On Belief and the Artificial God

The idea of the Artificial God is something I’ve gotten from Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide books and Dirk Gently’s Holisitic Detective Agency, among others. The essay is online, and it’s done as much to shape my spiritual life (such as it is) as anything I’ve ever read.

A Condemnation of Anticipation

The best fortune cookie I ever ate said, "Don't expect too much. You won't be disappointed."

(The second best said, "Help! I'm trapped inside a fortune cookie factory.")

You can learn about the Throw Down Your Heart movie here.

And John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man can be found here.

Typewriter Insurgency Versus The Spreadsheet - Part 3

Here's an article from Wired Magazine about that NSA data center.

Typewriter Insurgency Versus The Spreadsheet - Part 1

Not speaking for the insurgency as a whole, of course (after all, it has "no leader, no dogma, and no program.") Still and all, am I presuming too much if I assume these sentiments are shared?

More to come.

Rental Home Horror

This is why I can't write fiction anymore. Because my real life is so horrifyingly mutherfucking interesting.

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All posted in unedited rough draft because I don't really have the energy to live through this again. I'm not honestly sure why I feel compelled to share it, except that the act of typing is thereapeutic.

A good approximiation of the kitchen

I'll tell you this for nothing, though: I'm sick of struggling to be a part of the middle class. The assholes who keep trashing my house may live in filth, but they have an easier time of it. That bitch was high and drunk every time we stopped by. Then on top of welfare she got full health care provided for herself and her babies.

Meanwhile, my doctor tells me I need to get a CT-scan for some discomfort in my liver, and I'm looking at $4000 in uncovered expenses on top of the health care premium the state of Massachusetts says I need to have deducted from my paycheck every week.

Maybe I can cash in all those empty beer cans for medical care. 

Fuck that. I'll just quit drinking and save twice the fucking money. 

Trying to Contact My Senator

Hmm, this is interesting.

I was going to send senator Kerry a quick email to let him know how I feel about the SOPA and PIPA legislation worming its way through congress. (Quick synopsis: I don't like it.)

Except when I click on his "contact me" link I get a 404 We're Sorry page.

Which is the same thing I get when I click on any link of his website.

So either he's joined the day of protest along with Google, Reddit, Wikipedia, and hundreds of others, or his servers are down, or he just doesn't want to hear what we have to say.

Either way, I don't like it.

If you're not familiar with this legislation, and you're at all fond of the internet (and if the idea of spending 5 years in prison for singing "Happy Birthday" on youtube seems unreasonable to you) I urge you to get educated quick and register your displeasure to your representatives. Google has a handy page set up for this.

Also, check out the livestream of the SOPA and PIPA protests, if you're on today.

Interesting times.

Missing William Buckley

I used to be a Republican.  I guess at heart I'm still a conservative, but somewhere along the way they moved my party.  I got to vote for Dole, at least, and McCain in that primary, back before the "Straight Talk Express" morphed itself into some sort of shambling, bitter death-march.

Seriously, what happened to you guys?  Republicans used to be smart.  Look at William Buckley.

Novelist, editor, columnist, publisher, sailor, and snappy dresser.  I could talk to this guy all day, given the opportunity.  Would I agree with everything he said?  Of course not!  But we could have a wonderful conversation and look good doing it.  I certainly wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen with him in public.

R.I.P., alas, so it goes.

Who do we have to explain the finer points of conservative politics and world affairs from the right side of the spectrum today?

 

A doughboy and a clown, who shouts over anyone who disagrees with him (when he can't just hang up) and who uses snark, insult, and derision to build ideological walls around his party while appealing to the base prejudice and smug ignorance of his audience.  

I dunno, maybe you like the guy?  If so, how about sharing something in the comments that he's said that you find particularly truthful, virtuous, or inspiring.  

Here's something Buckley said about the neoconservatives: "I think those I know, which is most of them, are bright, informed and idealistic, but that they simply overrate the reach of U.S. power and influence." 

That seems charitable and fair to me.  I wonder what he'd think if he turned on Fox News today?  Or picked up a new copy of his once-intellectual National Review? 

British Baby Boomer Hand Wringing

Frances Beckett's article over at the New Statesman has an interesting take on the damage the Baby Boomers have done to Britain.  The fact that it's written by a baby boomer lends it a bit more weight (I would submit) although I certainly don't expect all the readers of my humble blog or The Wife's website to agree with it all.

Still, as an American who has watched many of the benefits my mother has enjoyed eroding just as I came of an age to appreciate them, it's interesting to get some perspective on how things are going down on the other side of the pond, where the Atlee government took the Beveridge Report to heart and set about eliminating want, ignorance, disease, squalor and idleness.  (A shame about the last one.  There are days when I'm a great fan of idleness.)  Strange to consider that I could have been born to a country where education and health care were provided without question.

The idea that one might have to pay for education, at any level, seemed to us primitive and backward-looking. In the Thirties, my grandmother used to save pennies in a tin in her kitchen, fearfully guarding against the day when one of her children might require medical attention. In the week that the National Health Service was inaugurated in 1948, GPs' surgeries were overwhelmed with patients whose painful and often life-threatening conditions had never been treated or even shown to a doctor. When we baby boomers were ill, we expected, as a right, the best treatment available. Paying for it never occurred to us.

According to Beckett, the reason this is all falling apart now is because that education did not prepare them for the freedom they were growing into.  Rather than receiving the training they needed to keep this wonderful world moving forward, they were forced to memorise stodgy lists of dates and lineages of kings who died long enough ago to have veritably no impact on their lives.  So when they emerged into the sex-drugs-rock n' roll 60s, their stodgy education seemed a grand lie.  Life was so much easier than that, so much more fun.

What did we do with this extraordinary inheritance that had eluded our ancestors, and that an earlier generation had worked and fought to give us?

We trashed it.

We trashed it because we did not value it. We trashed it because we knew no history, so we thought our new freedoms were the natural order of things. It was as though we decided that the freedom and lack of worry that we had inherited was too good for our children, and we pulled up the ladder we had climbed.

So--what you going to do about it, buddy?  Wring your hands and say, "It wasn't supposed to be this way?" while you lie in a state-funded hospital bed that they'll decommission as soon as you're gone?

This is the sort of thing the Apron Revolution is working to undo.  If we can recapture the optimism and determination of the boomers' parents, and keep it wedded to the discipline, gratitude, and common sense that was lost in the intervening years, maybe we'll have a chance.   Otherwise, what?

Unfortunately we have a lot of debts to pay in the mean-time.  Maybe not as many as the British, who got to have that century of health care and education that passed us by.  Then again, we've had a few more foreign wars to pay for, too.  Can we take Iraq back to the store for a full refund?  If not, I'd be happy to exchange it for education or health care. 

Failing that, I guess we'll just have to tighten our belts and go back to work.