I finished updating the c&o canal website with new content; everyone in the organization seems to be quite pleased. I'd like to completely revamp the design and site structure, so I could have something on my resume (and online) to be proud of, but it'd be a huge and daunting undertaking. It's nice to have an ongoing project like the c&o canal society page; whenever I'm bored, I go through the pages and see if there's anything that needs tweaking.
The house here is sort of becoming unlivable, and I'd like to move out. But that's as far as my reasoning takes me; I don't know what specific steps to take. Well, that's sort of not true. For instance, I know that I need to get a job, and accumulate some money. From there, I could rent a room or even buy a truck in which to stow my belongings and head northwest.
This is what I'd like, in my ideal world: to live with ana out in the boonies of british columbia. Well, either there or in vancouver/victoria, but only if the canadian-ness is enough to overwhelm the urban trendiness. The first step is obviously to get a job. Also, getting a job would get me out of the house here for a few hours every day.
Ok, what I *really* want is a paramilitary compound in northern british columbia funded by acres of marijuana. Ana would be second-in-command. It would have laser-triggered perimeter alarms, guard dogs, machine gun nests, and a performance art center.
Let's look at two phrases, which are two different versions of a quote attributed to pat robertson:
'the feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.'
Versus...
'feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.'
Assuming one of these two is the actual, original quote and the other is a distortion, which is which? The phrases are actually about two very different things: 'the feminist agenda' and 'feminism.' in the first, the speaker doesn't make any assertions about feminism being good or bad per se, but rather criticizes what he feels to be a political agenda pushed in the name of altruism.
I think the first quote is the original. Pat robertson is a politician who is much more likely to attack the 'liberal agenda' than altruistic liberalism itself. The second quote smacks of propaganda; it'd be good for his political opponents if pat robertson actually had said that (not to mention funny), but I just don't think it's very likely. No conservative would go so far as to attack 'feminism' or 'gay rights' or 'free speech.' these are liberal causes that look really good on paper; who in their right mind wouldn't support something that is definable as a human right? Instead, a conservative might promote 'family values' or 'traditional marriage roles' or 'national security.' attacking the 'feminist agenda' is within the realm of possibility, because 'the feminist agenda' is morally and linguistically neutral. Attacking 'feminism' is politically impossible.
Let me make it clear that I am not supporting pat robertson's view, as exemplified by either quote; I don't think either 'feminism' or 'the feminist agenda' is related to witchcraft, baby-killing, lesbianism, etc. I'm just pointing out a semantic difference and that difference's usefulness to politicians when (mis)quoting.
This all reminds me of two other bees in my bonnet.
Criticizing or even disliking israel and zionism isn't tantamount to anti-jewish sentiment. Israel is a nation-state, and its being subject to criticism is essential to the health of the world community. I fear that organizations like the ADL are motivated less out of a desire to prevent defamation of races and ethnicities than they are by a specific, nationalistic political agenda.
Holocaust denial, while idiotic and hurtful, should be protected free speech. When governments imprison holocaust deniers, it sends a message of 'we are suppressing this person because we don't want people to hear what he's saying.' in this way, suppression of holocaust denial is actually harmful to the historicity of the holocaust. Let the crackpots rant and rave; they are their own worst enemies, and outlandish conspiracy theories will by themselves discredit the people who spout them. When holocaust denial is made a state crime, one might start to wonder why a government is so anxious to silence this particular viewpoint, and this inspired doubt is counterproductive to the goals of the governments who pass such laws. These goals are presumably to send the message that denying the holocaust is idiotic and hurtful, but treating holocaust-denial as dangerous information that needs to be covered up actually fosters and encourages further holocaust-denial.
Which seems more likely: that the holocaust was a jewish conspiracy, or that holocaust denial is an anti-jewish conspiracy?
Right now, it's a crime in several countries to say 'the holocaust never happened.' maybe we can look forward to the day when it'll be a crime to say 'saying 'the holocaust never happened' shouldn't be a crime.'
I think I hear the mossad in my backyard.
I want to once and for all nail down the vague association between dada, zen and nihilism that I've been blogging about for so long. I'll try to be both understandable and brief.
dada. the abandonment of meaning and predefined structure, and their substitution with randomness, chaos, silliness, and contradiction.
nihilism. the lack of a god, moral imperative, or any absolutes in which to trust or around which to base your life and actions.
zen. a focus on a non-rational awareness of the world; essentially and literally 'nonsense.' rationality amounts to meaningless categorization and layers of abstractions that confound reality rather than expound upon it.
dada and nihilism. if nothing makes sense anymore, if morality is dissolved and god is dead, then rejoice in it and embrace chaos rather than try to make sense out of the world, which is clearly a hopeless jumble.
nihilism and zen. if you have no reason to be, then just be.
zen and dada. zen koans don't make sense -- they sound silly, and aren't rational statements. The nonrational understanding of reality encouraged in zen is akin to the chaos and antilogic embraced by dada.
dada, zen and nihilism. essentially, this relationship amounts to the rejection of templates. A template can amount to the spiritual morality that nihilism rejects, the rationality that zen rejects, or the inherent meaning that dada rejects. These rejections are all based on templates, a kind of ultimate category which is drawn in each mind so that it may better understand reality. These three, when taken together, represent the possibility of freedom.
The three part union also implies a rejection of dualism and all forms of reductionism. In a sense, dada-zen-nihilism is postmodernism with a sense of humor; the ethos of the contemporary hipster. Anyway, that's my religion. If anyone asks, I'm a member of the church of d.z.n.
Another way to put it would be that a d.z.n. Doesn't care about anything, is really laid back about it, and finds everything amusing in a superior sort of way. This probably describes some people you know; doctrine is spreading.
I've defined 'cool,' once and for all.
Still another way to say all of this is with the principia discordia. But I like re-inventing the wheel...
New topic.
Artists talk about the 'd.i.y.' ('do it yourself') ethic, and how it's an essential part of being an artist, possibly so you can circumvent with your d.i.y. All of the barriers the square community puts up in your way, man. I don't know. Artists are supposed to be really competent creatures that can apply their creativity to any kind of life-problem, which is supposed to compensate for their lack of any practical job skills. I don't know if I have this d.i.y. Quality or not. On the one hand, I can do a lot of different things. But on the other hand, I feel generally incompetent and can't deal with new situations. I can learn to play the trumpet on my own, but I can't figure out, say, an office filing system.
I don't have much confidence, and I don't think I have the competence necessary to generate it. I often have trouble learning new things, but I was able to learn the basics of unix pretty readily. Of course, this is nothing exceedingly impressive. I get cognitively 'frozen' from time to time, and my brain just doesn't fluidly move across changing circumstances to solve problems.
I don't think there's anything I could do where my head injury wouldn't be a factor.
But the question is: am I an artist? Do I have what it takes to d.i.y., and grease up the corridors of societal obligation with creative juices? Maybe not necessarily societal obligations, but life obligations; just what one needs to do in order to survive. I'm not sure I do.
I should stress that I use the term 'artist' to mean a person who lives his or her life by a certain set of rules and mores, as opposed to someone who makes art. I don't think I have what it takes to be the kind of 'artist' I was taught to be. But I can be an artist and make art -- that's no problem. Except that I just don't feel like it.
Katy and I used to go on long walks together. I'd let her go wherever she wanted, following her through the neighborhood, and we'd stay out for hours. She'd find little bones or bits of something and bring them back home. That was always the signal for the end of a walk: when she'd find a treasure and start trotting briskly back to her den.
When she'd break into a run on her walks, I'd run after her so her leash would never catch her neck, and she would have as much freedom as she would have being off the lead. Even though katy was quick, she never ran faster than I could; either her top speed wasn't too high over grass that was about as long as her legs, or she knew I needed to keep up. I'd get a lot of exercise on these katy-lead walks-bordering-on-runs through the neighborhood, ambling behind houses, through playgrounds, and across basketball courts.
Katy had a knack for finding and doing the most disgusting things imaginable on these long walks. Being a dachshund, her nose is very low to the ground, and she'd frequently find dead things or bits of discarded food to commune with. One instance I remember particularly clearly was her rolling in dead frog, after picking up the aged carcass that had been reduced to not much more than a frog-skin in her mouth and arranging it just-so on the grass. If she'd ever stop near a pile of leaves and bury her nose in them for an inordinately long time, I could guess that she'd found some rare, sinful treat, and was partaking. Often I couldn't identify the treat even upon close examination, which was probably for the best.
Sometimes, we'd walk all the way to the state park, and enter through a somewhat hidden entrance. I remember one day I took her there, where some residential property segued into the state park, and we didn't even use the trail, but instead climbed up hills and embankments, over logs and branches and through snow drifts, meeting up with the path a good while later. She bounded exuberantly through the snow, and her black, sausage body was covered in a dusting of it. We really enjoyed that day.
When I'd walk her around the lake in the state park, we'd sometimes stop momentarily because I could tell she was getting tired (it was a long way for a miniature dachshund to go). I'd sit down on the trail, looking over the lake, and she'd climb into my lap for a few minutes to kiss my face and snuggle until she was ready to start back on the path.
Some days, I'd take her for two or three really long walks, and she never seemed to get tired. Katy didnt eat very much nor did she exhibit a typical canine lust for food, but she nevertheless carried a boundless supply of energy.
She and I used to play tug-o-war. She and I would both grab a stuffed animal, and I could pick the front end of her body up off the ground with the animal locked in her jaws. When I put my ear close to her, I could hear her play-growling, muffled by the animal in her mouth. It was fun to squish her nose around while she battled and make light of her titanic struggle.
Katy loved her toys. She would get new toys seemingly every week, and she would always go crazy over them. Often, she destroyed them within minutes of getting them. It wasn't as though she inadvertently did so in the course of play -- she would deliberately and methodically set out to dismantle her toys; chewing the eyes off of stuffed animals, or biting the feet off of rubber hedgehogs. She would play fetch tirelessly, and was the fastest dog I've ever seen.
I remember taking her to a puppy class -- no other dog could catch her during play time. It was especially strange because she was a 7-pound miniature dachshund puppy with 3-inch legs, and yet she was faster than any of her larger, longer-legged peers. Her favorite game, preferred over tug-o-war and fetch, was run-away-from-the-person. I did manage to catch her a few times, but that was only when I'd use my long arms and legs to my advantage, sort of enveloping a large area of ground like a spider, or cornering her under the computer chair. She'd run away from me, and in her running she'd often grab the nearest toy, as though she was rescuing it along with herself. However, she couldn't run quite as fast while holding a toy, so if I got close to catching her she'd sacrifice the toy and save herself.
She was never very much into food; even if you had a plate of something next to her face, she'd rather be petted than fed.
She got sick sort of suddenly, it seemed. One day she brought home a bone from her walk and chewed it to pieces, and didn't feel well afterwards. I figured it was a case of upset stomach that would pass, but she got sicker and sicker from that day, and didnt want to go on walks, play, or do any of the rough-and-tumble things that katy and I used to enjoy. She became, over about a two-week period, like an elderly little dog, sweet and cuddly, but not wanting to do the kinds of active things I came to know her for, and love her for. Katy was a little bit shy of one-and-a-half years old when she fell ill.
She was taken to the vet after a week or so of being listless, vomiting, and having diarrhea, and was diagnosed after a blood test with AIHA, a congenital, disorder of the immune system and blood in which the dog's white cells destroy too many of its red cells. The vet sent her home with some immune-suppressant pills, but today, her shit was probably 70% blood, and we took her back to the vet, who found her red cell and platelet count to be even lower than before. She's there now, getting a blood transfusion. I wouldnt be terribly surprised if she didn't make it through the night; the first episode of AIHA is always the most dangerous.
I want my dog back, the one who went on long walks with me, and who licked my face when I sat down with her on the trail around the lake. She's like an older dog now -- susceptible to internal bleeding because of her low platelet count, constantly gasping for breath because of her diminished red cells, and having almost no energy at all, not even enough to climb the stairs. She had just gone through her second heat when she succumbed -- she was barely a grown-up dog.
I know katy's not dead, but I cant help but talk about her in the past tense, because in a way she is dead to me. I have to face the knowledge that her life is going to be reduced in both its quality and length. I'll cuddle her and give her pats and carry her around, now that that's all she'll want to do, and I'll re-develop a relationship with this new katy, but I can't help but miss my dog.
I'm going to take a break from blogging.
Why not true to form: (red cabbage | scabs)
why not true to: to form red cabbage
too much medicine has been administrated __ the bellows
for not when to be an antioxidant of
wack-a-doo
not to has been antiwack
ape madrigals, ape madrigals!
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To test the seagull so larkin dan of eantimordtinsigj jij focll d ask fkd upen the hark of no no noinbalitisnt inbal iqbal why I liock into it all of not anymore I think its differeint when I can look at what im typing then I am forced to complete thoughts but when I loook away aks fkdj or just cant cnabad at typing notice that there are no p's anywhere here because my pink doesnt stretch that far
Pig scarification bloats the freon cabbage-scrotum.
Flies drop from the fan, one at a time, into the frothy cocoa mug.
Sue-ellen fried her soiled panties in mercury and chrome.
Hop up on the table, friend, and offer your sandwich to the flesh-monster.
There was an ape, mandee, who ate freshly-skinned frogs from a plastic bucket, its sides glistening with little drops and streams of the water that washed away leftover frogs between mandee's meals. Mandee lived in a concrete bunker, and every day, an angel would squeeze through a heating grate on the 15-foot-high ceiling and present the bucket of frogs to mandee, who had been instructed to say 'a penny saves nine' each time she received her bucket. One day, while mandee was praying, her lips moving quickly and silently with sanskrit, the angel squeezed through the vent as usual, but instead of presenting the bucket to mandee the angel said 'these frogs are expensive' and gave mandee a hershey bar.
Sometimes I think not being as well-read as many other people keeps me original, from being swept along in a tide of agreement with an author, and most importantly from lecturing pedantically on topics that I've read about, echoing them with a kind of mannish authority that implies 'this is MY idea.' I'm sure there's a canned response for a statement like 'being poorly-read makes me more original;' probably something about the impossibility of original ideas. I think it's likely that reading would make me more original, in that it would deepen my understanding, sharpen my vocabulary, and help reinforce the bridge between thought and language, thus providing resources for creativity, rather than material to be rephrased and recycled. And of course, the statement 'being poorly read makes me more original' sounds intuitively false and just plain dumb. This sounds like a good college essay topic:
consider the statement: 'being poorly read makes one more original.' do you agree or disagree with this assertion? Why or why not?
I get extremely restless when I read (I'm reading _forest gump_ now, which james suggested in lieu of _a genealogy of morals_ , which he saw me peering at), and my mind always starts to wander. I can't just sit there and drink things in, getting lost in a little bookish world. This might be why reading nonfiction is easier for me that reading fiction -- one can (and in fact one is supposed to) question what the author is asserting, unlike in a story, although maybe this would be fun to do: madeleine l'engle writes 'charles wallace rides to saturn on a unicorn named gaudior,' and you think to yourself 'no, that's wrong -- his name was bruce.'
Maybe it would be fun to take a poetry class.
My mom and I just got back from the veterinarian. Katy hasn't been feeling well lately, and a blood test revealed that she likely has something called immune-mediated hemolytic anemia, an autoimmune disorder in which the animal's white cells destroy too many of its red cells. So, there's a chance katy will die very young. She's in the 'hospital' now, spending the night at the boarding kennel at the vet, where they will initiate treatment. I had forgotten about it, but then saw duke leto atriedes holding a little pug while watching the movie 'dune,' and I got a set of chills when I remembered katy, likely curled up in the sweater we left her, in the veterinary kennel; I wonder if the lights have been turned out yet. She's not even a year and a half old; the vet said it was relatively unusual, although not unheard of, for a dog to fall victim when this young.
For some reason, the thought of katy dying seems easier now after brandy's illness and death than it would be if I'd never gone through that; I think having a dog is good for one, in that it sort of prepares one for human loss, which is bound to happen eventually; everyone has to see their parents die, if not brothers, sisters, grandparents, friends, etc. But somehow, the world doesn't end; you keep on eating, sleeping and shitting, and the loss becomes a part of who you are.
I am going to resort to metablogging once more, very early in the morning on the 11th of January. I had been playing around for a few days with implementing an individual website search engine taken from deadbarnacle's script archive, but was unhappy with it because the included html search form was incredibly ugly. I couldn't fix it with css, either -- the form contained all of these unnecessary options (at least in the case of my domain), which made it not only cumbersome from a design standpoint, but also from a functionality/usability standpoint. When I tried to remove elements from the form, my cgi script no longer worked; it apparently needs all of the form-generated variables to function.
I know this is all fascinating.
My savior mike informed me that the needed variables could be passed to my cgi script using hidden input tags, instead of making use of select tags and nested option tags. Instead of being selected by the user in a form option, these values are now pre-selected and hidden, and my cgi script never knows the difference.
So, the upshot is that my blog is now entirely searchable from my index page, and with both stylish and functional tools (electro club-jazz plays in the background). Programmers sometimes seem to forget that design affects functionality in that it changes the way a user thinks about a tool, a lesson familiar to apple computer.
I have enough money now to buy a new knife of death. I lost my original knife of death, and have never quite recovered from the blow.
Here is the story of how I lost my knife, in IM-transcript form:
Me: I lost it when I biked from my backyard to the front
me: it slipped out of my pocket
me: I realized this later
me: that this was what mustve happened
me: but by then some kid had taken it
neutrino49: hmm
neutrino49: ah
neutrino49: that's screwed up
neutrino49: did you see the kid?
me: yes...but I guess dis kinda shit happens
me: no
me: I assume it was kid
me: +a
neutrino49: how much time passed before you went back?
me: I went to the movies immediately after
me: like 2 hours
neutrino49: ah
me: I thought it was just inthe house
neutrino49: but it was your yard, right?
me: but hten I realized when I came back that the last time I saw it was when I biked aroudn the house
me: so I quickly deduced that it had fallen out then :D
me: hehe
neutrino49: hehe
neutrino49: so someone came onto your property and stole it?
me: oh, no
me: I live in a townhouse
neutrino49: uh huh
me: so around the house means I go around a whole row
me: and on the public sidewalk
neutrino49: ah
neutrino49: and then some toddler finds it :-)
neutrino49: hehe
me: hehe
me: yeah
me: I made some kid very happy and very fingerless
neutrino49: and then parents wonder what sorts of freaks live in their neighbourhood could be carrying spider knives ;-)
me: yes
neutrino49: *living
me: I am those freaks
neutrino49: :-)
neutrino49: hmm
neutrino49: I was wondering if you were going to opt for something even more ludicrous this time around
me: thats the only knife for me
neutrino49: like a crocodile dundee type of knife
me: oh, haha
me: not concealable
neutrino49: :-)
neutrino49: hehe
neutrino49: does that mean illegal?
me: in my city
neutrino49: ah
me: I checked :D
me: of course I dont care
neutrino49: haha
me: but its another charge that could be filed
me: if I used it in sef defense
me: 'self defense'
me: hehe
neutrino49: it would be funny if you wrote a letter to the mayor asking specifically what types of weapons you could carry on the street, with an itemized list or something ;-)
me: like if someone looks at me funny, and I have to defend myself
me: its my right
neutrino49: hehe
Cgi is broken again on sdf, but what do you want for $36? Smj runs everything by himself, and I suspect that he likes to keep it that way. One of the consequences of this is that stuff doesn't work right all the time, even though it's always fixed eventually. But it's disappoionting that I just made this brand-new search engine, and now it won't work because of god-knows-why. These intermittent cgi problems usually go away within a day, so I remain optimistic.
I went to a c&o canal society meeting with mrs. White, so they could all put a face to the name of ~*~*WEBMASTER*~*~ (that's me). I sat around shaking hands with people and eating bundt cake, and there was an exchange of contact information. I got the impression that things move very, very slowly there, and that there isn't much chance of my being burdened with an excessive workload. My analysis is that c&o canal society members sit around talking, getting excited about things and makinging hand-gestures, which I think is pretty common to any group of people when they try to accomplish anything.
What they need, I think, is a little fascist heirarchy to intersperse the bundt-cake consumption.
