Drones

Want to talk about drones in war? Probably not but I don't give a shit.

We have mentally armed a youth greedy for action and violence. In the past this would have been fine, they'd have joined the military, killed a man and been scarred for life. They'd learn a reverence for life and creation and beauty after some possible therapy.

We have put a curtain between our soldiers and their "enemy" with drones. It's a new video game. It's now a game. You don't see the face of you'r victim. You don't understand the magnitude of your actions. You stare at a screen and miss the heavy, horrible consequences of your actions.

Drones are a step in the wrong direction.

We are turning war into a game. No, we can't call that war. That's a massacre. We have become a monster.

We are murdering from a distance. Helpless people who are fighting for things they value are being cut down like a lawn and our soldiers see no bloodshed.

This is wrong.

To me it's not different than buying your meat vacuum packed and clean instead of prizing it from an animal you fought yourself. But that's a different blog...

Eyeshine

Leave it to a windy day and a gloomy man to buff out the clouds over my eyes

Pretty's all you got.

When you can't be beautiful and you can't be perfect and you can't be flawless, what do you do?

When the appeal is out of reach from your clean, average fingers, where do they go to next?

You get hard, you get fast, and you get a passion. You get smart and fierce and you're fooled by no one. People will not love you for your face, they will fear you for your attitude and your speed.

And if that fails, you give up.

Restless

To live without dead time means to embody a great refusal, to find pleasure in struggle, to transform every moment of existence into a repudiation of the consumerist nightmare and an affirmation of revolutionary possibility. A semester, a year, a decade without Big Macs, Frappucinos and World of Warcraft but overflowing with midnight adventures of blackspotted billboards, guerrilla gardening and spectacular synchronized global memewar actions. Imagine if a huge number of us start living in this way, turning daily life itself into a form of resistance that re-enchants the city and reawakens the promise of a people’s insurrection. The way forward is through this kind of radical play.

-Adbusters

It's been a long time.

And I'm still incredibly overwhelmed with this summer.
Remember that To Do List I had? I really didn't need it and don't remember anything that was on it. I'm still having an amazing summer in spite of so much and because of so much more.
In the end I will say this.
Thanks Universe.

Foundations

There is something to be said for living on land.
Going to sleep and waking up every night and morning on a ground that won't stand still gets to be very old.
Grabbing for something that was once stable where you're from and realizing that it is falling with you is the most unpleasant experience you can imagine. Not the worst, certainly, but the most unpleasant, undoubtedly.
I miss knowing that the step I'm about to take will land on something. I miss being sure of the faces I will see everyday.
Believe it or not, I'm excited for an average work day with an average commute and average homework.

At least I am a third of the way done now... and making boatloads of money.

In which we explain the previous post!

"Think about the way other people work—lawyers, for example. They get up from their desk, they walk into the doorway of the office next door, and say, Hey, do you remember that Warthog v. Warthog case from two years ago? and they talk about it, and that’s work. They go out, meet clients and take depositions, they have meetings where they discuss strategies for pursuing a particular case—it’s a very social profession. I wonder how much of their time is actually spent dead alone, producing hard solitary thought for hours a day. That’s what writing is and in that way it’s very hard work and it absolutely requires all the conditions that make one a bore: You have to be alone a lot, you have to be rather sedentary, you have to be a creature of routine, you have to fetishize your solitude, and you have to become very, very selfish about your time."

I honestly do not know another career path best suited for myself.

Thanks, Tobias Wolff, for putting it so clearly for me.

Hermits

I remember back in high school when every problem disappeared if I sat in my room and read long enough book. Everything faded, nothing was permanent.
I have a whole stack of books on my desk, waiting to erase my dinghy world.
But things are different.
The world won't forget about me, no matter how long I try to forget about it.

Have I just been destined to live in seclusion since day one?

Final Statement to the Court

I'm here today because I burnt down the Sheepskin Factory in Glendale, CO, a business that sells pelts, furs and other dead animal skins. I know many people think I should feel remorse for what I've done. I guess this is the customary time where I'm suppose to grovel and beg for mercy. I assure you if that's how I felt I would. But, I am not sorry for anything I have done. Nor am I frightened by this court's authority. Because any system of law that values the rights of the oppressor over the down trodden is an unjust system. And though this court has real and actual power, I question its morality. I doubt the court is interested in the precautions that I took to not harm any person or by-stander and even less concerned with the miserable lives that sheep, cows and mink had to endure, unto death, so that a Colorado business could profit from their confinement, enslavement, and murder.

Obviously, the owners and employees of the sheepskin factory do not care either or they would not be involved in such a sinister and macabre blood trade. So I will not waste my breath where it will only fall on deaf ears. That's why I turned to illegal direct action to begin with, because you do not care. No matter how much we animal rights activists talk or reason with you, you do not care. Well, Mr. Livaditis (owner of the Sheepskin Factory), I don't care about you. There is no common ground between people like you and me. I want you to know that no matter what this court sentences me to today, you have won nothing! Prison is no great hardship to me. In a society that values money over life, I consider it an honor to be a prisoner of war, the war against inter-species slavery and objectification! I also want you to know that I will never willingly pay you one dollar, not one! I hope your business fails and you choke to death on every penny you profit from animal murder! I hope you choke on it and burn in hell!

To my supporters, I wish to say thank you for standing behind me and showing this court and these animal exploiters that we support our own and that we as a movement are not going to apologize for having a sense of urgency. We are not going to put the interests of commerce over sentience! And we will never stop educating, agitating and confronting those responsible for the death of our Mother Earth and her Animal Nations. My vegan sisters and brothers our lives are not our own. Selfishness is the way of gluttons, perverts and purveyors of injustice. It has been said all it takes for evil to conquer is for good people to do nothing. Conversely, all it takes to stop the enslavement, use, abuse and murder of other than human animals is the resolve to fight on their behalf!

Do what you can, do what you must, be vegan warriors and true animal defenders and never compromise with their murderers and profiteers. The Animal Liberation Front is the answer. Seldom has there been such a personally powerful and internationally effective movement in human history. You cannot join the A.L.F. but you can become the A.L.F. And it was the proudest and most powerful thing I have ever done. When you leave this courtroom today don't be dismayed by my incarceration. All the ferocity and love in my heart still lives on. Every time someone liberates an animal and smashes their cage, it lives on! Every time an activist refuses to bow down to laws that protect murder, it lives on! And it lives on every time the night sky lights up ablaze with the ruins of another animal exploiters' business!

That's all Your Honor, I am ready to go to prison.


One day I hope to stand like that and be that brave.
My hat's off to you Walter Bond.

The Many Universes Objection

The Fine Tuning Argument
The fact that the universe is perfectly suited for human life is proof that is was designed by an ultimate Creator just for us.
This is a pretty cool idea. I mean, there are millions of "dials" that control millions of "settings" like gravity and weak nuclear force and stuff. If one dial moved an infinitely small amount one way or another, atoms wouldn't be able to form or life bigger than a deer couldn't exist.
That's pretty cool if you ask me. I mean, it's a flawed but elegantly and beautifully flawed universe that we live in. Not just our galaxy, but the entire universe is legit.
Your gut reaction when thinking about this is "Man, God is a genius."

The Many Universes Objection
Now there are people who say that's ridiculous. And then you say, "Why is that so ridiculous?" Then they'll say, "Because there are an infinite number of universes with every single possible "dial setting" in motion. This is not a linear thought either. There are an infinite number of universes right now that have every combination of settings and who knows what goes on there? We can't reach them, or they'd be part of our universe. We can't even guess what goes on in those universes. Not even Ray Bradbury has that good of an imagination. Life could appear at any one of them in ways we don't understand. And if there are an infinite number of universes all experimenting with natural forces and laws, it's extremely likely that you'll get one that supports life. Ours, for example. We're just another experiment gone right.

In the words of philosophybro:
'Of course, we can't get to these worlds, otherwise they'd be part of our world; they're completely isolated from our world in every way. "But surely our world is the real world?'' Fuck you. They're all real. You're not special and neither is your world - I have no clue what it would be like for them to be 'imaginary.' The only world I have any experience of is this one, and it's as real and concrete as can be. I bet they are too.'

What I Think
I'll be frank. It's going to take just as much faith to believe in these other universes that we can't see or touch or experience as it's going to take to believe in a Creator. It's Buridan's ass all over again. Both are super legit. And you know what? Both are really freaking cool. I love the idea of an uncountable number of universes with all sorts of crazy stuff going on with physics and stuff just as much as I love the idea of a God engaged in a way cool science experiment. And you know what? If he's omnipotent, screw it, he could be making all of these universes. If anybody can do that, it's Him. And I bet He's having a blast doing it.

Multiple universes? Bring it on, that sounds awesome. Divine, all knowing, all loving God? Hell yeah.

(Expect more of this. I am loving philosophy and philosophybro.)

:)

I don't know what to write about anymore.

So many things are happening and falling into place and jumping around and getting confused, I am so enraptured by this movement, I can't ease myself into a seat and think. I haven't had to come up with something to think about in a very long time. Things to think about have been racing around for months.
It's kind of cool, actually. One day, the dust will settle and my vision will focus and I will have had so many experience about which to think and write about.
But for now, that means that I will neglect my writing and meditations. Why pause life to write when your writing will be so much richer after you've lived?

I can write when I retire. Life beckons.

Why am I here?

Why do I pursue an education?
Because it's fun?
Because I feel powerful and satisfied with myself?

An education will not be a right for very long I feel...
My learning feels urgent all of a sudden.
I need to pursue this schooling with a purpose. A global, needful purpose...
I don't know what's happening,
but anyone with eyes and a mind to make sense of what they see should know
that things are falling apart
and I'm going to need my wits about me
and some smarts under my belt.

School has become something bigger than a place to express my angst
and escape my ignorance.
It's becoming less and less about me
and more and more about who and what will need me.

The "Issue"

I've finally recognized my problem. A problem without a cure nor a calm, a self made, self loved problem.
I'm romantic.
I am so romantic, that I will invent reasons to swoon and love and cry.

Here's the thing.
How do I turn this thunderstorm of self made emotion into productivity and what medium do I move through.
It'd far more inspiring to be abandoned and heart broken than to be content and comfortable, I've learned that through much experience.
And some part of me has been bringing those feelings to the surface, I think for the reason of making me inspired.
Now what do I do with it?

This is almost as good as solar energy.
When a bout of depression washes over my grieving, lonely body I can mold a new world. I can build cities and tear down industry and invent life.
But this has to be channeled somehow or else I just end up bothering my boyfriend with all of this fantastical whim.

This also brings up the necessity of the man I'm with.
I don't enjoy the misery I invent,
but he seems almost a key instrument in this grievance.
It seems that I need a love or flame to be heartbroken and creative.
Thankfully I'm madly in love, disturbingly in love.
One of the many assets of being a romantic, I assume.
And that drives me to act (what most consider) insane.

But let's imagine a world in which I have a place or way of moving all of that woe into a creation. Would I then be crazy? Or inspired?
Is this what artists deal with?
I wish I had cultivated a talent, then it'd be excusable to act this way.
But maybe that's where I need to move.
Will these absurd emotions pull up some talent?
Or do I just have the misunderstood angst and none of the ability to use it?
Bah, what a womanly issue.

But of course, woman are pushed to act as "women" and feel and swoon and wear our hearts on our sleeves.
Until our emotions make them uncomfortable.
And then we are shunned.

C'est la vie.

Cake

Cake and sweets and sunsets and drugs,
all lose their flavor when savored alone.
My mom has a mug that says
"Friends are the marshmallows in the hot chocolate of life"
assuming life is still sweet
and chocolaty and warm
when you don't have friends.
They make it better,
but it's still pretty delicious besides.
Yeah.
Tell that to the girl with no roots,
no kindred spirits from the age of children.
She moved on, assumed a new person, took a new hair color,
at every new home.
And always had faces around
but never the confidant. Never the inseparable spirit.
Even funfetti is bland in an empty room.

Forgotten Mary

Mary Lambert is a beautiful woman.
Check out her material. She is a queen of song.

Bangs

A new attitude is in order.
Let's be bad-ass.
Let's not give a fuck about chipped nails or greasy hair.
I'm done worrying. It's ruining the good times I could be having.
I need to realize
-Time is short.
-Being sad about that makes it shorter.
-Enjoy it while it's here and in your bed and in the air.
We're going to hold onto the good times until our bones break.
Then we'll set 'em and seek new sunsets.
But "then" doesn't belong here now does it?

Lifestyle Changes

I have some ideas about education and as this thought process is rather novel to me, I want to flesh some ideas out and hear your feedback! I thought this would be fun and starting the dialogue on this sort of thing is the first step towards real change.

NOTE: My thoughts on this are relatively new. They won't be perfect and there will be flaws. I'm bringing it up so that I can get respectful and thoughtful feedback and build better, fresher, brighter ideas forward.

1. At age 5, (or however old a kid is in kindergarten) every child takes a class for a year designed to comprehensively assess an individual child's learning habits and the initial skills of each child as well as start their foundation for knowledge. I think this would need at least two teachers per class and would need a different kind of teacher training to accurately get a clear picture of how each child learns. After that, they would be placed in the class that reflects their learning capabilities. Some classes will be for the brilliant prodigy and they will probably have a faster track. Some will foster excellent learning habits and allow a child to flourish in a comfortable setting. The key is to figure out what each child needs and get them that. Not categorize and generalize our kids education based on something so flimsy as age. It would probably be ideal to have this class happen every two or three years with those special teachers so as to not trap a child to a single track based on how they behaved when they were 5...
2. Every class and grade should be made to push children harder and also build self-efficacy. We underestimate the capabilities of our youth and if we raise the standard of expectation, and convince them that they have the capabilities, I'm confident they will rise to meet it. They should also be encouraged to question what they're being taught and build critical thinking skills. How do you do that?
3. To answer that question: How do you build critical thinking and foster creativity in school? I think it's about what classes and opportunities are offered. I've been hearing stories from my peers about excellent teachers and excellent courses that set them on a track for success. I have my own story like that. But also, it's got to be what is available for the students. First, The Arts. Music, painting, theater, writing, drawing, sculpting, etc. are all crucial towards numerous things. Theater aided me wonderfully in engaging people and speaking publicly. Writing is obvious. Communication is so important and writing well enough to get your thoughts across and in understandable form is a key in communication. (Was that sentence a horrible example of communication? I think so...) Next, debates! The whole world of philosophy, debate, and logic have aided me so much in college! They sharpen your mind and inspire you to look around and ask "Why?" They inspire you to look at all of your other classes critically as well and when you come at a class like that, it engages you so much more and you learn infinitely better in my experience. Next, a heavy reading load. In my world, this is self-explanatory. Reading is of utmost importance. Reading anything and everything is crucial. Schools should definitely push their students to read all of the time. And when a child struggles, provide the teachers that would love to help a kid. We need to get reading skills down as soon as possible in our youth. It is just so unquestionably important. And the final one I thought of was language. In Europe, (I'm not saying Europeans are geniuses but this is a good policy) most children master a second language by the time they are out of middle school and begin to take on a third in high school. This puts American students way behind. Where I'm from, language classes aren't offered until high school. Learning about another language and all of its nuances aids a student in learning about their own language. Particularly Latin based or Germanic languages if English is your primary language. It would greatly increase understanding and communication between cultures as well. Does anyone else find it bizarre that we are engaged in a war with a group of people we cannot even speak to? That's alarming to me.
4. So that was a big topic. I'm sure there was more though because that was a big question. But what about teachers? They are the gatekeepers of education and guide our children through their most impressionable and vulnerable stages of life. I believe that they too need to be held to a higher standard. They are pushed to pass all of their kids so that their schools look good and are given such strict guidelines to meet a standardized expectation that is not molded to the children. This is a two part problem. 1) Teachers need a more rigorous and engaged method of working. There needs to be a better way to analyse the quality of a teacher and they need to be thoroughly trained to encourage their students and also push them forward. I'm not saying that this isn't happening now, but there needs to be a way to weed out the bad teachers because, yes, they exist and most are allowed to continue working because of seniority. 2) Teachers need the freedom to work with the needs of their students. Advanced children are bored in the class that caters to the ones falling behind and slower children are drowning when the class doesn't pause to help them. (This would be avoided if they weren't just classified by age as I mentioned earlier...) Teachers can't be tied down by standardized testing and given no way of molding their lesson plans to the individual set of students before them.
5. This is a lot. I'm going to leave that as it is. I would love some feedback, some criticism, and some new ideas. Let's get this thought process rolling!

I forgot Music.

Today I did something I haven't done in a very long time.

I let myself be bullied into playing music in front of people, music I didn't know, wasn't good at and had layers of rust on my keys and fingers.

But what fun.

What great fun it was to sing and play and forget for a minute that my back hurt and I missed people.

Music, come back into my life. Let's be friends again. Let's spend a weary hour together, if you please.

I cannot describe what went through my veins and what my heart was pumping through my body. I needed music and told myself I didn't.

A Feminist Roar

I was walking to class today and a wild series of thoughts hit me. I was walking and a girl passed me. She was tall, had great legs and a nice butt. She had an awesome outfit on and most importantly, she looked like she felt amazing. She looked on top of the world!

My first thoughts were jealous. I envied her body and her attitude. Those are basically my initial reactions to every girl who I deem more attractive than me.

My second thoughts were much different.

I thought, "Good for her! Fuck, it's amazing ANYONE can feel good about themselves when everyone around them with a voice loud enough is telling them they're not good enough!"

Every single industry that markets to women is making money off of our insecurities and lack of self-worth. Every single man that objectifies a woman is telling her she is nothing if she does not have a good body.

That's bullshit.

I hate feeling shitty about myself. I hate seeing other women feel shitty about themselves.

How do we organize ourselves, make ourselves a powerful enough entity to defy this regime? We have to unite. Compliment each other, tell ourselves that we're fucking awesome, and love one another no matter how their hair is cut or colored. As soon as we can feel good about ourselves and who we are independent of how we appear, that industry of insecurity will crumble.

And on top of that, we'll feel good.

Gosh, it's embarrassing to try and remember the last time I've felt good.

So, girl who rocked it today, thanks. Maybe I'll be able to rock it too someday.

It is so hard to tell myself something different from what everyone else is telling me.

And it's not even just women anymore. Men are being just as attacked as we are now. Have you seen those Axe commercials?

"Men, you are not good enough and women won't like you if you don't smell like how we tell you to."

A Story w/ Questions

I was sitting. I was sitting on a couch in a room that had four other people in it. Each of us were together and in fact, there had been two more people in that room that had been with us up until they stopped being with us. We were all together in one room but we weren't... together.

Each of us had our own thoughts.

Fragments of potential conversations drifted around the room in a lilt. Handicapped by distraction.

None of us needed to talk to the other.

None of us even wanted, necessarily, to talk to the other.

We all had our own ideas, our own thoughts, even our own expectations of the night that we were sharing.

This is what I know to be a social gathering. This is what I know to be a night out, a night together.

Would this be different if we had nothing to look at but each others faces?

One had his titles of music. One had applications aplenty. Two were sharing a screen, neither sharing a moment.

What would happen if there were no screens to look at? What would happen if our only entertainment was the people who shared the room?

Would we be genuinely together? Would we truly enjoy each others' company?

Or would we find out that we really don't like each other all that much?

Is our company permissible because we have distractions to hide the things we don't like?

How can I know whether I want to be with a person if I've never been with them and no one or nothing else?

And one last question. Our lives are fleeting specks of moments in a universe that will expand beyond imagination, our concerns and joys long, long forgotten. Our race will end and everything will persist. We are smaller than we can ever imagine. And yet, to us, our lives are all we know. We are the centers of our own universes and by the time our lives are done, all we will have is the memories of what we've seen, who we've met, and where we've been.

Why would we want to waste those precious seconds with people, people we could grow to love or hate or live with, and never look at their faces? Never engage with or learn deeply about?

My goals have been slow to develop and I'm enjoying the month, teasing up or taming down the desires and expectations I have for myself. I have discovered another one.

Meet the people around me and spend the little time I have to learn as much as I can about them and what I can do for them. Forget the phone, computer, or TV for a second. Those will be around forever, but people and time are such fragile, fleeting things.

I have to embrace these wonders of life.

Situations in which one should not pick their nose:

1. In class.
2. At a party.
3. On a date.
4. In a hallway with a bunch of doors that cannot be determined to be opened or closed nor containing people looking out of said doors.
5. During the birth of ones child.
6. While driving in the snow.
7. While cuddling with ones partner.
8. During any social gathering.
9. While giving a speech.
10. While on stage at all (unless demanded by the playwright).
11. While doing something else embarrassing that would cause people to look at you.
12. On Skype EVEN IF they've told you that your screen has frozen.
13. While cooking.
14. Etc.