I've been thinking a lot about rent lately. I really hate it. As an institution. I can't help but think that it's a total usurious act that takes from someone and gives to another at unequal levels. Its origins must be somewhere near the time property itself was established. It couldn't have been too long before someone thought, "well, if I now own this land (which of course had at one time been ownerless or owned-by-all) I might as well let someone else live here...for a price." And so the people that first owned the land, probably some kinda tribal chiefs or respected war leaders, decided to let other people live and work it if a portion of the fruits of their labor was apportioned to the owner for the use of the land. We know where this leads of course, feudal systems-or in worst case scenarios, slavery systems-where the cost of living on a property becomes equal to the wages allotted the workers. This is where rent was invented, it doesn't have pretty origins.

So, I was trying to argue against rent and came up against pretty hard-core reasons. There was the idea that some people just don't want to own their own land (we're talkin current America here). But I don't think that's the case. Given the fact that to have some way to provide shelter and food for self and family a place to live is essential (and in America you can't just opt out-just try to find an arable bit of soil that isn't owned by someone/thing). So everyone has to have it, why not own it. The advantages are obvious. You own capital-something tangible that can be exchanged for other items/services in our society-it has appreciable value. You have control over the use of your property (if you wanna erect a shrine to Hades in the back and take out the back wall for a view, it's your choice). You can use your property as collateral in obtaining credit towards other purchases. With rent you get non-responsibility. You pay the bill and you get occasional repairs. That's the part that bites though. Rent is constantly paid to the owner. When you buy, even through mortgage, every one of your dollars (or at least some percentage) goes back into your pockets as capital. You are paying to own something. When you rent you are paying to be owned by something. You have a landlord to answer to, strict rules of conduct, and you may even get a random visit. And your money is going into their pocket.

For example in my current situation, at the end of this year we will have paid the landlord over $20,000 total for two years. We could have bought a $60,000 house with a mortgage, paid the same amount over two years and our mortgage would be down to $45,000 (interest eats $5,000 or so). Even if now we moved and only got $55,000 for whatever reasons (bad market/neighborhood or whatever). We could pay off our mortgage and have $10,000 to spare, which means our total expenditure for two years was $10,000, half as much as renting. If we imagine making improvements and such (which we did a ton to our apartment without recuperation) so that we could sell for $65,000 (just $5K more than we bought it for), our profit after paying off our mortgage would be $20,000 which is what we spent on mortgage payments. In other words, if our property appreciates less than 10% over two years than we have broken even.

This is not to say that the above process is easy. Obtaining a mortgage is not easy as pie. There're lengthy forms to fill out, incomes to substantiate, and months of finding the house itself. It's a process made much easier if you can initially afford it. So I agree that the process of renting involves a lot less stress and a lot less wherewithal in the first place. It's skewed (as is the US of A in general) to favoring those with the initial capital resources. But, I think my point remains, that it is hard to justify the practice of renting. All it does it take ownership to the next rotten capitalist level of class and caste. Some people are o
wn
ers and some not. And those that are can now make money off those that aren't. It's beautifully and brutally logical. I just can't justify preying on fellow men, even in the name of shelter.

next Tuesday, but god-awful early, like 7ish, ick. I would like to see the glorious transit but... My head hurts, blast you flacidness and your dang tasty sweet-drinks. Shoulda stuck with the beer, which doesn't pummel my bod the next day. Pin was fun. I usually spend the wole time wandering around, as if I have an aversion to barstools or lengthy bar conversations. I stumble from one friend to the next, checking to see that they're still there, and as sson as I find them I wave and am gone. Hm. I did talk a lot about girls for some reason (in a naughty way). Might be the space porn we watched at southernyankee's place. Groovy 90's computer graphics and trick camera angles make porn even better. Oh yeah the sneaky aliens with the flashing red eyes helped too. The humans couldn't even tell they were being taken advantage of, who's to say that aliens aren't getting it on with us all the time without our knowledge.

Oh <groan> work in a half hour. Friday though then the weekend, and gay Pride. I wonder if the Christians will creep out of the woodwork again. Can't decide if it's more annoying that they're there at all or fun cause we get to harrass them with our filthy gayness. We'll see.

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whoopie. these random word things are so strange, how they almost make lunatic sense.

-sidenote: Tenet resigns . Another fall-guy for our corrupt administration. Not that the guy wasn't a creep, but he was doing exactly as he was told, by Clinton (who focused on terrorism) and Bush (who virtually ignored it-before 9/11). Who next? Who else need to go to alleviate some pressure? Already calls have been made for Rumsfeld, but so far the Bush says that is out of the question. As Iraq goes down the tubes with torture and mounting casualties we shall see if dear-old Rummy may also need to face the sacrificial altar. I hope so, that guy's evil to the core.

The Independent has a great article about the lying game: an A-Z guide to misrepresenting the prewar intelligence . Fun stuff. So many lies, so many lives, it's sickening. I've decided that what we need to secure that Bush doesn't get re-elected is a terrorist attack. The catch is it can't be here, that would almost guarantee his reelection as the country stands behind our leader. No, what we need is a big fat bomb that blows up a key pipeline or two in Saudi Arabia. Our gas prices would climb to unseen levels (gotta sacrifice to get what you want) and an easy connection can be made between the Iraq war and angry terrorists hitting America's foes. Even business leaders would have to admit the errors in Buscho foreign policy, right? Whatev...

Here's some pics of us camping. Here's holly and I swimming, somehow she looks much less intense (cold?) than I do. I look like a beaver without a cozy dam.


And here's the rip-roarin' blaze. I really like the flying spark debris in the air.

We camp along a long-abandonned strip-mine, the perfect setting for our post-industrail lifestyle. It's me and the boys and Holly. We take an hour or two to visit the relatives and shop for the essentials, food food food and beer. We reach our destination around three loaded down, it takes two trips to get it all down. The campsite is just as we remembered it. The firehole has a few more random metal scraps from autumnal highschool scavenging and the chairs are partially dissembled for last-ditch fire scraps. Otherwise, it's camp sweet camp. We haul enough wood for a week long excursion, the forest is ripe for its first plundering of the new season, whole trees lie dead standing at our fingertips. I wondered as we plucked entire hulks from the ground if we were acting our part out in nature, clearing the ground of deadfall, making room for new trees to grow, or if at this point in history it was hard to justify even small-time logging operations. Back to a point I made in an earlier entry, it is easy to justify almost any action as genetically inspired; the reasoning that animals do it so it can't be all that bad, that somehow it's all quite natural. Seems to me that in current times your place in the world is based far more on location and environment than any genetic inclinations. Especially regarding tribal animals it is imperative to always weigh an individual advantage against a societal one, in other words, is this decision based on personal survival or survival of children and entire species. Maybe were supposed to work toward maximum fitness, not for ourselves, but for our entire alive environment.

We ate very well. A little too well. I ate so much I had to take a mile-long jog in the morning to pep up my engines, burn out some congealed grease. It was pleasureable too. I love garnering pleasure from my body through using it. It really likes to be used. It likes to be stetched and active, and to grow stronger. It's such a great system that you're rewarded with not only excellent health, but also an overwhelming sense of immediate joy and well-expended energy. It's sad that we're all getting fat, we've forgotten how good it feels to move, because it's so much easier to get happy eating. As I type I can feel my body yearning for a deep sleep to knit back muscles into stronger formations, it knows just which ones by how hard I used them. I should keep it up and get in shape. Stay away rain and let me get my bike out!

Oh god, Holly's mama was there, and she's just the best. So far she's made me three pecan pies, need I say more??? She decided to come out and eat dinner with us on Sunday-she ended up sleeping-over, tucked into Holly's tent with Cintra and the dogs. She's so funny, and it's so great when she tells a story and the girls take over side stories, all about life in small-town Smethport, PA. Hilarious.

I wanna talk about Chemistry and String theory for a minute too. About restructuring the mind to accept subatomic theory. Just think, wall to wall fuzzy guitar-strings! Must pee though... K, I'm back. Dislaimer for any who may understand a lot more about this shit than I: I have only taken a couple of chemistry/physics classes in my life, but I've read a slew of books about it. So chemistry tries to describe life through the interactions of molecules. They form bonds with one another and release various forms of energy, their combinations form everything in this room and the universe(?). Standard beginner models include circles on rings orbitting an inner core (think solar system) or you use their atomic initials, little dots representing electrons, and dashes between signifying bonds. It is a very useful model and it can be used to accurately predict real-world reactions. Along comes quantum theory, which cuts atoms to shreds and dissects the innards: quarks, neutrinos, etc. We find whole new properties (like spin and color), basically a new system for understanding chemistry at a primal(?) le
ve
l. We know we're on the right track because we can now "see" many of the predicted particles and their behavior through experiments (with telescopes and particle accelerators).

A paradigm shift is in the process, and these are the best times for revolution. If everything is the rippling of energy strings, operating under the uncertainty principle, flitting through space and anti-space, than isn't our chemical system a bit antiquated. Learning has many hurtles and a major one is counterintuition. If something is learned and then must be relearned under a new paradigm much energy is wasted in the unlearning. It is much better to incorporate new knowledge into the learning pool. God this is getting way to over the top, I sound like I'm preaching to a convention of college science professors. I still have more to say about the relationship of philosophy to science but will save it for a less exhasusted audience. Stop reading and go contemplate the endless beauty of an iris, they won't be here long.

Paul has changed it so you can email up to five attached images into your journal. Here is a pretty awesome example. YO!

So I've had these hives for over a week now, and am getting really annoyed. The symptoms are that I get itchy somewhere and if I scratch at all I get hives in the shape of the scratches, if I don't itch, nothing. I am somewhat prone to hives, if a cat or dog bites/scratches me or if I roll around in grass for an extended period I get hives, but his seemed a little extreme. So, I decide to look it u[ on the internet and find that my "condition" has a name: dermatographism. It sounds like tis could get annoying. They say that it can last for a week or two or for the rest of your life. Fun. There is no known cure unless the source of the irritation can be identified (which is usually very difficult) and histamine-blockers have a mild chance of preventing outbreaks if taken everyday. I guess I have to pray I have the week or two variety. They don't really have long term consequences or anything they are just annoying as fuck. Like I'm at work and scratch my face beofre I can stop myself and have an ugly red mark for an hour, I feel like a leper.

Anyways, the disturbing coincidence happened when I was looking up the disease and there was a picture of what it looked like:



Fucking bizzare right! Freaked me the hell out. Anyways, feel sorry for the leper and now when you see me with disgusting red blotches all over you know I don't have scabies or AIDS or something.

thoug my head wonders if it should be thanking you for the pounding it's experiencing now. :) Went to Presba, a bar I had heretofore not even heard of, which was cool and played extrememly cool music (we walked in and were greeted with Joga by Bjork). The pizza was yummy yummy yummy. The band at the Square was pretty neat rock and rolly, I didn't really get to see them, as is usually the case. Camping is today. I am very excited. I love to camp. First time in the new summer it has to be wonderful.

First-off, I don't know the guy at all. He is probably really swell and making some neat science-art. But, I have to say that I am not sure that just anyone should be able to play with strange bacterias (are claims of Anthrax true?). However well meaning the person is, they are not all benign substance; I wouldn't want my neighbor making art with explosives next door either. So, while I feel for him that he is going through some horribly scary shit, I can't say that he shouldn't have expected it. Of course, the scale of what happened is ridiculous. Cordoning an entire neighborhood off and carting away his dead wife's body was probably not necessary (though as Paul says, in some cases of public safety it is probably better that the Buffalo police not handle it and specialized teams be brought in). I also am pretty sure that he won't get anything like a fair trial and that he is probably suffering more than is necessary because of our draconian new terror laws, and that sucks.

The New York Times is often described as being our nation's paper of record, meaning that it is trusted above all others to deliver the news of the day. They have recently suffered many blows, the most covered being the Jason Blair "scandal". The truth is that Jason Blair was the least of their problems. In a self-accusatory article (you need a membership), the Times has tried to come-clean over it's coverage of the Iraqi WMDs. Since the prewar attempts of the Administration to build the case for war they have been on the bandwagon, parroting lines and calling on official sources as often as possible. One of their top correspondents, Judith Miller (Democracy Now! has been talking about her for months and months now), was at the forefront, delivering "news" about the developing story. One of her most frequent sources was Ahmad Chalabi the now scandal-ridden friend of Bushco who has apparently taken everybody for a ride. The question now is whether this will incite some real change. Was the admission of guilt a lame excuse to soothe ruffled feathers or is it the precursor to a new-era of truth-telling? We shall see, though as usual I have little optimism.