Vector...damn near killed her.

A vector is an element that has potential. In addition to standard spacial coordinates, symbolic or otherwise, a vector contains transitional data which indicates a known past and an expected future. It represents motion in stasis.

It was the end of something...

There was a fire and the boyhood christmas sock was lost to the world. If I couldn't let go the regret for the things I've lost, I couldn't go on.

The takeaway

The key to any relationship is good writing. I think that's the one real thing I learned about life from a lifetime in front of a television. It wasn't that the good guys are the ones in white hats. Or that mountains are moved and contracts are signed in 23 minutes of hard work without commercial interruption; and it's certainly not that the right girl comes along but she thinks you're a pig and maybe you are but you can change if you have the hourlong format and so you live happily ever after when she finally comes to her senses. None of that is real; in fact, it's probably recklessly unreal.

But the point of the great romance narratives is not to be blinded by the fantasy, it's to be inspired by it. No one is going to write your love story but you--so be sure you picked a good co-writer.

starter

The wind blew the door shut. With a crash, the room was silent.

idea

(type)cast

socrates sez,

A wise man is certain of nothing, except that he's a fool.

Lord of the Rings Epilogue

"If you read the books you might be pissed off at us right now. we get it. We just wanted to remind you that it was awesome." -Jackson

Sci-Fi title

Slave Mines of Earth


-- Mobile and Free

QUESTION: How do stories end up in the New York Times?

ANSWER: They don't. Stories never end up in the New York Times, that's where they start.

If the New York Times collapsed, powerful interests would lose a valuable tool for manipulating the public memes. It would, however, also have other serious (unknowable) repercussions because society would lose a major pillar of the public trust. Trustworthiness notwithstanding, society might need these central culture hubs to self-orient and maintain a baseline for judgment or legitimation.

If it goes, it will be one of the last links to the great, universal levers of power from the gilded-age that dominate our recent history. This is undeniably the paper that has launched a thousand tumults across the globe. The grey lady whispers her dirty secrets and foreign governments fall. "This man's a communist." "That woman is corrupt." "Those tubes are nuclear." or "That cloud is mushroom."

She is the trophy wife of power. Trained to speak, only when spoken to.

Rapport

Half the understanding in the world is misunderstanding.


-- Mobile and Free

Greenspan and herpes

Geenspan says that extending bush tax cuts is a bad idea. Too bad he couldn't figure that out ten years ago.

That's how you get rid of herpes.

How you get rid of herpes is you figure out it's a bad idea BEFORE you get you get fucked.


-- Mobile and Free

Republican Obstructionism

Jim Coons: Republicans: for tax breaks and small businesses, as long as Democrats are against them.

Seriously, what positive reason is there to vote Republican? What ideas do they have, what policies would they enact?

Small-Business Bill Falters on Senate Partisanship - NYTimes.com

www.nytimes.com

The procedural blockade underscored how determined Republicans are to deny Democrats any further victories.

Cathal Duffy: Why can't Dingy Harry through the Republicans a few amendments?

Cathal Duffy: And by the way... as a small business owner myself, I'm just loving the new health care legislation which now requires that I file a 1099 on every entity I pay more than $600 in a year... I don't need government loans to run my business, I need them to get the hell out of the way.

Rich Cleland: well, Cathal, that was one of the amendments that was being considered before Republicans killed the bill. So you can blame the GOP for that.

Republicans were not being shut out of the debate, they wanted to stop the debate altogether by tacking on amendments that were irrelevant to getting money flowing again to small businesses. Your 1099 reform was sacrificed to keep up the Republican blockade, which is their strategy to keep Congress from doing its job ahead of the 2010 election because they've coldly calculated that scorched earth is a net win for them.

Nuclear loan guarantees? Border security? More welfare for the mega rich? These are contentious issues added to the bill not so they could pass, but so the bill would fail.

Maybe you don't need capital access to keep your own business afloat and hey, why the hell should you care if other small business owners can't keep their doors open and their employees paid. Certainly the megabanks that shut down small business lending and horde the public money they got last year don't care. why should anyone in America give a crap if it doesn't affect them?

Because it does affect all of us. 10% unemployment is not just emotionally and financially devastating to the families without jobs; it keeps those families from spending money in your business which stops your business from spending money in someone else's. That's what makes prosperity contagious.

And if that's not direct enough for you, remember to thank the Republicans when you're filling out all those 1099s next year because they're the ones who wanted to talk about nuclear loan guarantees instead.

Cathal Duffy: Rich, you do raise some good points, even in a harsh tone! I think some republicans are running a "stall everything" campaign, and I disagree very much with this approach. I've always believed you win elections with ideas, not simply by running an "at least I'm not him" campaign. But I also think the Democrats are shutting out any chance of bipartisanship by ruling as a "we won the election so we'll do what we want" type regime. But this issue is much larger than one bill, for example recess appointments according to the President himself and many of his fellow democrats were a usurpation of the constitution merely 2 years ago, now they're just fine... Similarly Judicial appointments deserved an up or down vote according to Mitch and the boys a few years ago and now we can filibuster them as much as we want...

While you do make some good points, some of your other points aren't based in reality in my opinion. Have you ever tried to get assistance from the small business administration who administers the guarantees on these loans? Not exactly the bastion of efficiency... and are you aware that the biggest recipients of the "Bush tax cuts for the wealthy" are small business owners, the same you claim you wish to help, yet they're all facing the highest tax increase in history because of the President's and the Democrats desire to allow them to sunset at the end of this year.... It is my prediction that if these tax cuts are allowed to sunset, 10% unemployment will look desirable compared to what will become the economic reality.

And let me get this straight, I should blame Republicans for not supporting a mega bill because it contained one amendment that would have negated an absolutely absurd requirement on small businesses, that was put in place by Democrats to begin with under the guise of "We don't need to read the healthcare bill, we'll find out what's in there after it's enacted"... Not exactly sound logic if I'm honest.

Andrew Hosek: Here's what you do to eliminate any hassle: eliminate any and all tax credits but lower the base tax rate across the board.

Rich Cleland: I apologize for the tone. It is a reaction to my disbelief that anyone still considers the GOP as a legitimate public entity operating in good faith with the objective to make America great for everybody instead of acting for the express interests of only a small, powerful, and wealthy elite.

For the record, I don't reserve judgment for Republicans alone. Many Democrats have been enthralled in the snare of money and power set by people who don't care who's in Washington as long as they are in power. But, while I can still identify Democrats who are operating against those interests, it's more difficult to find a steadfast people's Republican these days.

I get bipartisanship that tries to find compromises and test out new ideas that will hopefully make everyone succeed, but I'm curious to know how you engage in bipartisanship with someone who's goal is to get you to fail. "Why yes, in the interest of working together, I think i will drink a little of your poison. Just as a show of good faith." That's insane. And it is a false controversy that the Republicans have ginned up to make hay and cover up their true agenda.

Is it your opinion that the GOP really added nuclear loan guarantees and border security to a small business bill because they thought that was good for the bill?

Recess appointments? Blah. I won't get into this except to say that not all are created equal. Making a recess appointment to put a butt a seat that has been vacant for over a year is not the same as making a recess appointment because you can't get enough votes to make a guy who wants to destroy the UN our national representative to that body. And anyway, this has a direct corollary to my point above about the GOP calculation that Republicans win when government fails. Keeping organizations headless is a great way to make sure that happens.

What happens when you spend decades electing people who say the government is the problem? They get into office and prove themselves right. You tell me the SBA is inefficient. Fine. Is the rational response to abolish it? When the car is broken do you throw it away saying, "anyway, cars were a bad idea." ?? Efficiently or inefficiently, it is helping people. And it could have probably helped more if it wasn't for border security.

Taxes. So the story goes, if we don't continue the Bush tax cuts, the economy will fail. That sounds like extortion! The same extortion scam they used to ram through the cuts in the first place. If we don't cut taxes on the wealthy, we won't have any job growth. Well, we cut taxes for the wealthy and job growth was flat for a decade and wages did not keep up with inflation even though workers squeezed out sizable increases in productivity.

Taxpayers making at or under $250K annually will not have their taxes raised. If a "small" business is making more than that, I say, great, they've had a break for 10 years, hope they used it well because the people simply can't continue to subsidize their affluence.

Also, it can be very effective for politicians to use talking points like "the biggest tax increase in history" unburdened from the necessity of context. The current tax rate is lower than when Reagan was in office. Capital gains taxes at their current level are a joke. Hedge fund managers have sweetheart tax deals they bought out of congress. Should we not rectify that disparity? Is restoring balance to the system impossible if it requires actually making things fair?

Banks have a problem. They are still carrying a ton of bad debt on their books. To mitigate the effect of this on their books and limit shareholder outrage, they have invested the huge sums of money the american people lent to them into treasury bonds. Which is great for them because they have a steady return rate and so the holes on the balance sheets are harder to see.

This works out well for everybody...on wall street. Banks are protected, but they don't loan any money to small businesses because they need it to keep their books looking balanced. The American people get a great deal because they are now on the hook to pay interest to the banks on the treasury bonds that were bought with interest-free taxpayer money in the first place.

The SBA may be inefficient, but i don't think it's bank-malicious. It doesn't shock me that the government, in attempting to address this problem, would try to use the tools at it's disposal to accomplish what the private sector is refusing to do for itself...to the detriment of millions of its citizens.

The health care bill was bipartisan. It included a lot of provisions that Republicans have traditionally supported for decades (it has mandatory insurance, tort reform, exchanges, and hey, it's not single-payer). It just doesn't look bipartisan because, when it came time to work together for America, the Republicans went back to their calculators. If you remember, there was no room to fix anything in the bill because of obstruction from business interests (who have influence on both sides, to be sure) who wanted to be allowed to continue their assault on us unincorporated citizens.

I think what guided my tone most sharply was the sense i got from your response that if it doesn't affect you, it's not your problem. These are our problems. Corporations and the individuals who run them want you to keep your eye on your own prise. They cloud the information channels with noise and distraction to keep people from finding out how much they have co-opted the government for their own money trough. They shout "Highest tax increase ever," "death panels," and "un-American President" so that people won't have time to stop and take stock of the situation to see who's running off with the silverware.

The Republican party governs by fear and promotes selfishness. They tell me that if i don't give in and keep subsidizing the wealthy, i may lose my job. Well, people lost their jobs anyway.

You tell me, what have the Republicans done for America in the last decade?

Cathal Duffy: ?"because the people simply can't continue to subsidize their affluence. " A tax cut from 36% to 33% means "the people" subsidize "their" affluence, What exactly do you call the 50% of the population that pays ZERO federal income tax? Who's subsidizing who? You want small businesses to create jobs, yet you want small business owners to pay higher taxes... Good luck with that economic policy.

"Pass my stimulus package or unemployment might go above 8%"... Govern by fear? Extortion?

Rich Cleland: so wait. 50% don't pay any taxes and that's bad, but we should extend the bush tax cuts so they can continue to not pay any taxes which would be good?

Cathal Duffy: I'll take your refusal to answer the question "who's subsidizing who" as an admission of defeat. Good day, I've enjoyed it.

Rich Cleland: Good one. I missed the rules about "no-answer-backs." :)

Actually, I wanted let you clear up that problem in your logic before I continued...though I admit i am defeated.

Look. The government made a deal with you and everybody else who got those tax cuts. The deal was that tax cuts skewed to favor wealthier people would pay for themselves in increased tax revenues from economic growth. We the government fronted the cash for this little social experiment.

Results. The last ten years have not been good for the economy. They have not been good for job growth. They have not been good for wages. And they have not paid the government back for its investment in this scam.

Ok. Ha ha, jokes on me, you took my money. I get it. Good one. Better luck next time and all...

Now, I'm not asking for you give it back, but I think it's ok to ask you to stop taking it.

That 50% is as much people who don't make enough money to pay the government as it is people who make too much to pay the government. And the latter costs us way more.

while you're grousing about the people below you getting too much from you, you can bet your small business bottom dollar that there are big corporations out there, maybe competing with you, that pay less. And they vote Republican, too.

You want to know who subsidizes? It's both of us. We are both paying the system to beat us. If not in taxes or brand name shoes, then in some other way. If not now, then for everyone we will care about until the end of this country.

Take this as my admission of defeat. It is again clear to my why I cannot win. I'll even swear that I would like to see 20 more years of Republican leadership in this country. 20 years of GOP rule would do more for the progressive cause than 200 years at the hands of the Democrats.

Andrew Hosek: Rich, with regards to the "social experiment" of employing the Laffer Curve, there isn't an economist in the world who would agree with you that it doesn't exist. There is some debate as to where the curve lies, but good luck finding anyone that denies it exists.

The last ten years being 'not good for the economy' has little to do with the 'social experiment' that began roughly 30 years ago. It has much more to do with a Federal Reserve that pushed lax monetary policy, creating bubbles all over the map.

You and I can wholeheartedly agree that subsidizations are a problem. You would fight them on the grounds that they "harm the little man". I would fight them on the grounds that they create bubbles... Tax breaks are not subsidies, by the way--in principle nor effect. Eliminate tax credits but lower the base tax rate to a flat percentage and no special interest group can dominate anything, as well as you'd find increased productivity across the board...

Both parties are the problem, Democrats and Republicans alike. I have no allegiance here. The problem we often face is laying blame. We're more defensive of party and some supposedly high principle than we are of any sort of science of economics.

Side note: With regards to the myth of "all the wealthy being Republican", this is utterly false. Take a look on JSTOR in the political science section for studies on this matter. You'll find the commonly perpetuated myth thoroughly quashed by the numbers.

Rich Cleland: As I said, you win. Give us more and heaps of it.

However, I'm sorry for suggesting all rich people are republicans. That was not the point that I was trying to make, nor is the idea you construed from it relevant to my argument.

I am sorry my intent was poorly expressed; though, I think you may have misquoted me there.

Andrew Hosek: ?"...big corporations out there, maybe competing with you, that pay less. And they vote Republican, too."

The implication, given the whole conversation about the half that DON'T pay was that the wealthy/"Corporate America" all vote Republican

Rich Cleland: like i said. i'm sorry i was not clear. When i said that people vote Republican, I mistakenly thought it was understood that I didn't mean all the people, especially considering the inherent weakness of such a patently false argument and the fact that it was not necessary for me to claim it to make my point.

Nevertheless, I understand why you might think i did. I wasn't clear enough, so you misunderstood.

If you want me to explain my actual point further, feel free to message me.

Jim Coons: Wow... I forget to check facebook for a day and shit goes crazy!

My point with this was less the substance of the proposal (though I can't believe there are actually people who think the bill itself was a bad idea), and more the wholly disingenuous political wrangling perpetrated by the GOP here. (I'm repeating Rich's first comment here, but with the point of bringing the conversation back from the economics of it, toward the politics of the vote.) In point of fact, there was a bill up for a vote that contained a number of provisions that Republicans have called for over the past months. It was voted down not because they disagreed with it, but because they weren't allowed to offer irrelevant amendments. I'm choosing my words carefully here, so I mean it when I say: that's a mega-shitty move. Incredibly shitty. Both for the people who needed the benefits provided by this bill, and frankly, on the level of ethics. It's deceitful, cynical, and endlessly shitty.

I'd love to find someone to disagree with me here so I can argue with them. Please?

Jim Coons: PS - on the GOP's aforementioned shittiness, see the post from today about Andrew Weiner's floor speech, when the GOP blocked a vote to provide medical benefits to 9/11 first responders (which really happened - again, try to defend that one, I dare you).

Sound bites

Given enough rope, anybody you want to fight, will hang themself.


-- Mobile and Free

Lenin in Zurich

forgotten history is full of people who lived out of their time.

Immigration

You know you have a problem when the poor can't even afford to live poorly.

Do you think the Romans had problems with slaves trying to sneak into their provinces looking for work? And if not, does that mean people could always find enough to survive where they lived? Until now.


-- Mobile and Free

Haight actually

-- Mobile and Free

Media effects 2

Media has an effect. Multi-billions of dollars in branding and marketing put an end to opposition on this matter starting 50 years ago if don't count the fascists who showed the world the power of propaganda. If we researches have found it to be ellusive it's because of the weakness of our tools or the strength of our paradigm.

If the strength of the effect depends on the individual, then we should make a careful study of the messages to find what possible effect they could convey and set x to be the unknown amplifier indicating the size of the effect.

"This is a giraffe." is not indicative of "hatstand, football, tack," but it might be persuasive next to "this is a camel." (weird)

The point is that a message text conveys a number of things but not an infinite number of things. By studying the use of language in a body of text, it is possible to discover the range of possible effects. It is these ELEMENTAL effects, irrespective of the IMPACT effect, that can be cataloged and evaluated as positive or negative when applied to a particular perspective; in this case, to evaluate the potential for attention-getting protest to net positive elemental effects from media coverage of the event.

You can develop a sense attitudinal directions from the text and plot out a trajectory for variable impact effects based on clustering of attitude types. The important thing is to find out what is being said in the aggregate.

-- Mobile and Free

Media effects

Media and messages have effects. Those effects may be collosal or even notable for their absence. The dependant variable in the equation is the single changeable element which has variance possibly approaching N. Based on these idiosyncratic states, which could last for a moment or a lifetime, people are variably entranced or inured by the media of messages.

It has been suggested that messages can be less effective once someone has already accumulated some knowledge on a subject. That is why I recommend forming as many opinions as possible to protect yourself.

-- Mobile and Free

Equivocation

Tyrany for the right reason does not become acceptable because it is not tyrany for the wrong reason.

-- Mobile and Free

The law

When you make petty laws, you make the law petty.


-- Mobile and Free

Discussions on a French bill proposing to ban burkas

Lauren Konopka posted this link.

Tuesday at 3:21pm

Rich Cleland: I don't know how they can act like this and still consider themselves on the side of liberty.

Tuesday at 6:38pm

Lauren Konopka: I agree...

Tuesday at 7:49pm

Chris Clague: probably not quite sober enough to provide a properly lucid response here, but are you saying the veil is a good thing?

23 hours ago

Lauren Konopka: I'm conflicted about veiling, especially from a non-Muslim western woman's perspective. It's certainly not something I'd want to wear, and my first reaction is to find it oppressive and when I see a woman covered in that manner, I have to admit I feel uncomfortable. But I also think it's pretty extreme to ban facial veils in public in this manner. Seems like a violation of civil liberties, and yet another move to further erode relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. What's your take on it? It's a tough one...

23 hours ago

Rich Cleland: I'm inclined to agree with the sentiment that the veils are a device of the patriarchal control infused into the religious doctrine of Islam for a number of reasons, including social control...something endemic in most Western religions from that era.

That said, my concept of liberty includes the freedom to practice your devotions to your god as you see fit (short of extremes like human sacrifice, etc...which, whatever that threshold is, is a long way away from covering your face). If a government says you can't go to church on Sunday or that you must work during Yom Kippur, I don't think that government is invested much in the spirit of liberty.

I agree with Lauren that this bill likely will greatly strain relations between the French and Muslims. Add it to the rules already in place forbidding head covers for school children in France (of course, insuring that Muslim kids stay out of secular schools and go to madrases instead, oops) and the ban on building minarets in Switzerland. It's part of the reactionary response to the changing demographic landscape of Europe (which is necessary because "traditional" Europeans stopped having enough babies to support their economic system).

In France, the cultural problems arise also from two places not directly related to Islam, 1) is a latent suspicion of all religion that is residue of the machinations of the Catholic in France in conjunction with the Monarchy and 2) the desire for comforting homogeneity runs deep. Someone once described to me the French idea of "Liberte" is not the same as the general American sense of the word in that (and i confess i don't really understand how this works, but...) the French take it to mean something like "the freedom to be French."

anyway, that's my $.02.

21 hours ago

Chris Clague: Being something of a wooly liberal (or a dangerous radical in Tea-Party parlance), I'm of the live and let live point of view. I have no objection to people practicing their religion, but I do object when they impose it on others. I don't like the veil from a oppression/control angle, but my beef is also that when worn in Western society it ignores/is insensitive to our customs.

When somebody wears a mask (or a hoodie or whatever) it is perceived (rightly or wrongly) that they either have something to hide or are being in some way deceitful. We place an awful lot of value when communicating on facial recognition/response which is impossible. I guess you could try using skype but where the other party can see you, but you can't see them! It feels like you are at an immediate disadvantage.

I don't know how widely reported it was in the states, but we had a wanted criminal escape the country here as he wore his wife's Burka through passport control and this was allowed, which is patently ridiculous.

The French have made a great effort to separate state from religion (for example, you can't get married in a church!), and I guess this is a logical extension of that process. I think it's a positive thing. Sorry I couldn't be more eloquent in my argument though!

5 hours ago

Rich Cleland: Chris, I entirely agree that it is an unacceptable lapse to allow people through security without making a visual reference check between the identification and individual. It seems impossible to believe that there were not some measures that could be put in place to work with the Islamic practice in airports. But that seems more a rebuke of inept airport security officials rather than an injunction against religious adherences.

As to the competitive advantage to be gained from wearing a burka around people who remain exposed, I'm not sure it is a net advantage in the end. In any event, I try not to view my day-to-day interactions with people in terms of personal advantage or disadvantage because of the negative influence I found that line of thinking has on my well-being. I found it to be a psychological relief to discover that the vast majority of people i will come across in my lifetime do not wish me ill or even feel we are engaged in some sort of competition.

In addition, I'm not afraid for my customs. They are strong, and even so, I look forward to how they evolve and grow from interaction with others.

A free society is not judged by how well it tolerates its people going with the flow, rather it is judged by how it acts when they start to rub. The gain we receive from living in a free society is the opportunity it affords to learn about ourselves and others when our ways are put into contact.

Aside from liberation from fear and opportunity for personal growth, there is the inevitable downside to cultural apartheids. When governments through their citizens systematically disenfranchise a population from their opportunity of equal participation in the public sphere, it can't later be chagrined when those people reject its authority.

Of course people reject tyranny. When there are enough of them, they do something about it, until then, they make plans to do something about it. Ultimately, the only way to receive respect is to give it bravely.

I would further add that walking down the street is hardly a state affair. Denuding this activity of personal religious expression is hardly a matter of a separation for church and state.

The effect of the French bill if it passes will be to engender false security and puff up the ridiculous cultural imperialist mentality through government sanction while stoking the feelings of alienation and fulfilling the dark prophesies of radical extremists who are empowered through government censure.

In the end, great, the offense is removed from the streets! Instead, those women in the burkas sit at home, increasing their isolation with even less opportunity experience our customs and possibly be changed by them too.

I think this is the long view. I think that this is how a free society is supposed to function. I think the answer to ending terrorism is to just stop terrorizing first and then see what happens. And frankly, i'm tired of people, wooly or otherwise, not seeing it my way! :)

Kill the hydra?

Corporations have spent the last 50 years creating reasons for people to hate us. They have travelled all over the world taking the profits without paying the costs.

And now, when those people come to collect on the damages, those same companies are right there to sell us the shit we need to defend ourselves.

Fucking convenient.

-- Mobile and Free

Rabbit chopping

I don't know why they talk about chickens with there heads cut off.


-- Mobile and Free

A thing

Histories are only written by people with a future.


-- Mobile and Free

The Future

future	119 up, 18 down
	buy future mugs, tshirts and magnets A period of time that you presently want to be in be in because of the wonderful theories and concepts envisioned. But when the future becomes the present, you'll wish it were still the past. because the theories and concepts either (a) never came true, (b) weren't worth the wait, or (c) really sucked.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=future&defid=315726

ok, i've now read several of this person's supplied definition and (s)he's a pretty dark kid. I do like this one because, though real bitter and youngish, makes a good observation: You may wish you were in the future, but when the future arrives you gripe that it ain't what it used to be.

copyrights

In the modern media market, producers are somewhat handicapped in negotiations with consumers over price because the choice for consumers is not, as in other markets, one between having and not having, but rather between buying or finding. The price invoked by producers is weighed by consumers against an assessment of the their own time-value and whatever personal sentiments they have for legitimacy.

in that environment, the onus of legitimacy is the definite burden of the producer to maintain because the extent they are seen by consumers as legit is the moral threshold for them to act in the producer's interest instead of co-opting the merchandise.

Dialog

"Are you drunk?"

"Not enough to lie about it."

The Democratization of Violence

The 18th Century taught us that even the biggest army could still fall to a smallest militia. And already the twenty-first century has bent that arc down to only a handful, approaching one.

When we live in a world where any person could end it, how will we act? Would you kill me before I can kill you? Or would we recognize that we owe our individual sovereignty to all the billions who allow us to have it here on this crowded spec of wet iron in the middle of nowhere.

Because they can take it back whenever they want. And nine times out of ten--for nine people out of ten--they do; the ones carrying the guns as much as the ones not-watching it on tv.

The democratization of violence is technology's gift of the universal franchise for tearing something down or blowing somethig up.

In a world of retail access to total violence, we simply can't continue to govern by invinciblility. The ruling Prince may be right that love fades, but he's forgotten that hate lasts forever and 21st century peasants have a much more effective fertilizer bomb at hand.

[we need to look up from these flickering shadows...]

Stop thinking we need to make people see things just like us. Society is not about concensus, it contact. It's about a negotiation where no advantage is taken except shared by all equally.

[i know. In our time, it's hard to think of something we could all take equally as much of an advantage. It's an oxy moron, or something from Escher. And who does that frame in opposition?]

More to come.


-- Mobile and Free

Modern and Post-Modern

"Tea Party anger is, at bottom, metaphysical, not political: what has been undone by the economic crisis is the belief that each individual is metaphysically self-sufficient, that one’s very standing and being as a rational agent owes nothing to other individuals or institutions. The opposing metaphysical claim, the one I take to be true, is that the very idea of the autonomous subject is an institution, an artifact created by the practices of modern life: the intimate family, the market economy, the liberal state. Each of these social arrangements articulate and express the value and the authority of the individual; they give to the individual a standing she would not have without them."

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/the-very-angry-tea-party/

Sleeping with a dancer in her dreams

She dances with me;
Her eyes closed. Muscles taut
In bundles across my back and thigh. Dancing with her, in her dream.
Arm calf calf ab arm thigh, you sway me to my sleep.



-- Mobile and Free

The rich get richer...

because the poor pay more.


-- Mobile and Free

place.com

I found it at some place.com the other day.



-- Mobile and Free

After denzil's show

If you reach a place in your life where you're happy, it's as much to do with your failures as it is with your successes.


-- Mobile and Free

Right.

Contrary to popular belief, I like getting it right more than i like being right about it.

Where I have a problem is figuring out when those aren't the same thing.


-- Mobile and Free

Magic 8-ball

Network that agrees to get feeds of yes/no questions that flash out and expire quickly. Results are tallied and returned to questioner and also to subscribers if they want. You could subscribe to people or questions.

You can dip into the feed and ask, tell or leech.

What would happen in a world with that tool. Marketing? Gambling. Communicating.


-- Mobile and Free

About on the Road

The Beat says, break the law, all the laws. But this is violence, not subversion. It is the child, not the opponent, of the system.

The subversive breaks the system and changes the laws.


-- Mobile and Free

Commercailization of the rebel

The more mainstreaming of devience the more extreme the rhetoric used on the truly devient to mark the distinction between devient, and devient chic.


-- Mobile and Free

Devient paradox

If the institution of the media exists to maintain the status quo by chastising devience, how does that work against a cult of devience culture? Comercialized, cookie-cutter, flair devience, but superficially identical.


-- Mobile and Free

About last night

I let the lesser influences of my better friends get the best of me.


-- Mobile and Free

Location:Divisadero St,San Francisco,United States

Our government was set up by revolutionaries who enshrine one single, legitimate instument to dictate the transfer of power. It is written in our culture and broadcast by our media. The message of one vote to each was made the eternal bulwark of the people against tyranny.

But erosion has been it's timeless end. The system to protect the people has been coopted to work against them because the oligarchy writes our culture and broadcasts our media.

They now hold the gates of power and the high wall built to keep them out blocks the people instead.

Elections are exercises in psychological manipulation that mocks the motion of the machine and placates the people who lost their connection to the meaning of it anyway.

Any alternatives to the system are delegitimized in the media. The only way in is through the festering gates where no one can pass unstained.

Needs work. Interesting metaphor s


-- Mobile and Free

Fuckworm!

She's a big shit in a mall bowl.


-- Mobile and Free

Making

If you are going to build something that will change the world, you have to accept that you're never going to really know how to use it because you most likely built it to do something else entirely.


-- Mobile and Free

Best hack

A virus which launches a program that takes priority control of the CPU waiting for a user response. All computers would pause until someone clicked continue...on each one.

Man, what a fuck you very much to text support.


-- Mobile and Free

The Semantic Web is a cult

-- Mobile and Free

Location:Divisadero St,San Francisco,United States

Whose murder trial is it?

The murderer or the murdered?


-- Mobile and Free

Ah

Honey, it's not what you say but what you're saying that comes through.


-- Mobile and Free

Location:Divisadero St,San Francisco,United States

Adaptability is noisy

From an evolutionary standpoint, adaptablity is about cluttering a system with noise. Evolution does not present a barrier that organisms create a way to overcome, problems are only overcome when there is some element for success already availible. By exploiting strictures that already exist.

That's what makes the brain such a vital evolutionary tool because it is highly adaptable, but taken as a whole it appears to be all noise. 10 billion solutions looking for a problem.


-- Mobile and Free

Location:Divisadero St,San Francisco,United States

Dinner last night

I got it from the farmers market on sunday from one of our local farms. It's a pretty small-scale, open range farm so I think this chicken had it pretty good (comparatively) before he got to my cutting board.

It was a fascinating experience preparing this bird. My approach to my carnivore-ism is based on the idea that, if i wasn't willing to do the work that was done before it made it too my plate, then i shouldn't be eating it. Cutting the head and feet off was only a small part of the whole process, but, as cornball as it sounds, it actually felt kind of visceral and empowering...very desert-islandy.

But, then we cooked it a little too long in our new rotisserie oven so it was a little tough. Next time we need to check the temp sooner. Oh well, live and learn i guess...the people, not the chicken.

Next step, the whole thing is going in to make some more delicious soup stock.

Though, admittedly, there is something perverse in the composition of the shot with chicken nuzzling up to the knife handle.

Sent from my iPhone

Change

Buy bustop ads in economically depressed communities that promote positive messages and programs for help. Ban ads selling iPads.


-- Mobile and Free

Urban garden

-- Mobile and Free

Location:Eddy St,San Francisco,United States

Nothing new wears well

The first wrinkle or mark is a beacon belching it's presence onto a virgin field.

Location:Gough St,San Francisco,United States

Poor republicans on the government

They're like a guy who bought a piece of shit used car that lost all four wheels and an engine 15 miles off the lot but would rather think that this is just how all cars are supposed to work than get over their cognitive dissonance about being taken by a crooked dealer on that particular car.

Location:Divisadero St,San Francisco,United States

Tee shirt

"This is what you want to here"


-- Mobile and Free

Outfits for BM

A pair of puck pants with strips of fabric instead of hair. 3-quarter.

Pants and a shirt covered with pockets.

Limited effects

Limited effects theory in media studies is like what the doctor explains about the negative result on the pregnancy test to the patient in the delivery room.


-- Mobile and Free

Location:Divisadero St,San Francisco,United States

Freeway

Now what if we knew we didn't really have a choice about kicking in some for everybody to get health care.

They call that place everywhere else people want to live in the world.


-- Mobile and Free

Freeway

Imagine living in a place where people accepted that there were things in their world about which they could not exert their freedom to choose.

So we all get that there are the common legal things like you can't kill anybody in real life. So we don't really have total free choice in this world.

To get there, first off we'd need to get everybody to start thinking about it that way. Get their gears rolling before we bring them in on the good stuff.

Because the good stuff is in the culture. The good stuff is all the places we think we could have freeway, but, really, we don't. A lot of people think it's the cops keeping them from offing someone.

So we don't actually have free choice in this world only we're trained not to think about it that way. Instead, the things that make us who we are actually take those freedoms from us.

It has always been our culture that binds us; and it is the corporations that get paid to take our minds off it. Is anyone surprised then, that the corprations got into the culture business?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not with the shoot anyone you feel like crowd. In fact, I'm in the don't shoot anyone anytime, most of the time, crowd.

Maybe Anarchists have the right direction, but they are missing the point on execution. The idea that no one rules is a stupid idea. We got that right now except that the "everybody" who are doing whatever they want have convinced the rest of us that we're still in charge.

It's not that you shouldn't shoot people, it's that most of us can't shoot people. Don't even want to have to shoot people. But that's not the law, that's the culture. Believe me, if the corporations wanted you killing each other, you would be--across borders, or across neighborhoods.

But most of us are bread for pasture; fed on a ration of poison and injected with the sense that we chose it. And when the whole thing makes us so crazy we can't stand it, we can only go back to the same farmer to find our escape.



Side note. If people already can do what they want (ie finance, everything, etc) haven't the anarchists already one? Make a note to ask them what the hell they're bitching about.

This is the part where I tell you to ram the gates and head to the city before they take you for slaughter. But this is not where I tell you to take back your right to choose. That's my whole point.

Thinking you have a right to choose is part of the illusion. It's the misdirection that keeps the trick going.

When you start to see the world in those terms, you can try to focus on the slighted hand.

After all, would you give any stranger the key to your heart? How long would you play poker with someone who had discovered all your tells? When was the last time you beat gravity?

It is inescapable that the elements of our culture form the limitations of our consciousness by defining how we think before we ever get close to what we think.

"Thou Shalt Not Kill?" As a law, no matter it's relative distance, it must exist on a plane with speed limits and jaywalking. As a cultural message, it gets listed with stuff that they dont have to legislate, like love your mother, don't sleep with your sister, or only drink bottled water.

How did they figure out how you think? How can they the thoughts in my head? They know because they put them there.

If we understand that we can be fouled. Everywhere. Allthetime. Then we can try to understand why we made that decision.

We don't have a choice about what we think. But maybe we can try to choose how we think.

At any rate, we can stop the free lunch for the bastards that are selling us back their leftovers.


...must sleep. To be continued.



-- Mobile and Free

Location:Divisadero St,San Francisco,United States

Point of order

Get a couple hundred activists together to deliver a note to each senator or congressman. When ever one of them saw a member, the would look at him and say "point of order." that would draw others who would also say it when they passed.

Then everyone would start saying it to people as soon as they heard it spoken until the hallway echoed with it.

Coordinate team visits to ensure a wide dispersal.

The note says point of order or something



-- Mobile and Free

Future story

Sciene has advanced to where they can get digital readings from the cortex. The can monitor the activity along the columns and diagnos the response. Then, with gene theropy, introduce new sequences and inhibit others to correct not only behavior, but emotional satisfaction in the behavior. In essence programing them to approve of the operation post facto.

Apply this tech to a story about anti-social behavior - Asimov style.


-- Mobile and Free

Location:E 7th St,Oakland,United States

The suburbs of Oz

-- Mobile and Free

Location:23rd Ave,Oakland,United States

Future of protests is in the hybrid

Another type of protest. Protest as meet-and-greet. Face to face leads becomes website to website, inbox to inbox, and then back into the streets. What happens when it gets back into the streets. It's lazerfeld gone crazy.

This is also a sign of the decentralization of media. Organizers no longer need the attention of centralized media to spread their message. The growth of the diversified network (new kind of mass media?) carries digital word-of-mouth extending it beyond geographical boundaries.

What about cultural boundaries? The benefit of unified media content was that cultural likeness was more pervasive and allowed easy communication between fellows using the same sample sets of reference points. Now, the media channels are decentralized, but the culture is more fractured which, ultimately, makes communication more difficult. Many people may agree that government is the problem, but half of them think it is a problem inherent in the institution, the other half just want to find better people to run it. They may be unified in their disgust, but they are also separated by their predispositions toward solutions.

"One irony for Obama is that the Tea Party movement is using his own organizing techniques against him: Meetup.com announcements, Twitter tweets, viral videos, e-mail trees and all the other innovations falling under the politically potent umbrella known as social networking. Indeed, in the online age, the whole purpose of physical gatherings has changed. Real crowds draw virtual crowds, and vice versa, as David DeGerolamo, a Tea Party organizer from North Carolina, explained during a seminar in Nashville. Recounting how he built a statewide operation from scattered local groups, DeGerolamo said he started with a rally. "I went around and contacted as many of these groups as I could find and invited them to Asheville for what we called the first N.C. Freedom Convention." That was last May. When everyone was gathered, DeGerolamo coaxed the groups — notoriously prickly about their independence — to join under the banner of a single website, NCFreedom.us. Next, he convened a town-hall meeting "for one reason — to get YouTube videos," DeGerolamo said. "YouTube is one of our best allies in terms of becoming a communications network." Today, DeGerolamo's group sends out more than 6,000 e-mails a week, stages informal protest parades called Rolling Tea Parties and posts dozens of videos of the movement in action."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1964903,00.html?xid=huffpo-direct#ixzz0fuRlFgdW

Rebel without a clue protest

"occupy everything, demand nothing!"


-- Mobile and Free

Location:Denslowe Dr,San Francisco,United States

Types of protests

What kind of mass protests exist? What are the reasons people gather to protest?

There is the pitch-fork protest. This involves people massing to take an action. This type of protest presumably includes an expectation of some concluding response. Such as a picket line or vote recount (Ukraine).

There is an awareness/message outreach protest. This is the most common American model used to garner the attention of the mass media. A dance?

Civil/uncivil disobedience is another directive of the mass protest. Some may peacefully take up counter space or block interstate traffic. Others may employ violence to disrupt business. This may have a goal of getting media attention as well.

Boycotts?

Change through action versus change through awareness...through action.

-- Mobile and Free

"Art is the signature of a civilization"

Kate Raudenbush "Art is the signature of a civilization." --Beverly Sills
February 10 at 11:02am · Comment · Like
MrSpaceman LaVigne, Michelle LaVigne and 5 others like this.

Rich Cleland Spelled in the letters of its culture.
February 10 at 11:30am ·

Kate Raudenbush ...or song, or dance, or painting, or sculpture, or theatre, or architecture,
February 10 at 11:35am

Rich Cleland all culture.
February 10 at 11:36am ·

Zoë Knight Culture is an art form.
February 10 at 12:18pm

Rich Cleland I think culture is the medium out of which art is comprised. Which is not to suggest that art is limited to composition from a single culture. An artist draws from a tool set of cultural symbols (including cultural attitudes and memes) and applies her technique (or technical skills or techne) to create a new expression.

The aesthetic quality of the resultant artifact may be appreciated for skill in construction, cultural aptness, or both. In this case, I'm not using "aesthetic" to mean a sense of what has beauty, rather to say what has resonance.

This resonance is the manifestation of the artifact's translation into the cultural library of the viewer. For example, a work of art may provoke unequal resonance among an audience. I think, this disparity arises out of the capacities and dispositions of those individual libraries. Some people get Kabuki, others love Noise Pop. One person is disgusted as the sacred is made profane; which may be what another person appreciates most about it.

However, regardless of whether or not its intent is misconstrued, all art is ultimately communication (though, as is evident here, not all communication is ultimately artful:). An artist assembles a message by choosing words, colors or harmonic registers, etc. which necessarily reside (or resonate) in her own cultural library.

It is possible that, through the synthesis of these aspects, some artifacts are so profound that they open the way to infectious, new cultural avenues with definitions of their own, but even the most iconoclastic owes something to the cultural antecedents it seeks to flout.

Therefore, I may agree that culture is an art form, but, in that case, I would then be reluctant to agree that there were any other forms.
February 10 at 2:21pm ·

Rich Cleland By way of explicating my position further, let me say that it is my personal belief that the basic, underlying message most artists seek to convey through their work is, "I'm not alone in this, am I?"
February 10 at 2:25pm ·

Orion Keyser art is so many things, and then there's craft, these things deceptively entertain one another.
February 10 at 3:06pm

Kate Raudenbush Rich, you are quite the elucidator today!
February 10 at 9:14pm

Deborah-Dr Deb- Windham art makes you happy
February 10 at 9:41pm

Rich Cleland I blame it on this Neal Stephenson book i'm reading. He has a tendency to activate my head and get me chatty.

I agree with you Dr. Deb, and sometimes it makes me sad, which makes me happy, too.
February 10 at 9:49pm

Cultural Vibrancy

Chalk one up for the global culture collision. The content is very nearly unbearable, but it indicates something about the vibrancy of this particular cultural meme that its adherents not only tolerate, but seek out and venerate new variations on a theme based on the intrinsic qualities of the content rather than artificial structures such as the nationality, race, geography or cultural purity of its producer.

Identities are like languages, the ones with the best built-in structures promoting adaptation and inclusion of the "foreign" are going to win.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/12/beckii-cruel-14-year-old_n_458566.html

Study

Look for optimal network configs. Groups succeed best when they have...


-- Mobile and Free

Location:Divisadero St,San Francisco,United States

Diamond Age

"Put them on and be yourself, Mr. alienated, loner, steppenwolf, bemused, distant, meta-izing, technocrat, rationalist fucking shit head."

Don't Ask, Don't Kick Them Out

Rich Cleland And here's the real problem right here: [McCain says,] "...We have the best trained, best equipped, and most professional force in the history of our country, and the men and women in uniform are performing heroically in two wars. At a time when our Armed Forces are fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield, now is not the time to abandon the policy."


This statement exposes to two-pronged disconnect between conservative rhetoric and reality:


1) Unless he's just employing baseless platitudes (likely), the "most professional force in history" should be able to do what the (by logical extension of McCain's argument) less professional army did fifty years ago integrating the services during a time of war (sorry, Korean Police Action).


2) (a.k.a., the most morally disgusting part of the conservative argument) Some of the heroic men and women that John McCain so eagerly annexes into his argument are sacrificing in two wars while simultaneously fighting to hide themselves in plain sight and fearing that a discovery in their personal lives might end their professional career.


They're already 'over there.' They're fighting for you. Fight for them.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/02/gays_military_1

Benjamin Doyle Dont ask dont tell works!
February 5 at 7:56am ·

Rich Cleland For whom? At what cost?
February 5 at 9:01am ·

Kathryn Palmer Because this change in policy would change military operations how? Memo to troops: You can come out of the closet. Oh, shit, they've all gone clubbing--who will fight the war???
February 5 at 9:40am ·

Rich Cleland Well, i'm not saying it would be that easy. I'm not saying it would be easy at all. In fact, i think it will be very hard, but hard is not a valid excuse to not do something that should be done.

I'm also not saying every gay or lesbian needs to be out. I'm saying that, being a discovered homosexual should not be used to drum you out of the service. We lose good personnel that way and maintaining DADT is a powerful institutionalized statement that says, you homosexuals are not full citizens (despite your service to your country) and we will punish you because you are a minority and we can get away with it.
February 5 at 9:51am ·

Kathryn Palmer We agree, Rich. I was just mocking the assumption that it would hurt current military operations.
February 5 at 9:55am ·

Benjamin Doyle Since I have spent all of my adult life in the US Army I can only give my opinion, and my experience. I have served with gay and lesbian soldiers, and have seen both extremes of how a person can carry themselves. I have had the honor of serving with one of the best medic in the army in two comabt tours having recieved a bronze star and purple heart who happens to be gay. He will be the first one one to tell you that Dont ASK Dont tell works for now. He keeps his personal life personal The can of worms this would open is very large. and in my opinion this is not the time.
February 5 at 10:41am ·

Rich Cleland I understand. I was also pointing out that it wont be as easy as some proponents of repeal say it is either. Fortunately we have a good logistical and moral model to follow in the integration of the forces in the 50s. Which, by the way, seems to have turned out ok.
February 5 at 10:53am ·

Rich Cleland In any event, McCain et al. dont get to claim all the heroes in arguing in favor of repressing the civil rights of the minority because some of those heroes are in that minority.

(Ben, I don't know the specifics of your argument for continuing dadt so I'm not saying that this is your opinion on the matter.) I find it extremely typical of people in the conservative movement to despise government invasion into personal lives except when it can be used to enforce their particular moral code.
February 5 at 10:53am ·

Rich Cleland (fb is being weird, sorry for the choppy post).

Ben, I definitely acknowledge your close perspective on this situation. I totally believe that there are gay and lesbian soldiers, sailors, and marines who would not push to repeal DADT. Just like there are heterosexuals in the force too who support repeal.

If not now then when? I ask because it's been 15 years since we enacted this temporary fix and "now's not the time" has been the mantra in the past to justify continued suppression of civil rights. I'm not saying that you are using it this way, i'm mentioning it to point out how minorities process that phrase.
February 5 at 11:12am ·

Rich Cleland I think it will be hard to change minds and, again, i'm not suggesting that everyone be "out." But a policy that boots arabic linguists from the service because of they happen to be gay doesn't seem like a good idea right now either. Why isn't it not the right time to be depleting our force of trained arabic linguists or highly-qualified, decorated medics?
February 5 at 11:12am ·

Rich Cleland I also believe that people will not overcome their prejudgments about minorities if the institutions of government reinforce them. When the government says that a group of people is subhuman deserving of diminished rights, the larger citizenry is inclined to agree. So I guess what i'm saying is that this needs to happen for our society to develop. If that means we have to ask one more hard thing from the men and women serving in the military, then that's just one of the many hard things we ask of them (you), but it's no different than asking them to engage in the experiment of integration so that our society could begin to heal our racial divide.
February 5 at 11:12am ·

Rich Cleland case in point.

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/02/09/Dan_Choi_Back_in_Active_Duty/
11 minutes ago ·

Middle Child

Gen x is the proverbial middle child. Babyboomers are the annointed first born and everything after is the baby.


-- Mobile and Free

Location:Divisadero St,San Francisco,United States

Modern Malaise

Abhiyan Humane truly sad..

Nadia Smith Is it really sad? "Sad" in a sentimental sense, perhaps, but not in an evolutionary sense, no?
7 hours ago

Nadia Smith Not everything is worth preserving. I think it is OK if some things die out or get lost.
7 hours ago

Abhiyan Humane yes, but sometimes it is our indifference
7 hours ago

Nadia Smith Well, our indifference is mostly a result of information overload. It's not possible to know and care about everything. Modern life is so overwhelming sometimes . Indifference is perfectly justified, in my opinion.
7 hours ago

Rich Cleland I think it's important to draw a distinction between a loss of the information and the loss of experiential connection. The language of Bo is gone. Who cares. If there was only one person left who spoke it, it was already dead from a practical sense anyway.

The lamentable part is the loss of the last person who had a real connection with all the people who came before her and learned that language. It is the end of something that perpetuated for centuries. It might justifiably deserve a single link and expression on facebook among the thousands of doppleganger posts and (urbane)dictionary.com ego tripping.

In my opinion, if I felt jaded into indifference by the information overload of modern life, I might try to reset my priorities to skip the information altogether and appreciate the richness of the connections. Stuff like this isn't the poison, it's the antidote.
6 hours ago ·

Nadia Smith RIch, that's a nice way to put it. I agree with you. My point is just that the link Abhiyan posted is not necessarily sad. I can note it, and I can appreciate the connection and significance of the loss of a language/culture, but I can do all that without having to feel an emotion. In that sense I used the word "indifference". It is simply not possible to *feel* for everything, and short of cheapening the human experience, it it of utmost importance to be able to prioritize.
5 hours ago

Abhiyan Humane I agree with Rich, that is exactly what i meat by "sad", loss of history (oral and ritual), her social artifacts (ex; cooking), etc...
5 hours ago

Abhiyan Humane what we need is better information filtering systems....
5 hours ago

Abhiyan Humane rather efficient and are sensitive...
5 hours ago

Porismita Borah Absolutely agree with Rich. Thanks Abhiyan for sharing.. Prof. Abbi does some great work and is in JNU. I remember meeting her in Delhi.
5 hours ago

Rich Cleland Well, presumably setting aside the fact that Abhiyan may dispense his emotional capital where he wishes on his own page and/or the use of "sad" as a shorthand, categorical marker connoting a type of undesirable occurrence, I think I still might respectfully disagree.

I understand your point. There is a lot of information out there and attaching emotional significance to everything may not be healthy, proper, or even possible. Though, I'm not suggesting that we should rend our clothing or stab out our eyes.

But I think your response may support my statement about the malaise of modernity. You tell me you've intellectually processed the information with cross-references to the connections and significance, filed under language/culture.

Sure you *can* file it away without the emotional context of the event, but then it just becomes one more factoid under a mountain of factoids. Information overload is what happens when you save facts simply from habit or some disconnected rational sense that you are supposed to note things like this.

The emotional context is the reason to save the information in the first place. When you add this layer to fact collecting, it's no longer a burden to maintain. It establishes your place in relation to the data and enriches your own context. And information outside of your emotional connection can be eschewed to reference libraries and google searches.

Modernity doesn't need to be a burden. One beautiful thing doesn't need to be diminished by 999 other beautiful things.
4 hours ago ·

How?

"How can you feel that way about your own sister?"

"there aren't a lot of advantages (upsides?) to attachment disorder. I have to take them where they come." I've learned to take them where I can.

Characters in a story about the path.


-- Mobile and Free

Yoga

One thing I don't like about yoga is it always reminds me how diabolically, fucking short my arms are.


-- Mobile and Free

Reading Kafka was the rage

...near the end of this fasinating book about nothing much.

"I'm 20 minutes from home! "

"what does that mean?"

"You know when you're on a 13-hour road trip and the last 20 minutes seems to take as long as 13 hours"




-- Mobile and Free

Kennedy Honors

Dave Brubeck jazz


-- Mobile and Free

Geranimals

The americano in the brown horizontal striped tee over brown trunks (at the mall) with bright Hawaiian orange flowers. The geranimal for that is "doushe."


-- Mobile and Free

Location:Panama city, panama

Michael kors

Pity the critic who decides to make something. He'll have to feast on his own grist sooner or later.


-- Mobile and Free

Location:Market St,San Francisco,United States

New Level

Two beings are having a conversation while strapped into tech chairs. Wires, vids, the works. They are manually controling a remote pair of organics on a distant planet.

The beings jacked into the Earth Program from their unconsciousness chairs (better word) have operated the humans on the planet through the course their evolution.

Thrill seekers, anthropologists, joy riders, social workers (they operate within the system out of a sense of horror and responsibility at what the others do), religious pilgrams, and cult psychopaths. They enter onto a type of Internet.

The two in these chairs are "in seat" on a couple of tech geeks working on a project that will allow them to mentally link and control a pair of coachroaches (lab rats?) through a maze. One being taps his partner on the arm and asks, "what happens when they create worlds of new beings to control?"

A wry smile curled across the eye of his friend who answered triumphantly, "Level Two!"

The first whispered to himself, yeah, but what if it's actually level three? Or four?" and went back into the game.

-- Mobile and Free

Location:Eddy St,San Francisco,United States

Slacker

Of course I'm a slacker. Look at me. THIS is my job! I get up at five pm, puke, and go back to bed.


-- Mobile and Free

Location:Post St,San Francisco,United States

Rat Patrol in the Buick Electra

Marra B. Gad For one night...and one night only, I will be in Palo Alto on Monday, 1 February! My meeting schedule won't allow for me to get to SF, but I would love it if you and Michelle will come to PA for dinner :) XO!
Yesterday at 7:52am · Comment · Like · See Wall-to-Wall

Rich Cleland sounds like a plan. Michelle doesn't get off work on mondays until 5 so it would have to be around 8 or something for dinner. work?
Yesterday at 9:30am ·

Marra B. Gad That is actually perfect, as I have a 5:30 meeting. SO excited!!
Yesterday at 9:40am ·

Rich Cleland are you here yet? are you here yet? how 'bout now? how 'bout now?
about an hour ago ·

Marra B. Gad If I have to pull the plane over, you're going to be in big trouble young man...
about an hour ago ·

Rich Cleland hehe. I think the last time my dad said that to me, he was driving down highway 169 in our lime green tank of a buick electra from '75 or something. The car was deathly quiet and the road was pitch black and empty. I was in the back leaning over the front bench seat, draping my arms over, filling the gap between my parents.

But really i was streaming across the deserts of North Africa manning the machine gun mount of our jeep from Rat Patrol. Out of nowhere, Jerry came streaking across the dune ahead of us. It was more reflex than intent. I sighted and squeezed the trigger hard in my outstretched hands. My gun responded with a steady roar as I emptied the belt. tckthckt tchcthtk chtkchtkchkchkchtktchchthchthththchthc flowed as my teeth-smacked tongue unleashed its practiced furry into the night, and my dad's sleepy ear.

Startled but uninjured, my father engaged the evasive maneuvers and that lumbering tub swayed away from and then back to our empty lane in the empty night. "What the hell is wrong with you, boy?" he said as I snapped back to physical reality. "Don't make me have to come back there for you!"

I tried to explain about the patrol, my training, and the Jerries, but he told me to just sit back and start counting mile markers. Then after four or five, he added, "Silently, damn it!"

Marra B. Gad Oh my darling....your genius and creativity have long been under- appreciated. Love from Mile Marker 18.....

From Raudenbush

In The Mission of Art by Alex Grey:

For Michelle and Rich

It's wonderful to have you both as friends as we make it our mission to make sense of this world.

With love and laughter ( and dust & coctails ),

Kate


-- Mobile and Free