Yes, I have crossed some strange line now. This morning I awoke from a dream which featured Noam Chomsky. He was coming for some kind of talk, which I helped arrange and attended. Then we all went out for a night on the town. There were a couple of people with us, the only one I can remember is my friend Leslie (one of my long lost friends from my last journal). We were out in some 3rd worldesque town (unpaved dirt streets etc.) and were looking for a bar to hang out in. Eventually we were somewhere and I was reading something Noam had written for me. It was in another language, mostly German though there were definately the words nostre and notre in it which are distinctly not German. Noam told me they were archaic but still usable (he is a world-renowned linguist after all). Leslie thought she would be able to read it, since we were in the same language courses (Japanese) in HS. She couldn't though, probably becuase it was my own strange dream language. Off to work...

I got two emails from long sorta-lost friends. Not as if I really don't know where they are, well really I don't, but I can contact them via email, so they're not technically lost. So I, in a very uncharacteristic manner, responded to both of them. It was a session of reminiscing. They are both from distinct and mostly unconnected timeframes in my life (one from HS, the other college), so it was strange remembering which memories went with which friends. Sorting out experiences, names, places, fun times, first times, etc. These happen to be two very good friends, not just run-of-the-mill types. Two people who I never would have chosen to live miles and miles away from, but through unavoidable circumstances we have become separated. It's kinda sad. Friends, how they come, how they go. People who mean so much to you at one time, and then suddenly they're just gone, never to be replaced, only remembered. The world is just so big nowadays. So many places, so many people, so little time. I wish I could pluck out the 50 people I liked the most in my life and put them on an island with me so they couldn't go away anymore (or I couldn't for that matter). Long-distance email and phone calls just aren't the same. You can read a little of their lives, but they might as well be a biography, you're not in it anymore. So morose, huh? Today the rememberescing was actually quite a pleasant experience. Thank you Leslie and Laven for giving me an excuse to bury my head in the past.

Technology should be a good thing. In its pure definition it means use of science, generally to advance some field or process. From manafacturing to medicine judicial use of technology makes us more efficient. Jobs that used to take many laborers and hours can now be performed with a much smaller percentage of laborers and man-hours. To many, technology is seen as robbing working people of jobs or decreasing their hours from simplification, and this is to a large extent true in our current system. The question, is where do the benefits of technology go?
An example: A call-site with a staff of 100 workers, paid $10/hour, takes 5000 calls/day. An automated line is developed which reduces the need for human assistance by half, in other words, only 2500 calls must be answered by workers. So, our workers' average calls/day has dropped from 50 to 25. What happens now? The standard corporate solution is to layoff half the workforce, or most of them, and make the remaining part-time. Thus, the benefits of the new technology are reaped only by the CEOs and shareholders. Is this the only way to operate? Why can't these technological benefits be assed on to the workers. Instead of a mass layoff, why don't we reduce the workweek from 40 to 35 hours (keeping the salary unchanged)? How about investing in education of your workforce? What about some paid vacation? These ideas are fast becoming unheard of. They don't fit into the standard model of "doing business."
Of course, it's not too hard to find examples of different systems, just look 50-60 years back in America or across the Atlantic. Some European countries still display this attitude of shorter workweeks, longer vacation, and more benefits, though how long this disparity will last under the pressures of modern "free-trade" and globalization is debatable. The point is that technology is not the problem, the distribution of its benefits is. Instead of going directly to CEO and shareholder accounts they should be more equally distributed throughout the workforce they affect.

Study finds differences between "gay" sheep and "straight" ones . Very weird thing to be studying if you ask me, but maybe helpful to the gay community. If it can be scientifically proven that gay people aren't making a choice to be gay but are rather genetically different than it is patently illegal to discriminate. Maybe.

And...this is just disturbing

(The sheep is on top)
Inflatable Party Sheep designed to be the friend you've always needed, the love you have always dreamed of. It's the little lamb you can love and will love you back. For all your sheep loving friends - bring out the beast in them. For centuries men the world over have known that a sheep is the next best thing to a woman. It is soft, sexy, and disease free!

A new study has found that over 2/3rds of US crops are contaminated with genetically modified material. The Independent reports that... "The test found that at "the most conservative expression", half the maize and soyabeans and 83 per cent of the oilseed rape were contaminated with GM genes - just eight years after the modified varieties were first cultivated on a large scale in the US." Fun times. So eight years later...plenty of time to figure out just what the fuck these genes do. The tomacco is here and here to stay. At this point there is little hope of any of our crops remaing "pure." This is a problem. Now I don't know that I necessarily think genetic altering is a bad thing. It could lead to many innovations, leading to healthier and disease-repellant crops. But, and this is a big but, we don't know what else they might do. So we have a soy bean that matures more rapidly and is less likely to be eaten by a specific pest because we have spliced in some lemon-gene. What if it also leads to clogging of the arteries, growth of tumors, hair-loss, who knows what else. And that's the thing we just don't know, and now it may be too late to prevent every soy bean eaten from now on to be contaminated. Fucking Monsanto!

This is a good article too I think and a good idea for Kerry. Bring the whole team along I say.

This strange new study by Stefan Koelsch highlights a connection between human understaning of music and language. The study consisted of segments of music being played and then immediately after a volunteer (who had no musical experience, ie: never played an instrument, etc.) was shown a word that was either "related" or "unrelated." Take a look at the music samples and the word lists: .

Apparently when the volunteers heard a related word key areas of the brain responded with high levels of activity. When the unrelated word was shown no such response was garnered. The relevance of this "priming" of the brain is seen in many other activities of language. For example, in other studies it has been shown that participants respond differently after reading a passage relating to a particular topic and then seeing a similar word afterwards (ie: a passage about sailing is read and then the brain mapped as the next word is read, desert or ocean). The study gives credence to the theory that music and language evolved along the same lines in terms of human understanding, just how related remains to be understood fully. Some suggest that music (or tonal recognition, and harmonic relations) may have played an important role in the development of language.

Paul says I'm like Elvis. In the early stages, he qualifies. I guess I'm just too fabulous for reality. What can I say? The ups and the downs, the rebounds, what have you. I'm learning to be a very optimistic person. Not about the world in general, or America, or people in general, just about me. I am learning to enjoy life as it comes. To make choices (or not) and to not dwell on could-have-beens or should-have-beens. I've found that goals are an unhealthy construct most of the time. They make you struggle for eventual happiness while ignoring what can be found in each moment. So I don't believe in the whole sacrifice today for the future bullcrap. In fact I think it's hardcore business propaganda to pump us as hard as possible during our most productive years. How else do you convince all of us to work so damn hard? It's the end goal, the financial security, eventual prestige, what have you that pushes us to produce. So I don't buy it. I look at my poor father, who worked for a damn long time, had a great retirement plan and so forth. He lost most of his retirement in the whole Enron fiasco (his company has nothing to do with them, but that's where the money was invested), and now is out of work and pretty much at the same financial security level as me. What the hell did prodigiously working for years and years get him? So, I scorn the future, and care about today. But I am learning to be happy, which is the important part of this rant. Most of us are unhappy because we're not where we "want to be" but I want to be happy because I am, right here right now. There is no other place I'd rather be-heeee! Jesus Jones thank you for those words of inspiration.

A quote by James Madison made at the debates before the drafting of our constitution:

In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority [italics mine]. The Senate, therefore, ought to be this body.

So if anyone still believes in the common fallacy that the crafters of our constitution really believed in any form of equality, please reconsider. They knew exactly what they were doing, basically making sure that the wealthy landowners (ie: the opulent minority) would stay wealthy and become wealthier through direct control over the political and economic processes of our country and its people (ie: the sniveling majority).

from:
Jonathan Elliot, ed., The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, 1787 ("Yates's Minutes"), Philadelphia: Lippincott, 2nd edition, 1836

At risk of having everyone hate me again, I present an opposing view on the draft.

Currently our army (enlisted men, excluding officers) consists overwhelmingly of poor people. It is a last resort for too many kids with few prospects (see some of my other journals about prisons and soldiers [inlink]userName=terry,blogID=62[/inlink] & [inlink]userName=terry,blogID=64[/inlink]). The reason for this is that we have what is called a "professional army" composed of paid soldiers whose main occupation is war (call it "defense" or "peacekeeping" if you like). What we used to have was a "volunteer army," meaning that our citizens were our army when needed (hence our 2nd amendment rights to carry arms: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.). The draft is an extension on this volunteer army system.

There are many differences between the two types of armies. Economically speaking, a huge standing army (ie: our current system) must be constantly paid, fed, housed, etc. With a draft in place, you would of course keep a much smaller army, and only pay a larger force when necessary. I think a part of the reason for our skyrocketing defense budgets since Vietnam has a lot to do with maintaining a gigantic army constantly. Politically, it is much harder to justify war if you don't have professional soldiers. If the kids going to war aren't just from the farms and the ghettos, but from right next door-suburbia, you better have good reasons. How much more antiwar sentiment can you garner if everyone has to worry about themselves or their loved ones being drafted? I especially like that there are very tough requirements for waivers in the new bill which would hopefully prevent stooges like our current leader from ditching his duty. Another point I always think of is if it ever got down to the army being used for civil purposes (as was very close in Miami this summer at the FTAA protests) I would much rather see a draftee who still remembered being a civilian than a hardened professional killer.

Basically the way it works now is hugely expensive, allows America to have a gigantic army that can be repositioned as easily as the pieces on a Risk board, disproportionately utilizes lower class labor, breeds sociopathic killers, must not be strenuously justified, and allows slackers like Dubya off the hook. So while I personally have no desire to be drafted, I don't know that the idea should be so off-handedly dismissed. I just think of the next war that Dubya thinks up, in Lybia or Iran or wherever, and imagine the draft cards going around, and the hundreds of thousands who then could stand up in solidarity, saying we will not fight for your greedy wars. The 82nd Airborn is never going to do that.

Slithering tires bring friends to the goal
Squelching through slime
Racing through time
Fast as you can but watch out for the fall
White wonder abounds
Breath panting in rounds
To the river of course though hidden beneath
Coruscating ice floe
Wary feet tread slow
Across and over rushing depths below
Round the next bend
Like pure heavensend
Glistening water frozen while falling
Boys take it in
Both sight and sin
Winter relaxes and they enjoy the melt