"They" get "us" with their words

"Spill" is tangled with intent. And the way intent is used — particularly in the tales of war-death-destruction-despair — is often misleading (see, right there, the way I used misleading... is very misleading).

Easy example: when I make cocktails, I'm very often shaking for four. Squeezing four drinks into one batch brings the spirits near the stainless steel brim — the danger zone. When straining the sweet relief into glasses, some initial spillage can be expected — you know how this works... the shaker is just a little too full, the liquids surge to the edge, and if I don't pour fast enough, some of that icy tequila is going to run down the side of the shaker, de-stressing the tabletop. So... did I spill? Of course not. I had too much booze in the shaker to avoid the small spill, I knew this, and poured it anyway.

If the result of an action is known, speaking of intent is nonsense.

So when Royal Dutch Shell spills dumps oil onto West African land and water... every. single. day... it is not doing so by accident — therefore spill confuses what actually happened (which, of course, is in the interests of Royal Dutch Shell and the Culture of Destruction). As always, the ethical standards of having a Blogger account are high, so I'll be fair with Shell:

Apparently predicting interest in the spill would grow, Shell already had taken out Internet advertising Thursday on search engines, directing those searching for the spill to their website. Jonathan French, a Shell spokesman in London, said the advertising came in the "interests of full transparency" so people can read the company's updates on the spill.

Which brings me to Santa's big gift (assuming, like me, your portfolio is heavy on uranium futures), the new Westinghouse AP1000 is approved and ready to boil! I love the blue, but why did they do the outside in brown? Hopefully they'll have more colors for next year's model. At least it's safe:

But the chairman of the commission, Gregory B. Jaczko, said that all of the panel’s safety concerns had been fully addressed.

“The design provides enhanced safety margins through use of simplified, inherent, passive, or other innovative safety and security functions, and also has been assessed to ensure it could withstand damage from an aircraft impact without significant release of radioactive materials,-” he said in a statement.

Warning: Pass this point, and your face will look like mine

Well, if Dr. Jaczko (he is a doctor, I hope) thinks the safety margins are enhanced... and it's airplane-proof... we can get back to designing the signs that will remain coherent for... for... forever. It really sums it all up, does it not? A culture that can create death on a chronological scale so hilariously vast that it feels compelled (it's the right thing to do) to pass along warnings to our — it'll take you about 45 minutes, but please say "great" about 3,000 times — grandchildren. They are the future.

Nuclear Power is almost all-the-way-back. O-Bah-Ma, O-Bah-Ma, O-Bah-Ma

Birth of a Ham Monster: Seeking, Eradicating, Balancing Desire

The black cat — prodigious leaper, lover and fighter, combatant in games of "chicken" played against actual chickens — has been consumed by a new desire. Ham. He tasted ham, chewed ham, swallowed ham... and then something happened. The experience required repeating. It wouldn't be "nice" to have a little more ham some time, the strong-legged cat doesn't simply respond positively to the offer of ham, he pursues it. He requires it. Without it, he cannot be content. So what does he do? He sits at the refrigerator. And he demands to have his desire satisfied. For five years, this cat has known where his food is kept, yet, he never showed any desire for it. He ate it. Sure. But he didn't desire it... why not?  Desire? What could I mean...

I like desire as: an expression of a need to pursue that which is required. In other words, something you need (not want) but don't always or easily obtain.

The black cat always had his regular, everyday food. It sits in two places: wet food in the kitchen, dry food on the shelves outside the bathroom door. Ham doesn't follow this pattern. Ham is kept away, in a massive, mysterious, humming tank. So, I ask: is the black cat in a "good" situation. Should I, as keeper-of-the-ham, nurture this, or find a way to end it?

Recently, quite recently, I was informed — by a very confident person — that "people" should eliminate desire. I didn't know what the fuck they were talking about, so I asked: huh? To which I received a reply along the lines of: be content with what you have, satisfy your basic needs, and wish for no more.


Now, I know (I think I know) what they were selling: a fairly standard anti-consumerism idea. These are common messages, no? "If you think that the new car or new gadget will make you happy, you're mistaken!" And, of course, relationships with other subjectivities certainly offers a more varied experience than relationships with objects, like cars or telephones. But what about desire? I think the complexities that desire induces can be quite delightful. An example:


I desire — require but can not always have — at least an hour of alone time everyday. Some days (such as today) this is very easy to come by, and others (like tomorrow) it simply is not going to happen. But wait a second! Surely, if I require some alone time, I'll get it, right? Easy enough. All of tomorrow's car-travel, chit-chat, family time... just skip out on some of it. And I could do that — what is stopping me? Desire! A competing desire. A desire to have the family not think I'm a disagreeable asshole, incapable of going-along with the structure of family days. This is something I require (truly, despite all evidence to the contrary, if I couldn't at least obtain the status of: not a completely disagree asshole... this would be an unsettling situation).


Leaving me with this: Desire is delightful, it requires we pay attention to our own needs, and make compromises and adjustments when desires come into conflict. This is a life, conflicting desires. As for the cat, well, I require a sense that I'm feeding the cat food that won't result in bad health (salted cured meats probably fit the bill) but I also require that he shut the fuck up, so here comes some ham, Ham Monster.

Ripley's: In some parts of the world, the rulers make the peons do shit they don't want to do?

North Korean honcho dead, what have we learned? New Yorker knows (fun and easy game: change the proper nouns to make these nonsense sentiments sum-up Modern Death Captialism and the waking reality of the American Non-Dream):

Mandatory public crying. Those three words sum up about as tidily as possible the ghastly bondage—the incessant psychic and physical torture—that the Kim dynasty has made the North Korean way of life for more than half a century. No sooner did the state news agency release the news of Kim Jong-il’s death than the public plazas of Pyongyang began to fill with neatly assembled ranks of citizens, weeping and wailing on command, while state television recorded the spectacle, which was promptly uploaded to YouTube. Early in the most heavily circulated clip, the fakeness of the grieving is obvious: you can see the captive mourners forcing the sobs, moaning unconvincingly, and squeezing their eyes to produce tears. But by about half way through the clip, the atmosphere of absolute bereavement looks real: men and women prostrate themselves, writhing and howling in what appears to be acute and authentic agony. Here in the space of just a few minutes of videotape we see the method and the madness of the Kims’ grim dominion over North Korea enacted in miniature—we watch a lie become reality.

Apparently, in North Korea, there is an expectation  (I'm gonna try explaining this to you, but you'll be as baffled as a 83 year old New Guinean woman trying to learn the ins-n'-outs of being a sales associate at Baby Gap... you ain't gonna get it on the first try, so read slowly) there is an expectation that you have to offer fake sentiment in order to flatter your superiors ego! You can't just do your own thing, oh no: there is a code of conduct which demands a very limited range of acceptable social behavior. I know I know I know... fucking unbelievable, right? Like, you gots to fabricate yo' personality and shit, it's like all the peoples are a fiction, an invention — IL-LEGIT!

You know how in America, when the boss is trying to pawn off some bullshit, some new protocols that guarantee everyone in the cubicle of cubicles has to press a bunch more buttons that don't need to be pressed, we all tell the boss to get fucked! We ain't doing it! And yo' breath be stinkin' too! That's how America works, all genuine all-the-time.

Here's my favorite line in the article:

But what has always made North Korea really frightening is that, from within its own twisted worldview, Pyongyang behaves rationally. Never has such a small, economically weak state succeeded in making such a big deal of itself for so long. One of the main reasons for North Korea’s endurance is that South Korea is terrified of its collapse. Although the Korean War has never officially ended—and more than eleven million Korean families remain divided by the partition of the Korean peninsula—it has been Seoul’s policy for several decades now to try to prevent a North Korean implosion rather than to promote one. Why? Because South Korea, having watched West Germany pay for the integration of the former-Communist East Germany, is terrified of the cost that integrating the blighted North would entail. So our great ally in East Asia is complicit in propping up our great enemy there.

Our enemy?! Holy shit, it's almost like the lie has become the reality. Know this, dear reader, North Korea is a sham bogeyman, and the sham bogeyman is the absolute greatest ally of the American ruling class, FOR-EV-ER.

Surely, a more beautiful sight/site can't even be imagined, surely!

To the embassy!

Got it from Getty Images

Ugh, I am sooo jealous. Guy in the back left doing the grunt face (and the police guy in the riot helmet is helping, no?), next to him, shoulders dropped, torso angled — clearly steering this Royal Coat of Arms, and the front left (handsome and laughing?) is clearly too excited to be anything other than the leader of the team. I hope these guys live to tell the grandbabies about this one... over, and over again.

Science, you are the worst, please go away

Here's a definition that, with a reading or two, reveals the pathology of SCIENCE!! Ready to define? (a very scientific activity, no?)

The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

Like a sadistic stalker, who can find no pleasure unless it "knows" its subject... SCIENCE!! I'm more than a little pissed that it's so hard to de-bug my system, for you — SCIENCE!! — have fucked me up good.


This is, as I recall, what happened to me:

4 days ago, I lamented that a green mug — nice for tea drinkin' — had gone missing. The powerful one and I looked around for it... didn't find it. That was that... who gives a shit? Just a mug. I think nothing of it.

I shower Thursday morning. When I'm dried and ready for clothes, I make my way to the pants drawer. In this drawer, I have maybe 8 pairs of folded pants. But this time, I have maybe 8 pairs of pants and... and And AND... the green mug — sitting, as if nothing were a bother, upon my pants pile.

This freaks me out a bit. I wake up the powerful one — not very subtly, I'll add — demanding to know: Did you find the green mug? Did you find the green mug? Groggy, the powerful one tells me she did not.

It's in my pants drawer! How did it get here? And it's not just in there... it's sitting on top!

I'll throw out a few possibilities:

1) I found the mug (which I don't remember doing) and I decided to place it in the pants drawer (don't remember doing) and then I went ahead and put it there (obviously).

This is surely not impossible, but I don't have a history (how would I know?) of doing things I don't remember doing (I know, I know)

2) The powerful one, or the roommate found it, put it in the drawer, and lied to me about it — as they're both humans, they're certainly liars... but they're terrible liars, and I can't put any faith in this possibility.

3) A human or animal put it there, without being noticed, or informing anyone that they're "into" sneaking into rooms, and putting mugs in drawers.

4) Magic? Spirits? Whatever, you want to call it. Note: I am not saying that the green mug mystery is inexplicable. Absolutely not. What I am saying: I lack the knowledge or wisdom to explain it.

Literally, I am incapable of understanding what happened. That's the explanation I prefer, and believe to be "correct". Something happened beyond my ability to know or comprehend.

Also, that this the conspicuous movement of the mug is a message, from someone or something that wanted to send me a message, saying, roughly:


Attention Jerkoff Cyborg: You know nothing. You don't know how to listen. If you learn to listen, you might be able to learn a thing or two, perhaps even develop a relationship with other things in this world... but as of right now, you're a fucking idiot. Enjoy, Mover-of-the-mug.

Game Over (or not). Is this a good game?

Sooo... it's Barry O's turn to roll the dice and move his pieces: shake shake shake click dick rest... a six! What will he do? Troops to Australia? Uh... okay... okay... let me think for a minute. Eureka!!

Nice move Barry O, nice move indeed, get the good boys a little closer to our precious Uranium — well done! Everybody who loves lots of energy cheer for Barry! (deafening fucking roar)

India gets their peaceful uranium, we sure as shit already have ours locked up, but now we can sleep a little easier knowing our precious uranium is safe... so safe. And since nobody gives a shit about Fuku... Fuku... ah, I can't remember, uranium prices have been spiking lately... and that's all well and good — probably a money-making-opportunity!

Afterward, I got a chance to chat with the good President Obama about his lucky six:


So tell me President/Viceroy, why Australia?

President Obama: Well, the Ruskies have fucked us pretty good on the natural gas ball field. Their God-less Team Gazprom are exceptionally well-coached, very disciplined, and hey... what can I say, they've got an ass ton of natural gas talent — between the Ruskies, the lil' Ruskies, and those evil Iranians, they've really got us over a pipeline, you know? (gets a little squirmy) The Nabucco pipeline was a Hail-Mary (crosses himself, awkwardly) and we fucked it up good... what good is a big ass pipeline if we don't have any gas to put in it? We're a little embarrassed to have overlooked that detail.

Anyway, so yeah... how bout that six I rolled? Australia! We're all really excited.

Mr. Viceroy, can you stay for one more question?


Viceroy Obama: As long as you don't ask me about the shit normal people whine and complain about... I have to talk about that bullshit all afternoon (rolls his eyes)

No, no, no... of course not. Our viewers aren't interested in any of that, rather, we want to know, what's the latest on Pipeline XL?


President Obama (fighting a big shit-eating grin): Oh, come on now (gives me a light punch on the shoulder) you know we're "reviewing" (actually makes air quotes) all those tough issues, I'm sure a well-intentioned meeting of the minds, get everyone around the same table, and we'll put any concerns about XL (makes a "raise the roof" gesture... dating himself) to rest. XL! EX L!


A comment on the above silliness:

The energy and resource game will continue. The wealthy ventriloquists will get their dummies to say exactly what they'd like, and another beer will be removed from the fridge.

A lack of imagination and motivation means — for now — everyone keeps going to work. The machine continues.

Will I let my job-self cannibalize my "real"-self (quotes note the absurdity of the dissonance) in exchange for a psychically numbed existence and life-sustaining-"resources"? My answer is: hopefully not for much longer... but YES. And I'm supposed to be a radical, or something? Bullshit.

Other than under it's own weight: clean water dirty or gone, healthy soil a memory no one has, and energy sources burned up (which is coming soon enough, and all the pain that comes with):

These systems will only collapse — ONLY (that's right, making a big claim) — when hundreds of millions (yep) people decide they no longer want to play. They no longer want to sell their time. They no longer want an utterly destructive job (teaching school, for example) to cannibalize their very existence in exchange for access to the resources which facilitate a refrigerated existence. Obviously, that breaking point could come quickly... but as of now... NOT EVEN FUCKING CLOSE! Am I wrong?

And with good reason: the system cares for us. It gives us our food, our water, our stuff, our identity (who is to say it's bad?). And it — very conveniently — makes it almost impossible (or at least foolish for a homo economicus) to go another route — the road less traveled is closed. The social hurdle is fucking enormous. The logistical-avoid-being-arrested-for-not-following-the-rules hurdle is nearly as high.

So shut the fuck up about all this bullshit, and expose yourself (that's right) and others to the fucking nightmare that is modern life. Smash a strangers phone and tell them, you're welcome. Stomp on Richard Dawkins toes. Do not vote for someone who is designed to represent you and millions of other people that will never come into contact with each other. The next time you hear someone ask a child, "what do you want to be when you grow up" (and the answer is obviously supposed to be a job... what job do you want TO BE), scream in that person's face: YOU. ARE. A. FUCKING. ZOMBIE. Leave that little human alone.

At the very least, it'll break the monotony.

The moldy torn rag is very valuable

I'm on a small field — modern lawn maintenance machines have been here before — three friends are along as well. The field is a fenced circle, two soccer goals face each other. The rules of our game: each pair is trying to score a goal... hands and feet are both allowed... and we're playing with one pleasingly new top-o-da-line ball. We play.

Before long two more balls — unfathomably fancy, they are, even better than our original ball — appear on the field. The 2 vs. 2 structure of the game unwinds... for now, 3 of the 4 players can blast shots into undefended goals. This goes on for some time. As the fourth ball-less player struggles to get hold of one, and mimic the others ferocity for "goals".

I become tired. I leave the field. I find a bathroom. While peeing, I notice a picture hanging on the adjacent bathroom mirror (it is hilariously fitting, that of all the images within this dream, who or what this picture captured escapes me, I have no memory at all, but I do know, whatever it was, the response was melting nostalgia. Knees buckled. I sit down).

Time passes. I sit.

I return to the field. Things have changed. Our small field is now full of players, perhaps a few hundred people, barely enough space to freely extend one's arms, and the delightful ostentatious soccer balls are gone. In their place: a small, wet, moldy rag. Reluctantly, I re-enter the field, the lone gate behind me vanishes... we are here to stay, and I want that rag.

IOZ will always be my favorite b/c he so damn funny... but

Like ya'll-most everything: "you gotta hear man... you had to hear their early stuff":

From ye-bout four years ego:

The Eleventh Commandment

Why do people obey? Out of habit, and out of fear. But since habit is often just a symptom of fear, it's really fear alone. Fear of opprobium; fear of ostracization; fear of economic hardship; fear of giving offense; fear of arrest; fear of reprimand; fear of imprisonment; fear of death; fear of loss; fear of appearing foolish; fear of being ignored; fear of drawing too much attention; fear of seeming abnormal; fear of turing out to have been wrong all along. Ad inf.

Obedience is the first learned behavior. No is the first learned language. Socialization and education don't only impart a body of discrete knowledge, but teach children who in their infancy deferred only to their most immediate caregivers to operate in a complex network of subordinations, deferences, and accessions. In school, we learn to navigate these networks of demand. We learn when a parent outranks a teacher and vice versa. We learn to answer to our peers, to our teachers, to the principal above that, to security guards, to police, to familiar adults and unfamiliar adults, to coaches, to other public officials, then to bosses, to coworkers of greater rank, to experts, to the opinions of public figures, to government at all its levels, to the decisions of economic institutions, to creditors, to critics. The list goes on. This education is subtler, more pervasive, and far, far more effective than the other education. It's as thoroughly learned as a first language. Because it's so internalized, we rarely consider how ubiquitous are its uses. At nearly every moment of our waking lives, our minds are involved in determining what is appropriate and what is allowable.

Obedience comes naturally between caregivers and children because of the motivating prospect of withdrawn care. This is a rarely acknowledged fact, for we're relentlessly romantic about childhood. As we age, though, we learn to think of obedience as an altruistic act: a sort of perversion of the principle of non-intervention in the lives of others. "Do unto others as you'd have done unto you." To fail to obey convention; to break the law; to break the rules; to speak out of turn; to commit any number of minor infractions of etiquette or accepted decency; is to act against others. So we're told. It will make them uncomfortable. It will make them late for work. It will make their lives less pleasant. It will cause their days pass less smoothly. It will deny them the pleasures of public accommodation. It's just a mean thing to do.

Thou shalt not slow traffic on the autobahn.