Month: September 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgsqdt5IdLY&index=4&list=PLAEn9Hx01p4pDaDYN3m5I1lqtLlEhZHiz

I wonder how much internet porn uses women who are only in it for the drugs.

The problem of single use plastics, in the United States, is largely one of aesthetics: waste is ugly.  Using something once then throwing it away has to have some kind psychological effect which contributes to our short term thinking.  Like abortion, this issue likely has complex sociological consequences.

And I say it is largely aesthetic, because the plastics are buried in enormous landfills which, by and large, are not hurting anything.  They might in 100 years, but by then we will have evolved or destroyed what we have built, so we will have either created an easy solution–like the plastic eating bacteria which are already being researched–or it won’t matter.

But for now, for today, for 2018, I will suggest a couple ideas.

The first is reusable, standardized cups with straws in them.  We could model them, say, on McDonald’s Small, Medium Large, and Fat Boy.  Whatever size you get, you get an upgrade to the next size at no extra charge.

Such cups will of course also double as water bottles.  They can have carabiners on them to loop on to backpacks for use by students.  They can have pictures of sea otters and orcas, and sea turtles.

They can come with a label saying “this cup saves 20 pounds of garbage a year” or whatever.

And these cups could be sold with reusable silverware, a knife, spoon and fork which fit into a container of some sort.  Maybe an assembly could be designed so the silverware is integral to the container, and light weight.  Imagine a world where most people carry their own cups and silverware around, if they regularly eat fast food.

Actually, even in regular restaurants, if you bring in your own cup, that is less dishwashing for them.

And if people just want to carry metal or reusable plastic straws with them, discounts could be offered.  Perhaps a reusable lid could be designed too, which integrates with different sized cups.  I think something really clever could be done in this realm.

And you develop a network of people who accept these things.  McDonald’s could have a sticker on their door, as could Panda Express, as could regular Mom and Pop stores of all sorts.

Standards could be developed, such that all cups are X ounces, and this is displayed on the outside  (8 ounces, 16 ounces, whatever).

And of course this would apply to coffee cups too.  Perhaps Starbucks could even be talked into making their fancy drinks in the cup you bring in, if they can sanitize it first.

Here is the beauty, the absolute, fantastic, wonderful aspect of free markets: there is money in this for someone, perhaps a lot of money. 

You’re welcome.

Whenever I watch a movie, I dream about it for a couple of days.  It will interact with whatever else I am working on.

And I feel like “Requiem for a dream” really made me feel what it is like to be raped, from a woman’s perspective, more than any movie I have seen.

And there is not even a “rape” per se.  Merely men using a woman as a sexual object, and doing so cruelly and cynically.  Jennifer Connolly does an excellent job as an actress.

And I think I get, to some extent, all the women saying “Christina Blasey Ford is ME”.  Old, long suppressed frustrations are brought to a boil when they see people like the people before, saying “I don’t believe you.”  Or misunderstanding, emotionally, the depth of the hurt.

It is easy for women to be wounded by men.  I have hurt women myself, multiple women.  Not on purpose–I can be an asshole for moments, but sustained or conscious cruelty is something I can’t do–but the hurt was just as real.

Women exist in a much more interactive world than most men.  They feel more, which causes them to see more, but also be wounded more.

And as I’ve said often, you really can’t describe trauma to someone who has not felt it.  My trauma is not precisely the trauma of being raped, but I can relate to feeling things you cannot speak, but which you can show others in your eyes.

And I think this gets to the core cynicism, the core cruelty of what Ford is doing.  It may well be that what she describes did happen.  That has been my feeling all along.  And the two men who came forward should be interviewed, because they have zero reason to accuse THEMSELVES of a crime in such a charged atmosphere, other than that they are telling the truth, and presumably because they feel remorse and guilt.  When you are young, drunk and stupid, you sometimes do things which make your adult self cringe.  This is perhaps a time they have long looked for to redeem themselves, and atone for their real crime, which they rightly surmise terrified their young victim.

But what FORD is doing is creating a manufactured portrait of victimhood.  She has, to my knowledge, shown no interest in these two men.  She is up there, lying, but invoking the picture of Every Women, every “this could happen to you” or “this happened to you too, didn’t it?”  She is consciously pulling strings, and evoking latent emotions.

Put bluntly: she is manipulating worthy sympathies for partisan political purposes.  She is USING the women who feel sorry for her to advance an ideological agenda.

It is like what Obama did.  He said “look at me.  I’m a black man, just like you.  I feel your pain.  I will work for you.  Things will get better for you with me as President.  You can trust me.  Finally we got one of our own in the White House”.

And then he ignored black people for two terms, with brief exceptions of periodic rah-rah sessions where he dropped his “g’s” (sittin’, droppin’) so as to, you know, CONNECT with those people so he could keep them in the tent.

It was abusive and cynical.  Everything these people do is.  There is no goodness, no concern for ameliorating human suffering.  It is a church of moral self congratulation with all the perks graft, fame, quid pro quos, and sweetheart book, speaking, and consulting deals grant.  It is a license to be amoral because of public grandiose moral pretension.

Are we to convict Kavanaugh of the crime of being unable to completely disprove allegations which cannot be investigated?

Ouch, ouch, ouch.  Painful movie.  A horror movie, but with only human monsters.  Everyone an inch from the light, but lost nonetheless.  No helping hands are being extended.  No mercy possible.  It is a world with some loyalty–Marlon Wayons could and should have left his friend, but he didn’t–but precious little love.  Leto loves Jennifer Connolly, but he is no substitute for the needle and spoon. She curls up with them in the end, and goes to sleep, happy for a time.

As Hubert Selby says, in an interview with Ellen Burstyn (true story: I landscaped for her many, many years ago), he delivers catharsis-free, brutal narratives, but the consistent reaction he has gotten is that his work inspires compassion.  This makes sense to me.  Sometimes to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you have to see what they suffer.  It was not his intention: he was describing the world he knew, but on balance I think his work seems to have been beneficial.

And he makes the point that the key to ending suffering is to embrace it.  It is counter-intuitive, but it works.

I have a personal story, but it will bring up some feelings I am not going to process this moment.  Maybe tomorrow.

I saw, though, that he is sometimes included as one of the Beats, presumably because he deals with what we might generalize to the “Invisible People”.  The people you know are there–the people sleeping on the sidewalk, shooting up in an abandoned house somewhere, selling their bodies and dignity for intermittent moments free of pain–but about whom you don’t want to think.  They are too fucked up, you think.  There is nothing you can do for them.  They are not “one of us”.

I continue to dream of a great offensive into the world of pain, into the world of suffering.  But nothing large can be built overnight, and until I heal myself, I am myopic and as likely to do harm as good.

I will say, though, that I have suffered greatly for this dream, and will continue to do so, as long as needed until I punch through to the other side.

If we had kept Jeff Sessions seat, Jeff Flake likely would not matter.

I don’t know what is floating through Jeff Sessions brain, but he seems to have no problem with everyone treating Rod Rosenstein as the de facto head of the DoJ.

It seems to be some combination of failed wits and spinelessness.

I will say, though, as far as the investigation, the FBI can and should question the two men who claimed to be the actual assailants.  It may be possible to acquit Kavanaugh completely.  They can give the two men immunity for sworn testimony, and we can put this thing to rest beyond any reasonable objection, which is the goal.

Self evidently, the mouth frothing, shouting, and shit hurling will continue no matter what. If Trump nominated someone with the history and judicial views of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Democrats would still hate them.  They hate everybody, if Trump likes them.

But the hard core Left is no more than 10% of the country, and the useful idiots, added to their numbers, constitute in my own intuitive opinion no more than perhaps 30% of the country.  This leaves an overwhelming majority CAPABLE of being outraged by the abuse of our system, if they can be persuaded that is what is happening.  And after all that, that should not be hard.

Let’s hope the FBI gets a quick confession, and it all goes away.  Failing that, let’s hope Senate Republicans DO hold a vote one week from now.  Poll numbers will also be out by then, and unless I miss my mark, even moderate Democrats would do well to support this nomination, particularly if they face credible challengers. 

Nobody wants to see that shit show again, other than complete lunatics, which means it would be complete lunacy giving the Democrats back control of ANYTHING.

The world never stops moving.  But we can, from time to time, stop moving with it.

The world is much bigger than any of us, and it has more than enough power to crush us all.  That is why we need to stand apart sometimes, focus on what we value, focus on what matters to us in our lives, focus on what is great in our lives, focus on the people we care about, and remember what is merely whispering, and thus unheard in the noisy jungle of our 24/7 digital world.

To hear what is quiet, you need to be silent.

What the hell?

Let a couple FBI agents ask people who have already rendered sworn depositions that they were not lying.  Let them see if someone who could have come forward didn’t.  Let them verify the secondary accusations have no evidence to support them whatever.

One week: I can live with that.  It’s the Democrats who can’t.

One person on my Facebook said “it’s do or die time for the Democrats”.  I pondered it, and there is some truth to this.  They are hurting their “brand”, in my view at least, just prior to an important election.  And if even after these antics they still fail, well, what good are they to their base? And God knows few of us are crazy enough to want them running Congress.  As several have pointed out, imagine this madness on steroids, which is what an impeachment vote–I will note, for NOTHING, since there are no crimes Trump has committed–would be.

And why would anyone want to go through even THIS again?  Sweet Lord that was traumatizing for the whole country, and it was ONE HUNDRED PERCENT the Democrats fault.  They could have avoided all that.  Instead, they steered towards it, and made it unavoidable.

If you thought that was great, then by all means vote Democrat, and hope they win.

If you are among the millions of us who thought that that was AWFUL, and should never be repeated, ever, then vote Republican.

I’m still no fan of Jeff Flake, but if this is his price, I for one think the deal is worth it.  Let’s get this done. Let’s just confine it to one week. No more delays.  Set the vote now, for 1:30 next Friday or something.  Not a near eternity, which is becoming a synonym for a unit of time I will call the Mueller.

This eliminates, or reduces, one talking point, and by now I think that, as is the case with Trump, the fact that so many partisan zealots have dug so deeply into every last detail of his past and found nothing, indicates that he is much BETTER than most Americans, and oceans better than his accusers, most of whom would not last five minutes.

You there, the one reading.  Ponder your past.  Is there nothing in there someone could not use to spin a tale about you that eager minds would believe readily because they WANTED to, and stupid minds would believe because they are STILL incapable of realizing they are lied to most of the time, about nearly everything?

Do you want to retire as the man most responsible for granting victory to the use of character destruction as a political tool?

The FBI cannot investigate nearly four decade old charges, which the alleged victim HERSELF cannot remember details about.  The only POSSIBLE evidence is witness evidence, and most people can’t remember accurately what happened yesterday, much less last week, much less last year.

Do YOU remember the details of what you were doing 36 years ago?  Yes, if there was a traumatic event, perhaps you would remember some, but, again, the alleged victim HERSELF is missing most of the salient details.  If ANYONE should remember the where and when, it is the person claiming victimhood.  No one around her can be expected to even approach her memory, so this is the BEST CASE.

Combine this with her patent hyperpartisanship, and the fact that two men have come forward claiming to be the ACTUAL assailants, and you have an opportunity to do the right thing, or to end as a fucking goat. Your call.

Edit: and I will note the American Bar Association is demeaning itself.  They are apparently run by Democrat ambulance chasers and victimhood tort lawyers.  The FBI has no jurisdiction, and as lawyers, they should know that.

These are criminal allegations, and as such it is relevant no charges have been filed because, as I keep noting, THERE IS NO CASE.