Wow, Howard Zinn is just too cool for school. Here's an article of his from the Progressive online(link to your right). It just sums up so much of what this fucking administration is doing. I'm having a hard time lately. Trying to read through a couple things (namely CrimethInc.'s Days of War Nights of Love and Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky) that are making me insane. And then when I look up from reading I'm confronted with reality which, if anything, is worse than the predictions and analyses in the books. Shawn again has a great example of the arbitrariness of the current power structure with Bushco's funding of close captioning (a seemingly nonpartisan issue) [inlink]userName=shawnr&blogID=7,[/inlink] What the fuck, I mean really, c'mon now. I lament. At least some gay people are married, some for as long as three days now. That's awesome. But why does it have to be John Kerry? Yes I'm wandering I know. I can't talk about one thing too long or my hatred overwhelms me in a sea of pussy black vitriol, and who needs a sticky keyboard? I digress and now bid adieu.

Well Shawn comes back with a bang, eh? Talking about gifting the AIDS and snuff-porn sites [inlink]userName=shawnr&blogID=6,[/inlink]. I have definately heard of the video and about the actual practice itself. I agree also that it may not have been so easily accomplished without these web niches being available. It seems to me that it might have been a plot hatched by some guys who already had AIDS and were bitter, more than a thing that would've started on the outside. This guy starts up a chatroom talking about how much better he feels now that he doesn't have to worry about it and convinces some, albeit stupid, people to get the gift. Once you've been bitten, especially in such a way, a cycle would start that could lead such dangerous places. It's pretty fucking creepy though. Especially the talk of other chat groups about how not to take the AIDS drugs and disbeleif that there are different strands of the virus that can be distributed between men who already have one type.
What an eventful morning I've had thanks to shawn, talk of AIDS and some snuff porn. Though I didn't actually see any real snuff (where someone dies), just some random weirdness. The Snuffx site has the Paris Hilton video for those who want to see. Also found this highly disturbing, yet somehow hilarious picture.

Bootyful. Can't say I'm really into mixtures of violence and sex. Maybe an asslap or two here and there but that's about as far as I go. It's a sad side-effect of our masculine macho-dominated culture that makes these two extremes meet for many people. Like love and obedience. 'Snuff fo now.

Holly and I were at the movies yesterday to see the final to cremasters (which bytheway were very good) and we parked in the lot. You pay two bucks and then you go to the theater, buy your tickets, and you get your two bucks back. And I was thinking that it's so ridiculous that we have so little trust, that we couldn't just say, "yo, we're going to the movie" and then just park without the weird money turnaround. To me it's a sad state when every transaction has to be monitored because we can't trust each other whatsoever. But it also got me to thinking that half of the reason people don't follow rules is that there are rules. Who wants to do something just cause someone tells them to? Rules are made to be broken. Maybe if we weren't so insulted daily by these rules we wouldn't feel the need to break them. I think, too, that it wasn't so very long ago when many of these things were different, where trust was more forthcoming. I'm sure it's corporations. They have no personal connections to us, they don't care if we're insulted as long as they're paid (where else are we gonna get our cheap shit from). On the same note if we steal from them it's not like stealing from Sam the Butcher who lives down the street (more like Sam the CEO who lives in Laguna). At the same time we're farther apart and have less social cohesion. We don't know the rulemakers and they don't know us. I have to stop before I start talking about numbers now. The lesson is teaching above enforcing. Tell people why they shouldn't do something instead of making them not do it on threat of punishment. Now, goodbye.

I was talking to Mike Niman at the coop house party, and among us fating the world's doom and the return of facism he mentioned this cool site. It's the prelinger archive compiled from various sources. I don't know entirely what it's about but so far I've seen lots of things from the 50's. Commercials and school education videos. The famous Duck and Cover with the ducking turtle advising everyone to constantly be vigil because you don't know when you'll see that flash, and boy won't you be glad you noticed that ditch to shelter in. Nice succint propaganda. The Are You Popular is very nice too, teaches boys and girls how to make people like them. For example if a boy's taking you out you can "pay him back" by letting him come over later to have some fresh baked brownies. There's a nice Sex Ed one called As Boys Grow which features the "coach" talking to the boys in the gym room. Notable utterances include, "let's talk about these nocturnal emissions," and "rythmyc movements, a pumping back and forth, cause ejaculation." They actually talk about masturbation being okay which surprised me for the 50's. God, this one's great too seems like Bushmerica to a tee, hee-hee! Oh man, one more, this one's just great too . "One never knows when the Homosexual is about, he may appear normal, and it may be too late when you discover that he is mentally ill." I'll add the link to my sidebar too. There's thousands of videos, surely hours worth of fun. Take care and keep and eye out for bright flashes.

So I thought I was pretty cool with my ten origami tricks. This guy is simply amazing. I honestly hadn't even imagined origami this complex. I think he must have like 12 miniature fingers on each hand and a computer brain. Take a look.

Maybe we are obsessed. We now have over 50 varieties of plants in our house. Today we went shopping at this place we like called:
RUDOLPH GALLEY & SONS
2722 CLINTON ST
(716)822-9298
(take 190 to S. Ogden exit then head left on Clinton, it's on the left)
anyways, they have really cheap plants. We bought ten or so today for like $1.99 each. They're pretty small, but I kinda like'em that way, cause then wehen they start to get big you feel accomplished. Ridiculous thing is that the pots (just plain ole clay ones) cost $.99 and then you have to buy the drainy thing for underneath for an additional $.99, so it comes down to costing as much money for the pot as for the plant. Someday I will live in a house with no walls showing. Only assorted wild things growing.

Cremaster was strange (well, duh). I saw numbers one and two. One was neat but boring, pretty hyper-colors, dancing ladies, and grapes. Too long for the concept. The second was better, more plot, interesting "story". And of course plasticene love-making. Beesemen. Hives and the queen. I am skipping three, it's three hours long. I am sure it will be the best, if only cuz I'm not there. I need some crisco.

This pretty much sucks.
A bunch of black ministers in Boston have decided that gay people shouldn't have the right to marry like the straight folk. It kinda hurts. I just hate when civil liberty issues get splintered. I always feel that because I am a member of a minority group it makes me associate and feel for other minority groups. We all have to battle against opperssion in whatever form it takes. Through common persecution we have power. Splinters like this take our power, fracture it, and open holes in our commonality. How would it sound if I said that I thought black marriage demeaned the sanctity of white marriage. That the fact that two people who loved each other , but were different from me, was justification for me to deny them rights that I myself enjoyed. It's especially not fair in respect to the fact that so many gay people were at the forefront of the civil rights movement, helping to get balck people the rights that they enjoy today. Shame on these ministers. I am saddened by the fact that they believe their merciful god would condemn so many to live in unequality.

On the positive, San Francisco's mayor has told his county clerk to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay people . Already over 50 couples have been married. Thank you radical San Fran for leading the way to what should be common sense.

Hmmmm...
Today I am little sick. I've been a little sick all week. Not sick enough to say I'm really sick, just a little sick. I have been feeling the i'm-gonna-get-sick-feeling since Monday. I take it to mean that my immune system is still very functional (despite the abuse I put it through) and holding the real-sick at bay. Paul says he feels real-sick. I feel sorry for him. He'll chug the eccinacea (on sale? for $10 yikes!) til he's better though. I blame the sickness on the hell-job, 500 people shouldn't be stacked on top of each other with poor ventilation for hours on end.

Everybody should read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (It's the If Everybody Read the Same Book thing, check out Matt's journal [inlink]userName=matthew&blogID=131,[/inlink]). She's is first of all a genius about just about everything, not to mention pretty damn hot. The book takes place in India in the 60s-80s and she uses such neat language and describes her story in a quasi-political context (the story is not about politics so don't be worried if you're not into that). Her writing style is unique, kinda reminds me of Toni Morrison crossed with Kurt Vonnegut.

Lastly, the Cremaster Cycle is coming to Market Arcade this weekend and into next week. Here's a link to the website (thanks Emily for the link):

So Comcast, the nation's largest cable-provider, wants to buy Disney, one of the world's largest media conglomerates (owns ABC and stuff). My question is where will it end? Maybe it won't. So then if eventually all the companies buy all the other companies until there is only one (Highlander-like), and everything we get and buy and do is provided by this one corporation, do we then have a sort of corporate-socialism, where the government is replaced by the all-powerful corporation? I don't know that this would be a great thing or anything, but maybe better than all of them competing against each other with us in the middle. I guess we would have to start calling the CEO president, or leader, or king or something. King Gates? President Turner? Oh fun.

whatever, I'm still glad I wrote it, even if none ya'll muthafuckas reads it. God dreams are strange, Trisha had a dream which changed perspective or confused it somehow. I have multiple-person dreams, in the literary sense. I am sitting in my room. The door opens and it's my mom. She asks me how I'm doing and says I should visit the tortoise soon. She exits and I watch as Terry lingers at his desk. He's trying to decide whether he should do the right thing or just be lazy. Eventually, his shoulders slumped in resignation, he gets up and goes to see the tortoise. He knows something funny is abroad, as I open the door and see the turt. Something is wrong. What? There's the tortoise lying under the heat lamp as usual. I go to toss some greens and notice the shell; it's grown strange. The top is rough and rigid, but seems to have sucked the mass of its growth from the bottom. I pick it up and it makes a tortoise-hiss, a noise halfway between an angry cat and a sitting rock. I turn it over to discover its horribly exposed abdomen. A deshelled tortoise. The sight is hideous and disgusting, and Terry almost drops it in his surprise. His heartbeat is racing, and he hears his mother calling. What is she saying? "Just put him out..."
what, he can't go outside now
"Put him out..."
She's standning right over him now demanding that he, "put that thing out of it's misery." Somehow I have no choice but comply. My hand moves to the hammer. I raise it over my head and bring it down. The tortoise flinches. The hammer comes down again, and he knows that something is wrong, that this just shouldn't be happening. There is no circumstance that he should be involved in that has him crashing a hammer repeatedly into an animal. I think of just hitting the head. One final blow that will finish it so I can just end this horrid experience. But somehow he doesn't do it, the thought of just missing floats through his head; what if I take it all the way off and it...uggghhh. With one final blow to the abdomen the creature mercifully desists struggling against its fate. And then, I just woke up, and I was thinking like what a fucked-up dream to have. And what does it mean. And like what kind of person has these kind of dreams. And then I read everyone else's bizzare dreams/experiences of late, and agree with Rachel that it's the end-of-winter depression setting in. I still hope to not have such horribly realistic fantaies flitting through my slumbering night-mind. Poor tortoise. I hope I don't innardly hate him. It didn't look anything like you, don't worry Boz. Out.