September 14, 2008 at 9:49 am · Filed under Journal
The Bush administration is pushing through a broad array of foreign weapons deals as it seeks to rearm Iraq and Afghanistan, contain North Korea and Iran, and solidify ties with onetime Russian allies.From tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to missiles, remotely piloted aircraft and even warships, the Department of Defense has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion in 2005.
“This is not about being gunrunners,” said Bruce S. Lemkin, the Air Force deputy under secretary who is helping to coordinate many of the biggest sales. “This is about building a more secure world.”
From the New York Times
Bullshit. I love America, but this is total bullshit.
Today, at the end of the first day of my nineteenth year of life, I am embarking on a project that can be best described as adding drops to a bathtub of memories, one drop a day. Everyday, I will be taking one photo of personal significance of either myself or whatever I encountered on that day. This will be done for purely selfish reasons. This year’s birthday has been the first in which I have felt the weight of my years, however few they may number. Nearly all of us move through life much too quickly, and this is my imperfect solution to keep as much sand from slipping through my fingers as possible.
I am inspired by a man who did this for eighteen years, until his death. What remains is one of the most moving pictoral narratives ever created. The simple pictures he took have the power to convey to complete strangers the path of his life and what that life meant to him and those around him. A quick rundown of key photos can be found here and the complete archives can be found here.
Of course, my task will be much easier - I won’t have to collect suitcases of polaroids. But every journey begins with a step, and I have taken my first today.
I am fiddling around with some themes for my next poems. (Wow has it been 11 days since my last post? Unbelievable.) It seems like the only time I actually write is when I am unhappy with the state of things. Case in point: today I got chewed out at work.
The typical full time, near-minimum wage job is a merciless machine with one objective in mind: to expend worker’s energies into productive products. Workers are cogs, the lowest gears of the machine which provide the raw energy needed to sustain it. I called my boss at Job B today and asked if I could work. The response? “If I can use you.”
This is a theme I am playing around with. There are others, such as the slowing down of our society due to skyrocketing gas prices. No, really. People don’t really drive 50 in 45 zones anymore, at least not when they can help it.
The other day I was headed to my old high school to see some people. I was, shit you not, beaten by a man on a bike. Granted, this was no ordinary man, riding around in the 120 degree Arizona heat, and I hit nearly every red light, but the fact remains that he traveled just as fast as me for the amount of time we were “racing.” Him in his man-powered two-wheeler, and me in my 230-something-horsepower V6.
Which leads me to my next point, which my dad observed. People in China, the country with the greatest number of bicycles in the world, are discovering the joys and comforts of the automobile, and people in America are rediscovering the incredible efficiency of the bicycle.
Well, now that I am finally getting into the groove of a summertime job, I’m going to be writing - consistently. This journal and my creative talents have been neglected for too long. Truly, life feels so empty without words to represent it. I hope you enjoy my return to writing with this latest piece about our lives in the modern age:
It’s the rush of a purchase,
the expectation of a new beginning
which only a press of a button can bring.
“confirm purchase” and the rest is history.
This is our on-demand world.
welcome.
The UPS man is the horseman of
our modern day mayhem.
the ding-dong signals his arrival,
and the roar of his iron steed
signals his hasty departure.
All that’s left as proof positive
of his goodness and grace
are little bundles of instant gratification
delivered right to our door.
but nevermind him.
The thought of the journey of the package
evaporates as our minds are consumed
with the euphoria of the consumer,
the cherishing of the object,
the shiny, smooth, pristine texture
of the plastic as it slides against
our oily hands – sending shivers of
excitement down our backs.
Look how the light catches our new purchase,
which was bought with how many hours of
fragile life.
For a moment we feel complete.
As if what we have done with our lives
was worthy of doing it.
For a moment the cycle of sacrifices
ends with the payoff.
Our shiny toys fade in brown boxes
much like those they first arrived in.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Soon it begins anew.
Today I dreamt of a huge airlift of helicopters evacuating the children of the Texas polygamists. Then I dreamt of an confident Chinese Olympic qualifier losing to his female counterpart. Then I dreamt of waking up in the midst of thunder in a very small and decripet room.
My personal outline of the views expressed in the first two chapters of On Liberty:
1.Exercise of Opinion (liberty of the press)
a.“the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error”
b.“all silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility”
c.“few think it necessary to take any precautions against their own fallibility”
d.“complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right”
2.Negative Logic
a.“points out weaknesses in theory or errors in practice without establishing positive truths”
b.“such negative criticism would indeed be poor enough as an ultimate result, but as a means to attaining any positive knowledge or conviction worthy the name it cannot be valued too highly”
c.“persons who contest a received opinion”
3.Spontaneity
a.“Human nature is not a machine to be bult after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.”
4.Character
a.“A person whose desires and impulses are his own-are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture-is said to have a character.”
5.Individuality
a.“In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is, therefore, capable of being more valuable to others.”
b.“There is always need of persons not only to discover new truths and point out when what were once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices and set the example of more enlightened conduct and better taste and sense in human life.”
I now see that life lived under a God requires the exercise of a will not entirely focused upon self-denial and guilt, but concerning itself with a flowering of its abilities, of bettering itself by such a process.
“But if it be any part of religion to believe that man was made by a good Being, it is more consistent with that faith to believe that this Being gave all human faculties that they might be cultivated and unfolded, not rooted out and consumed, and that he takes delight in every nearer approach made by his creatures to the ideal conception embodied them, every increase in any of their capabilities of comprehension, of action, or of enjoyment.”
-J.S. Mill, On Liberty
Isn’t operating behind an veil such a fascinating thought? No one will know what you do, say, or look like. That’s what the Internet has allowed everyone to do. But too often, it brings out the worst side of us. Just take a look at any reasonably trafficked youtube video’s comments. I guarantee nine times out of ten it will have actively denigrated itself into a cesspool of insults and racism.
As a test of my theory, I went on youtube, closed my eyes, and clicked something. Sure enough, here’s what I found:
“stupid americans think they are the best EUROPEAN IS THE BEST.why we so better educated than u? and we are not fat, and we have a long history (with things like this bbooks) your just fat retarded stupid fat lardtubs!!! LOLolLolLOL”
This just goes to show that Chinese people care far more about the here-and-now of living a prosperous life than they do about the finer points of “One China, Two Governments.”
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Blank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter.
