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Josh's B-links: Sex Issues, Geniuses, and John McCain [May. 16th, 2008|03:48 am]
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What the Fuck?

Some hick in Georgia—of course it’s Georgia—is printing shirts depicting Barack Obama as Curious George…and doesn’t seem to understand what all the fuss is about.


Child Genius Becomes Youngest Known Professor in History

Naturally, the traditional media headline for the story is, “World’s youngest professor can’t legally drink.” Good thing the tradmed has its priorities straight.

Anyhow, this is a pretty cool story. Her accomplishments are very impressive and, at this point, she’s not a “child” genius anymore. I wonder what she’ll do with herself. Teaching at a struggling college is commendable, but personally I think she has more potential in her than that. Higher education is one of those tricky things…you have to be competent to be a college instructor, but if you’re a genius then you should probably spend at least some of your time working directly on the betterment of the world rather than on educating the next generation. Then again, it’s her choice and not mine to make. Excelsior!


Designers Still Killing Models

It really sickens me, yah? I know I’m biased in the pudgy direction, but I’m also not the kind of person who, were I a designer, would ever ruin models’ lives by giving them an ultimatum of morbid obesity and unemployment. Why do we, as a society, tolerate—let alone enjoy—such a ridiculously, impossibly skinny female ideal? Why do people have to lose their health, their energy, their periods, and their hair just to find modeling work? There isn’t one ethical scrap to this whole sordid affair. I know I wrote “designers” in the headline, but really we’re killing these people ourselves by putting up with the status quo.


California Supreme Court Lifts Gay Marriage Ban

A fantastic win, and California now will become the second state after Massachusetts to sanction full gay marriage. This is probably the start of a trend that will see many of the liberal states arrive at the same conclusion within the next decade.

A little background: Cali’s legislature twice passed gay marriage legalization, only to have it vetoed by the governor, who declared that he wanted the courts to address the issue. Well, now they have, and that’s that.

Of course, the religious fundamentalists are upset. And of course they’re distorting the whole thing, toting out their usual spiel about how undemocratic it is that “four people” (the number of justices in the court majority opinion) overturned the will of the people of California and of the legislature, even though the people of California elected legislators who, as I said, recently passed legislation on this matter twice.

What irks me is not that the idiots have an idiotic response to this major social advance, but that the media treats it as legitimate. 710 AM, the radio station where I first heard the news, quoted a religious nutcase who made the argument I described above, and then didn’t bother to point out the numerous errors of that position, let alone the logical (and socially perilous) fallacy that court decisions should reflect the will of the majority.

Anyhow, congratulations to everybody in California who are (finally!) going to achieve this extra bit of long-overdue equality under the law. I bet West Hollywood and San Francisco in particular are in a very good mood tonight. California, even though many people don’t realize it, is probably the most liberal state in the Union for all intents and purposes, and thus is a herald of things to come. When I was down there last week, I saw a notice on a restaurant wall saying that state law prohibited gift certificates to have expiration dates (!). That’s how forward they are down there.

But the game’s not over; it never really ends: California wingnuts want to write anti-gay discrimination into the state constitution, via a ballot measure this November. If it successfully appears on the ballot, and the people vote for it, then it’s back to square one for gay marriage in Cali. You may remember the past several years, when other states wrote just such discrimination into their own constitutions. Constitutional amendments are always a threat to progress. Those were mostly wingnut states (even though they comprise much of the country), and Arizona (of all places) eventually rejected just such an amendment, suggesting that, even that most of the states that have not yet passed constitutional amendments, will not do so in the future—including California, if Californians do eventually get the chance to vote on this issue. Thankfully, the past eight years have done wonders to educate the country as to the existence of gays, and thus the importance of gay rights.


Overheard in New York

A website of random bits of human chatter overheard in New York City. Anybody can submit quotes for publication on the site…they just have to provide the quote and the location in the city where they heard it. It’s quite funny, but a fair bit of the material submitted has a sexist tinge to it, which was a detraction for me.


Something to Do with Hardcore Buddhism

The New York Times printed a bizarre feature today about two Buddhists in America who have adopted a very unconventional, strict Buddhist lifestyle. The feature is bizarre because, while the subject is interesting, the author’s entire focus seems to be: “Whoa, these two people are living together and they’re not having sex? Hah ha hah, how crazy is that?!”

One thing I did take away from the story, however, is that Buddhism—especially outside of America—is more inherently sexist than most of its defenders care to admit (and possibly realize). I’m not surprised, but it is a disappointment.


(The Customer Is) Not Always Right

Similar to “Overheard in New York,” this site features quotes overheard by company employees from their beloved, occasionally slightly deranged customers. Also quite funny, and a bit less sexist in its material (if you don’t count that most female customers involved in these exchanges is identified as such, whereas it’s hit or miss with the males).


Wii Continues to Cream PS3, 360

I always knew that the Wii’s early numbers weren’t a fluke, but even I am surprised by how solidly the Wii continues to cream its rivals. This is significant far beyond its boost to Nintendo: The Wii tapped into two things—America’s gaming potential, and gamers’ desire for gameplay diversity. I think the Wii’s success signifies that the gaming industry will spend the next couple of cycles pursuing more than just better graphics, which in turn makes smaller, lower-tech games likely to emerge once more as a healthy part of the overall equation. A dazzling world of possibilities is once again open to us.


Rightwing Radio Dunderhead Gets Owned

This video is worth watching. I don’t much care for Chris Matthews, but he really did play hardball this time.


Karl Rove To Be Arrested?

If you’ve been following liberal politics, you’re probably familiar with the phrase inherent contempt. If you are, then here’s what you need to know: Reps. Wexler and Conyers are finally talking about it.

Specifically, it seems they’re closing in on Rove at last, and, if they go actually through with inherent contempt, he’ll have no choice but to cooperate with them or go to Congress’ own jail.

I had honestly given up on the Democratic Congress doing anything about this administration while it is still in office, and although Rove himself isn’t technically a part of the administration any longer, he is still their most iconic symbol. It would mean a lot, and it could embolden the Dems to go after those still in power.


Things Younger than John McCain

There’s no denying it: This is a bigotry website. It’s ageist. It’s prejudice wrapped in comedy. Nevertheless, even though I have argued on several occasions against ageism as a line of attack on McCain, this site is so fucking hilarious that I can’t help myself but laugh. If you want to hold it against me, I won’t object. Check it out for yourself if you like.

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On Credit and Blame, and Sovereignty [May. 14th, 2008|11:30 pm]
On what grounds do we give people credit, or blame?

First we must understand what is actually meant by credit and its negative counterpart blame. At a glance they are both recognition for some accomplishment or quality. On closer inspection, however, they go farther, because recognition itself is treated in the human psyche simply as a marker of the aforementioned accomplishment or quality—i.e., “let the record show…”—whereas credit or blame implies an undeterminable, independent, will-based ownership over the same. By “will” I am speaking of the sentient will, the abstract seat of one’s awareness and identity, and by “ownership” I mean a “triumph of the will” or, in blame’s case, a failure thereof. Thus, crediting or blaming a person suggests that, by virtue or weakness of will, they are personally, independently of the rest of the universe, responsible for said accomplishment or quality. I doubt this is justified.

Let me illustrate what I mean by providing an example. Consider the superior marathon runner who wins many races. Let the record show her numerous victories, but does she deserve credit for them? Let us return to what credit implies: undeterminable, independent ownership. But! If she wins so often because she was born with a particularly hearty cardiovascular system, then her physiology equipped her to perform better than her rivals and she deserves no credit for her accomplishments, because the deck was stacked in her favor and thus her victories are matter-of-fact: A strong heart and lungs make for a superior runner. Likewise, if she wins as much as she does as the result of good training, or access to the best equipment, or simply because her rivals are having a bad day, then her circumstances afforded her these achievements and she still deserves no credit for them, because another person in her position could have achieved the same results.

At this point, a savvy thinker might propose this kind of objection: The runner does deserve credit for her victories if they are due at least in part to the work she put into them—the training, diet, mental discipline, sheer tenacity, and so forth. It was her choice to train and diet, and her strength of mind that carried her through the toils of the racing. Surely that warrants crediting her. Even the losers deserve credit, for whatever work they put into their own performances, regardless of not having won.

That kind of argument gives me the opportunity to make a critical point: Whatever the reasons the runner wins, they undermine her ability to claim credit, insomuch as credit signifies a distinction unique to her, and exclusory to the rest of the universe. Or, to put it another way: She could not simply have decided to win those races: She also had to possess the physical means to carry out her ambition, and those “physical means” are products of the whole universe and not just the runner herself. Her decisions may be abstract, but if they are rational then they must arise from some combination of her nature and nurture. Her existence is not separate from that of the world around her, even though “she” is characterized by a distinct sentient will. Thus, credit the runner for her win and we might as well credit all of existence too, for putting the various ingredients into place. Pointless.

I propose that the sentient will is not actually the source of one’s deliberate actions, but merely the observation point for them. Indeed, this would explain why credit and blame exist: The idea is that the accomplishments, and qualities, help define the person. What makes a marathon runner stand out from the rest of the universe with regard to her victories? Her sentient will, that’s what—her individuality—and, parallel, the wills and individualities therein of all those who appraise her victories. There’s a person at the center of all this. Credit and blame are one of the structures by which we distinguish ourselves from that which is not-us; credit and blame help us to craft our own identities and compile dossiers on the identities of others. Yet these structures are artificial; they exist only conceptually. The accomplishments or qualities themselves can be as stupendous (or infamous) as we perceive them to be, but the agents of these accomplishments or qualities—the recipients of credit or blame—are simply existing within their abilities…and there is nothing special about that.

Cynical? I don’t think so. I have already outlined my distinction between a determined and a determinable universe, and so our actions boil down to the reflexive: We do what we do. We do not do it because some external force compels us to…but also we do not do it because we originate this impetus within ourselves. We simply do what we do, without a “because,” other than the universal “because.” Even if our actions have no independent origin based within the abstract realm of the will, that does not mean we are prisoners in our own bodies or minds.

Perhaps credit and blame remain a useful concept: If a person accomplishes great things (or foul things), it might not matter that those accomplishments were in tandem with circumstance, for the purpose of understanding that person’s disposition. However, for the purpose of logical clarity, I do think it is worth noting my objection to the premise of credit and blame, when used to impute the characteristic of willpower-driven sovereignty, outside universal considerations. “My” accomplishment is not really my accomplishment, but simply an accomplishment achieved by me.


Background:

As with many of my philosophical advances over the past eight years, I first came upon this problem a long time ago when working with Silence. Having set her up as the genuine “best swordsmate in the world,” I began to wonder how that actually distinguished her. I concluded that it didn’t: She fights so well because her body made it a possibility and the course of her life made it a reality. We are what we are. It turns out to be a tricky road to get from facts to special.
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Betting Bits of Oneself in the Game of Conversation [May. 7th, 2008|11:05 pm]
Supposing your identity is a pile of chips, each unique, and communication between humans is a house of bargains for the betting, then what sorts of funds do you bring to the table--knowingly or unknowingly--that you would, in fact, prefer not to lose? More: Are there any that you are absolutely unwilling to lose? And if so, why do you put them at risk?
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Captain's Log [May. 4th, 2008|02:37 am]
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This afternoon I will be flying to California to help my family move to a nicer place in Apple Valley. I’ll be returning May 12.

If the indie film Lioness comes to Seattle, I will see it. Let me know if you hear or read anything to that effect. Check out a bit of indirect background on the film.

Dark Horse ultraconservative Congressman (and presidential candidate) Ron Paul seems likely to support Obama over McCain. This bizarre notion is due to the wide variety of interests encompassed by our two major parties, in this case Rep. Paul’s Republican Party. Ideological fluidity on specific issues between members of the two parties is an indication of increased stress on the existing ideological centerlines, which could eventually lead to a rare instance of major realignment between the two parties, or a far rarer case of breakup and reconstitution of one of the existing parties. In all likelihood Paul is an aberration, but the vocal support he has drawn is not. The anti-government crazies who drove Paul’s candidacy currently have no voice in either party, which primarily bodes ill for the Republicans. However, don’t expect any of this to translate to increased support for Obama from the right.

I know, I know…I still have to put up pictures of my apartment and the view. I’ll get to that upon my return.

While I’m in California, and time permitting, I’ll be writing letters to Stephen, Nat, and Elske.

This evening I sold my old piano, a Casio I got about twelve years ago. It was taking up space, and I was happy to sell it to an aspiring high school student who will, hopefully, give it a good home for years to come. I will miss it; it had sentimental value. The other night I listened to all of the songs in the bank, and revisited some of my favorite tones, like Nos. 35 and 71.

As yet I have not been paid for my website design work. Going out of town means I won’t get that money for at least another week…which sucks, since the rent is due before I leave.

Today, as last Saturday, I had a wonderful time hanging out at home with Kendra. Whereas last Saturday we were completely slothful and barely got anything done in the whole day, today was a bit more balanced. Things took a turn for the delightful once the fine Jamaican rum made its way into the orange juice. Does anybody else play the card game Big Two? (Variations of the game are called Pineapple and Thirteen.) I highly recommend it! I learned it back in my purple cloth days, and rarely bother with any other card game anymore, notwithstanding some hearts or hold ‘em in the right company.

Speaking of cards and this evening’s fun, Kendra at one point observed to me that, occasionally, I become…eccentric…enough that, were it not for context, I’d be taken as a raving lunatic.

Does anybody in Seattle want to play Dungeons & Dragons on a weekly or biweekly basis, with a gameplay style that focuses on plot and setting more than traditional dungeon combat experiences? I can tentatively count on Mike…but two people are not enough. Three to five players (not counting myself) would be my preference…probably closer to three, at least for starters, given that I have never DMed a D&D campaign before.

Connections2 so far has not been as inspiring as the original, hourlong Connections, but I have only seen a couple of episodes yet, and may simply be suffering from the transition from 60 minutes to 30. It may yet grow on me—I preferred the shorter shows when I first saw them on TLC as a kid.

If you missed it on YouTube last year, most of the television series Pete & Pete is now floating around on Veoh. That is, of course, in addition to the torrents, where you can download the series in its entirety.

I’ll be taking almost exclusively dirty clothes down to California. You see, laundry costs me no less than $2 per load here. =)

I have realized that I am much more tense on airplanes than most people. I thought everybody felt that way about them, but apparently most don’t give it a second thought. This isn’t a phobia for me, but instead the kind of rational tension that follows from surrendering self-control, which I hate to do. Of course, giving up that kind of control is something we do every day of our lives, but in few places is it as obvious as aboard an airplane, a technology with a pretentiously long list of “oopsies” that can get you killed without anything else going wrong. Perhaps my spatial mind, or my familiarity with aerospace engineering, or my heightened awareness of my surroundings in general (as compared with others), help to exacerbate this tension in me. The inertial experiences of takeoff also contribute. My adrenaline usually spikes during those first few seconds a plane lifts up into the air from the runway below, and levels off at about the time the captain turns off the fasten-seatbelt sign. Even so, make no mistake: I love to fly. I absolutely love it.

Speaking of captains—and I check this every time—I have yet in my adult life to fly under a female captain or first officer. Where are they?

Until next time, Denizens of the Electronic Ether, remember that old saying:

“How dare you modify holy plans!”
~Afura Mann
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The Preturn of Gandalf [May. 3rd, 2008|06:46 am]
My best buddy Ian MacKellan (sp?) is back as Gandalf in The Hobbit, which is actually going to be two films, under the direction of Billy del Toro, scheduled for release in 2010 and 2011. Said McKrakken:

"Obviously, it's not a part that you turn down; I loved playing Gandalf."

In other New Line Cinema news, The Golden Compass--which you will recall flopped in the United States--performed superbly internationally, causing it to become the first film to earn as little is it did in the States while still cracking $300 million in the bottom line. That's little comfort to New Line, which was more or less gutted this year after one box office failure too many--(They'd sold the international rights to the film, you see...)--but it does mean that the sequels have a much better chance of moving forward than they did back at the turn of the year.
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Connections [May. 2nd, 2008|06:32 am]
I just finished watching the original Connections series. Mindblowing stuff. To benefit from his extraordinary, creative presentation of history. To see how interconnected all technological progress has been. To realize how sophisticated the world is, and how removed so many of us are from the understanding of it. To know how very different science and technology are from art and philosophy. To understand just how relevant it still is, all of it, today thirty years later.

He came up with several main catalysts of innovation:
Religion
Warfare
Serendipity
The Environment
Deliberate Search
Surprise Use of One Thing in Another Field
Looking for One Thing and Ending Up with Another
He said there are four basic attitudes we can take going ahead:
Scrap Advanced Technology, Go Rural
Selective Research Only
Stop All Further R&D, Share the Knowledge We Already Have with World
Business as Usual, Full Speed Ahead
And then, at the very end, he said three things:
Understand that you have the power to understand anything, so long as it is explained clearly enough.

So go out and ask for explanations.

And ask yourself, is there anything in your life you want changed?
What a reassuring thing, that the world has people like James Burke, and people like you who will do something in response to his call.
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On My Fat Fetish [May. 1st, 2008|06:25 am]
Sitting in one of my Firefox tabs, in nine simple lines of text, is a description of one of the most powerful forces in my life. That tab has sat open for months now, awaiting the day when I would write about it in my journal. Well, here we are.

I have mentioned often enough that, sexually speaking, I prefer fat females to thin ones. The fatter the better, in fact. No upper limit. I also prefer the same tendency in myself, because to a certain extent I am autosexual. In fact, only by the intercession of other priorities in life, along with my relative poverty, and a dose of hapless incompetence, have I managed to retain an average figure. Today I weigh 170 pounds, and am only marginally fat under the most generous of descriptions.

I don’t think of my preference for fatness as a “preference,” formally speaking Others in my position might call it that, and a few would insist upon the distinction, but I call it a fetish because that is what I feel it is…no different than other people’s irrational sexual fixation upon feet, fury animals, sharp teeth, or pregnant bellies. I call it a fetish rather than a preference because it is central to my sexuality—so important as to be a requirement—and also because I am aware of at least some of my “preferences” in females, such as tallness, muscularity, a pear shape, left-handedness, and so forth. Sexually, those are in an entirely different league from my fat fetish.

I write about this with a great deal of self-consciousness. I understand that practically no one is apt to want to read about it. Moreover, I understand that, where human sexuality is concerned, nobody ever looks good when discussing theirs. Sexuality is always, invariably, fucked up and grotesque. You just have to take it as a given. Lastly, I expect that discussing this aspect of myself is going to reduce my standing in the eyes of those who cannot properly grok it. I am not eager for that, but neither is it of terminal concern to me, for what does it even mean to be held in regard by someone simply because they do not understand me thoroughly enough?

Despite my reservations, and also a fair bit of embarrassment, I will write about it anyway, for two reasons: One, people really need to start exploring their own sexuality. American culture is way too puritanical to be healthy, and the degree of sexual repression in this society gives rise to all sorts of prejudices and dangers. If I can set a good example for others by being candid and inquisitive, then perhaps I can do some small service.

Secondly, it’s a fetish, after all! It’s on my mind a lot. I feel somewhat dishonest for not having written about it here yet.

Everything that follows may potentially be disgusting or even offensive, so bear that in mind as you continue. There will not, however, be any sexually explicit descriptions.


Some Like It Squishy

The nine lines are these:
I've got the whole fat/feederism thing going on, though some related areas also appeal, such as laziness and BDSM. There are three central themes in my fetishism: indulgence despite consequences; wrongness; and power exchange.

~ Phalloidium
Hey, awesome self-analysis! Add me to the list of people who like the indulgence despite consequences thing. I probably have some variant of power exchange too, especially people doing things knowing it renders them less powerful.

My self label for my central drive is giving in to indulgence. That moment of knowing that what you want to do is pure indulgence, and will have some sort of consequences, and then choosing that indulgence anyway. Either for me, or for others.

~ edx
This dialogue comes from a website called Dimensions, a place devoted to size-acceptance and a portal for something called fat admiration. From what I gather, Dimensions has been instrumental to many thousands of people who have a fat fetish, or who simply prefer fatness, as they have explored their sexual identity. I am one of those thousands.

In our fat-bashing culture, many people simply do not realize that their preference for fatness in their partners, in themselves, or in both parties, is relatively common and perfectly natural. Dimensions is a haven for those people, a place for the likeminded (and often oppressed, I should add) to congregate and share their ideas…and, for a while, be acceptable. There is an entire fat-loving community there, complete with its own slang, art forms, fat activism, dating scene, coffeehouse scene, philosophical debate, and various subcultures. Thousands of people use the Dimensions forums, and the other parts of the website are as diverse as you can imagine, with the one common theme among them being fat. Most people who are fond of fat have come through Dimensions at some point. It is the Ellis Island of fat admiration.

Now what is it about fat, anyway, that someone would find attractive to the point of fetishizing it? I can’t answer that. Fetishes are irrational. If you have one of your own, you understand that. The dazzling variety of sexual fetishes in human psychology, and the near-universal grotesqueness of any fetish to those who do not personally experience it, to me suggests that the origins of the fetish are very deep in the most ancient core of the human brain. While I have no scientific qualification whatsoever to say this, my deduction is that whatever it is that a fetish represents may simply be nonsensical to its very core…the outer brain’s attempt to make sense of the inner brain’s primitiveness by devising a very bizarre association, such as the fat fetish, or the classic foot fetish.

There are fetishes out there far, far worse than mine, including no few of dubious legality or physical lethality. I should consider myself fortunate in that mine is relatively benign, and doubly fortunate in that I even can act it out. Many fetishes do not permit that, such as vorarephilia, which is limited entirely to the imagination. Perhaps I could dare go so far as to say I am triply fortunate, because some fetishes, while neither deadly nor illegal, nor physically impossible, are still dangerous or harmful, such as the vomit fetish.

I am with you in confessing that I have no fucking clue what it is about feet, or pregnant bellies, or being eaten, or getting vomited on, that could possibly be sexually arousing to anybody. I don’t get those fetishes.

But fat…I grok that one. That’s my fetish. I don’t expect you to grok it, but perhaps you will learn something about it anyway—and, in so doing, better understand human sexuality.


The Fat Fetish

Not all fat fetishes are equal. Let me take you on a journey of forks in the road, or “forkfuls,” as I describe the exact nature of my own fetish.

Forkful 1: Some people are aroused by the state of being fat. Others, such as me, are aroused by the act of getting fat. Those are the two major branches of the fat fetish, and each has several variations.

Forkful 2: Of those who are aroused by the act of getting fat, some focus on the process of getting fat. Others, such as me, focus on the consequences of getting fat.

Forkful 3: Of those who are aroused by the consequences of getting fat, there are several common areas of focus.

Those nine lines I mentioned earlier, except for the bit about BDSM, are a very good description of the exact nature of my particular fetish.
There are three central themes in my fetishism: indulgence despite consequences; wrongness; and power exchange.
The “indulgence” stands for a corruption of the body…the deliberate ruination of it for sexual gratification. Think of it as the falling of an angel.

The “consequences” refer to the ruination itself: extreme unhealthiness, loss of self-control, loss of other ambitions and thus the loss of one’s own self-worth, physical immobility, and even premature death.

The “wrongness” aspect might seem obvious, but it is very important in that it connotes the commission of an injustice, and thus implies the paying of a price. In other words, it stands for sacrifice, suffering, humiliation, and so forth.

Finally, the “power exchange” stands for two things. The “power” part represents what is lost in the corruption and ruination: independence, willpower, potential, self-determination, strength, integrity, honor, and indeed one’s own future. The “exchange” part refers to the axis of sadism-masochism. If the act is sadistic, it refers to stripping one’s partner of their “power” by helping them feed themselves into oblivion. If the act is masochistic, it refers to forfeiting one’s own “power” in pursuit of the same end. In any case, there is an exchange of power—not typically from one partner to the other (and indeed for some people the object is for both partners to gain weight), but instead from the weight-gaining person into the thin air. Call it a deal with the Devil, if you will. You get a few short years of unlimited gluttony, and afterward the Devil gets your soul forever.

It’s different for everybody, but I personally visualize an individual deliberately overeating and being fed by their partner, and slowly, over a period of years, growing into an immense human blob, unable to move, sweating, gasping for air, breaking wind, and then finally losing all self-control before ultimately collapsing into a depraved and untimely death. In the more common sadistic manifestation of this fetish, the person I visualize getting fatter is a generic female. In its masochistic form, the person getting fatter is me.

This is all rather extreme, but what it isn’t is rare. In some form or another, nearly all of us have both a sadistic and masochistic component to our sexuality. For some it is less pronounced; for others it is fiercely intense. And of course there are plenty of us in between.

I’m definitely something of a small-timer. As it is with most people who have fetishes, or who rate highly on their sadism or masochism stats generally, the more extreme parts of my obsession with fat remain largely in the realm of fantasy. The amount of weight I have thus far deliberately gained in my life is small potatoes even compared to the weight of the average American male, and I have never encouraged weight gain in a female partner—primarily because they tend to want nothing to do with it. =)

I have intense visualizations of the extremity of growing fat, but in my real life I do very little to make these visions a reality. The closest I ever came was eighteen straight months of overeating in 2006 and 2007, taking me thirty pounds higher than my previous highest weight ever. I had wanted to do that my whole life. Thirty pounds—it was actually fifty, because I had been below my previous high weight at the beginning—isn’t particularly healthy to gain in the space of eighteen months, and I admit that, but I also consider it a small price to pay considering how overwhelming the sex drive is to one’s general psychology.

Will I gain weight again in the future? I don’t know! Probably. Psychologically speaking, I don’t like losing weight—it makes me feel uncomfortable and incomplete—and at 170 pounds I can afford to gain a good deal more before any fat-bashing fascists start giving me the evil eye. But on the other hand, I do have other priorities in life, and none of them are served by me being fat. Indeed, some of my other passions are outright hindered, such as my fondness for bicycling, backpacking, and city walking. Thus, a small-timer I remain for the time being, and if a few extra pounds and a fondness for America’s commonest body type is all the baggage I carry with me from my fetish, then I am most fortunate indeed.

Will I ever encourage weight gain in a partner? Again, I don’t know! Certainly not with Kendra. She is adamantly opposed to being overweight let alone gaining it willfully, and, because I love her more than I love her fat, that is acceptable to me. Indeed, as I have told her, Kendra is something of a moderating influence on me. Without her steady discouragement, I’d probably eventually wind up taking things farther than I justifiably should. Raging libido aside, I don’t like the thought of drowning myself in fat, or of helping a partner to do the same to herself.

With fat, a little bit can go a long way…and too much is never enough.

The extent to which we indulge our sexual appetites is necessarily limited by the considerations of the other aspects of our lives. Many people who fantasize about weight gain “draw the line” at becoming physically immobile, and many of these (or their partners) never get anywhere near that fat anyway. Only the extremists will muster the amazing dedication required to go “all the way.” I say there is a meaningful difference between 200 and 300 pounds, but none whatsoever between 500 and 600. Once the body starts to grow formlessly obese, a person crosses a line of sorts, effectively declaring that sexual gratification is their primary ambition in life, rather than one of several competing ambitions. Weight gain becomes an obsession—more than obsession: It becomes a way of life.

Ethically, I cannot condone that anybody take their fetish to the extreme. Fantasizing is fine, but destroying a human body is altogether more serious. However, these sorts of decisions are ours to make on our own, and, of those who do decide to become profoundly fat…I can only say that I sympathize. I understand the pull.


Origins of the Fat Fetish

I had a fat fetish before I passed into sexual maturity. Even as a kid I desired to gain weight, fantasized about rolling around in my own lard, and made halfhearted attempts to overeat. (They all failed and I remained a regular-looking, perhaps slightly pudgy kid throughout my childhood.)

Back then, I didn’t know that my fat fetish was a sexual thing. I didn’t think in sexual terms yet, and I visualized only myself—never a female—becoming fat. Like many people, I had my first sexual experience completely by accident, and I did it by fantasizing about a desperately overweight Star Trek star. (I’ll leave you to guess which one she was.)

Throughout my childhood, I was always deeply embarrassed by my fixation with fat. I was very, very shy about people’s remarks that had anything to do with me and overeating or me and body fat. One time when I was little—probably not even ten years old—I was at a pool party potluck. I had just gotten two plates of food from the buffet line, one in each hand, when a friend’s mom came up and made some comment I don’t remember, about me having a big appetite. I was so mortified that I actually hit her…or perhaps I kicked her, since I didn’t have any hands available, and it would have been too horribly cute to fathom that I might have gone to the trouble of putting down one of my plates just to be able to hit her. (It wasn’t a malicious act, mind you—purely a defensive one.)

For the same reason, I always wore a shirt when I swam. I didn’t want anybody to see my belly. I’ve always had a small belly, despite never really being overweight. I’m just shaped that way. And I was very self-conscious about it. Even today, I don’t like other people to see my stomach—notwithstanding attractive females.

I don’t know where my fetish came from, but I do know that it was with me early in life. Once I remember my mom saying, offhand, that she’d rather I be fat than have rotten teeth—this was on a trip to the dentist—and I remember being terribly embarrassed about that. I probably wasn’t even seven at the time.

Perhaps the closest I can get to the origin of my fetish is this: When I was down in California a few weeks ago having Passover with the family, my mom told a story of something that I used to do constantly as a kid, but had completely forgotten about as a teenager and adult. Some kids suck their thumb, right? Well, when I was a baby and a very young boy, I used to stick my finger in my belly button. Constantly. In and out. Over and over. Sometimes left hand, sometimes right. I have no memory of this whatsoever, nor of the tantrums that I apparently threw when I wasn’t able to get access to my belly button—such as being blocked by inelastic jeans, which (as I know now) is why I never regularly wore jeans until middle school.

I can only surmise that, at some moment in my earliest past, something about a fat belly made its way into my mind, and blossomed from there into the fully-formed fetish I possess today.

How bizarre you are, how not of a kind, O human mind!

Sometimes we tend to forget, in our society of conformity and normalcy, just how weird humanity is.


Fat Sex

No, no graphic descriptions. What I want to talk about, briefly, is how I reconcile my fetish with the act of sex. A fetish, as you know, is all but required during sex in order to achieve completion. You might think that this requires that I or my partner be fat, but it turns out not to be strictly necessary.

I said earlier that a little bit of fat goes a long way, and this works out quite well with my mate Kendra—who is, after all, a little bit fat. That small amount of extra flesh on her body, together with the even smaller amount of extra flesh on my own, is sometimes more than enough to do the trick. I can’t tell you how erotic and satisfying it is to be brought to orgasm by the thought (and sight, and smell, and feel) of one’s own partner. It is something you will simply have to experience for yourself.

Other times, or when I am by myself, the amount of real fat available is not sufficient, and I can only finish up by fantasizing about real weight gain. Usually I picture the fattening of a generic female—or, on very rare occasions, the fattening of me—and this is where my fetish truly steps up to the forefront of my mind. These fantasies are highly extreme and involve the most morbid excesses of obesity you could imagine. Five, six, seven hundred pounds. Eight! And everything that goes with it.

People’s minds can work very differently during sex. For me, visualization is at the center of everything. There is no sex without visualizing something. To get my visuals, I have two options: I can either look at what I have available between myself and my partner, or I can imagine a fantasy sex scene. Either way I have to be seeing something, and, because I have a fat fetish, the something I have to be seeing is squishy female flesh. (Or, in those times when I visualize myself getting fat, my own flesh. In these cases my fantasy female partner is completely trim, because for me there is much arousal in contrasting the healthy, slim, dignified partner against the sweating, gasping, fatally corpulent one.)


Fat Fetishism and Feminism

One thing I don’t fantasize about, ever, is Kendra herself getting fatter. This is important because I see it as proof that I have the will to put some of my other concerns ahead of my fat fetish. The two most important of these concerns are my passion for sexual equality, and my respect for Kendra as a sovereign human being. Her incredible loathing for being fat has made it impossible—literally—for me to derive sexual satisfaction from visualizing her gaining weight. So instead I focus on her body as it is.

This is very important indeed, because it means that I prefer to respect her humanity rather than sexually objectify her. You see, the thing about fetishes and sexual fantasizing is that objectification is the rule of the day. Everybody I visualize is objectified—even me. Worse, these generic females I envision are not the empowered female equals that I so passionately crave in real life. They are sex objects, fattened into a young doom, dying in their own craven monument of female blubber. That’s quite the opposite of empowerment. To me, sitting here now in my rational frame of mind, it’s actually the most disgusting part of this entire affair.

Nevertheless, for me sexual fantasy is the place where sexuality and sexism necessarily overlap—as I suspect it is for a great many people. This is the one time when I perceive females in the animal sense, as objects of my desire…as partners for sex, and nothing more. Don’t care who her favorite author is. Don’t care what she majored in. Don’t care. Here in the realm of fantasy, during the act of sex or as a precursor to it, the females I visualize are sex partners and nothing else. I permit this perception of females in myself, during this one time, because I see it as sexist only circumstantially: If I were bisexual, my fantasies would include males too. In other words, it isn’t that they are females. It’s that I’m heterosexual.

When a human in is sex-mode, their partner becomes, if not an object per se, then an object of desire. That’s why so many people call sex the supreme act of intimacy: Carnal knowledge strips aside all of our higher awareness, and reduces us to something primitive and animalistic. Of course, most people don’t describe it as such: They use spiritual language, and speak of celestial spheres and true love. However you describe it, though, sex is an experience unlike anything else in a person’s entire life. It is unique. And, by any rational measure, it demeans the other partner, because the sexual thrill causes each participant to lose sight of everything about their partner(s) other than his or her (or their) sexual desirability. That’s why you have to step back and realize that it is a highly specific case of temporary insanity. There isn’t supposed to be a rhyme or a reason to it. It’s sex, and that’s all it is. It is the tale of two human beings coming together to participate in a primordial physical act which (I should hope) both (or all) of them greatly desire—not on a rational level, not on an emotional level, but on the carnal level…the genital level. Also known as “thinkin’ with your versplinken.” (Okay, so I made that up, but it has the advantage of being sex-neutral.)

What it comes to is this: In building my relationship with Kendra, I have proved to my own satisfaction that, by not fantasizing about her gaining weight, I truly do not see her as one of those generic female sex objects in my fantasies, but instead as the real Kendra…the same person who I know and love in the nonsexual parts of my life. Even though I greatly desire her body much of the time—including the fat parts of it in particular—the greater part of me loves her for something she possesses of far higher preciousness than her genitals: Her beautiful mind. I say this not to score points with her, but because I truly do mean it, and because it is very gratifying to me—like passing a test of character—to favor Kendra the Person over Kendra the Object…even during sex.


The Orgasm & Denouement

Again, no graphic descriptions. It is of high interest (to me) that, when I orgasm, my fetish disappears—instantly and totally. This, more than anything else, is what proves to me that it is a fetish. Much as I suspect the Devil would do, if there were such a character—which of course there is not—my fetish lures me into a fondness for severe misbehavior (i.e., weight gain) in the pursuit of sexual gratification, and then vanishes once I achieve it…leaving me with all of these proverbial extra pounds, now hanging onto me like so much dead weight.

In the moment of orgasm, I fantasize. I always do. I stop seeing whatever is actually in front of me. Instead I metaphorically recreate the event, in allegory: I see Ganondorf floating in the air and firing his balls of energy atop his high tower of stained glass. Or I see Silence taking her left hand and unleashing the incredible colorless beams of fire that can tear into another plane of existence. Or anything of that sort. It is intense and visceral. There is nothing civilized about it. It is animal. A few flecks of spit from my mouth are testament enough to that, for this is the one time when I might ever do something so gross, because I seem to have a drool-phobia and cannot stand it when people spit or drool or froth.

Afterwards, once I have calmed down, I get to experience one of the few reliable moments in my life where I can exist without a fat fetish. Oftentimes, if I have overindulged in food prior to sex, I will feel mortified, knowing that weight gain might gratify me sexually but is at odds with most of my other desires in life. Only here does the full strangeness of my fetish—and the ramifications of it—dawn upon me. This is the closest I ever come to feeling guilty about fat.

Mind you, I am not a fat-basher. Purely on academic grounds I support the size-acceptance movement, and, as I have written, I think our social hatred of fat is unwarranted and the health risks of it are overstated. Even so, the kind of extreme fatness I fantasize about is definitely beyond the realm of good human health, which humbles me in this time of denouement.


The Tenth Line

I consider it to be a mark of human judgment, and of our good character, if we can reconcile our competing interests in life in a way that satisfies us, or, at least, represents our best qualities and efforts. A sexual fetish is so often at odds with our other interests in life, and often can pose serious risks due to its bizarre nature. Even so, I do not condemn sexual fetishes. They are a part of human nature. Yes, they are weird and overwhelming and sometimes very frustrating, but, then again, so much of the human condition is like that. How easily we get too hot, or too cold. How dreadful it is to be hungry. How little else occupies our minds when we become sick. These “frustrations” are a part of the common experience we all share. They help give our lives definition, and I don’t resent my fetish one bit. Perhaps if I could erase it from my mind I would consider doing that, but, since I can’t, I am more than happy to live with what I am.

In the years to come, I will have only the strength of my judgment to guide me in deciding how important it is that I or a partner gain weight, and how much weight that might be. If I’m worth anything, I won’t give up any power that I’m not prepared to give up. But if I do find that some of my power is worth giving up, then it isn’t worth having anymore, and forsaking it would be the right thing to do.

I might add: Far from being a bogus deal, growing fatter does open up the individual to new kinds of power, chief of which is heightened sensuality. Having more body makes one more aware of oneself. So please don’t presume that I think getting fat is all bad outside of a sexual context. I don’t think that at all. Indeed, if my judgment is sound—and I am nothing if not competent in my abilities—then, whatever choice I make, I will be able to look back upon it and say, “I did what mattered to me.”

I expect I will eventually settle for a compromise: 200 pounds, or 250. Or, if Kendra and I eventually go our separate ways, I may look for a female partner who is that heavy, or even twice that heavy. I don’t know…and the future will not tell me. Perhaps I will lose every ounce of extra fat by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Or perhaps I’ll put on five hundred pounds and become confined to my own home. Perhaps my hypothetical next mate will be rail-thin, and feed me until they have to hoist me out on a forklift one day.

Whatever happens, I can only admit of my future this simple truth: Life is a curious tale after all, and many other things besides, but one thing life isn’t is safe, and we must do what we can, in the time we have, to act upon our desires, or else we will miss our one chance in this cosmos to achieve meaning, fulfillment, contentment, satisfaction, and perhaps even serenity.

It may be strange to equate those fine virtues with a horribly fat body, but didn’t I say it before: We tend to forget, in our society of conformity and normalcy, just how weird we really are. The goal is not necessarily to live long, but to live well…whatever that means to each of us, individually.


An Urgent Command to the World

May everyone who is fat and seeks to be thin, become thin.
May the bigotry against fat come to an end in our days.
May everyone who admires fat, affirm this to themselves and the world.
May those who love the delights of fat flesh be graced with its abundance.
May human beings seek to better understand their own sexuality, and prosper for it.
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Punctuations [May. 1st, 2008|01:06 am]
Now it is finally time for me to spend a word or two of substantive reflection upon Connections. But only a word or two.

Individuality. Burke emptied his pockets and observed that not a single thing therein was uniquely him, and asked—“If I’m not here, where am I?” before the picture faded out to an assembly line of identical creations.

He’s right, you know. We’re not good at being unique, and our American culture makes it even harder.

But what he didn’t touch on was the logical conclusion of this line of thought: Even if many of us were unique after all (but also applicable under the present reality), individuality is not the same thing as excellence. Those who are mediocre under their own power, or who are incapable of good judgment, need to stop being individual and go back to being normal.

The rest of us must strive for two things: Individuality, and Excellence. They are not the same.

Obesity. In the last fifty years, most of us have lost nearly all practical knowledge…of everything. The entire world has become magic to us, outside those areas of our professional expertise or hobbyists’ enthusiasm. My theory is this: Not understanding how things work, in an increasingly complex but comfortable world, has led to our present obesity problem. Most people (excepting those of us who intentionally pursue the delights of extra flesh) would simply not be as fat as they are if only they went out into the world, not necessarily even physically. Just a theory.

Technological Complexity.

Burke was not siding with the survivalists who detest technology or the cynics who foresee doom. He was showing, in his own way, that our civilization is fragile and we need to hold onto it—by taking the effort to better understand it and be aware of it—because it would be very hard to start all over.

Education. Burke’s “alternative view of change” is so immediately and immensely helpful that I had an epiphany: This needs to be blended with the formal discipline of history education to recreate the concept of history education. As a writer, I don’t appreciate as well as others might that human beings learn best from seeing and listening…not reading. Who says television is bad? If we can combine something like Burke with the rigors of academic study…I think we’d be on to something.

Worldbuilding. Fantasy & Science Fiction worldbuilding is a very hard feat, and of the authors I have read only Tolkien did it justice. My disdain for hack-‘n-slash and for the cheap plagiarism of most fantasy settings is related to my high standards for worldbuilding. Burke does an incredible job of showing how difficult it is to create a fantasy history. Many of the connections he points out are of the sort that open your eyes to a horizon not on any line of the Earth. It simply never occurred to me that history was as incidental as in fact it was. It explains so much about history!

Eurocentrism. I wonder what the rest of the world was like. Bottom line, James Burke is one of those greats. He’s up there with Sagan…not quite that high, but frankly I count him as one of my most important influences. So much of what I wish I would say, yet lack the will and the direction to write, he says effortlessly by showing history as it was. Good Lord Josh Above…what if we were all this well-informed?
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My Top Suggestion [Apr. 29th, 2008|06:49 am]
Just in case the first two suggestions didn't sink in, I think you should be watching Connections right now. Start at the beginning, and work your way up. Remember that the first episode isn't like the rest of the series: It's the setup. It's the exposition, in Burke's own philosophical way. By the time you get to the fourth episode, where watermills lead to the Internet (although Burke couldn't quite go that far back in 1978), you'll hopefully be hooked.
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Connections [Apr. 28th, 2008|02:38 am]
No, really. Watch it. Start Here.
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Josh's B-links: Males, Females, and Britons [Apr. 27th, 2008|06:02 pm]
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Connections Viewable on YouTube

Connections was a multi-episode science documentary in the 1970s, presented by James Burke, that, as its title suggests, explored scientific progress by looking at the interconnected events of history. I caught it on TLC as a kid, back when TLC still called itself The Learning Channel, and loved it.

The original Connections was the best, but two other series—Connections2 and Connections3—followed in the 1990s, and all were good.

Now it has just come to my attention that some of these episodes, mostly from Connections2 and Connections3, are available on YouTube. This is a very pleasant treat, and I encourage you to see them while they are available. I’ll be rewatching all of them.


Early 20th Century Britain, in Color

Courtesy of ZeaLitY, some color photographs of Britain from around the time of the first world war. Very rare, and delicious.

On a related note, just last night I watched the unabridged version of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Being from the 1970s, it is also in color, but it depicts Britain during World War II, and, because of the historical footage available, I have always conceived of World War II as occurring in black and white.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks startled me, in that, 1970s Disney retellings of 1940s Britain notwithstanding, apparently British culture actually did used to be not so different from the way we read about it in books. I know that it may sound superficial of me, but I suppose I always thought the pop-culture descriptions of British life were greatly exaggerated. Apparently not…a valuable lesson in historical objectivity.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is available on Netflix. Go for it!


Ruffians Advance Cultural Reference Point that Females Are to Blame for Sexual Inequality

It’s just one more sad little story about the troubles some people are taking to justify sexism by blaming females for sexual inequality. What troubles me is just how much of a concerted effort there seems to be in advancing this misogynistic point of view at the societal level.


Girls Start Out Liking Science and Math the Best

Girls in the fourth grade liked science the most, ranking social studies at the bottom. By eighth grade, girls had lost considerable interest in all subjects. Some of that interest is regained in college. This is an interesting, albeit brief read, indicting the American educational system and casting one more scrap of doubt on the thoroughly discredited popular notion of the differences between the brains of the sexes. (Remember, it’s not the subjects themselves that would point to any brain structure differences, but the different types of learning that go on in various subjects.)


Interesting Website Design

This website has an interesting design, and the author states that this design was the result of months of studying web design theory and techniques.

UK Attempts to Overturn Male Precedence in Royal Succession

Courtesy of Stephen:
A 300-year-old law which gives males precedence in the royal line of succession could be abolished.

MPs are expected to use new equality legislation to guarantee a monarch's daughter equal claim to the throne.
I expect this effort would meet with success in today’s UK, but the difficulty is this:
Under the Statute of Westminster 1931 any change would have to be agreed by the parliaments in all countries which have the Queen as head of state.

The Queen is head of state of the UK and 15 other Commonwealth realms, including Australia and Canada.
Nonetheless, we’ll see what comes of it. There are many people who say that monarchies such as Britain’s are an anachronism anyway, and any reforms to their structure, such as in sexual equality, nevertheless do not make the institution itself any more legitimate…but I’m not one of those people. =) This is a good advance, and particularly welcome after the demise of an effort in Japan to establish a similar law in its imperial succession rules.

Mothers’ Diet May Help Determine Sex of Child

In yet another instance of genetics being more complicated than we once thought, researches at Oxford and Exeter have discovered that a mother’s diet seems to skew the odds of the sex of her child being male or female.
The findings are based on a study of 740 first-time pregnant mothers in Britain who didn’t know the sex of their fetus. They provided records of their eating habits before and during the early stages of pregnancy, and researchers analyzed the data based on estimated calorie intake at the time of conception. Among women who ate the most, 56 percent had sons, compared with 45 percent among women who ate the least. As well as consuming more calories, women who had sons were more likely to have eaten a higher quantity and wider range of nutrients, including potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12. There was also a strong correlation between women eating breakfast cereals and producing sons.
I am rather skeptical that this will hold up to further study, but it is an interesting find, and all the more so if it does hold up.
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Cough, Cough [Apr. 26th, 2008|05:00 am]
I missed Earth Day.

Or, rather, I spent it by driving over one hundred miles down the side of a mountain and through the Los Angeles basin—one of the smoggiest places in the nation—with the air conditioner on all the while, and then flying one thousand miles back up the coast in a half-filled jetliner.

Not bad, not bad…

It’s so dreadfully easy to ecologically misbehave in this country. We set ourselves up to fail…and fail we do. One of the things that amazed me about being back in California is how much smoggier it is. In Los Angeles, the sky is white now. You can’t see the mountains anymore. Even on the other side of those mountains the smog is growing right along with the population. It’s uncanny.

We needn’t kill the Earth. We can exist without sacrificing our high quality of life; we need only want to prevail. We’ve got to start changing the way we look at our lifestyles.

More than anything else, we need to reduce our transportation output. We need to do this by traveling both less often and more efficiently. There’s nothing wrong with folks driving long distances while on holiday, but for the work commute and for regular errands we need to strive to drive as little as possible. We need to put an end to suburbs altogether. We need corner markets again, and we need people to shop there. We need more telecommuting, more bicycling, and more mixed residential and commercial zoning. We need vertical development. We need arcologies. We need sustainable design and construction. And of course we need mass transit. We need trains and buses every hour of the year, in every town and city. Any time we turn to a combustion engine, we need to think about how we can cut it out.

I’m not a very good environmentalist. I recycle, but I still generate a fair amount of trash—especially non-recyclable paper trash. I also generate a lot of food waste—more than I should, given how low my good budget is. I drive more than I should, even though I don’t own a car. More seriously, I rarely change my behaviors so as to acquire food and goods that are more responsibly produced or distributed.

I do have a few creature comforts. I like to take long showers—although I don’t do it nowadays because my water heater is ten fucking gallons. And I like to have lots of lights on. I get hot easily, so often I’ll use an air conditioner when one is available. And I like to eat way too much—overconsumption in its purest form. I don’t have a problem with things like that. Creature comforts, in moderation, are just fine. So are material possessions. I’d be the last person to suggest that we all go back to living in caves.

No, what really concerns me is the waste and pollution that we don’t mean to produce—and it is in this regard that we set ourselves up to fail, because our society is so wasteful. We treat everything as disposable. We wrap our products in huge amounts of packaging. We settle for inefficient cars, and we’re heavy on the accelerator and the brake. We let heat (or cool) seep out of our homes. We use inefficient appliances. We live in oversized homes at great distances from work and the grocery.

I have become much more distressed over the past two years about the irrevocable changes we are imposing upon this planet. I’m less worried about “the environment” in general—which is ever-changing and recoverable—than the countless species that we are exterminating or endangering. It is very wrong to me, wronger than most other wrongs. Yet we persist. We build homes out of wood. We eat wild fish. We buy things we neither need nor want. It is a testament to the hugeness of our planet that we have not already destroyed it. Even so, that day will yet come if we do not change our ways. I have the utmost confidence in human adaptability, but I fear that by the time we recognize the need for change, countless species both known and unseen will be gone forever or doomed.

It was fitting that I saw (or tried to see) Los Angeles on Earth Day. I said to Kendra as we drove through an underpass that someday those skies would all be clean again—we will have recognized the need for sustainability, and made the necessary changes. Those changes will become cheaper and more in the social norm as we build upon them in the decades to come.

But how much damage will we have done before we get there?
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The Choice Is Now [Apr. 26th, 2008|03:29 am]
Kelly Gorski has a blog. Who the dink is Kelly Gorski? That doesn’t matter! What matters is that it’s a great blog. I enjoyed it so much that I even sent her an e-mail telling her how much I appreciate it. I do something like that maybe once every couple of years.

From her writing, she is one of those cryingly rare people who leaps out at me in a sea of human unremarkableness and evokes from me the exclamation—the exclamation!—“Now here is somebody I want to get to know!” Those are some of my most powerful words.

I have learned to appreciate just how much individuals can do to spice up my perception of the world. The existence of people as great as her makes life so much richer than it already is. For what my recommendation is worth to you, her blog earns my highest rating. I think she deserves at least a minute out of your day.
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Dreams: Exposition, Battlestar, and Capture the Flag [Apr. 26th, 2008|02:31 am]
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Dreams…

I find it very difficult to use the proper words in describing the emotions, visuals, and substance of my dreams. When I recall even a fragment of a dream, there is enough information there that it is not practical to describe fully, and so I have to leave many things out. The trouble is that every last detail is important to me, which makes my dreams extremely hard to reduce.

Nah, that is only the start of the trouble.

I don’t assign any spiritual, supernatural, psychic, or subconscious value to dreams: The first three I flatly reject and the latter I know little about. Nevertheless, my dreams are very important to me. They are vivid and expansive. They are a continuing source of creative inspiration. I view them as proof that I am not losing my creativity. Almost as importantly, they connect me to the higher level of emotional profundity…making the real world seem ironically shallow in comparison.

If I were to try and explain it: My dreams, as they always have been, are as close as I have ever gotten to capturing that elusive something, that excellence of soul, that feeling of ecstasy you might experience in a moment of beautiful music or of illuminating conversation, as though some kind of personal perfection is almost within reach, if only you could join with it a little more deeply. I think of it as “becoming the complete story.” That’s where my dreams often point. They make me feel as though I am “on to something,” that I am very, extremely, excruciatingly close to achieving some great, transcendent metamorphosis. It never happens, of course. I never get past those final steps. I doubt any of us ever do. But the pull of it is more addictive than anything.

Kendra mentioned recently that she had heard somebody say that dreams overexpose us to things that are missing from our waking life, and underexpose us to the things we encounter too often. I don’t take that too seriously, but as a fun idea I can fit my dream experiences to that model thusly: In the real world, I don’t experience awe, wonder, excitement, and spatial challenge enough…certainly not to a satisfying degree of emotional depth. I would love nothing more than if city grids were replaced by mazes and curves, and bridges over bridges. I would love nothing more than if I could stand upon one of those bridges and turn back the cars upon the freeway with nothing more than a flick of my hand and the will to do it. I would love nothing more than if great yet solvable mysterious fell upon us every day…wonders of science, nature, and the mind. Mysteries. Question marks. Intrigue. The real world does provide for all of these things, but not enough to satisfy me. The very feeling of experiencing the fantastical is, by definition, impossible. The faerie lights of Lothlorien would not be the same if we could actually witness them with our own eyes. There is something about the human mind that relishes touching the intangible.

So…writing down my dreams is a frustrating experience. The quality of them, the real quality, is almost impossible to write down. Even if I could take the trouble to record every last detail, something would still be absent. I do it anyway because the alternative is to lose them forever, entirely. By writing them down I can not only strengthen them in my memory, but also give my future self the verbal cues to recall them more effectively. But I tell you, it is exasperating sometimes.

Recently I had two dreams worth mention.

While I was on vacation, I dreamt of a universe modeled after Battlestar Galactica. One day a mysterious city appeared in the sky. It looked to be made out of cloud, gray cloud, although its true substance was altogether firmer. It resembled a jellyfish—a huge rounded cap the size of a mountain, with dangling tendrils thousands of feet long.

I, as the disembodied observer, knew immediately what would happen. This entity…perhaps a city or even a singular being, or something in between…would almost wipe out humanity, just as the Cylons did to the Twelve Colonies of Man. I beheld the ethereal beauty of the world, knowing most of it would soon be destroyed. There was a light and airy quality to everything…the buildings, cities, people, even the trees and hills.

Other than the aforementioned, I only remember two distinct scenes. One was of a female and some others, assembled on a dirt path running down the side of a green hill. She had a tiny pendant on a chain around her neck. From this pendant a shape emerged, like a tiny miniature of the destroyer city. It rose up away from her, into the sky to the west, growing in great size, until it became the city.

The other was the last thing I dreamt before waking up. The details are now too vague to recall much. Having seen much of the outlying parts of the world, many of which would be spared, I was now able to witness the very heart of it…the command center, or capital. It was a palace of nondescript exterior, standing on top of a steep crag in a land full of such crags rising up like columns from an unseen valley bathed in shadow, as the sky turned pink and the sun, visible in the west, prepared to set.

Inside this capital were the military commanders, the bishops, the politicians, all the people of importance. This place would become ground zero of absolute destruction when the hour of doom struck, but for now they were working diligently in their baylike command center with huge glass walls to the west, and orange faerie light streaming in. Some of these great leaders were suspicious of the gray city. There was a captain standing in for a higher officer, and he felt incompetent to deal with the tasks at hand. The president, like Adar, was blind to the danger, as were most others.

There is something irresistible about witnessing a place you know is about to be destroyed. Imagine walking the decks of the Titanic a few hours before it hit the iceberg. Imagine standing in the corridors of Chernobyl on the same day of its meltdown. Imagine the streets of Hiroshima, the gardens of Pompeii, or the Kingdom of Zeal. Something about their doom appeals to us, yes?

For me to witness this light and airy, and vibrant capital just before its utter demise was quite disturbing. I woke up then for other reasons, and the dream stayed with me.

Two days ago, I had another dream—quite different from the first one. It was daytime under a vaguely overcast sky. I, myself, stood on a beach or something like it, atop something that reminds me now of a trampoline. If it was a beach there would have been a body of water, but I don’t remember what occupied that space. On the other side was a sheer cliff, leading up to a vast, flat green field.

I was on a basketball team, and I was as bad in my dream as I would be in real life. I stood there on the yellow bouncy-thing with my teammates, in dismay. The other team was three points ahead, and even as I looked at the scoreboard, the referee put another three-point card onto the other team’s tally. In real-life that’s a fairly close score, but in this case it was a damning gap.

Colin—Kendra’s brother, who actually does play basketball at his college—was the captain, although I don’t remember if I spoke to him. I did speak to the coach: I told him that if he wanted me to resign from the team, I would understand, or that alternatively I could give it another shot, my best shot. The coach, whose face and body I do not remember, was helpless to give the team what it needed to win, and suggested I give it another shot.

That is what I resolved to do.

Now, you understand, this basketball did not resemble the real sport of basketball in any form. It was instead like a mix of football, gymnastics, and capture-the-flag—in other words, capture-the-flag with full-on tackle and lots of elaborate jumping.

The whistle blew, and I immediately leapt for a white rope and climbed—pulled myself up hand-over-hand, really—up the sheer cliff to the huge green field. This was the enemy team’s territory, and now my goal was to get to the flag without being tackled.

It was ridiculous. The other team must have had a hundred people on it, clustered all over the field. Some were dressed like soccer referees. Others looked like they were there just for the hell of it.

I ran. I jumped. I evaded. Wave after wave they came for me, and I eluded them all. Then I saw that one male was running straight for me. I knew that I had to play chicken with him and leap hard to the right at the last possible instant, and so I ran toward him at full speed. I kept feeling the desire to jump off to the left, but I held fast, and when the moment came I indeed jumped off to the right, and just barely escaped him. Even though I was moving quite slowly—as often seems to happen to me in dreams when I want to do something quickly—he wasn’t able to catch up.

I caught the flag. Then I turned around and beheld my misfortune: I had to get back across that field. For some reason, the endless ranks of the other team hadn’t formed a solid line to block me. Instead, they were scattered out all over the field again.

Now came the kickass moment. I leapt into a dead run. In a dream, the world can have background music, and in that instant the fast-paced adventure theme from Pirates of the Caribbean rose up and filled the ears of the onlooking world.

I jumped. I dodged. I dived. I ran. I eluded them all. Not one of them got close to me. The music soared.

Now there was only one thing to stop me: I was waking up. That always seems to happen when things get good.

But I wasn’t daunted. I had just enough unconsciousness left to make the dream last a few seconds longer, and just enough consciousness to direct the action: I crossed the last of the field, leapt off the cliff at full speed like a lunatic, and landed squarely in the middle of the yellow trampoline, scoring just enough points to hand us a victory in the last seconds of the game.

And then I was awake.
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Financial Sector Runs Amok, Sucking Wealth from the Real Economy [Apr. 24th, 2008|12:55 am]
This is a very interesting read constituting a full explanation of, and solution for, the current economic crisis.

I have no idea how accurate it is, but it is thorough, and my own line of thinking is heavily sympathetic to the position it stakes.

Keep your eyes peeled for a link to an article about derivatives and what Warren Buffet called the "$516 trillion bubble," which is also an interesting read.

This link from the article is also interesting.
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Thoughts Upon Going Through The Piles [Apr. 23rd, 2008|11:24 pm]
I’m back from California—more on that later. First, I want to write down a few of my thoughts as I clean up my office:


My bank is Washington Mutual, now known as “WaMu,” and, yes, the “M” is capitalized. I joined them when I opened my first bank accounts upon coming to college in 2000, because they offered free checking—which, at the time, was somewhat novel—as well as no annual fees or minimum balance limits. They also provide a small credit for overdrafts; mine began at $500 and sits at $1000 today. Anytime an account in good standing is overdrawn, up to the overdraft limit, the bank will pay the transaction. For the convenience, they’ll charge an overdraft fee.

I just ran into an overdraft fee notice in my files, dated March 10, 2003. At that time, the overdraft fee was $22. Today, after yet another two-dollar increase, that same fee stands at $34—well beyond the price of inflation. If they were breaking even on $22, they’re making a profit of $9 today for every single overdraft by every customer—but in fact they were making money at $22, and now they’re making that much more than $9…ever time. These overdraft fees are a huge cash cow for them.

Generally I have been pleased with Washington Mutual. For all their other problems in recent years, the only trouble I have had with them relates to these fees. The checking is still free; their website is great (when it’s not down for “maintenance”); the bank tellers are always knowledgeable and courteous; and they have branches and machines all over Western Washington.

However, those fees are killer. Essentially they function as a credit card with usuriously bad interest rates. The bank’s rationale is that its customers shouldn’t overdraw in the first place. That’s actually a pretty good argument, I think, but it does ignore the realities that overdrafts do happen, that they are profitable for the bank, and that they are getting very expensive for people at the bottom end of the economic spectrum—the very same people who, by circumstance, overdraw most frequently. It thus ignores the ensuing reality that many people who live paycheck-to-paycheck have come to rely upon the buffer of their overdraft limit. I know that I’ve relied on it on a number of occasions, and I’m hardly at the bottom of the economic ladder. Even though the customer is the agent of these fees—which is why I never complained back at $22—the bank is certainly doing its part to behave as dishonorably as possible within the game rules it has dictated.

That’s the rub. Washington Mutual, in raising its overdraft fees so significantly, has abandoned its regard for customer goodwill in favor of chasing that golden spot of maximum profits where overdraft fees and membership are optimal. If the fees were any lower, the bank wouldn’t be milking its customers to the max. If the fees were any higher, membership (i.e., overdrafts) would decline enough that profits would also go down.

Membership decline for this reason is already happening. Case in point: Me. I can’t afford a $34 overdraft fee, and now it’s time for me to look at other banks and credit unions. Also, it seems that I might have to get a real credit card, since that is starting to make more sense than paying overdraft fees. I always took pride in the fact that I’ve never owned a credit card—debit only—but now the economy has worsened to the point where even low-income people like myself can justify, in economic terms, the purchase of credit.

Washington Mutual…tsk tsk. Another once-honorable financial institution, fallen victim to corporate greed.

As for myself, I’ve really got to do something to make a better living. It’s very expensive in this country to be poor!

Incidentally, that overdraft from March 10, 2003? The one with the $22 overdraft fee? It was a check I wrote, for $36.


In 2004 and part of 2005, I worked for Airborne Express—third banana to UPS and FedEx—at their corporate headquarters as the company was being swallowed up by an overseas delivery and logistics service, DHL—itself a unit of international corporate giant Deutsche World. There, I learned everything I know about corporate real estate, and much of what I know about the corporate culture in America as seen from the inside. My bosses were both interesting people, and I liked them. Most of the staff were competent at their jobs. Everybody (but me) had a lot of work to do.

As DHL slowly took over, we were introduced to the DHL “Corporate Values”:

• Deliver excellent quality.
• Make customers successful.
• Foster openness.
• Act according to clear priorities.
• Act in an entrepreneurial way.
• Act with integrity internally and externally.
• Accept social responsibility.

For all the faults I found with DHL, that’s a pretty good list. Except for the first item, which is corporate gibberish, this list reflects a wise vision of corporate enterprise checked by ethical restraint and regard for the customer. These directives are sufficiently general to relate to most of the company’s employees, and yet are not so vague as to be meaningless (again with the exception of the first item).

If only more companies, including DHL, actually behaved that way! But something that I learned from working for DHL—specifically, working for Airborne Express—is that, contrary to popular opinion, middle-management is not typically where corporate evil begins.

Instead, middle-management is why change is so hard to implement. The middle-management layer is, effectively, the bureaucratic layer of a company…the most literal manifestation of a company’s culture, and the agent of its momentum—however swift, clunky, prudent, or foolish that momentum may be.

Middle-management is where employees start to become zombies who seem to actually believe all of the propaganda put out by their executive bosses. Most of them seem dedicated to the wellbeing of the company, but become narrowly focused on their own sphere of responsibility. In any case, they usually lose the idealism (or apathy) of the cogs, but do not yet possess the oily vitality of the executives. Middle-managers are the link between strategy and operations. They are the ones by whom a company succeeds or fails, even if their hands are often tied by directives from the top. I have some sympathy for the people in the middle who get stuck, being important enough to be responsible for something, but not yet important enough to secure the resources and procedures they need to succeed.

One final equation, then: Middle-management is not an entity unto itself, but the consequence of the actions and policies of top-management. Ironically, then, the DHL Corporate Values are, in addition to being interesting, completely useless.


I have a page in my files entitled “Emotional Intelligence.” I don’t remember where I was when I wrote this down. I think it was in a class somewhere, but in the not-too-distant past, which is what puzzles me. The notes I took are interesting. Their value is that they point to a means of controlling other people. The notes include:
A strategy:

• Identify own emotions. --> Emotional Skill
• Identify others’ emotions. --> Social Skill
• Understand signals that emotions send about relationships.
• Control own emotions. --> Emotional Skill
• Control others’ emotions. --> Skill
• Personal mastery of emotional and social skills.
• Integrate emotions into broader thinking.
And there’s a guideline for “Person Considering Offer”:

• Convey specific emotions accurately of complicated situations with limited text but maneuvering room with emoticons.
This really makes me wonder where these notes came from.

Other points of interest on the page include the list “Bulling; Diplomacy; Bargaining”; and, crossed out, the list “Castles; Farms; Workshops.”

In any case, “emotional intelligence” is a concept that I have built over several years—which is probably why I took these notes when whoever-it-was mentioned another concept by the same name. My take on emotional intelligence is that, as the phrase implies, one’s emotional existence, and their awareness and of it of it, is a dimension of their overall intelligence. Most of our interactions with other people include an emotional component (the major exception being professional detachment), and thus to allow one’s emotional intelligence to go unsharpened is to, at best, deprive oneself of an opportunity to engage more closely. At worst, it is a major disadvantage. Guiding the direction of personal interactions with the help of emotional tones is a major strategic tool—and also an educational one.

In ATH the Novel, Maris Diva, second-in-command of the Galan army after DeLatia, is my point-character for the development of emotional intelligence themes. Described as one whose (considerable) intelligence is based upon emotion, her cognitive process is somewhat different than that of a colder (i.e., less emotional) character such as Silence. Originally a character of Lee’s, the RPG Diva was a frustrated soul who commanded the military for most of the story and secretly loved DeLatia. She eventually committed suicide under the pressures of her work amid the collapsing Galan leadership.

In the novel, of course, I won’t tell you her disposition or fate, but I will say that her character reflects my own understanding of emotion over the past several years. She is of those people who can manipulate just about anybody. She’s very high-tension (perhaps high-strung would also describe it), but her emotions are usually studied, methodical, and precise. That’s a mark of her discipline, because emotional people are inherently at a disadvantage to their cool-blooded counterparts. But mastered emotion she has, and, as anybody who studies military theory or military history could tell you, the political considerations that impose themselves upon the highest ranking officers make the emotionally agile and persuasive Commander Diva, with all of her strategic talents to match the emotional brilliance, one of those rare treasures whose individual abilities are put exactly where they need to be, and so help build a nation. We can rightly say that Diva and her emotional strength are a key part of the backbone of the Galan government; she is one of the most important people in Gala beneath the much more visible Guard of Galavar.

A side note about Diva: Her emotionality is also the occasion for a delicious authorial challenge: The stereotypes of the “emotional woman” and the “manipulative woman” are strong and pervasive in our society. The prospect of a female character defined by her emotional side presented to me the opportunity to turn those stereotypes on their heads by fleshing them out beyond the realm of caricatures and into something much more realistic, even uplifting. Plenty of people, including females, are “emotional” in the better sense of the word, and thereby gain the power of emotional manipulation…which is just one more chapter in the great Book of Power.

One final note from my page of notes: “Maximize reward by applying emotions strategically intelligently.”


I just came across a sheet of music for the “Flute Boy” theme from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It’s a beautiful piece of music all by itself, and the story of “Flute Boy” is one of the most interesting subplots of the entire game. Indeed, the Flute Boy’s “flute” was actually an ocarina (perhaps because ocarinas are easier to draw in a 16-bit universe), which might remind you of another game later on in the series.

The unnamed Flute Boy, described as such in the ending credits, was a free-spirited, pastoral young lad who loved to sit on an old stump in a haunted grove and play his ocarina. One day, through no intention of his own, he passed into the Dark World. There he found his old grove, but was unable to retain his physical form for long. He turned into a young sapling growing out of the Dark World’s version of the very stump where he had loved to sit and play. His last request was to hear his favorite song—the aforementioned “Flute Boy” theme—played for him one final time, which Link obliged.

The sad story of Flute Boy was always an inspiration to me. There is a scene in ATH where a bunch of people are turned into tree stumps all at once, creating a different kind of haunted grove. In the novel, the entire storyline of Flute Boy is seized upon and fleshed out with my own ideas.

The theme itself is hard to play, which is why I printed it out in the first place. Like much of Kondo’s best music, the melody is a sophisticated composite of smaller, less melodic segments, which makes it more difficult to “learn by ear” than music with more literal melodies such as that of Mitsuda.


Written on an envelope, a bit of persiflage between Galavar and DeLatia. It lay forgotten until now (my office really needed a good cleaning!). There is no narrative description, but if you know the characters like I do the tone is obvious:
Galavar:
He attributes his forces’ defeat to holy disfavor.

DeLatia:
What about my performance?

Galavar:
Irrelevant. He doesn’t think a woman should command a military.

DeLatia:
Is it my mind, or my muscles?

Galavar:
I’m not sure I want to answer that. Maybe you’re an exception.”

DeLatia:
An exception to the way things are, or the way you want them to be?
In discussion another of Gala’s military conquests, DeLatia goes from incredulous to frustrated as the subject moves from the conquest itself to the defeated leader’s reaction. Her question of Galavar at the end is not an attack on him, but on his blithe disregard for sexism—his “maybe you’re an exception” is a joke, but she finds it difficult to joke about.

I appreciate her line of thinking, because as somebody who works for the advancement of sexual equality, I understand there is always that necessary step of checking the beliefs of the sexists. What if there actually is a good reason for the division of the sexes into specific roles for a given activity? Are successful females an aberration? That possibility crosses DeLatia’s mind a few times, living as she does in a world where her sex is often excluded from all the most prestigious professions and vocations. Even though she has proved her strategic genius—and is perhaps the best military planner in all the world in her lifetime, including the daunting Imperial Generals Ith and Nth—DeLatia experiences the world as it is, in all its sexist misery, and occasionally wonders, understandably, if she is the exception to some bizarre and cruel divine imperative…and wonders, impossibly, if she would be even better as a male.

Many characters in ATH experience these doubts, both from the male and female sides, in relation to the sexist cultures of Relance. (Gala, incidentally, is a post-sexist nation, as are several other realms. Others are almost barbarian in their misogyny. Of sexism itself, on Relance, some is due to the victory of Sourros over Dsa in ancient times, and the subsequent rending of the female half of the world’s creative force. The rest is attributable to the same forces that give rise to it here on Earth. The result is a multifaceted treatment of a very complicated idea.

As a Sinistral, I have a bit of theory which states that adversity lifts up a masterful few to a tier of success that the privileged can never reach. In Relancii societies where females are still disenfranchised but nevertheless have enough access to the institutions of power to make a legitimate reach for them, more of the “best” people are female. Many of Gala’s greatest figures come from this category—as you will recall that Gala is a new nation comprised of people from across the world.


I am subscribed to my childhood synagogue’s monthly newsletter. In a pile was a page from Rabbi Sarah Bassin’s message in February of this year. Highlighted is this:
[Rabbi Michael J. Cook once told this story:]

“It actually happened about fifty years ago, when a traveling circus came to Brooklyn, that one evening, a lion broke loose from his cage. No sooner was the escape discovered than the search was on! At dawn, the keepers located him. Strangely enough, he had gone but several blocks, stopping at an abandoned house with a thirty-foot strand of fence in front of it. There was the lion, pacing back and forth before that fence, continuing that same monotonous yet comfortable habit of lateral movement into which he had been born in a circus cage, free—and yet at the same time not entirely free after all. For whenever he reached a corner at once end of the fence, he simply reversed his direction.”

Many people have cited this story to illustrate what is lost when we hold ourselves back. In not being able to break out of established boundaries, whether real or self-imposed, we miss an opportunity to move forward, to advance, to break new ground. While there is certainly a purpose to that analogy, I ask you this: What if the lion did not stop at that fence? What if the lion took full advantage of his newfound freedom in the middle of Brooklyn? Perhaps freeing the beast from any and all constraints is not something that we really want.

I believe that we have a lot in common with that lion. The ancient Israelites certainly did. After leaving Egypt, they voluntarily accepted an entire law code that restricted their newfound freedom. They left a prison only to make the choice to pace back and forth behind God’s fence. As we read through these laws in the coming [sections of the Torah which spell out this law code], we realize, that’s not a bad thing.

The fences in the case of the ancient Israelites and the lion were fences of self-restraint. It was a choice for both to respect the new boundaries set up for them. Freedom is an important and beautiful value, but only when we use our freedom for good. And sometimes, it helps to have a few fences in place to remind us of that.
It’s an interesting idea, isn’t it? Never mind that she stretches the lion analogy pretty thin; the underlying concept of self-restraint is an interesting one, and it occurs often in our culture—especially in religious circles and Hollywood parables. Humans are fallible and somewhat miserable, so goes the reasoning, and thus our pursuit of glory is often a recipe for disaster. Therefore we must sacrifice greater glory by embracing the virtues of temperance and humility. Much as Rob was saying to me recently, although not in his words: If we reach hard enough, we might actually take hold of something. Horrors! Better not to reach.

The moral breaks down because human beings possess something which lions do not. Like the lion, we each possess an inner beast, a “wild human.” Unlike the lion, however, we each also possess a rational mind.

To a rational mind, in a changing world, “fences of self-restraint” are fleeting and precise. Very little is universally inviolable, and though we may ground our self-restraint in the language of ethics, most of it is done for the sake of conformity. I see a good reason to prohibit lions from running free in Brooklyn under all circumstances, but I see no reason for such a ban on humans. On the contrary, humans should generally be encouraged to run free, in Brooklyn and all other cities. Only a few specific exceptions arise, interpreted as best our society can through the power of the law.

We do give up something spectacular within ourselves by pacing behind our self-made fences. We should strive to avoid that kind of self-restraint unless it is necessary for our own good or for the good of society. Despite the alarms of the traditionalists, society will not unravel at the seams if people behave more independently.

This is the one sense in which humans are not animals, and we ought to be mindful of it.


Written down on a napkin, from a leisurely Friday afternoon spent at Vivace many weeks ago, before Kendra and I began meeting there regularly, is a quote from an article I read in The Stranger:
Science has more than doubled our lifespans but at the terrible price of living with the truth—that life is not about humans but about something else, something out of our control. We are gene robots. We are replicants. We live for long but we live for nothing.”
This was written by Charles Mudede in a review about David Shields’ latest book, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead.

It is a fascinating premise but a Deplorable one, not because it is right or wrong but because it seeks to demean the human condition universally. I have little patience and no respect for the Deplorable Philosophy, a self-defeating assertion of pointed pointlessness.

Life does not inherently possess the quality of being “about” something. This sort of meaning is not a physical attribute. It cannot be discovered, because there is no gene or protein or anything else for it. Vital meaning can only be created, and not physically. It is a concept. Consequently, we only “live for nothing” if we want to do so…and what kind of fool would want that?

When we perceive meaning in human life, or in any life, or in anything inanimate but otherwise alive by technicality, the quality of this state of meaningfulness exists not with the object of the meaning (even if it is ourselves) but in the abstract expanse of our own thoughtspace.

One of the universe’s more soothing consistencies is that a created truth cannot nullify a discovered one. Therefore, when our conceptions come into conflict with reality we are guilty of a contradiction, and are exposed to whatever practical ramifications this contradiction may include. (I.e., “I believe I can fly.”) However, wherever physical reality does not apply, there is no vehicle for the contradiction, let alone the nullification, of created truths. There are only facts and concepts; the known universe consists of nothing else. Thus, to make a long story short, where meaning is concerned, we live for whatever we want to live for.

It does get more interesting, though—not to mention a lot more dangerous for all—when conflict arises between people’s created truths as to their own meaning, that of certain groups of humans, that of humanity in general, or the meaning of other life forms. But that’s an idea for another time.


Also written on that napkin was my thought that even though I have no inherent difficulty supporting the death penalty—in fact I am quite in favor of it—I have a great deal of practical trouble with the idea of executing people in a society where the justice system is strained, the penal system is broken, the legal system is a joke, and social ills such as racism and poverty endure.

And, finally, American disconnectedness reaches a new milestone of indolence with The Tap Project, which notes the billion people around the world who have no access to clean drinking water and ponders:

But what if…
You could make a change to these lives,
Without making one to yours?

What if…
You could save a life,
Just by going out to eat?

“What if,” indeed.


And with that, my piles are cleared. Now all I have to do is find places for the items I kept.
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Josh's B-links: From Rice to Radios [Apr. 17th, 2008|07:18 pm]
[Tags|]

Rice Collapses in Australia

Production is down 98 percent due to an extreme drought that has helped make it more lucrative to switch to wine grape production or simply cease operations altogether and sell the water rights, thus contributing to a worldwide doubling of rice prices as demand grows in developing countries even as rice land globally is converted to more profitable uses.

Actually…that was a pretty good summary, if I may say so. You probably needn’t click the link. =)


Jeers to the Pot Calling the Kettle…“Negro”?

Courtesy of Bill in Portland, Maine, an idiotic development indeed:
Last week we took Illinois state senator Monique Davis to task for lambasting a man for his atheist views. She later apologized. Now the offendee has become the offender, writing on his website: "Now that Negroes like Rep. Monique Davis have political power, it seems that they have no problem at all with discrimination, just as long as it isn't them who are being discriminated against." 55 year-old Green Party activist Rob Sherman says he didn’t know that the N-word had become an N-word. And what have we learned from this, class? Correct---Rob Sherman lives in a cave.
I guess they deserve each other.


KNCR 99.9, Your Cancer-Curing Station

Inject tumor cells with nanoscopic metal particles. Bombard a human with radio waves. (That part’s nothing new. You’re being bombarded with them right now.) The metal heats up, killing the cancer.

So, if