Monday, April 10, 2006

Super XX Man -- The Usual Way

I get to see the ocean almost every day and see this sort of beauty. Sometimes it's a burden, because it's so terrible not to really appreciate it, but on days like this, it's no trouble. So gorgeous.


So, I happened to watch the first episode of Shalom in the Homeon TLC (Mondays 10pm). I like Rabbi Shmuley and it was a great show. He really focuses on the importance of actions and of common sense in a way that's refreshing and powerful. It's worth watching. Shmuley had a talk show in Salt Lake City with a overwhelmingly goyish audience for years until last year, after he organized a bunch of help for black Katrina folks relocated to Salt Lake City and ran afoul of the apparently bigoted radio station owners... he's very interesting because he mostly deals with goyim. And I think he gets a really receptive audience that way because his message isn't out there.

Anyway. I am reading Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. Really interesting. Gotta go and read and sleep!

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Spoon - Small Stakes



Is this a great corner or what?

You know what's really, really odd? How many 16 year old kids are wandering around trying to live in MY teen years. Fuck them! I mean, hey, some of these kids are nice, but how weird is it to see teenyboppers with Robert Smith on their chests and saying how much they love Joy Division and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry? It's really werid and it's really fucked. When I was 16 I certainly wasn't wearing Bob Dylan or Beatles t-shirts. I was into Jam, Clash, XTC, Joy Division, Stranglers, 999, and on and on. Stuff that was new then. I am not a baby boomer, and I am not laying claim to "my generation" stuff like the boomers did. It's just that an integral part of being a teen has historically been an absorption into all that counted as "NOW" and these kids are growing up looking to my teen years rather than looking to themselves. This is Bad. What does that say about the quality of culture today? Funny thing is that there's a lot of great music NOW out there. Shit. How lame can you get? In high school we were mods but we weren't mostly listening to Who and Faces... we were mostly listening to Jam and Specials and Beat,etc... oh, whatever.

Listen, 16 year olds out there! Stop trying to live my teen life! Cut yourself to music that's new and belongs to you. Get your piercings and your tattoos and feel suicidal listening to your own damn tunes! I was there in the 80s! It started good and then it went really bad! It's not worth emulating, let alone worshipping.

It's not like I've been in a funk about gettting older and seeing how a lot of kids have the same tastes in movies and music as I do. It's not like this just brings home how useless it is to try to pin one's identity on one's taste in consumables like food or music or books or movies. It's what we PRODUCE that matters and I haven't produced anything for ages. But that's nothing to do with it, you hear?

The kids today are so fucking lost and so fucking conformist even in their indiscretions. It's fucking sad. Soon the ultimate outsider will be the kid who is content to be happy and do alright in their own skin. Damn, we're all messed up. And I haven't changed since I was 16. Good or sad? Could go either way. Or the answers could be two sides of a razor and I could get split down the middle.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Oren Bloedow and Jennifer Charles -- Quinze Anos

Well, the reasons to impeach Bush keep coming... I find it particularily ironic since Bush and his Republican cronies have tried to silence whistleblowers with stern admonitions about leaks. Here we see that it has been Bush and Cheney behind leaks. Disgusting.

I'd rant about this for an hour or so, but it's a busy, busy day today at work...

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Ani DiFranco -- To the Teeth

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Feingold for President.

I have been yearning for this man for years, a polititian who stands by his principles no matter what, who isn't afraid to stand alone, like he did when he was the only senator voting against the Patriot Act.

If/When Feingold announces his run for the '08 Presidency, that very day I change my registration from Green to Democrat. That very day I hook up with the local Feingold for President folks and volunteer.

Mike Oldfield -- Hergest Ridge

So. Another report linking brain tumors to cell phone use.

I'd be surprised if everything electronic in our lives wasn't somehow related to brain tumors, but it's interesting. Much like the link between automobiles and mortality/morbidity, it's a risk/benefit analysis. How many lives are saved with cells vs taken?

America's worldview and agenda are ruled by two Complexes. We all know the Military Industrial Complex, and we have seen what Eisenhower warned against come to pass. But there's another one out theree, one that is quickly becoming more powerful than the familiar Military Industrial. And that's the Medical Industrial Complex.

The Medical Industrial Complex reduces the many dimensions of the world and our experiences into a simple idea. We are supposed to be Healthy. It's our birthright to be free of pain and stress and medical conditions that leave us at less than optimal Medical condition. It's also the only legitimate measurement of our effectiveness and the only legitimate use of our resources. Each disease or condition or syndrome that removes us from perfect alignment with the Ideal of Health must be fought. Of course, there is only one enemy here at the end of the day, and that is Death.

The Medical Industrial Complex tis fighting a much huger war than the Military Industrial, with the most battles on the most fronts and far more money and lives involved. The huge stockpiles of medications out there, and the huge array of diseases against which they are trained, is mind-boggling. The Medical Industrial Complex currently is fighting battles against dozens of kinds of cancers, heart diseases, Tay Sachs, Sickle Cell Anemia, Crohn's Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Scleroderma, Parkinsons, Alzheimers... you and I can recite the litany all day, till late in the evening we'd get to fallen arches and bunyans. Many of these battles have been fought for generations and no matter how many fundraisers are thrown, there's no cures coming. But they are coming, and in the next ten years, we'll see many of these diseases and syndromes conquered.

As these battles are won, the Medical Industrial Complex will need new ones to fight. The survival of the Complex demands it. So we will see two things. First, we will see the medicalization of conditions not properly medical. Into this camp we are already seeing problems more properly dealt with psychologically, like cosmetic surgery, weight control surgery, erectile function issues, etc. And second, we will see new conditions previously not diagnosed, such as those caused by environmental factors like cellphone radiation or particulates in the air or radon, etc etc etc, conditions that would not be dealt with before, as people would have died already from the now-conquered diseases.

Yeah.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

No Music -- iPod still elsewhere

On Ventura Blvd today. Don't you love the tube socks and the gold boots?