Last night I read the entire first volume of Grant Morrison's the (now old) New X-Men that @matthew gave me like a year ago. It was very escapist and helped me get out of my head awhile. But here's what scared me... I think I'm turning into Cassandra Nova...

So yesterday I was pretty miserably, even morbidly depressed. I slept a lot, and dreamt a lot. I thought of a lot of depressive things to write about: my total lack of ambition, my intensifying agoraphobia, my tick tick ticking biological clock (one dream I had involved losing a baby for several days in a labrynthine network of cupboards). But instead of talking about depressing depression, I will tell you a bit about one of the strange dreams I had, that involved some e-peepers. It's brief, since I kept hitting the snooze alarm on my news-tuned clock radio, which meant that the dream ended up as a Bush/Kerry debate, which was also pretty weird.

But here is how it started. I was backpacking by myself through a huge jungle nature preserve. Everything was oversized, giant leaves, spanish moss on everything (thanks south carolina for adding that coolness to my visual reservoir!) There were animals hiding here and there in the woods, including the collage-gorilla @matthew made [inlink]matthew,300[/inlink]. It moved around and was gorilla-sized but was made out of tiny pieces of cut paper. This gorilla was with his family and he watched me calmly if cautiously as a trudged by with my grungy pack.

It seemed like I had been traveling a long time, everything I had on was pretty dirty, and I felt pretty seasoned. I crossed a huge ravine by walking over a fallen log and on the other side I met @terry and weirdly, @jeremy (jungle?). They were happy hippies who came to tour the park too. They asked me if I had touched the gorillas, as if it was the thing you absolutely had to do while you were there, and of course I hadn't. They were like, ohhh, you missed out.

So I went to sleep on a high hill and I didn't pitch a tent, I just put down a green tarp and a sleeping bag and slept out in the air. It rained on me, but as I said I was pretty used to traveling so I was only mildly annoyed. It was like I was an itinerant monk trying to mortify myself.

In the morning I woke up and sat up in the lotus position immediately and started chanting a mantra, Nam myoho renge kyo. Which is weird since I haven't chanted in years, and I never chanted this mantra, and I haven't thought about or practiced Buddhism in ages. As I was chanting, a crowd of Buddhist nuns sat down beside me, and started chanting with me. They had shaved heads and beautifully embroidered white robes. One of them on my left looked directly, intently at me, and then I don't remember any more.

Here's a little something about the mantra:
When deluded, one is called an ordinary being, but when enlightened, one is called a Buddha. This is similar to a tarnished mirror that will shine like a jewel when polished. A mind now clouded by the illusions of the innate darkness of life is like a tarnished mirror, but when polished, it is sure to become like a clear mirror, reflecting the essential nature of phenomena and the true aspect of reality. Arouse deep faith, and diligently polish your mirror day and night. How should you polish it? Only by chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime- Nichiren

This has prolly already been posted, but here is a really funny flash short bashing both candidates to the tune of woody guthries's "this land is your land", at jibjab.com . even CNN and Newsweek love it, so get with the center people! moderation or death!

Sometimes it seems that moderation in itself can be a kind of extreme.
--Andrew Bird, Weather Systems

"The beast will walk upon the earth and darkness will follow. The several races of man will be as one in their terror and destruction." Aw, that's kind of sweet. Different races coming together.
--Mayor Wilkins, reading aloud from the Books of Ascension, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 3, Episode 55.

In other news, I want a pony!

Hey Y'all! Follow this to see all the pictures from my trip down south. Matt there are aquarium pictures just for you!

hello! i'm back from the south! here is a picture that pretty much sums it up:



stay tuned for more pictures soon...

Am I the only one who thinks the Bush girls are soooo white trash? I mean this is just tacky. Clearly they need like Mary Poppins or how 'bout a few months in Guantanamo to cure them of their spoiled rich girl antics! Can't you just see in her face what an insolent little snit she is? The spawn doesn't gestate very far from the pod, apparently.

This is the cover for a mix that I made for my niece, whose birthday was about a week ago. She just turned 17. My whole family, mom, two sisters, two teenagers, and assorted pets (three dogs! ferrrets!) are leaving tomorrow on a Beverly-Hillbillies trip to the shallow south to look at colleges for her. We're going as far as Charleston, which I'm really excited to see. I'll try to check in if I can and let y'all know how it's goin'. Here is the mix list of feel-good teeny bopper songs I will also be listening to on our trip:

1. ragtime interlude/ i’m really hot- missy elliot
2. take me out- franz ferdinand
3. kissability- sonic youth
4. an open letter to NYC- beastie boys
5. bullet and a target- citizen cope
6. buffalos- homelife
7. rich- yeah yeah yeahs
8. good fortune- pj harvey
9. extraordinary- liz phair
10. turn a square- shins
11. gabe’s new joint- antibalas
12. birthday- the sugarcubes
13. the dress looks nice on you- sufjan stevens
14. griot village- mali music

Sooo cute! what's weird is that he isn't even albino, he's genuinely white. But is it a sign of the end of the world? "And lo, the white bear of Tidioute did appear in the final ages of man..." Tidioute by the way is a very rustic part of Pennsyltucky near the teeming metropoli of Warren and Pleasantville. Fun fact: “Tidioute� (pronounced tiddy-oot) is an Iroquois (Seneca) Indian word meaning 'protrusion of land'. Enjoy your Apocalypse!

A recent CNN/Gallup poll suggests that voters view presumptive Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as having a larger package to offer than President Bush. Many pundits are suggesting that in such a close election year, every inch counts.

"I think women voters especially think that Kerry's the man who can really give them what they want," said one unnamed campaign official. "Of course, there are also a lot of men who are worried he will stick it to them," he added.

What remains to be seen, according to many campaign insiders, is whether Kerry will be able to keep it up until the climax of the election. Advisors close to the candidate say he is stiffening his conviction as the Democratic Convention approaches at the end of the month. However, observers fear he may peak too early, and shoot his wad of funds on self-serving advertisements that leave some voters feeling numb.

"What I really want from a candidate," remarked one woman at a rally, "is the sense that my needs come first. I'm tired of doing what it takes to get him elected, while I remain unsatisfied."

(Ahhh... if only actual campaigns were so uncomplicated)

So I will repond to Jessbob, who feels cranky: [inlink]jessbob,30[/inlink]. Jessbob, you can't be that cranky if the only criticism you had about my inflammatory Texas posting was the metaphorical liberties I took with the mother/federal system thing. So thanks for the fact-check and for not pouncing!

And in response I would like to say I did read your article on Intellectual Wastebasket about creating ratings for the radio to reduce obscenity. And I hit it again today to double check some facts. So that's two hits from me.

I've been thinking about what you wrote and have to respectfully disagree with its premise. (This is fun!) The FCC obscenity regulations are already painfully confusing and obscure. While it might be interesting to clarify and codify them so that they rank levels of obscenity to protect the precious virgin ears of the children (a bad metaphor perhaps; what would a not-virgin ear be? Eeeeewww...) I only think it would make an already labrynthine system more contradictory. Besides, aren't conservatives generally for DE-regulation?

Which brings me to what I think is the real cause of widespread obscenity, not only on the radio, but in most media. It's a pretty predictable liberal dodge. Can you guess what it is? That's right, kids! Corporate consolidation and domination!

The reason that the airwaves have become so fouled with smut is that the corporate owners like Clear Channel offer the same narrow margin of content and thus are almost indistinguishable from each other. How then can they stand out from the crowd? Flaming poop, that's how! There's nothing like titillation to keep the listeners tuned in, whether its Stern's scatologia or Limbaugh's hysteria.

If there were more community driven media, I would argue, there would be less obscenity and sexuality on the airwaves because people might talk about things of actual importance, like local politics or cultural events. (Case in point: this here e-strip, only mildly profane.) We wouldn't be constantly bombarded with the same bass-thumping ass-shakin' music from channel to channel, trying shoulder each other off the dial, because every station would be playing its own thang. These facts need checking, but out of like 30,000 albums that get released each year, only about 200 get real air time. And a lot of those 200 records come with parental advisory stickers. Why aren't we hearing the other 29,800 titles? And what about the probably uncountable local acts who can't get airtime anywhere?

So it isn't obscenity that needs to be regulated, it's the corporate behemoths. Reining them in would give us livelier, local-er, more diverse, and yes, cleaner radio, tv, whatever. I mean, when was the last time you saw a Girl Gone Wild on your local PBS station? (Who admittedly are also heavily regulated. I wish I had an example from a community based TV program, but seeing as there are none in Buffalo...)

Here's a quote from the Seattle Statement on Radio from reclaimthemedia.org that I agree with. I can find more sources if anyone is interested:

"The tendency towards vulgar and discriminatory shock-value programming on talk radio is encouraged and amplified by commercial factors, and the desire to attract attention at little cost. The problem is systemic, and should be addressed by systemic transformation rather than by selective fines and making examples out of individual violators. While the FCC should use greater discernment in reviewing license renewal applications, threats of nonrenewal should be linked to a station's commitment to diversity and local accountability, not the selective enforcement of industry-wide problems"

Respectfully,
Girl Gone Mild