In response to Paul's journal about prison workers: Paul's initial comment was asking whether a person who worked at a prison where death row inmates are being held is just evil. I responded that they weren't inherently evil, but more likely worked there due to environtmental pressure and reinforced opinions about crime, penalties, and criminal justice. First off, most prisons are located in rurally isolated communities whose fiscal base has been systematically weakened through decades of sustained attacks, namely corporatization of small farms/business, declining industrial factory needs, etc, which leads to inevitable shortages in other areas, like education, affordable housing, etc. Therefore young workers often have little choice when faced with this job market; they can take up the failing family farm, work at Walmart, or work at the prison.
Now we all know what happens when young uneducated poor kids need something to do, that's right, sex and...babies (rural communities are not far behind inner cities in teen pregnancy rates). So you now have your 18 year old worker who needs a job and has a newborn to support. Next there's the fact that our uneducated kid has most likely grown up in a house with guns, a family that supports capital punishment, and maybe an uncle or two who already works at the prison. To him (or her, but most likely him) this is not a moral choice, this is just another job to make ends meet.
Well, Paul says that he can just move. Where is he going to go? He has no skills, no connections, no money saved up, he might have a kid and girlfriend to support, and all his family is right there. This is not an easy choice to make or carry through with.
So what's my point? I am not trying to advocate our current system, in fact, I think our system is one of the worst in the "civilized" world. I hate capital punishment and think it's barbaric and outdated, inhumane. What I think is that to blame the individual is not the right course of action. We need to blame the system that got him where he is now and focus on providing education, affordable housing, and job opportunities. If we fix these problems not only do we get an educated class of people who can start asking the moral questions of whether his job (and moreover his entire view of our criminal justice system) is right or wrong, but we also get someone who is less likely to commit the crimes to end up in jail in the first place. So, that's what I tried to explain to Paul. It ended up being very similar to an argument we have had about the individual guilt of armed forces members, which is also a good topic. There you have it, please feel free to comment on ya'lls journals too. Interjournal debates are neato.

PS: Gambling sucks.

Every one needs to see it, I agree. Go to Nick's journal. Nimoy rocks!

Oh and today's word of the day is:
mazy MAY-zee, adjective:
Resembling a maze in form or complexity; winding; intricate; confusing; perplexing.
What the fuck, mazy? give me a break.

OK, just one more thing. The Vagina Monologues...very good. Rented it from the library on a whim and it was great. Liberate the coochies!!! Cunt cunt cunt cunt cuuuuuuunnnnnnnnt!

Well I wanna respond to Holly's journal too!!! Waaahhhh!
I wanna say that ummmm, gender sucks. To me it's all about putting people in boxes, about conforming and shaping. People don't want to be in the boxes, they just mostly don't realize that they're in there, and if they do, can't see a way out. Do straight boys like always being macho? Is it even fun most of the time? What girl wants to wear horrible feet-deforming shoes and stuff dry scratchy toxic cottonballs up themselves? That's the real paradox, that all these things aren't fun, being your own gender is so much more fun, and liberating.
That's what I think, everyone should have to be their own gender. Pick and choose what you like about guys, about girls, about puppies, about fucking tranvestite dyke martian salespeople. Whatever floats your boat. And then, once you've decided on a base structure of your own identity the test comes. Go out and try it on. Does it make you happier? Now maybe it's not so easy. There are many hidden traps. It's hard to see what comes from inside and what comes from outside. Do you want to be a certain way because it's fun, good, and productive, or because enough commercials have washed through your head that you think it's normal? You must always be vigilant. Our ultra-propagandic society has ways of getting bizzare ideas into our heads without us even noticing it. We all feel it; the omnipresent "conform". It floats above, beyond, through, and into all of us in many forms. We need to recognize it, and squarsh it. Don't let it take you, or make you. Be yourself, whatever that is. I pick flunderbummox. So if you wanted that one, too bad.

This will be part of the journal below when I get home (I'm on the sidekick now, how exciting).
Thinking more about gender, thanks a lot Holly, and especially about armpits. Holly says it's weird for her to shave her armpits; they're supposed to be hairy, they're supposed to stink. How weird is it then that society's getting weird enough that maybe I would be hotter if I shaved them, and noone's supposed to smell, except of flowers and spearmint. Fucked up. I wanna take super models and put them next to the apes on the timeline. How are they more fit? How did we end up here, where beauty is defined as being as far from natural as possible. What the fuck is beauty? My fingers are cramped. G'day and WTF.

Lots of stuff has happened. Sodom has been captured. Why aren't they dancing in the streets over there, hell, why aren't we?
The media has decided not to cover half of the democratic candidates. I watched the debate: too much trivialness, too much talking about nothing to do with how they will run the country (which Kucinich pointed out a couple times). Oh yeah, Halliburton has been found overcharging the public (that's each and every one of us little ole taxpayers). Bush will look into it, and make sure it ends up good. Okay... this is why nations against our war can't have the contracts, only our friends can cheat us I guess. We made some radio clippies. Some fun, others boring, most disturbing. The lord of the rings played on the radio, and on the TV. I think I messed up my video game and will never find all my dressspheres. Ugghh. Mariokart though has had just about all of its secrets ripped out; we got some new super characters, a boo (ghost) and big man-eating plant. That's it for now, maybe something will hit me later, careful.

I wrote my journal last night at like 11 so I only got a star for a half hour. So read the journal below, I even learned some Illustrator just to make the bloddy graphics. Well, I also want to post my outrage that we have barred non-Iraq-war-supporting-countries from receiving any contracts for the rebuilding of the country. It's so obvious what it's really all about. If we cared about Iraq we would give the contracts to the lowest bidders and not to those closest to our Administration. Grrr.

My new thought for today. It came to me through the somehow tranquil state of laundry, folding the pants, coming to grip with the facts of order and chaos, the entropy that I was folding out of my clothes, expending my own precious metabolized potential energy, balancing systems. The real thought is that at any moment the options of possibilities are limited by the history of a moment ago. History is the cement locking in all past chosen options. Even perfect in its order. And then we have the next choice to make by reaching out into the sea of infinite, though currently limited, choices. This of course is the dillema, even the oxymoron, of limited infinity. Must not an infinity have no limits, isn't that the definition? A conunudrum, a system that within itself presents boundless choice, yet which itself is bound in a moment of historical timespace. I think of an atom. Every particle within the atom exists at every moment, but the farther we break down the scale, the more we are unable to define the precise location of any individual particle. The more precise our measurements the more indeterminate our readings become. Now back to our systems, representing the infinite options limited by the previous history. The individual particles (whatever they might be, ie: quarks, electrons, gravitrons, alpha particles-every year we find more) represent our choices that we can make. And, just as we know that they exist and are found in this specific location (within one atom/proton/electron/etc.) we are unable with any precision to map the coordinates. It seems as if they are existing at no one space and every space at the same time. How this fits in is that there seems to be an infinite variety of choice these particles have at every moment as to where they are, though they are limited to existing within a single atom. Again, infinite but limited choice. Bound at the macro end of the scale but having no limit on the micro.

Where along the number line does infinity begin? If we start drawing the first line at 1 and go forever, then start another line at 2, is the first line longer than the second?

Or if we take our number line and begin one line at 1, direction positive and another at -1 direction negative, do these lines ever touch?

Yet aren't they both infinite in length. Which leads us to the knowledge that there is not just one infinity, rather an infinite number of separate infinities. From here, we can go anywhere; multiple universes, universes within universes, fractal universes! But it also means that though our reality is constantly being shaped by our actions, every moment gives us an infinity of possible choices. Choose wisely, you only have one chance.

So recently Bush, while in the Oval office standing next to the Chinese prime minister, declared his support of Taiwanese non-action and fence-sitting. Taiwan is, of course, ruled by China (I'm not sure what the official nomencalture is, maybe protectorate or something) though it operates somewhat autonomously on domestic affairs. Recently the new president of Taiwan was popularly elected, running largley on a platform of Chinese independence. Well, now he's started to act, starting the process of calling for a national referendum on the subject of Chinese ballistic missiles targeted at the island, as well as generally moving towards ultimate independence.
In his statement bush says, "the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo, which we oppose." Of course this is a democracy chilling pronouncement from the supposed leader of the free world, but this is to be expected. What is more surprising and ironic is his focus on Taiwan's president's decision to act "unilaterally to change the status quo". Hello? Maybe he's forgotten when he stood opposed to popular world opinion and its head body, the UN, on the issue of Iraq. Oh, and that little ole Kyoto Protocol, the ICBM treaties... In fact when it comes to leaders acting unilaterally, without the support of world opinion, often without even domestic popular opinion, our President has to top the pack. I guess when it comes down to it, none of this is surprising, our foreign policy is always aimed at supporting those who make business good, regardless of their oppresive regimes (when not because of their oppressive regimes). Bush is just doing that, caring about America's (at least the top 1%'s) interests, so why can't he see that Taiwan's president has the same responsibility (probably with more equitable aim)?

So anyways today at work this 70 year old woman is complaining about a bill that she has to pay because she paid late and there is interest due now. The broad makes like a million dollars a year (no joke) and actually says to me, "okay, i'll pay. I'll just have to eat canned corn beef and hash, but I'll be brave." Can we say unmitigated gall?! To a worker that has made like 1/20th of her annual income in his entire life. Sheesh, reaffirms my belief in the rich elite conspiracy theories and why it's okay to hate and/or eat them, though who wants gout anyways.

The Washington Post, and Democracy Now!, report on 37 military linguists, fluent in Arabic, discharged for being gay. It seems ironic that at this time of terror anyone who speaks Arabic (the language of terror) would be let go. Of course we know what happens to all those good ole boys in the army once gays are around. Yup, they get gay themselves. And who wants more gays? Apparently the supposed gay pheromone is responsible for the quick grasp these gay soldiers have taken on Arabic. Military scientists at DARPA have begun tests to analyze, sparate, and reengineer this miracle language enhancing trait, which apparently is only secreted from those who refrain from telling when they aren't asked, but can't get those damn wrists straight.

Apparently we raised about $7,000. Whoopie! Huge success for democracy and freedom of the press right here in B-lo.