as the blurg turns

i think one my primary uses of this blog has been to deal with changes. once i come to terms with the change, i lose the urge to write about it. this has happened repeatedly as frequent themes came and went: leaving my first job, poker strategy, poker life, career/grad school, atheism, political awakening, anarchism.

i'm kind of losing the desire to deal with political issues now, as i feel like i've 1) got things figured out and 2) have absorbed that understanding into my day-to-day psychology. the second point is more relevant to blogging because much of my blogging has been driven by outrage, and outrage derives from expectations. i'm still outraged on a moral level by a lot of things that happen in the world, but the outrage that primary drove the blogging was more about how other people respond to travesties, and now i have different expectations there.

anyway i think the kinds of changes i'm dealing with these days are not the kinds of things i'm likely to want to blog about. that's not meant to be ominous or anything; i'm just noting that i expect blog volume to continue to decline.

this shit, as far as i recall, has always primarily been about two things: truth and fun.  it is clear to me now that one of these two things just isn't very important at all.

a space in the howling madness

In an essay that is worth reading for many reasons beyond what I'll mention, Chris Floyd says:

What commentary could adequately address such madness? Simply to see it is to know what it is. And if you cannot already see it for what it plainly is -- when the bare, unaccomodated facts shout this evil from the lower depths to the highest heavens -- what amount of commentary will sway you?

Then again, I don't write to sway anybody any more, if I ever did. I write to stay sane, to keep from exploding in rage or going dead with despair, to try to clear a space in the howling madness for myself, and for anyone else who might come this way. I write to bear witness -- mostly to myself, and to what's left of my conscience. I write because somewhere along the line, by drift of circumstance, my mind was shaped in such a way that it is only by writing that I can try to understand the world, and my own thoughts and beliefs. If I could do all that without writing -- or if I could stop looking at reality and caring about it -- then I probably would. But for whatever reason -- those same drifts of circumstance, no doubt -- I can't; so I go on.

A lot of the time that has been the reason why I've kept writing in this stupid blog of mine. Maintaining what's left of my sanity and conscience, maybe helping anyone else do the same, trying to understand the world and myself. That's what it has been about, albeit on a much different level than Chris. (That guy is amazing.)

Increasingly I think I'm finding myself doing this in other ways. I'm too lazy to check the stats but I think I'm posting less frequently and with less volume. At least it feels that way. Of course I've been pretty busy with school, and my computer at home is falling apart so I guess I have a lot less opportunity to write. But I still feel like a lot of the time I consider writing something and just decide it isn't worth it. So, yeah, I think I'm getting whatever it is I used to get out of this some other way now.

Declaring Independence: A See For Yourself Announcement

Well I don't imagine that when I started this stupid blog 3.5 ago that I'd still be doing it, and I certainly wouldn't have imagined I'd be saying some of the crazy ass shit I'm saying these days. I wouldn't have imagined I'd actually make a little bit of money off of it (thanks to online poker companies with more money than they know what to do with), and I wouldn't have imagined that I'd get over 50,000 hits.

Actually fuck all of that, who cares what I imagined. I didn't imagine anything. I was just writing shit cause it I had shit to say, and I didn't imagine too much of anything in regards to the medium itself. And I've said some shit and it has been fun. But everything has to come to an end, and for me that time is now. I'm declaring independence on July 4, 2008.

After a lot of reflection, I've decided that I'm going to stop calling Barrack Obama by his name (Barrack Obama) effective immediately. He will henceforth be referred to here as BO, for reasons of the implication that he is like body odor. Which he is. Why else would he have those initials? I'm free of using his full name, hooray!

Here is a picture of me celebrating the new stinky nomenclature while my mother-in-law looks trepidatious/sassy:



Sorry for the false setup. I had you all worried, didn't I? I actually have thought about ending this blog from time to time. I'd just start a new one though, so what would be the point?

blogs are a threat

Thinking out loud:

Blogs are a major threat to the establishment. They're like the new printing press. It used to be that the average person couldn't really contribute to public political dialog, until the printing press drastically reduced the cost of reaching lots of people. The printed word was power for a long time, until TV came along and everyone stopped reading and started getting all their information from TV. Highly concentrated wealth owns the broadcasting networks, and the average person can't really contribute. Now blogs come along and suddenly anyone with an email address can put their ideas out there. Good ideas draw an audience. Ideas different than those allowed on TV draw an audience. This is a threat, which is why mainstream media figures are so derisive towards bloggers.

So blogs are a weapon in the war of ideas, which is one reason I'd urge everyone to participate. Read blogs. Comment on blogs. Make your own. But an open question is whether the urge to sit in front of a computer and read or write a blog is taking away from the urge to go smash shit up in the streets.

miscellaneous blogging from Canada

I've been in Canada for a few days now, and life here is good. The only slight negative is that we're not going to get cable TV so I can't watch the NBA playoffs. I guess I could go to a sports bar, but I don't want to sit there for 2 hours and pay $6 for mediocre beer. All food and beverage is pretty expensive here actually. I'm going to my advisers' house for dinner tonight; every free meal is going to be quite helpful.

Speaking of good life, Man Beard Blog seems to have lurched back to life, at least for a day. This must be very exciting for someone.

Speaking of lurching around like a worthless jackass, this seems to be a perfect summary of what the Democratic Party is all about. The key passage:

I think its very mendacity is the secret of its success. Crucially, it claims to offer an alternative -- however half-hearted and feeble -- to the utter, absolute, complete and comprehensive lordship of plutocracy. As crucially, it actually does nothing of the kind.

It's fundamentally just a matter of algebra. This is a country designed -- very ably and successfully designed -- to be ruled by an oligarchy of wealth. Yet public consent to this arrangement requires representing it as a democracy. The gap between representation and reality requires some term to fill it up and make the equation come out right.

That's the structural need the Democratic Party fills, and that, I think, is the explanation for its longevity. We've always needed something like like that -- some democratic cloak for our oligarchic nakedness -- and presumably we always will, at least until something changes in a big way. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. Some institution must be built, and staffed with people who either don't mind the dirt, or can convince themselves it's not dirt at all.

He also comments of where Saint Obama and the Clintons fit into that scheme.

I'm starting basically a full time job this week doing some kind of research (details TBD) in the lab, so I'm not really sure what my blogging output will be. Also I'm using stolen wireless internet right now, so I don't know what my access will be at home until our own connection is installed (hopefully tomorrow).

I am back

I've just returned from a trip home to the Maryland area. I have a lot of blog reading to catch up on. Regular bloggage will resume here at some point. In the meantime, read about me here or here.

blog identity crisis... averted?

I haven't been doing much blogging lately, and I think a big reason is that I'm not really sure what this blog is supposed to be anymore. That sounds weird because I created it and I'm the only one who writes it, so it can be anything I want it to be. But I don't know what I want it to be. Maybe this has just run its course.

Who am I writing for? I have a handful of people that I know read this, and I get a few dozen random google hits every day. I have a couple of sponsors that give me a small but not insignificant revenue stream. But what I am doing here?

Blah.

Ok, so I saw this graph, and I thought it was interesting. First of all you have to understand the tool. It uses a two-dimensional political spectrum (economic issues on the x and social issues on the y) to plot the political sentiments of people or groups. You can take a test to see where you'd fit on the graph, and the creators of the site have done research to estimate where various politicians from around the world would fall.

The graph shows something I already know, that prominent US Presidential candidates represent an extremely narrow spectrum of right-wing authoritarian policy positions. Since I'm in the far bottom left, I'm completely alienated. Many of the people who criticize the current administration and its supporters are then supporting a party that is almost the exact same, with a few tiny differences (differences that admittedly in some situations can make a difference to real people - the point is that the ideology isn't very different). And then when a guy like Nader comes along, they hate him and vilify him, and totally miss the irony of it all.

Now I already understood that, but I have no idea how well anybody else understands this whole situation. Or if they care. Or if they'd be able to make sense of the graph. Or if they'd care to. I think it is a useful tool, but will anyone else? More specifically, should I put it on my blog? Why?

That's just one example and there are a hundred more. I guess whenever I have these blog identities crises I should just remember that I'm doing this for myself. I should approach it like a personal journal that I'm sharing with anyone who is interested. I should just write about the things I want to write about. I guess this means recording ideas and events that I'd want to look back on. I did that recently with my series of "grad school?" posts because I've got something going on with grad school choices (more on that in another post maybe). It was helpful. I could extend the same logic to political thoughts, and personal events (a.k.a. what's up with my cats), and whatever else.

So I guess I hereby resolve to drop the formality and the second-guessing about what my audience wants to read and I'll just write what I think makes sense to write. I'll try to label the post title very literally, to at least give you some chance to skip the boring shit.

So that means getting away from just posting a link and a line of commentary that is clearly intended to share with others. I wonder if I'll really do that.

who's #1? See For Yourself, biotch

#1

adspar disappears for newtonmas

Not that I ever blog any more, but I'll be home for the holidays from tomorrow to some time late in the month, and so I won't be posting for a while probably. I'll make it up to you guys, I promise!

Blogs I read lately

Chris Floyd is filling in for Glenn Greenwald this week at Salon. I'd been meaning to post about what blogs I'm reading these days, so this is a perfect occasion as two of my favorite bloggers cross paths.

Must Reads:

Floyd's Empire Burlesque - Well researched and scathing indictment of American foreign policy and military action, with lots of Bob Dylan lyrics mixed in.

Arthur Silber's Once Upon A Time - A passionate voice crying out in the dark, wishing someone would listen, knowing no one will.

Who is IOZ? - The dark comedian of dissent. A unique combination of razor sharp analysis, laser sharp wit, Friday sharp cheddars, and various other sharp things, all brilliantly poked right in your fucking eye!

The Primate Diaries - An anthropology-centered intellectual look at various topics.


Falling from the top, but still good:

Glenn Greenwald - I still like him a lot, and he is extremely effective at exposing the flaws in the system. I still read most of what he writes, and at least skim everything else. He's dropping on the list for a few reasons, the most significant of which is that the blogs above cover his approximate territory in a more convincing way. Glenn seems unable or unwilling to put the big picture all the way together, and holds onto romanticized, idealistic notions about this country that I just can't stomach. He can also be a bit tedious. Overall he's a brilliant writer, and worth keeping tabs on.

Digby's Hullabaloo - Falling for similar reasons as Greenwald. I read almost everything she writes, and she's extremely good at (justifiably) demonizing the right, but she still seems to love Democrats way too much.


Rising Stars:

Unqualified Offerings
Human Voices
Winter Patriot
Rick Perlstein

Personal Blogs:

Neon Gods
End The Cola Wars
Paulp

blog... BLOG.... blog? blog.

Selling a house in a shitty market is nerve-wracking. Seems like things might be looking up for us, but we still have a long way to go.

I have a few things going on in my life that I would like to blog about, I just haven't made it a priority yet. Hopefully I'll get to that soon. As a teaser and placeholder, topics include:

1. drawing lines, in regards to evaluating the morality of various actions
2. religious weddings and funerals
3. food
4. slaves to convention

Topics 1 and 4 both arise as I try to figure out how to deal with 2 and 3. This is a poor numbering system.

bits and bits

• The dramatic unveiling of Digby was really really cool. I'd put up links to explain it but I don't feel like it now. So I guess that is just an inside comment for people who know what I'm talking about.
• That kind of makes me revert back to a blogger identity crisis that I fall into from time to time. What am I doing? Am I informing? Commenting? Exposing? Ranting? I dunno. I just do whatever I feel like. Is that still a good way to do this.
• I still get ad revenue from poker sites. I play a few hands on Full Tilt every once in a while. I can barely stand to watch WSOP coverage on ESPN. I still enjoy High Stakes Poker though.
• Speaking of TV, the new season of Man vs Wild started last week. Bear Grylls is awesome. Les Shroud on Survivorman is also awesome, but I haven't seen any new shows from him in a while.
• Brice Lord introduced me to....
  

such is life

Tomorrow morning I'm flying up to Providence to help clear out my Great Aunt Mary's house. Her health has been deteriorating ever since she was hit by a car while walking across the street a couple years ago, and she's going to need to be in an assisted living situation for the rest of her life (she's 89) so we sold her house. Nobody tell her that I'm posting a picture of her in her nightgown. She'd be mortified.

Great Aunt Mary, me, and my sister Megan
Mary's house in Providence, RI
Summer 2005

Her sister, my Great Aunt Agnes died Tuesday night at the age of 96, so there might be a similar trip to New York City soon to clear out the apartment where she's lived by herself since the 1950s up until a few days ago. With whatever NYC's rent control laws are, she was paying like $800/month for a great apartment in a nice Manhattan neighborhood with a view of the Hudson. I imagine her death will be a celebrated occasion for her landlord.

For the family, it was obvious that it was coming soon, and she was at peace with facing the end, so everyone is okay with things. The only sad part is that she wanted to die at home instead of in the hospital, and didn't make it back to her beloved apartment. She had a pretty amazing life, and was very sharp until the end.

It would appear I don't have any good pictures of Agnes on my computer. Here's the best I can do.

Great Aunt Agnes, Aunt Patty, and Wife Kira
Annapolis, MD
Christmas 2006

In other news, this post should partially explain my lack of blogging lately. We've been very busy preparing to put our house on the market. The good news is that today the new carpet was installed. With the freshly painted walls, this place looks pretty good. Now a few minor fix ups and some cleaning and we're ready to sell.

I want to mention this excellent post by PZ, which in no way fits with the rest of this entry. It is his list of 12 objections to religion. All twelve are important, though his last one resonated most strongly with me:

Faith. Faith is the greatest sin of religion. I despise it; I'm particularly appalled that it is so universally regarded as a virtue. Listen, if I ever call someone a "person of faith", you should be aware that I have just insulted them terribly. It's astonishing how easily that sails over people's heads, though.

Faith is this amazing idea that it is a good thing to hold incredible beliefs in the complete absence of evidence to support them; the more outrageous the belief and the weaker the logic behind them, the stronger your faith and the more virtuous your conduct. It short-circuits everything that works in the world and puts ignorance on a pedestal.

Faith is the opposite of science, yet it is also one common element that you will always hear valued in religion. It is the number one most common excuse for holding peculiar superstitious beliefs in spite of the evidence against them, their violations of sense, and their foundation in wishful thinking and rhetorical vapor—it's the one word non-answer to every criticism of religion. Faith. You might as well just say "gullibility" or "ignorance" or "delusion"— it's all the same thing.

Another good point on his list that seems particularly relevant to me right now is this one:

Theft. Atheists know this one on a daily basis: Tornado demolishes home, tearful survivor comes before news cameras and "thanks God" that she was spared. Football player scores goal, drops to knees and praises god for his touchdown. Cancer patient goes into remission, lies in bed surrounded by his expensive, highly trained medical team, calls it a miracle. What religion does is steal human accomplishment and bestows it on a fickle imaginary being. Modern medicine is not a product of religion, it's the highly refined outcome of years of empirical science, yet people still babble about miracles and prayers.

The one thing PZ might have added was that religion tends to steal the deceased's thunder at the memorial service. I don't know what the plans are yet for Agnes' memorial, but she wasn't a religious person and I hope I don't have to sit through a bunch of Catholic crap just because her family is religious. She considered herself an agnostic ("I don't say there's no god. I just say that I don't know, because I don't."), but I would call her an atheist because she lived life without any belief in god. For a woman from her era, coming from her ultraconservative and ultraCatholic family, hers is a pretty impressive position by any name. The worst thing about religious funerals is how they manage to spend so much time talking about god and reciting ancient text passages instead of talking about the person that died. I don't want to be numbed into submission by boring chants and the empty consolation of "God's purpose." Agnes had an interesting life and I hope we take the opportunity to talk about her and not try to force the occasion into a belief system she rejected.

Now that I've morbidly featured her aunts, criticized religion, and linked to my wife's blog with the subtitle "blogging is just masturbating without the mess," I suppose this is as good a time as any to wish my mother a happy Mother's Day! Grandma too! So why not complete this with an awkward picture of both of them?

Grandma (paternal) Joan and Mother Anne
Bel Air, Maryland
Mother's Day 2005

And Happy Mother's day to my wonderful new mother and grandmother, Nanay and Lola!

Kira and Nanay
Calamba, Philippines
11/15/2006

adspar and Lola
Pagsanjan, Philippines
11/13/2006

cool tricks

I just started using Google Reader instead of going to each site on a long list of bookmarks and feeds. Like any other bit of technology, my admitting to using it immediately makes you think I'm either a futuristic computer geek or a woefully behind-the-times idiot. Either way, I like this tool and plan to continue using it.

Google Reader lets me share items of interest, and a cool widget lets me put a few of those in a sidebar to my blog. So now instead of making a new post just to share a few links with thin commentary, I can just share them and anyone who cares can check out the sidebar, the entire list, or even subscribe to the feed.

It occurs to me

It occurs to me after reading Glenn Greenwald's piece today that there's an element of evil genius to the far right lunatics running this country that I hadn't previously considered. Glenn writes:

The notion that citizens should refrain from questioning, criticizing or objecting to their country's war is -- aside from being patently undemocratic -- also incomparably destructive, as it eliminates (by design) a crucial mechanism for ending a misguided war: namely, the citizenry's demands that its government cease pursuing a failed or pointless war. Despite how destructive is the notion that war criticisms are illegitimate, that idea is widespread among American political leaders and our most "serious" and respected opinion-making elite.

By loudly shouting that anyone who questions the war is a traitorous terrorist-lover, war supporters have brilliantly (and disgustingly) added an extra layer of protection to their beloved war. Now war opponents have to spend extra time and effort and political capital fighting for the idea that war criticism is acceptable and valid and non-traitorous, instead of directing that energy against the war itself. It is chilling to the core that an idea so absurd could be such an effective lightning rod, but that's our America.

Now that I think of it, there are probably lots of other brilliant lightning rod strategies these creeps are using. I mean, Alberto Gonzales is a human lightning rod. And when it was a front page story that Bush had authorized widespread domestic surveillance in clear violation of federal law, he simply asserted that he has the right to break the law. Rather than discussing how he broke the law, we waste time debating if the President has the right to break the law. And Bush keeps saying that refusing to give him a blank check to fund the war is "not supporting the troops." And so everyone wastes time explaining that they support the troops that they could be using saying how Bush's war is a fucking disaster.

Absurd. Brilliant.

---

It occurs to me that it should be abundantly clear to everyone that Jesus didn't actually ever exist. The gospels are fiction, myths composed to fulfill prophesies of ancient texts. None of it makes sense as a real story.

It occurs to me that the tortured logic and absurdity used to defend Christian mythology is remarkably similar to the tortured logic and absurdity used to defend the far right lunatics running the country. C.S. Lewis wrote:

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."

Which blowhard Christians have condensed into an in-your-face "LIAR, LUNATIC, OR LORD!? WHICH IS IT???!! HUH?? HUH???" There are so many flawed premises there that it stuns an unprepared rational thinker into temporary submission. Kinda like how wanting to bring soldiers home from war is failing to support the troops. Up is down. Black is white. Liar, lunatic, or Lord?

Absurd. Brilliant.

update: It occurs to me that this is the perfect intersection.

---
It occurs to me, after reading this outrageous article (courtesy of paulp) about a 66 year old psychologist who has been permanently banned from the US for writing about taking LSD 40 years ago, that it is entirely reasonable for me to be concerned about having publicly written some of the things I've written. Things like... how our far right overlords are insane... or how Jesus never existed.

Blogs I read, in case it isn't obvious yet

A significant proportion of my blog posting the last several months has consisted of me referencing someone else's political news or commentary, with maybe a little bit of my own interpretation to dress it up. I figure we might be at the point now where anyone who is still reading this blog would probably just be better off going directly to my sources rather than getting them through the Sparks filter. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop posting them; I usually post something when I'm so pissed off about it that I don't know what else to do. But I feel like I'm starting to do less posting and more reading, so here's what I read and what I recommend:

Glenn Greenwald - Glenn's brilliant blogging has gotten even better since his move to Salon. He puts up a new post almost every day. He is a fierce critic of the political media and the Bush Administration and its supporters. I can't say enough good things about his writing.

Think Progress - A daily news blog that seeks to advance progressive ideas. They're very quick.

Hullabaloo - Digby and friends crank out several insightful posts every day. They tend towards more of a partisan Democrat approach, but this isn't a bad thing as they are very fair-minded. The writing takes on a kind of casual feel, but is very serious.

The Daily Howler - Absolutely an awesome site with a new article around noon every weekday. Their focus is mainly media criticism, with a primary ongoing theme that the media mindlessly passes along flawed conservative talking points while liberals watch and do nothing. The writing explodes with a burning sense of righteous indignation, especially about the way the mainstream media savages prominent liberal politicians, Al Gore most of all.

Pharyngula - The ScienceBlog of biology professor and Man Beard PZ Myers, this self-described "godless liberal" churns out several posts a day on a variety of topics, mainly focusing on biology, religion/atheism, and politics. He's an especially vocal opponent of Intelligent Design Creationism.

Dispatches for the Culture Wars - My other regular ScienceBlog reading is Ed Brayton's blog. He also tends to churn out several posts every morning. He does a lot of social commentary and legal analysis, usually from an ACLU-type perspective, and he's an active opponent of Intelligent Design Creationism. He also mixes in some sports and music commentary on a fairly regular basis.

TomDispatch - "A regular antidote to the mainstream media" is a perfect way to describe this site. A few times a week Tom posts a feature story that takes an angle you'll rarely encounter in the major media. He is very critical of the war and the Bush Administration, and often tackles tough social issues.

Once Upon a Time - I think this is the most unique blog on this list. Arthur Silber posts a few times per week, but I'd have a tough time describing his posts. They are intensely personal to him, and he often seems unable to contain his passion. His topic is usually America's imperialistic foreign policy, so you might think this is another political blog, but his writing is more about morality. My crude summary of his central thesis would be that the world is an incomprehensibly cruel and unfair place, so much so that we use false narratives to shield ourselves from it, and that America's behavior, when properly viewed, is astonishingly hypocritical and immoral. I don't know if that description does justice to his work. You really have to go read it for yourself, and plan to spend a lot of time going back through his archives to see the support that he often self-references.

Media Matters - They relentlessly and astutely document the mainstream media's promotion of conservative misinformation.

Nit Pick - This guy posts irregularly about political matters. I just dig his style. He's into the whole brevity thing.

Crooks and Liars - Media critique and liberal politics. Lots of posts every day, usually built around video clips.


UPDATE: If you have an blog recommendations, please comment!

actual google searches that people used to get here

pirates specializes in roast beef sandwiches

"j.j. redick" cock

growing beards

mymomishot

doyle brunson milk cookies

My blog life is complete

One of my personal blog heros, PZ Myers, pimped Man Beard Blog today.

Traffic spiked:




Celebrate by growing a beard and sending your picture to MAN BEARD BLOG!

Update:

milestone!

See For Yourself passed 30,000 hits today. I wonder how many of those were me...