let's solve the problem of homelessness by making it illegal!

the banality of evil (updated x 2)

How do we spread peace, justice, and sweet freedom to Afghanistan? With "68-ton tanks... propelled by a jet engine and equipped with a 120mm main gun that can destroy a house more than a mile away" of course!

Is this really a good idea? Anonymous officer thinks so!

"The tanks bring awe, shock and firepower," the officer said. "It's pretty significant."

That doesn't sound like a way to win hearts and minds to some people, but anonymous officer knows better, as does his boss:

"Petraeus believes counterinsurgency does not mean just handing out sacks of wheat seed," said a senior officer in Afghanistan. Counterinsurgency "doesn't mean you don't blow up stuff or kill people who need to be killed."

Let's talk about blowing up stuff and killing people. The silly people who's stuff is getting blown up wonder why their stuff is getting blown up, and don't seem to like it.

"Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?" a farmer from the Arghandab district asked a top NATO general at a recent community meeting.

And we understand farmer's point. But farmer doesn't seem to understand the way anonymous officer does! See, when we blow up farmer's fields and homes, that is a good thing for farmer, because he gets the privilege of filing a complaint!

Although military officials are apologetic in public, they maintain privately that the tactic has a benefit beyond the elimination of insurgent bombs. By making people travel to the district governor's office to submit a claim for damaged property, "in effect, you're connecting the government to the people," the senior officer said.

Maybe we should start blowing stuff up everywhere that the government isn't connected to the people! The people's stuff, of course. Not the government.

So, who are these people that "need to be killed"? And doesn't this all sound a bit desperate?

Although the officer acknowledged that the use of tanks this many years into the war could be seen as a sign of desperation by some Afghans and Americans, he said they will provide the Marines with an important new tool in missions to flush out pockets of insurgent fighters.

"Pockets of insurgent fighters" are who must be "flushed out." In other words, anyone who doesn't like foreign armies blowing up their fields and homes and slaughtering their family needs to be killed. Why?

...to protect Afghan civilians from insurgents.

Has anyone asked these Afghan civilians what they think? If they want more 68 ton tanks? If they want Petraeus or anonymous officer in their backyard? Of course not. Why ask them when we could just talk to anonymous officer?

Anyway, you might be wondering how Petraeus can get away with this, yet alone live with himself. Don't worry, he's doing just fine!

"Because Petraeus is the author of the COIN [counterinsurgency] manual, he can do whatever he wants. He can manage the optics better than McChrystal could," the adviser said. "If he wants to turn it up to 11, he feels he has the moral authority to do it."

He can get away with anything and feels morally justified because he wrote a book about how to kill people, and because he can manage optics. I'm pretty sure that "optics" means The Washington Post.

Update: Arthur Silber comments on the same article, including a genuine compliment to its author for his fairly straightforward depiction of the evil under discussion. Arthur's entire essay, as always, is well worth reading.

Update 2: Yeah, the more I think about it, "optics" means US domestic media - TV networks, local papers - more than the Washington Post. This comment seems right to me.

how to make things better

I recently suggested to some friends that a way to work towards a more equal society would be to get more involved with their union. This was met with rather vehement objection, on the basis that their union doesn't serve their interests. The more I've thought about this response, the more amazed I am because of how backwards this logic is.

Whether they like it or not, their union is the (strongest) vehicle for collectively representing their interests as employees. The union hasn't served their interests well in the past precisely because a small number of biased people have been making decisions on behalf of a larger group (I know this because I used to be in the same union and had many of the same frustrations as them). So I'm advocating that my friends get more involved so as to make their union more effective at representing their interests.

So basically I'm saying: the current power structures of society don't serve your interests, so you need to work more for your own interests and do less delegating of that work to others.

And they're responding: but those others don't work for my interests.

And they seemed to think that undermined my point!

In retrospect, I think that a big source of confusion is that they, like most North Americans, have only the faintest notion of what democracy actually is, aside from voting. Not because they're stupid, but because they're deluged with propaganda and they have little exposure to genuinely democratic organizations. They have little concept of how people could possibly manage their own affairs rather than letting someone else control things. To them "the union" and "the people who've been leading the union" are indistinguishable - pure authoritarianism. Thus, "getting more involved with the union" doesn't work because they can't imagine that meaning anything other than just doing what the union leaders tell them to do. The idea of working together to force powerful people to respect your interests is just utterly foreign. Again this isn't because they're dumb, but because they've never known anything else.

The topic came up in the first place when I made a broader point about helping people that has been on my mind lately. I noted that, given the existence of human suffering, there are two main ways to make things better. You can either find a suffering person (or people) and try to heal them, or you can address the root causes of that suffering. It turns out that social structures can be pretty strong root causes of suffering. (There's a pretty convincing body of evidence that economic inequality leads to all kinds of nasty shit, see this book for a good start, and so I suggested that if you want to help people, fighting for greater equality is a way to address root causes.) Because there are entrenched interests that will resist changes to social structures, and because working directly with a suffering person can create a more immediate improvement, I argued that the root cause approach is too neglected. (Not to mention that there's more money to be made in treatment!) I think that if people shifted their total helping efforts to do slightly more root cause work (even at the expense of treatment work) I suspect we'd all be better off.

Their resistance to my idea tells me I'm fighting an uphill battle.

art

I love the graffiti around town. If I had a camera, I'd take pictures of it and post it on my blog. But I don't have a camera, so I direct your attention to... Guelph Graffiti Blog! Naturally, this one is my favorite.

vote for change? impossible

American elections, in a nutshell:

Americans out of work, out of income, out of homes and prospects, and out of hope for their children's careers are angry. But the political system offers them no way of bringing about change. They can change the elected servants of the oligarchs, but they cannot change the policies or the oligarchs.

Another key point:

The control of the oligarchs extends to the media. The Clinton administration permitted a small number of mega-corporations to concentrate the US media in a few hands. Corporate advertising executives, not journalists, control the new American media, and the value of the mega-companies depends on government broadcast licenses. The media's interest is now united with that of the government and the oligarchs.

On top of all the other factors that have made American elections meaningless, voters cannot even get correct information from the media about the problems that they and the country face.

killers and thieves suck each other off

via GG:

MILITARY OFFICERS TOUR JPMORGAN -- JPMorgan Chase yesterday hosted about 30 active duty military officers (across all branches and agencies) from the Marine Corps War College in Quantico, Va. The officers met with senior executives, toured the trading floor and participated in a trading simulation. They discussed recruitment, operations management, strategic communications and the economy. Aside from employees thanking them for their service as they passed by, they also received a standing ovation on the trading floor. Said one officer after a senior JPM exec thanked him for his service: "We promise to keep you safe if you keep this country strong."

communication styles

When I talk to people, I often almost entirely attend to the literal semantic meaning of the words being exchanged. Perhaps I make some adjustment for the literal semantic meaning that was intended, in cases where there was some imprecision of speech. This strikes me as a purely intellectual, conversation as mutualistic truth-seeking kind of approach.

I'm realizing that I ought to pay much more attention to the other kinds of information being conveyed by being more attentive to context, tone, and subtle meanings behind the literal meaning of words. This would be more of a real world, communication as negotiation amidst some shared and some conflicting interests kind of approach.

I suspect that most people do a lot of the latter without even realizing it, guided by emotions rather than conscious deliberation. In fact I'd suspect that the level of emotion in the conversation is a reflection of the extent to which the latter kind of process is happening. I often find myself in a conversation where I'm much less emotional than the other party (and what emotion I do feel or express is often related to the intellectual content!) which is often a source of extreme frustration for that other party. They feel like I don't realize what's really going on, yet are unable to counter when I dutifully and accurately recite the actual words as evidence that I do understand, because their understanding that something more than the words is going on isn't fully conscious.

I'll have to consciously force myself to pay more attention to the other stuff until it comes more naturally; in doing so, I fear I'm being cynical and that I'm risking being regarded as such. Of course I already am regarded as cynical so maybe that's not much of a risk.

asshole toronto cop can't stand being called an asshole, so he files a lawsuit... like an asshole

answering anarchy's toughest challenge

An obvious problem that society has to cope with is that some people just want to hurt other people, to control them, to dominate them, to humiliate them. How does the anarchist propose to deal with that?!!!.

Anarchists propose that we all take note that the state's solution for dealing with these people is to (1) hire all of them, (2) train them to kill people, (3) give them guns, (4) set them loose among the population, and then (5) use its power to shield them from accountability for their unjust use of violence. Anarchists then suggest that maybe the state's solution isn't the best idea!

prison

yeah, i'll just keep going with my wildly unpopular criticism of institutionalized education and say i agree with that perspective.

if i'm correct in assuming that the use of physical or authoritarian coercion is truly avoided except in self-defense or the immediate defense of others, the only thing i can see wrong with this alternative system after a quick perusal is that it isn't the system for every part of everyone's lives. it almost seems unfair to provide people with such an ideal environment, knowing that it will be extremely different to replicate that experience later in their lives.

thanks to dan for the tip.

Dive! Trailer from Compeller on Vimeo.

via

leave those kids alone

I just sat through this talk about how you can maybe treat ADHD by treating associated working memory deficits that pissed me off.

Working memory is supposed to be useful for "goal-directed activity." The behavioural patterns associated with ADHD include things like poor academic performance, not sitting still in class, talking out of turn, and poor performance in memory tasks in the lab. It strikes me that all these behaviours involve goals imposed on them by authorities, authorities who then cite a child's reluctance to subordinate his own goals to the goals of the authority as evidence of a "disorder" that requires pharmacological intervention or behavioural modification therapy. Seems to me like ADHD is an independent-minded social strategy that doesn't fit well with our social system, so we're trying to modify the individuals to fit the system, rather than the other way around. Procrustes smiles.

When I brought this up to the speaker, she cited ADHD kids' poor perform at video games ("their favorite thing to do!") as evidence for inability to perform well at their own goals. I've played video games; sometimes you just don't want to do what you have to do to "win." Sometime you just want to go jump on that thing and see what happens. When I questioned the ecological validity of video games, she said something about how when they play baseball ("what could be more ecologically valid!?") they have trouble remembering how many outs there are or some shit. Uh, maybe they just want to catch and throw a ball without keeping score? God forbid we try to have fun without a way to keep track of winners and losers.

It just strongly felt to me that I was in the presence of the worst evil of academia, where some "expert" is highly paid to make it sound like fucking people up to serve the interests of power is somehow "science" that we should all take seriously and respect. Fuck them.

My friend at Think Love, who studies psychological phenomena related to so-called ADHD, has some further commentary, touching on some important points like how this kind of "science" is funded, and what might constitute natural child behaviour (hint: it doesn't involve sitting still in a classroom all day and filling in the right circles with a #2 pencil).

kids these days

saw 2 fashion statements i thought worthy of mention:

1) thumbs up to the dude wearing a cape. crimson on the inside, purple on the outside, tied around his neck.

2) thumbs down to the girl with a neck piercing. it was like a hook through the skin of her neck, with small balls on either end. there was a hideous scar associated with it, and the piercing had gradually pulled downward, accentuating the wound. wtf?

the wonders of pillage

way to completely ignore the moral argument, journal of wall street!

"isn't it amazing how much variety we have!!"

uh, yeah, and the cost of that variety is borne by peasants in mexico, slaving away in factories because a huge US corporation stole their land to grow cheap ass avocados, and those who will inherit our broken ecosystems, raped to death by monoculture and waste from the transport systems to bring you your fucking avocado to manhattan in february. such people have no power, and certainly don't read the WSJ. no need to consider their perspectives.

embracing my own agency

For most of my formative years, much of my schedule was controlled by authority figures: schools and parents. When I was first in a position to have much greater control over my own time, I squandered it. Then I got a job for a few years, and my time was controlled, my efforts directed. After quitting it, I again squandered my time. I've had a few more cycles like that. Throughout all of this I tended to think of myself as lazy, and wondered how I could fight my own laziness.

It occurs to me now that years and years of taking orders from authority figures really fucked up my ability to manage my time, and to direct my efforts towards goals of my own choosing. Whenever I had time to myself, I just wanted to do nothing, perhaps because I was accustomed to goal-directed activity being unpleasant. And it was unpleasant partially because I wasn't the one setting the goals. I suppose these repeated periods where I squandered my time were when I rejected being an agent for someone else's goals, but was incompetent at setting my own and executing on them.

Anyway, I think that slowly over the last 2 years of grad school I've started to realize that my time is my own, and that the way I spend it today is a big part of what options I'll have tomorrow. (Perhaps "realize" isn't the right term; "act like someone who understands" might be more accurate.) I'm getting better at identifying what options I want to have tomorrow, and how to direct my energies towards those long-term goals. Maybe that's just behaving like a fucking adult, but it's big progress for me, and I feel pretty good about it.

I'm more productive at work now, allocating time both to short-term (applying for funding next month, teaching responsibilities, various new student administrative things) and long-term projects (developing a plan of study for my PhD work), and doing so far more efficiently than ever before, though with plenty of room for improvement. The same is true for home life. For example, last weekend I canned 23 liters of tomato sauce with some friends, to make some delicious local produce last into the winter. These are the kinds of things I've been saying I wanted to do for years now, and now I'm actually doing them. Items on my list for the near future include homebrewing beer and submitting a paper for publication, both of which will happen in the next couple months.

I'm trying to make similar progress with personal relationships. I've had very few deeply satisfying connections with other people, and the few I've had haven't lasted very long, probably at least in part due to my own failure to maintain them. I suspect I'll be able to apply these newfound abilities in this part of life as well. We'll see how it goes.

Aside from the personal utility I'm deriving from these changes, it occurs to me that the explanation I've hypothesized -- years of taking orders from authority stunting my ability to effectively identify and pursue my own goals -- could have enormous social implications if the same dynamic has been playing out for a large population, which - I - suspect - it - has. I'll have to think more about that.

weighing the question: does it matter?

One reason I'm studying what I'm studying is that while I enjoy learning just for its own sake, it feels like masturbation if it doesn't matter. And I know that pursuing science just for its own sake can, and often does, lead to something that matters. But I like studying cooperation and conflict (as opposed to string theory or tactile perception or Russian literature) because, aside from the masturbatory feeling that it is enjoyable and interesting, it also seems to me that this shit matters. It seems clearer in my academic field than in some others (and less than some too) that my work has potential to do some good. I suppose that is a personal judgment, perhaps largely political. My hope is that as I get better at doing the science, I'll also be increasingly able to do it in a way that facilitates positive social change, if only on a tiny scale.

I hope that will be worth the valuable time and energy I'm devoting to the formal process of obtaining the proper credentials required by the gargantuan institutions where most of this kind of work is done. Grad school is good because it, at least in theory, strips education down to its best parts: there is minimal formal coursework, most of which involves small class sizes, and there is lots of independent, self-motivated investigation of topics that interest you (although personal interests have to be weighed against the interests of the people funding the research), under the guidance of experienced and knowledgable supervisors. Grad school is bad because in order to afford it, most of us have to actively participate in the formalization of the worst perversions of education: marking exams and teaching huge introductory courses to masses of students with little interest in the material.

Greenwald on accountability

Greenwald today (emphasis mine):

That Jeffrey Goldberg of all people is the reporter to whom we turn to understand the contours of the Iran debate would be comical if it weren't so troubling, and it illustrates the broader shield from accountability with which political and media elites have vested themselves.

...

Goldberg is still treated as credible and influential despite his unrepentant Iraq falsehoods because the people who determine credibility and influence did essentially the same thing he did, and are thus incentivized to maintain a Look Forward, Not Backward amnesia, ensuring that nobody pays a price for anything that happened (see, as but one example, Slate's Fred Kaplan -- who was also spectacularly wrong in his Iraq-war-enabling reporting -- gushing this week about Goldberg's brilliance: "the best article I've read on the subject -- shrewd and balanced reporting combined with sophisticated analysis of the tangled strategic dilemmas."). Meanwhile, Goldberg's colleague publicly demands that nobody hold Goldberg's past transgressions against him. No profession is more accountability-free than establishment journalism.

Greenwald last month (emphasis mine again):

With the Nasr firing, here we find yet again exposed the central lie of American establishment journalism: that opinion-free "objectivity" is possible, required, and the governing rule. The exact opposite is true: very strong opinions are not only permitted but required. They just have to be the right opinions: the official, approved ones.

It simply isn't true that establishment journalism is accountability-free. It is true that establishment journalists are not accountable to the truth, nor to the public (though they might purport to be). But they are accountable to power, as Octavia Nasr and Ashleigh Banfield and Eason Jordan and Phil Donahue, among others, well know. Thus, nobody is held accountable for the disaster of the Iraq war because the Iraq war wasn't a disaster to the powerful! Further, people are rewarded for their contributions to the Iraq war because the Iraq war was good for the powerful!

I'm sure Glenn knows this because he documented it quite well in the 2nd linked piece, but I feel like his piece today suffers for not explicitly making the connection.

The Matrix

awesome stuff: "there is a superficial reality that is maintained in order to obscure the real workings of modern societies in favor of particular interests"

worship of state

Rolling along with the idea, popular in my head, that statism is a religion, here's the good professor (emphasis mine):

These conventions are so widely observed that further citation is unnecessary. A notable feature throughout is the lack of any felt need to justify the flattering doctrine that in the Third World, the U.S. has sought only to thwart the Russians and their totalitarian goals while upholding its lofty principles as best it can in these grim and trying circumstances. The reasoning is that of NSC 68: these are necessary truths, established by conceptual analysis alone. Scholars who profess a tough-minded "realistic" outlook, scorning sentimentality and emotion, are willing to concede that the facts of history hardly illustrate the commitment of the United States to, as Hans Morgenthau puts it, its "transcendent purpose" -- "the establishment of equality in freedom in America," and indeed throughout the world, since "the arena within which the United States must defend and promote its purpose has become world-wide." But the facts are irrelevant, because, as Morgenthau hastens to explain, to adduce them is "to confound the abuse of reality with reality itself." Reality is the unachieved "national purpose" revealed by "the evidence of history as our minds reflect it," while the actual historical record is merely the abuse of reality, an insignificant artifact. The conventional understanding is therefore self-justifying, immune to external critique.

Though the sophistication of traditional theology is lacking, the similarity of themes and style is striking. It reveals the extent to which worship of the state has become a secular religion for which the intellectuals serve as priesthood. The more primitive sectors of Western culture go further, fostering forms of idolatry in which such sacred symbols as the flag become an object of forced veneration, and the state is called upon to punish any insult to them and to compel children to pledge their devotion daily, while God and State are almost indissolubly linked in public ceremony and discourse, as in James Reston's musings on our devotion to the will of the Creator. It is perhaps not surprising that such crude fanaticism rises to such an extreme in the United States, as an antidote for the unique freedom from state coercion that has been achieved by popular struggle.

greatness and our dim future

Q: What really bothers me about LeBron's decision is the effect it's going to have on the younger generation. Young kids everywhere are going to see this and think that it's better to take the easier road to success instead of taking the chance at being great. If you have a chance at transcendence but it seems just a little too hard or too much for you to handle, then don't go for it. Take the easy road. That's the lesson learned and the trend set for this generation. But then again, this is also the generation that airs out their beef on Facebook/Twitter. This is the generation that could never understand what JFK's quote "We do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard" really means. Hell, this is the generation that thinks the greatest rapper of all time is a Canadian who got famous because he was on a Nickelodeon show. So maybe LeBron's just a product of his time and he's just doing what he thinks is right. But what do I know? Call me old-fashioned, but then again I'm only 21.
-- Sopan, New Brunswick, N.J.

Woe to us! Our youth are going to think that achieving ridiculous wealth by playing a game with your friends is more fun than trying to destroy everyone else the way the "great" Jack Kennedy did! What grim portent!

Sorry, Sopan, I don't call you old-fashioned. I call you brainwashed.

hippies and small farmers have unfair advantage say men with guns

People organize to get the food they want. They leave giant corporations out of the process, so those corporations send men with guns to steal that food. This is called "leveling the playing field for producers" by the government. Ha!

fine, I'll talk about LeBron

Ok despite my constant complaining about the absurdity of professional sports, I still pay some attention to the NBA. And the reactions to this whole LeBron to Miami thing are so fucking stupid. Take this, from a recent Bill Simmons mailbag:

City: Cleveland

Name: Paul
I'm 25 years old. I'm about to re-enlist for another tour overseas with the Army. I have an idea of what matters and what doesn't.

But this still hurts. Nothing stings worse than when one of your own rips your heart out. Not like this ...

Maybe I should do what's best for me and get out of the Army. Unfortunately, loyalty is driving me to do one more tour.

LeBron knows nothing of that word.

Where do I even start? You have an idea what matters because you're part of a death machine that is occupying countries across the globe to serve the interests of American corporations? And despite your brilliant grip on "what matters," you think it matters what uniform a professional basketball player wears? Whether the professional sports team from your city throws a ball through a hoop more often than any other? And "loyalty"? Loyalty to what, your employer? Fuck that.

And then this whole "Jordan would have wanted to beat Wade, not join him" thing is amusing too. You want to know something about Jordan? He's a fucking asshole. His teammates hated him and were terrified of him. He wanted to destroy everyone, and he did. Uh... great? LeBron seems just to be a nice, though hideously self-absorbed, guy who wants to hang out with his friends in a fun city. And this is supposed to be a bad thing? Go play ball in Miami, LeBron! Who fucking cares what Jordan would have done.

(american) football

Stories like this are a big reason why I don't want to support the NFL (or boxing, or MMA, etc) at all. Bad things happen when people repeatedly endure head trauma, and a small number of people are getting very rich off kids destroying their bodies. I don't want to be a part of that.

a few life updates

Not much blogging lately, but here's a few things that are going on in my life:

• I've been spending my work hours writing my thesis, which I'll defend in mid-July. Today I spent the afternoon redoing some statistics that were a bit off, and now I'll have to rethink a section in light of the changes. This section isn't especially important to the thesis as a whole, but it is important to a direction I'd like to take in the future.
• I'll be traveling to my first academic conference and presenting a poster later this month. The poster will focus on the experiment I ran this winter. I've never been to Oregon before.
• I've had all three cats since my ex moved out, but today Hattori goes to live with her. It will be sad to lose him, but we think this is the best possible arrangement for everyone. We'll try it for a few weeks and see how it goes. One potential benefit of his absence is that Horus might be more social once he realizes he doesn't have to hide from Hattori's bullying.
• Softball season is in full, glorious, swing.
• This weekend is the Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair and Dundas Buskerfest!
• I think I'm starting to experience human emotions a few times a week. I kinda like it.

sounds like mexican food

who else had never heard the word "flotilla" before?

Today is 2 years since I moved to Canada. I love it here.

plans

Ah, yes. I am heading to Guelph next year. Sad to leave McMaster, but excited about the next step. I'm working on writing up my thesis for the next few weeks, and will defend it on July 19.

Eat local!

I've made this point before, but while Jon Schwarz is mentioning it, I'll say it again. Changing your eating habits is one of the easiest ways to really make a huge difference in the world. Think about how much money you spend per year on food, and imagine if that amount went into your local community to people growing food in an ethical way, rather than giving it to giant, evil corporations that abuse workers, animals, and the environment to increase profits for the wealthy people that own and manage them. Eat local!

my pain, the world's pain

I've had a rather rough last 6 months, dealing with the collapse of my marriage (I'm doing okay though). During that time, whenever I've read something like this, I've often remembered IOZ's moving thoughts after a break-up he went through. Somehow it helps. I strongly recommend reading it.

NYT sucks

the nyt is a hideous pile of shit.

the entire thing is just copying down what anonymous government officials say and printing it. they give it the title "evidence mounts for taliban role in car bomb plot" when no evidence whatsoever is produced.

plus you get shit like this:

There is no doubt among intelligence officials that the barrage of attacks by C.I.A. drones over the past year has made Pakistan’s Taliban, which goes by the name Tehrik-i-Taliban, increasingly determined to seek revenge by finding any way possible to strike at the United States.

The C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan, which was accelerated in 2008 and expanded by President Obama last year, has enjoyed strong bipartisan support in Washington in part because it was perceived as eliminating dangerous militants while keeping Americans safe.

But the attack in December on a C.I.A. base in Afghanistan, and now possibly the failed S.U.V. attack in Manhattan, are reminders that the drones’ very success may be provoking a costly response.

notice anything funny? there's no fucking mention of hundreds of innocent civilians who've been slaughtered by BO's flying death robots.

and this is funny too:

The message may be, “ ‘The U.S. is pounding us with drone attacks, but we’re powerful enough to strike back’; it’s certainly enough to attract ever more recruits to replace those they’re losing,” Mr. Hoffman said.

correct me if i'm wrong, but wasn't the entire plot a huge fucking failure, and the guy who did it a huge fucking moron?

!!!!

girlfriend!

Is there any rhyme or reason to the phenomenon whereby heterosexual women sometimes refer to their same-sex friends as "girlfriends" instead of simply "friends"?

Also, is my question mark at the end of the last sentence supposed to be inside or outside of the quote? [update: outside was right!]

Steal from Work Day!

Is today!

new computer for me

After almost 8 years of faithful service, my Dell desktop is being put out of its misery retired. I finally caved and bought a new computer. Big change for me - I bought a Macbook. So far I like it. If the goal of marketing is to create a blind loyalty to a corporate brand, the Apple people have succeeded. Asking people for advice on whether to get a Mac or a PC is like asking "Jesus or Allah?" But I tried to filter out the religious gunk and get to the substance, so hopefully I made the right choice. If I can make this machine last half as long as the last, I'll be fairly happy.

"Innocent until proven guilty" is meaningless: Captain Hope-n-Change Orders the Murder of an American

So, The Obama has decreed that an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, must be "killed or captured."

An "American Official" who wouldn't give his name says: "The United States works, exactly as the American people expect, to overcome threats to their security, and this individual - through his own actions - has become one. Awlaki knows what he's done, and he knows he won't be met with handshakes and flowers. None of this should surprise anyone."

I think that the American people expect that accusations by cowardly government officials who won't even give their own names as they talk tough about handshakes and flowers aren't the same as a conviction in a fair trial. But he's right that none of this should surprise.

Let's be very clear about this: Obama can simply say that someone is a "security threat" and then order them to be killed. A political leader who issues unilateral death sentences is a despot, not a fucking servant of democracy. I'd say "fuck you, Obama" but that might make me a security threat, so instead I'll just give a big fat YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY AMERICA!!!!!

ouch

I read footnotes 20 and 21 here and my heart breaks a million times in a row.

"amazing"

I've seen this in a few places, and it seems worth repeating here.

KABUL, Afghanistan — American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, according to military officials in Kabul.

“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.

Later in the article:

The persistence of deadly convoy and checkpoint shootings has led to growing resentment among Afghans fearful of Western troops and angry at what they see as the impunity with which the troops operate — a friction that has turned villages firmly against the occupation.

They hate us for our freedom! turns out to be correct — our freedom to kill them with impunity. Sorry, "what they see as" our freedom to kill them with impunity.

Donkeys

Any poor souls still suffering under the delusion that government represents the interests of the people really ought to read this story. The whole thing is about how Nancy Pelosi is "twisting arms" to ensure that enough democrats vote in favor of Obama's stupid healthcare reform bill. Enough representatives must do the "heavy lifting" to ensure that the Democrats win the "argument between Democrats and their own constituents."

The contempt these people have for democracy is obvious.

For an example of the criteria she uses to decide who will be "given absolution to vote no," Pelosi won't "grant a pass" to Representatives whose "districts have smaller black populations," because black votes are "traditionally reliable," so their Representatives can afford to support the bill. Because once you know votes are reliable, YOU DON'T HAVE TO EARN THEM BY ACTING IN THE INTERESTS OF PEOPLE WHO CAST THOSE VOTES. This is what Democrats do. Stop voting for them, you fucking idiots!

almost certainly all I'll say about the NCAA tournament this year

So I've been trying to cut down on how much attention I pay to sports. Its been gradually dropping over the last few years, and is probably down to "not very much" from a high of "a whole fucking lot." But I still check in at ESPN.com every once in a while, more out of inertia and temporary boredom than actual interest. Today I stopped by and this was the front page:



Breaking news! His Majesty hath spoken! Jesus fucking Christ. Needless to say I closed the page and resolved not to go back for a long time.

Coincidentally, last night I read a passage from Understanding Power where Chomsky says some smart things about non-participatory sports. This blogger has excerpted the highlights.

let's not talk about it

March 15 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama probably would veto legislation authorizing the next budget for U.S. intelligence agencies if it calls for a new investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks, an administration official said.

A proposed probe by the intelligence agencies’ inspector general “would undermine public confidence” in an FBI probe of the attacks “and unfairly cast doubt on its conclusions,” Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a letter to leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

Scrutiny of government activities would make the government look bad, so Obama would prevent scrutiny of government activities. Sounds about right!

fish and future

Students in my animal behavior lab class this semester are doing some experiments using fish, so I've been trying to keep 120 guppies alive for them. They all lived 3 days on my watch, but today I found 4 dead ones. They were all the same kind of fish, and the others of that type are looking pretty unhealthy, so I'm betting I'll lose more over the weekend. The deaths are frustrating, but aside from that, I'm finding fish-keeping to be a surprisingly enjoyable endeavor. There's something soothing about sitting and watching them swim around, listening to the water run through the filter.

In other news, I received word that I will be accepted to the Psychology PhD program at the University of Guelph, to work with this guy, so that instantly becomes my leading option for next year. There's really only one competitor, and I'm still waiting to hear from them.

here's what school is really all about

Maryland teacher calls police when her 13 year old student refuses to say the pledge of allegiance.

We need men with guns to deal with the threat posed by a child who won't swear fealty to a bloody fucking rag on a stick. Bow before the altar of the state, lest the state's hired goons drag you away.

life and the spectacle

J.R. Boyd's LadyPoverty regularly posts excellent stuff, but this one really blew me away, and inspired a lot of thought about my own life. I recommend the whole thing, though I'll excerpt some of it to share my own thoughts.

It starts with this quote:

Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle:

The whole life of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.

I've occasionally noted a feeling of disconnectedness from my world, or that I just don't quite belong where I am. Boyd's elaboration on Debord's thought is a brilliant explanation of a big part of the proximate mechanisms at work in that feeling, defining the spectacle as "the industrial production of information under capitalism."

This passage hits especially close to home:

I have a younger colleague at one of my jobs. When I am able to speak authoritatively on some matter of commercial urgency -- the release of a new movie or electronic product -- we enjoy a warm working relationship. The rest of our time, however, is comprised mostly of crickets and tumbleweeds. It is a sad testament to the fact that we don't consume enough of the same things with the same enthusiasm, for it is only in consuming things that one exercises that degree of individuality to which others can relate.

I relate to this very strongly, especially in regards to colleagues from my former professions and many people I've considered friends over the years. In academia it is a little bit better, to the extent that matters of academic interest are distinct from matters of commercial urgency, which is debatable. Still, even here, in a factory of science nerds whose shared purpose is, at least ostensibly, the pursuit of an understanding of the world, there are lots of nice people to whom I'm unable to relate without reference to movies or sports or some other mass media spectacles. Which isn't to say I dislike or think poorly of those people; quite to the contrary, I lament that spectacle is our only medium of discourse because I imagine I'd enjoy being able to bond over something more real.

Boyd continues:

Divorced from its commercial utility, individuality does not translate well. In fact, it is often met with silence and a horrified expression.

I think I've always tended to push the boundaries of acceptable individualism. In my first corporate job I did this mainly for its own sake, and a bit as rebellion against a stifling culture. Colleagues decorated their cubicles with sports banners; I strung rubber bands between thumbtacks at the right tensions that when I plucked them I could play the "NBC" network 3 notes. I broke unspoken rules by making the same jokes at lunch as I did in the office, knowing they'd get genuine laughs in the former setting, and nervous laughs in the latter. Basically I pushed them just far enough that they thought I was a bit weird, but not so far that they didn't like me. The reaction when I quit illustrates this tension rather well, and their response to my explanation suggests that lots of people would like to break free and be more individual, but are unable to do so for various reasons.

In academia I wouldn't go so far as to say that non-spectacle individuality is encouraged (again with the questionable exception of academic specialty), but a much wider range is tolerated than in the corporate world. But these days my efforts at individuality often have a moral/political purpose, which is where Boyd's final point rings true for me:

Anything which lacks its own promotional budget cannot be communicated intelligibly without enormous effort, because nobody enjoys a preexisting familiarity with it. As Guy Debord would say, our social relationships are mediated by the Spectacle: we can talk to each other about Haiti as long as it is made real by the TV. The rest of the time Haiti does not exist, so we can't talk about it. And that's because nobody will have anything to say about Haiti unless it is on the TV. If you had something to say about Haiti before it was on the TV, then you are a very odd bird, indeed, because nobody else shared that experience. Nobody knew it could exist, or why it should.

I hold political positions with which most people are unfamiliar because they're excluded from mainstream media. People have limited patience for political proselytism so I've taken the approach of trying to amuse people on a regular basis, and then occasionally throw out something substantive (It raised $50, which isn't much, but grad students basically live below the poverty line, so I was happy with that level of donation). Consistently keep people entertained, and they're more willing to listen to your occasional non-entertaining messages. Interestingly, that's the same basic model as commercial media, only they capture the profits for the enrichment of an elite few.

A challenging aspect of the whole thing is that it is pretty hard to be funny without reference to the spectacle, since a lot of humor depends on a shared base of knowledge. I don't want to use the spectacle, so I often try to make goodhearted jokes about people everyone knows, but sometimes I resort to movies. It's easier, and hell, it's fun. But I don't want to do it too often. I think my favorite of all these silly lists, and perhaps my best effort to combine my goal of raising awareness about important political/moral issues and keeping people amused was this one, in which I used Obama's Nobel Peace prize as a basis for a bunch of simple "opposite" jokes.

Anyway, props to J.R. Boyd for a great post, and check out his second post on the spectacle, here.

IOZ: "our government is a huge, implacable, rapacious, imovable death god into whose insatiable maw we are damned to make perpetual sacrifice"

reasons

"...remember when all Good Democrats agreed that Karl Rove's attempts to influence the DOJ was really bad because prosecutorial decisions are not supposed to be politicized?"

No, Glenn, I don't.

buzz

Suddenly I'm getting a Google "buzz" icon in my gmail, which I assume is a new social networking thing. It tells me I now have a bunch of "followers," who will get a notification every time I share something in Google Reader, which I do a lot, or post a blog entry, which I do a lot. So I assume they'll get a lot of shit from me for a few days, and then they'll un-follow me, because why would anyone want to get a notification every time I do anything?

house under water

About two and a half years ago I sold my house. As that was happening, the real estate market was beginning its collapse, and I was aware of this fact and very nervous. After reading this piece, I just checked zillow.com for an estimate of the current value of my old house. It is probably worth $80,000 to $100,000 less than I sold it for, if not less. I wonder what life would be like for me right now if that sale hadn't gone through. I continue to feel very lucky about how it all worked out. I feel bad for the woman who bought my house, and everyone else whose home is now worth less than they paid for it. What a terrible situation to be in.

My takeaway from this is that the only real hope for salvaging what's left of our environment isn't new technologies; it is changing our behavior - trying to meet the vast majority of our needs through local exchange with known and trusted people. It is too easy to just buy something off a shelf and close our eyes to everything that happened to get it to that shelf.

I'm starting to think maybe I shouldn't be using gmail.