It seems to me

That we must try to understand each other. Otherwise, well, "otherwise"? If we understand, yes, we must try to empathize. "Emphasize empathy, to empower the enfeebled youth."

I am the tallest man on earth, because I'm standing on a rock roughly six thousand metres above sea level in South America. The reason I am taller than a British man of equal stature who stands upon Mt. Everest is because I am closer to space, and because I am closer to space I am taller. sub specie aeternitatis, we will continue to praise the triumphs of our forebears and decry the failures and shortcomings of our youth.

We all wish for a wistful time, and some of us get it long after we've left. Because really, that's what being wistful means. It means to grow so weak, so utterly weak from longing that we can no longer yearn. We can simply look back, our hair being shuffled and run through by the eager hands of some foreign wind.

There's nothing we can do but sing our songs and row our lifeboats home.

news today

InBev's offer for Budweiser was accepted, but more importantly Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac edged closer to failure. Even after the Fed's assurances the stock was down several percentage points. It's obviously not an adequate corollary but when Bear Stearns was bought out with government backing it gained $8 from its initial purchase price of $10. However today shows that the US Government is itself edging closer to insolvency--it's word carries half or less of the weight that it did before the subprime crisis hit.

Triumph for Muslim Intellectualism, or...

Final proof that the internet will be the death of intellectualism? M. Fethullah Gülen's triumph in a recent FP/Prospect poll for the "World's Top Intellectual" is interesting in several respects, most of which are gone over rather sheepishly by Prospect's editor in this article.

Nuttal, in his editorial (linked above), writes that "perhaps we can see through Gülen’s victory the emergence of a new kind of intellectual—one whose influence is expressed through a personal network, aided by the internet, rather than publications or institutions."

A decent job shimmying away from the question, but it won't do. The real question Gülen's victory raises is whether intellectualism itself has any place in the modern world. If the internet is capable of propelling a man to the top of this list, what's to say that his ideas are his at all? At least we may be certain in one respect: the internet has brought on an era in which a person matters far less than the movement which propels his message.

Diablo 3

It's probably just as well that my computer is capable of little more than word processing, web surfing, and music. If it were any more powerful I would be waiting with bated breath for Blizzard Studio's upcoming epic, Diablo III.

Finally, the FCC Grows a Spine

The FCC is set to declare Comcast's packet-shaping shenanigans illegal and is set to impose sanctions on them for it. The first victory on the road to net neutrality? One can only hope.

FISA Voting

After reading a lot of the discussion at firedoglake about the FISA renewal act that is currently being passed in the Senate, I think that a certain level of perspective is needed in order to calm the tempers of the people who are upset about the whole thing.

Many commentators are decrying this newly-expanded FISA as a harbinger of the coming US police state. What they need to realize is that the Senate is first and foremost a body of compromise. The House of Representatives has always been the firebrand, "will-o'-the-people" chamber that has rowdy debates and is not known for its measured, reasoned stances. The Senate has accordingly fashioned itself as a sort of counterbalance to the House and the White House.

To understand why the Senate leadership is accepting this FISA legislation is to understand on a macro-scale how the Bush white house functions and how it pursues its aims. A perfect example of this was its treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo bay. By insisting upon not granting these prisoners access to civilian courts while also flouting its responsibility to provide fair trials for these prisoners, the White House forced the hand of the Supreme Court. The SCOTUS did not want to grant these detainees access to habeas corpus, but this was a rebuke that was required against an administration that does not compromise its stances whatsoever.

Now, when the WH comes to Congress to get a new FISA bill, you can expect what kind of bill they are going to ask for, and you can also expect whether or not they will compromise their stance at all. The FISA needed to be renewed (at least in the eyes of the Government), and therefore Reid & Co. did what any rational-minded senator would do: they used FISA as a bargaining chip. They rightly assume that extended power to an executive that is already a lame-duck White House is an easy-to-swallow bitter pill if it will get the White House to pass legislation on housing relief and the environment. Bush's recent pledge to reduce greenhouse gasses by 50% as well as the revelations about Cheney's office doctoring EPA reports on climate change is not a coincidence. Bush's single-minded pursuit of 'national security' forced him to make these concessions, concessions which I believe outweigh the negative consequences of this new, expanded FISA.

Beck: Modern Guilt

Beck's new album Modern Guilt is an album that tries to escape your notice. It's just over 40 minutes long, and each song is like a small, shrink-wrapped package containing a ready-made sandwich from Pret.

But that's not to say it's manufactured. DJ Danger Mouse's producing job is nothing short of brilliant. Most other reviews will lampoon Beck for continuing down the path toward incoherence--Radar calls Modern Guilt a record "without a mission statement." But for a reviewer who quite rightly ties Beck to break dancing, it's amazing that they arrive at this conclusion.

Beck is rock music's reaction to break dancing. And what Radar mistakenly believes is that Beck's great records, namely Odelay and Sea Change, both have something called 'mission statements'. A mission statement is not what these records have; it's something much simpler: Swagger. And what makes Modern Guilt so great, even if it is a bit incoherent and sometimes uninspiring, is that it is Beck at his best: with all the glorious slacker swagger that made him so lovable to us at first.

A break dancer doesn't announce his 'mission' when he hits the dance floor. He busts through the crowd and puts on moves. There's no beginning or finish to a break dancer's show; it's really a matter of zen and energy. Everyone knows when a dancer will be done. It's the same for Modern Guilt. You know this record can't last long, and you can even see Beck clumsily transitioning from song-to-song like a break dancer struggles to transform himself elegantly from one move to another completely unrelated one.

in my bedroom

in my bedroom there are junebugs strewn about the floor
like some monstrous child has pulled them out of a bag and thrown them there

they lie on their backs, legs twisting around, grasping for their lives

Observation: younger generations tend to repeat the mistakes of previous generations; especially if they are seen by the younger to be of little consequence (smoking, drinking, etc.).

Google Elections Mapping, and the Failure of Web 2.0

Google's new election mapping tool is supposed to provide meaningful statistics about the upcoming election by showing which candidates are searched more often in every state nationwide. Interesting then that all 50 states appear to show Obama in the lead. There are several possible explanations for this:

1. Obama is going to win all 50 states.
2. People who are web-inclined and likely to investigate their political choices online are more liberal-leaning [my choice]
3. Obama is simply the more controversial candidate; people are more interested in finding out about Obama regardless of whether they want to vote for him.

Obviously option #1 is out. I'm surprised however that the conservative right has not yet leaped on Google for its liberal leanings. Obviously if Obama is the #1 most searched query on Google, it follows that people who spend more time online are more likely to be liberal. By force of argument Google's efforts to get the entire country online are a thinly-veiled liberal ruse to steal the election from hard-working conservatives.

of Betancourt's release

The Times reports that it was actually a cover-up operation for the $20 million that was paid to FARC to secure her along with several other Americans' release.

eery update

Since I've just reviewed the new Joy Division documentary, I thought it might bear mentioning that Ian Curtis' grave marker was stolen two nights ago.

Psychopharmacology article on Psylocybin

Here's an article detailing the recent findings of a study at Johns Hopkins University about the spiritual effects of Psylocybin mushrooms.

w/o Narrow Leg Vintage Chino

Back in New Mexico I'm waiting for the arrival of a pair of W/O Narrow Leg Vintage Chino pants that I ordered from Swell. I'm not going out on any limbs here but W/O makes some great-looking clothing and sells them at pretty fair prices.

I've been looking for a good slim-fit Chino for a while so I sprang for these. I don't intend upon turning this blog into a fashion / otherwise vain medium for my ramblings, so don't expect more posts like this. Slow news day, yeah?