketballs, writing at desks, and conducting an orchestra. It took us two hours to complete the tour and by the end, I was just numb from viewing body parts. I had seen enough sliced down the middle penises and siloconized vulvas to last me a life time.

A lot of this was stuff I already knew, having spent two years in Pre-Pre-Med as an undergrad (yes, you read that right–I was a science major with emphasis towards Pre-Med before Chemistry 2 bit me in the boo boo and knocked my life for a loop). But there were two factoids that escaped my past study of the human machine and blew my mind yesterday.

1. Every drop of blood in the body goes through the heart once per minute: This is a bit unnerving to me, thinking of all the blood in my body squirting through my veins and arteries every second so that each drop hits all the chambers of the heart once a minute.
2. Each human being spends 30 minutes as a single cell before mitosis begins: For some reason, this really puts the conflict of the individual into perspective for me. It seems we spring from this unicellular source and spend the rest of our lives fighting against the constant divisions that upset us each day, trying to get back to that sense of oneness that poets put distance between themselves and it with words and what the true mystics aren’t telling anyone about.

Was the exhibit a bit gross? Not to me but I could see where some people have problems with it. Do I care about the rumors that most of the bodies were supplied via Chinese hard labor prisons? Not really. I like to think that their bodies after death are worth more to our species than they would be rotting away in some prison graveyard in the East somewhere.

All in all, viewing bodies was an enjoyable learning experience that I would recommend.

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