Are You There?

Glenn Greenwald has a retarded post here. He lauds Helen Thomas for asking what the motivation for the Xmas day attempted bombing was. First of all, that is a stupid question to ask. Who knows the hearts of men? But the crazy thing is the divorce between the question and the answer. The question of Helen Thomas concerned the motivation of the person(s) who wished us harm, but the answer from Napolitano addressed the level of security at Skipple airport. But that equally moronic (but ballsy) woman Thomas keeps asking what the motivation of the would-be bomber was, to which John Brennan replies with the standard they-are-evil-and-kill-innocents response. There is a negative communication level going on here. Not only is the question not being answered, but the "answer" is irrelevant to the "question."

Chinese History

During my visit to China and Tibet I learned to detest China, but my opinion is ignorant of the magnificent history of a great land. I present to you a history of China.

American Exceptionalism and American Religion

American Exceptionalism and American Religion. No analysis here but only a link.

James is a Weirdo

James Ellroy is the strangest person ever (if his reading on "Writer's Block" is any indicator). Here is the audio link.

Protestants on the Road

Yet another example of what happens when you allow the hoi polloi read the Word of God.

The Carlisle outpost of Truckstop Ministries is one of 74 chapels in 29 states. From Barstow, Calif., to Bordentown, N.J., truckers are gathering in meeting rooms, modular trailers and old movie theaters. There are other ministries and groups catering to truckers nationwide, too. Just down the road, at the Petro truck stop near Interstate 81, the Carlisle Truck Stop Chaplain Ministry meets in a trailer. However, Truckstop Ministries is the largest and most organized Christian outreach network on the highway.

Mr. Hershey and chaplain Leon Wells run their Sunday meeting in Mr. Hershey's 28-foot Coachman motor home. Half a dozen drivers huddle in on this sunny Sunday, 24-ounce cups of truck-stop coffee in hand, to listen to Mr. Hershey's sermon and talk about God, the road and life.

It looks like they have some competition though (from Youtube user "Yoked to Jesus"):

Don't believe what anybody tells you about God! That's where people get so screwed up, they're lookin' to a pastor, a minister, whatever to, you know, interpret God's Word for 'em. You know what? They could teach you, that's great...you can listen to 'em. But never believe it! Until you check it out for yourself until you go to the Word, until you go to the Bible and you check it out for yourself....

Part 2:

I tell you what. That was like a blanket of comfort, it really was like a blanket of comfort because it was God saying, "Jeff, Jeff, just climb up into my lap and cry. I'm gonna hold you through this, be still and know that I am God....

Part 3:

Debating Scripture is frivolous 'cause somebody comes into a debate discussion about Scripture, that heart will keep them from ever seein' from seein' what God wants 'em to see.

Yes, okay, let's take what we all agree to be the WORD OF GOD and just ASSUME that it is a very simple thing to understand! Jesus Christ! Please bring back Torquemada! In this case he would be the lesser of two evils.

Bill Shakey Does Lebowski

Two Gentlemen of Lebowski:

BLANCHE
Whither the money, Lebowski? Faith, we are servants of Bonnie; promised by the lady good that thou in turn were good for’t.

WOO
Bound in honour, we must have our bond; cursed be our tribe if we forgive thee.

BLANCHE
Let us soak him in the commode, so as to turn his head.

WOO
Aye, and see what vapourises; then he will see what is foul.

Cool Passage from the Histories #1

From Herodotus' Histories, 1.150:

This is how the Aeolians lost Smyrna. The people of Smyrna took in and sheltered some Ionian men who had been defeated in factional strife and exiled from Colophon, their home city. Once they were admitted into the city, the Colophonian exiles watched and waited until one day the people of Smyrna went outside the city walls to hold a festival in honor of Dionysos. Then the Colophonians shut and locked the gates and took possession of the city. When all the Aeolians rushed there to help the Smyrnians recover their city, the two sides reached an understanding whereby the Ionians agreed to return to the Smyrnians all of their movable goods in the city, and the Aeolians agreed to abandon the site of Smyrna itself. The Smyrnians carried out their part of the bargain, and the eleven Aeolian cities distributed the former Aeolians of Smyrna among themselves and made them citizens.

Kind of like the Trojan Horse scheme in reverse. Never trust an Ionian from Asia Minor!

Where to Begin?

Over dinner last night with a family friend, the conversation turned to politics. Unsurprisingly, I was the voice of pessimism and apathy while Bill's was that of civic involvement and cautious optimism. I said that politics made me automatically shutdown because:

• What's the point when no one listens?
  
• It only makes you angry and frustrated.
  
• It is so often trivial and inane.
  
• It is totally uninteresting, especially when compared to history, classics, science, literature, &c.
  

He made the Zinnian argument that you must take a position and be informed in order to be an intelligent, responsible person. I would love to agree with him, but this approach makes me feel forced into politics because the world is so often fucked up by assholes and idiots. Why should my time, emotions, energy, &c. be manipulated by assholes and idiots?

I'm afraid I came off as an indifferent prick, the type of person who if more active could actually make a difference despite his or her negative predictions.

I have thought about it and agree with him, with a few caveats. I don't think that I should be obligated to be involved in the political "discourse" of the United States merely because I am a U.S. citizen or in the vicissitudes of the global political clusterfuck just because I live on this planet.

What I do think is that one should be involved in reducing evil/suffering/stupidity/&c. in the world in some way. Any way. If I choose to try to tackle starvation or child abuse or human rights abuses anywhere in the universe, that should count just as much as emailing my representative in Congress or drawing up petitions. One could even argue that the former causes are much more important than the latter ones.

The most challenging part is that the world is so supremely fucked up that I don't even know where to begin—and if that's the case, anywhere is better than nowhere.

Saint Frank and His Nonexistent Creatures

From the First and Second Lives of Saint Francis by Thomas of Celano:

Both Francis and his companions agree in reporting that, when he had spoken thus, the birds exulted marvelously in their own fashion, stretching their necks, extending their wings, opening their mouths, and gazing at him. Francis walked into their midst, touching their heads and bodies with his tunic. Finally he blessed them and, making the sign of the cross, gave them permission to fly off to some other place.

Rejoicing, the blessed father went off with his companions, giving thanks to God whom all creatures worship. Since he had now been made simple by grace and not by nature, he began to accuse himself of negligence for not having preached to the birds before, since they listened to the word of God with such reverence. And thus it came about that, from that day on, he exhorted all birds, all animals, all reptiles, and even nonexistent creatures to praise and love the creator, for every day, when the name of the savior was announced, he himself saw their obedience.

Grrr...Language

A Metafilter post about various trademark issues with Google's new phone. Apparently, Dick's estate is made over Google's use of "Nexus" paired with a number and Verizon had to pay Lucasfilm to use "Droid." It's really unbelievable what people trademark and then "own." Just because you take a perfectly good word that is widely used by everyone and then place a number next to it, it's special now? Or you chop off the first two letters of "android," you all of a sudden have such a novel verbal construct that you can have exclusive rights to it?

Well, "android" is formed two Greek roots, so why don't we just pay them? It's really pathetic that people/companies can secure "rights" to language (which everyone "owns").

Just another reason why George Lucas is the biggest piece of shit in the universe.

Blinded by Overwhelming Fury (Apparently)

Immediately after waking up this morning, I had the misfortune to discover an interview with Gallagher. He seems to be a living example of why it's important to never let yourself become an angry person. (It's alright to be a person who occasionally, and for a reason, happens to get angry, though.)

He calls President Clinton "the most common" and complains that Bill ruined oral sex, never mind that he was a Rhodes scholar and if he happened to affect some down-home charm, it was only for show and oral sex.

You can actually take a drink now during your show! You know, George Burns performed smoking a cigar, and never needed a drink of water on a stool. But now this has become a tradition in America. They more or less have a stool ready for you and ask, “What water ya want?” To me, as a visual artist, everything that’s in the picture should have meaning—what does a stool and a bottle of water mean?

Oh, please. Throughout the interview he bemoans trivial and minute changes in the comedy industry and places the blame for his lack of recent success squarely upon the shoulders of a "society" constructed for the lowest common denominator.

And I suppose this is what I mean in saying "O, woe betides the souring of a man." Careful when you bitch like this because it just may blind you to the incredible irony of being both the subject and object of your derision.

(And he dismisses the heinous nature of Michael Vick's crimes, saying, "One player kills somebody and somehow isn’t punished as much as a quarterback who kills a dog. Dogs are given to the pound, and the pound kills them. So if, I forget his name, if [Michael Vick] had worked for the pound, he wouldn’t have been put in jail.")

I Find It Very Frustrating...

...that some of the most super important issues around are also some of the most boring.

Some Photos From California

Corn is Only Corn if You Live Where "Corn" is Most Common

From Corn in the Columbia Encyclopedia:

The name corn is given to the leading cereal crop of any major region. In England, corn means wheat; in Scotland and Ireland, oats.

America's OCD Pastime

Baseball magic.

And this is just for fun:

Prions Evolve, Humanity Screwed

Prions discovered to evolve.

ICE

Yet another horrifying and deeply upsetting article to read and then feel helpless about.

The Courageous but Perhaps Misguided Mr. Park

Man crosses over into North Korea on purpose. From the interview:

The North Korean human rights crisis by murder rate is the worst in the world. An estimated 1,000 people a day die by starvation and starvation is a murder case. North Korea has been sent more food aid than any nation in the world but the food has not gone to the people who need it. So this is murder.

But not only that, there are concentration camps in North Korea that are of the same brutality as in Nazi Germany.

Responsible governments are completely silent about the issue. The United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea have a huge responsibility to speak out about this because all these nations played a role the arbitrary division of the Koreas, where not a single Korean was consulted. Yet the lives of these people are of no issue to these governments. That is a crime. It is a huge crime.

Even if Mr. Park is wrong about his figures, which does not seem to be the case, North Korea is a truly and incomprehensibly horrific state. Mr. Park, despite anything else you might want to say about him, is absolutely right that all people—especially developed Western countries with a whole bunch of great things to say about due process, various freedoms, etc.—have a basic moral obligation to speak out against North Korea. Why are our leaders mum? (No, really, I don't know.) What's in it for them to play with kid gloves?

Mr. Park compares the situation to Nazi Germany. While there are some major differences that he is overlooking, he is right in that there are very real horrors being perpetrated against innocent human beings as we speak and we have an obligation to do all that we can to stop them. The conflict between North Korea and the United States, et al. is no mere minute ideological quibble. Call me old-fashioned but I am willing to put my foot down and say that tyranny (especially that based on mass-killing, starvation, and other human rights abuses) is totally unacceptable and is fundamentally wrong.

Republican Bust Sculpture (Not That Kind!)

I've been known to be rather emphatic—if not outright hostile and fascistic—about my opinions concerning art. Previously, I have taken up the cause of Classical and Hellenistic Greek naturalistic idealism and have dismissed Roman sculpture as mostly derivative of earlier Greek sculpture.

However, I believe I screwed the pooch on this one. Roman bust sculpture from the Republican period is a fresh addition to sculpture during this period in the Mediterranean.

Here are a few choice examples of Classical and Hellenistic Greek sculpture:



The forms are life-like but idealized.










The Hellenistic period idealized not only musculature and facial structure, but just about everything else too. I'm thinking "Nike of Samothrace," here.



Everything about Nike is BIG! The gestures, the movement, the negative space.








Now consider the humble busts of Republican Rome:

The veristic naturalism of the bust is bold and unapologetic. In some ways, Hellenistic sculpture was attempting to be realer-than-real and Republican sculpture is answering that idea with a question: perhaps the confrontation between our expectations about the Hellenistic "real" (that it will be presented as an ideal) and our experience of the Republican "real" (that it is not ideal and (therefore?) realer than real for real because of all those tiny imperfections and wrinkles and that cruel look in the eye that we don't want to see)?

Forever 27

I am officially over the hill tomorrow.