LiveJournal Project - July 2002

Moving right along...

Date: 2002-07-07 02:29
Subject: vegas and precrime
it's been awhile since i've had anything to say, and usually when i sit down at this thing after an extended absence, i tend to spew forth a long rant full of unrelated things. i don't want to disappoint my fans - so this won't be any different. =/

went to vegas with cory for the 4th of july. vegas.com lied to us, said that there were going to be fireworks at the venetian, but there weren't. no big deal, though, since they had some at the stratosphere and the hilton, both of which we could see from our hotel room window. not quite the same without the loud booms and bangs, but hey, stuff blew up and that's all that counts. overall i'd say it was a pretty good trip - full of mayhem, fun, and general vegas insanity. played some blackjack, and actually managed to pull a $1500 profit, but of course i couldn't leave without paying my vegas tax. in the end, i left about $400 behind. not too shabby. i've come to the conclusion that shots are bigger in vegas, too; i ordered six shots of vodka on our first night there, since we'd decided that was our drinking night, but i felt much drunker than six shots worth - more like 9 or so. wheee!! the next night was stripper night, so we headed out to cheetah's and got some dances from a hottie named kiara, who was doing things that i'm sure weren't legal. not that i'm complaining by any stretch of the imagination. then to jaguars, for more dances that were pretty good, but not quite up to par with our earlier encounter. ah well, again i can't complain. i think we finally passed out at about 9am on the morning we were supposed to leave. got out the hotel door at 1pm, in a bit of a rush since we hadn't bothered to check that our flight back was leaving at 1:45. d'oh! i thought that security might hassle us for showing up 20 minutes before the flight was set to leave, but we had no problems, hopped on the plane and came back to the slow-roasting oven of a city that we call phoenix.

note to djskott: results from your earlier experiment with piracetam have been duplicated. all i care to say on that subject is "holy shit."

oh yeah, also found out that chantal has to work every day next weekend, so it looks like i won't be going to calgary. most likely that means i'll be off to denver for some kung fu action, since the idea of a long flight to NYC doesn't much appeal to me.

so that was wednesday-friday. today i slept in most of the day, only to be awakened by raven and shiznit meowing at the door because the little porkers had eaten all of their cat food and they wanted more. what nerve of those cats! =/

overwhelming boredom eventually kicked in, so i dragged my ass (still in recovery mode from vegas) out to see minority report tonight. overall, i'd say that it was a pretty good flick, and i'll admit that i didn't expect that it was going to end the way that it did. in any event, given the increased sekuritee measures that the .gov keeps calling for, it wouldn't be hard to imagine a world in which some of the technology in that movie exists, and we already know that they're just waiting to start arresting people who haven't committed crimes.

anyway, more to follow in the next post.
Music: Eminem - White America
Mood: enraged

Time: 02:55
Subject: i am ravyn's angry spleen.
ok, well, i attempted to write out something, but i'm feeling that my brain is too clouded and only running at about 30 percent, so i suppose i'll save most of this until later.

the funny thing, though, is that after i've had another night's sleep, the feelings that i'm having now will probably have gone away and i'll have returned to the standard nihilistic apathy that governs most of my daily existence.

for now, i'll just give y'all some reading material. this describes maslow's hierarchy of needs. ask yourself where you are on the pyramid. when i was a debater in high school, i first heard about this guy, and i didn't really buy it. but in returning to the ideas, i see quite a bit of value in what he had to say.

clicky clicky

i feel like my old self in high school when i took weight training for my PE credit and had to climb the pole on the obstacle course. i couldn't do it - too much mass in my ass for my arms to haul it up that damn pole. now i feel like i've got a bit more strength and a little less mass, but i'm still stuck halfway up the pole, hanging on and hoping that i'll figure out how to make it to the top before i just give up and drop off.

i don't expect that this entry will make much sense to too many people. that's ok.

yay for cats.
Music: Eminem - Sing For The Moment
Mood: contemplative

Date: 2002-07-08 12:25
Subject: Are We Doomed To Be a Police State?
the full text of the speech that i'm excerpting here can be found by following this link, and was given by congressman ron paul (R-TX) on june 27, 2002. i encourage you all to take the time to read the whole thing, although it is rather long.

clicky clicky

Our commercial interests and foreign policy are no longer separate...as bad as it is that average Americans are forced to subsidize such a system, we additionally are placed in greater danger because of our arrogant policy of bombing nations that do not submit to our wishes. This generates hatred directed toward America ...and exposes us to a greater threat of terrorism, since this is the only vehicle our victims can use to retaliate against a powerful military state...the cost in terms of lost liberties and unnecessary exposure to terrorism is difficult to assess, but in time, it will become apparent to all of us that foreign interventionism is of no benefit to American citizens, but instead is a threat to our liberties.
...
So far our post-9/11 policies have challenged the rule of law here at home, and our efforts against the al Qaeda have essentially come up empty-handed. The best we can tell now, instead of being in one place, the members of the al Qaeda are scattered around the world, with more of them in allied Pakistan than in Afghanistan. Our efforts to find our enemies have put the CIA in 80 different countries. The question that we must answer some day is whether we can catch enemies faster than we make new ones. So far it appears we are losing.
...
But, Mr. Speaker, my subject today is whether America is a police state. I'm sure the large majority of Americans would answer this in the negative. Most would associate military patrols, martial law and summary executions with a police state, something obviously not present in our everyday activities. However, those with knowledge of Ruby Ridge, Mount Carmel and other such incidents may have a different opinion.
...
Most police states, surprisingly, come about through the democratic process with majority support. During a crisis, the rights of individuals and the minority are more easily trampled, which is more likely to condition a nation to become a police state than a military coup. Promised benefits initially seem to exceed the cost in dollars or lost freedom. When people face terrorism or great fear – from whatever source – the tendency to demand economic and physical security over liberty and self-reliance proves irresistible. The masses are easily led to believe that security and liberty are mutually exclusive, and demand for security far exceeds that for liberty.

Political propagandizing is used to get all of us to toe the line and be good "patriots," supporting every measure suggested by the administration. We are told that preemptive strikes, torture, military tribunals, suspension of habeas corpus, executive orders to wage war, and sacrificing privacy with a weakened 4th Amendment are the minimum required to save our country from the threat of terrorism.

Who's winning this war anyway?

To get popular support for these serious violations of our traditional rule of law requires that people be kept in a state of fear. The episode of spreading undue concern about the possibility of a dirty bomb being exploded in Washington without any substantiation of an actual threat is a good example of excessive fear being generated by government officials.

To add insult to injury, when he made this outlandish announcement, our Attorney General was in Moscow. Maybe if our FBI spent more time at home, we would get more for the money we pump into this now – discredited organization. Our FBI should be gathering information here at home, and the thousands of agents overseas should return. We don't need these agents competing overseas and confusing the intelligence apparatus of the CIA or the military.

I'm concerned that the excess fear, created by the several hundred al Qaeda functionaries willing to sacrifice their lives for their demented goals, is driving us to do to ourselves what the al Qaeda themselves could never do to us by force.

So far the direction is clear: we are legislating bigger and more intrusive government here at home and are allowing our President to pursue much more military adventurism abroad. These pursuits are overwhelmingly supported by Members of Congress, the media, and the so-called intellectual community, and questioned only by a small number of civil libertarians and anti-imperial, anti-war advocates.

The main reason why so many usually levelheaded critics of bad policy accept this massive increase in government power is clear. They, for various reasons, believe the official explanation of "Why us?" The several hundred al Qaeda members, we were told, hate us because: "We're rich, we're free, we enjoy materialism, and the purveyors of terror are jealous and envious, creating the hatred that drives their cause. They despise our Christian-Judaic values and this, is the sole reason why they are willing to die for their cause." For this to be believed, one must also be convinced that the perpetrators lied to the world about why they attacked us.

The al Qaeda leaders say they hate us because:

-We support Western puppet regimes in Arab countries for commercial reasons and against the wishes of the populace of these countries.

-This partnership allows a military occupation, the most confrontational being in Saudi Arabia, that offends their sense of pride and violates their religious convictions by having a foreign military power on their holy land. We refuse to consider how we might feel if China's navy occupied the Gulf of Mexico for the purpose of protecting "their oil" and had air bases on U.S. territory.

-We show extreme bias in support of one side in the fifty-plus-year war going on in the Middle East.

What if the al Qaeda is telling the truth and we ignore it? If we believe only the official line from the administration and proceed to change our whole system and undermine our constitutional rights, we may one day wake up to find that the attacks have increased, the numbers of those willing to commit suicide for their cause have grown, our freedoms are diminished, and all this has contributed to making our economic problems worse. The dollar cost of this "war" could turn out to be exorbitant, and the efficiency of our markets can be undermined by the compromises placed on our liberties.

Sometimes it almost seems that our policies inadvertently are actually based on a desire to make ourselves "less free and less prosperous" – those conditions that are supposed to have prompted the attacks. I'm convinced we must pay more attention to the real cause of the attacks of last year and challenge the explanations given us.

The question that one day must be answered is this:

What if we had never placed our troops in Saudi Arabia and had involved ourselves in the Middle East war in an even-handed fashion. Would it have been worth it if this would have prevented the events of 9/11?

If we avoid the truth, we will be far less well off than if we recognize that just maybe there is some truth in the statements made by the leaders of those who perpetrated the atrocities. If they speak the truth about the real cause, changing our foreign policy from foreign military interventionism around the globe supporting an American empire would make a lot of sense. It could reduce tensions, save money, preserve liberty and preserve our economic system....

at least not everyone in congress is a simple-minded bureaucrat, goosestepping right along with herr fuhrer dubya.

Date: 2002-07-17 02:48
Subject: bitching and ranting, what else do you expect?
lifted from jcurious: clicky clicky

my favorite quote from this article: "Our position is that you can't rely simply on the free exchange of ideas to cleanse the environment of hate and intolerance," said John Hucker, secretary general of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

to that, i say this: the only people who are afraid of ideas are those who cannot create their own.

fuck you, john hucker, you rat bastard sonofabitch. cleansing the environment of hate and intolerance? is that like burning books? or ethnic cleansing? i'm so goddamn tired of governmental officials who think that the people need to be protected from themselves and that by some mysterious act of an unknown higher power, the aforementioned officials have managed to obtain sufficient divine wisdom so as to inflict their methods upon the rest of us. (note that the previous rant is not limited to canadians, since we have plenty of these types running amok in DC.) i'm not a big fan of the us .gov, given the growing proclivity towards arresting people for crimes that they haven't committed (jose padilla, for example), and attorney general john asscrack insulting the patriotism of people who dare question dubya's actions and policy plans. fuck you, george bush. fuck you, john asscrack.

anyway, this article got me thinking, which is often a bad thing when it's late at night and i'm bored. and i've come to the following conclusion: fuck tolerance. fuck acceptance. why the hell should anyone be forced to accept anyone else's thoughts, ideas, lifestyle, or whatever, if they don't like it? personally, i tend not to give a shit because all i really ask out of this world is to be left the fuck alone, but you know, if a bunch of neo-nazis don't like jews, or a bunch of christian rightists don't like gays, well, then who the fuck cares? why should they have to? despite what rodney king says, maybe we just can't all get along, and maybe we ought to stop trying. freedom of association. maybe school desegregation, for example, was just a bad idea. if all the white crackers down in alabama want to form a little community and keep the blacks out, then let 'em. who cares? humanity isn't stronger when people who don't like each other intermingle - in fact, i'd say it probably becomes weaker. instead of having pockets of strength in numbers and similar ideas that can better deal with other such pockets on equal terms of strength and unity, you get a bunch of people who don't like each other spending too much time trying to figure out how to get along and not kill each other instead of spending time on living. ok, perhaps some of that was a bit of an exaggeration, but y'all ought to get the idea.

on another note: al-qaeda has the right idea as far as an ideal structure for a worldwide organization that needs to operate in a clandestine manner and carry out strikes against the man. however, they've got the wrong goals. what if a collection of people with the right goals could be assembled, who had the resources and the will to carry out the tasks at hand? would they, too, fall victim to corruption and infighting and a lust for power which would ultimately make them no better than those they wish to replace? is it possible to find an objective truth and optimal state for humanity and then drag the rest of the world, kicking and screaming, into a place that will ultimately be better for them, or is such an altruistic (i suppose that's one word you could use) goal foolish?

Date: 2002-07-18 13:32
Subject: the terrified republicans
today i opened my mail and found inside a letter from the republican national committee offering me a membership card if only i send them a donation of $25 or more. they need to raise money, so it is said, to preserve president bush's agenda and to prevent the democrats from regaining control of both houses of congress and the white house in 2004. ok. sure. but there's only one problem:

as i pull out my voter registration card and look at the party affiliation, guess what it says: "democrat".

the republicans must be really hurting for money or just plain stupid (i vote for the latter) to be sending solicitations to members of the opposite party. maybe i'm the only one that sees the irony in this. but my god, if they can't even figure out how to properly send out a mass mailing, how the fuck can they be trusted to run the country?
Mood: amused

Date: 2002-07-22 15:04
Subject: time for an update.
lots of stuff to cover, since it's been several days...

cory and i went to see an indie flick last night - "13 conversations about one thing" - i'd say it was a rather dark movie, but it also touched a lot on thoughts and concepts that seem prominent in my life these days - the concept of happiness, settling and being content and wondering "is that all there is?" - the whole quest for a meaning to life, i suppose, and how sometimes the decisions you make (perhaps even all decisions that you make) are irreversible. this one goes on ravyn's short-term recommended list - but make sure you go see it with other people so that you can discuss it afterwards; it's not just for mindless entertainment like most of the movies coming out of hollyweird these days. three cheers for introspection!

saw this on msnbc a few minutes ago, and it gives me a small glimmer of hope: "Fewer than half of likely voters believe President Bush should be re-elected, according to a poll released Monday that shows that approval of the president’s job performance remains at its lowest level since before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." here's the link to the full story: clicky clicky. all i know is that i didn't vote for that rat bastard the first time, and i won't be voting for him again in 2004. i don't care if i have to vote for fucking harry browne, ross perot, or jesse jackson - i ain't voting for bush. if only the democraps can come up with a viable candidate that doesn't suffer from rectal-cranial inversion.

i'm in the process of refinancing my house, and i was reading over the packet of stuff they sent me last week, which includes, among other things, a "truth-in-lending" statement that tells you in no uncertain terms how much money you're borrowing, what your interest rate is, and, the most interesting number, how much all this credit is going to cost you. i never really thought about how recockulous the whole thing was until i took a good look at that piece of paper. i'm refinancing approximately $155k with a standard 30-year loan. ok, great. assuming (and these are probably inaccurate assumptions, but ah well) that i stay in the house 30 years until it's paid off and i don't pay it off early, i'll be paying a total of $400,000 in payments. that's fuckin' nuts! if i wanted a $400,000 house, i'd go buy one. i don't know about the rest of you, but the idea of paying $250,000 for the "privilege" of financing my house is outrageous. but i suppose there's nothing i can do about it, either, unless i want to move back into an apartment (which really wouldn't be a bad idea except for the need to share walls with other people) or just pay the damn thing off early. blah. credit sucks big hairy donkey dick. must...acquire...fuck-it money. =/

went to fry's electronics over the weekend, thinking that i was going to buy a new car stereo, specifically one with a cd player that would support mp3s. picked one out, took it to their installers to have it put in, and then the fun began. first, the guy tells me that because i have the infinity stereo that has different cables or some shit that they can't use my factory amp, and that i'm going to lose my center speaker, and that it's going to cost 80 bucks for a rewire. ooookay... sure... so i tell him to go ahead, and then he comes back about 10 minutes later and says that i also need new speakers, because the impedance on the new stereo doesn't match the impedance on the speakers. so what was supposed to be a simple, $300 new stereo install was rapidly looking like it was going to be a $800 stereo, speaker, and amp install with a rewire. fuck that noise. i told the guy to put my shit back together and i just took the damn thing back to fry's. lesson to be learned here: go to a real car stereo store. and yes, i know, i shouldn't go to audio express, home of the one dollar fire. everyone i know has told me this, so i'll be venturing somewhere with a better reputation to find out how the hell i can best play mp3s in my car. maybe the installer wasn't jerking me around, but it certainly smelled like day-old ripoff.

Date: 2002-07-24 22:58
Subject: this week in ravynland...
it's been, i'd say, an interesting week thus far. monday night i was invited to a layoff-happy-hour party thing, even though i wasn't being laid off and never even worked for the company that was doing the canning. originally i wasn't planning to go, since the idea of being around a bunch of half-drunken people that i don't know (save for mark, ally, and cory) who are alternately celebrating and lamenting their newfound unemployment wasn't exactly my idea of fun, but boredom took control and in order to escape it i made my way down to the bar. ended up staying later than everyone else, shooting the shit with another guy who had only an indirect connection with the downsizing company. we talked about martial arts, and life, and the ability of a 5'11"/235-pound white guy (namely myself) to dunk a basketball, travel, all kinds of shit. i don't think i've had that much fun talking to a complete stranger in, well, probably forever. i'd have to say, though, that the most amusing part of the conversation was his prediction that in two years, i'd be married to cory. He was actually right, although a few years off. Holy fuck, I'd forgotten about this. -Ed. his comment was that there was just a "vibe" between us and that he could tell, even though, mind you, he'd never met either of us before and didn't even really see much of our interactions. who knows? but in any event, i'm logging the prediction here in my LJ for posterity, so that i can check back in 2004 and see if it happened or not. =/

tuesday... didn't do jack shit except set off the vandalism alarm at the post office. went to buy some stamps, and the fuckin' machine ate my $5. so i kicked it - not so much because i thought i was going to see the return of abraham lincoln, but just because i felt like saying "fuck you" to the damn piece of machinery. the display screen then switched to "temporarily out of service" and the flashing blue lights came on inside the machine. heh. i'm easily amused.

wednesday, i.e., tonight, i decided to get a bit of culture and went to check out a poetry slam, thanks to information received from spacekadette. it was definitely a change from the few regular poetry readings that i've been to over the years, and overall i'd say that it was an entertaining experience. i should hope that if i go back on a semi-regular or even sporadic basis, that i don't get picked to be a judge, because i will probably hurt a lot of people's feelings. a couple of the poets were pretty good. some of them seemed like little more than stand-up comedians, not so much reading poetry but simply doing a humorous monologue. now, i'm not complaining about that, because i did get a good laugh from the fish-stick guy and a couple others, but it didn't really strike me as poetry. one guy reminded me of an eminem wannabe, and one of the girls who got some really high scores spoke too quickly and just didn't do it for me. but, i suppose like every other artform, it's all in the eye or ear of the beholder. if anything good came out of that evening, i'd say that it was this: i actually started kicking around lines of poetry in my head on the way home. i haven't written much of anything in about 5 years, due to lack of inspiration and just a general lack of giving a shit. but perhaps listening to other poets will convince the muses to look up my new address and pay me a visit sometime soon.

Date: 2002-07-27 03:02
Subject: thoughts on suicide.
i shouldn't have to do this, but for my own sanity and to prevent any unnecessary comments from the peanut gallery, let me first say that no, i'm not depressed, nor am i thinking about jumping in front of a bus anytime soon.

that said, this is a bit of a rambling commentary on suicide. generally, when someone says that he's going to off himself, others around the person start coming up with reasons why he shouldn't, or they try to persuade the person that suicide is a bad idea, meant only for the lazy. other statements often made are usually centered around the idea of trying to build up the would-be dead man's self-esteem, convince him that life isn't so bad, that he's a good person, and so on and so forth.

maybe we ought to just let them go, if they do indeed wish to go. i'm not saying this out of a cold and uncaring perspective, but from the idea that a person should be able to make his/her own choices about life and death.

we choose to intervene because we don't want to see the person die, yet it may very well be that death really IS a better place than this existence. or we act because we don't want to suffer the pain of losing someone close to us, or we don't want someone else to have to suffer that pain. all of these, however, are selfish reasons. we like to think that we're acting in the best interests of the person involved, but are we really? or are we just acting in our own best interests?

people talk about wanting to have the freedom to make up their own minds about things - what to eat, whether or not to do drugs, whom to marry, what career to pursue - how is making the decision to end your existence in this world any different from any of those? suicide is permanent, you say? so is every other decision that we make. at any given moment, we exist in a certain state, and as we move through time and life we make decisions that shape who we are, how we view the world, and how we are viewed by those around us. we become different people, or we become viewed in a different light, and that is a one-way path. think about an example: move away from your family and friends, from your home, and then live somewhere else for awhile. do you believe that if you go back home that you will be able to pick up exactly where you left off? you can't. the world back home moves on without you, just as you move on in your new world. you close one door, you open another, but you can never re-open a closed door. suicide is really nothing more than this. close the door to this world, open the door to the next.

suicide can also be seen as the ultimate act of defiance. perhaps some or all of you won't view it that way, and instead you see it as the ultimate act of giving up. but in a world that attempts to prolong your existence, when you no longer wish to take part in it, what, really, is there to be gained in "sucking it up" and going on? pride? honor? those things don't make life worth living, nor provide material needs, nor provide happiness or contentment. but offing yourself, well, that won't give you any of those things either, but it will at least present one big middle finger to the rest of the world, saying "fuck you, you fucking fucks, i'm outta here."

maybe you can't beat the system, but at least you can prevent it from beating you.
Music: Starecase - Come In
Mood: bored

Date: 2002-07-29 23:06
Subject: only in texas, i suppose.
from CNN:

GODLEY, Texas (Reuters) -- An argument over who was going to heaven and who was going to hell ended with one Texas man shooting another to death with a shotgun, police said Monday.

The man charged in the slaying is a corrections officer.

Johnny Joslin, 20, was allegedly shot by Clayton Frank Stoker, 21, on Sunday. The two had spent Saturday night bar hopping with two other men in Fort Worth, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northeast of Godley.

Johnson County Sheriff Bob Alford said a witness who was the designated driver for the group told police the four men were sitting at a table outside a trailer park after their night on the town and began arguing about religion.

The talk became heated when the subject turned to who would go to heaven and who would go to hell.

Stoker said he would settle the argument and went into a house and returned with a shotgun, which he loaded and placed in his mouth, Alford said the witness reported.

"The victim Joslin then took the gun out of Stoker's mouth, saying, 'If you have to shoot somebody, shoot me,"' Alford said, citing the witness report.

The shotgun went off, hitting Joslin in the chest and killing him.

Stoker, a Johnson County corrections officer, has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder, Alford said.