The conservative Intelligent Design movement....(brief comment)

[This is, with some additions, what I posted on the AlterNet message board for one of the
stories re ID and its effect/methods to deal with it in the classroom - http://www.alternet.org/story/22039 ]

The Real Threat of Evolution.... -->Posted by: Aureantes on May 24, 2005 11:29 PM -->

...is the idea that these bass-ackwards, head-in-the-sand creationists might possibly not be at the top of their own evolutionary ladder. That the best of humanity might lie elsewhere than in the ranks of the faithful, that a conservative politician in a three-piece-suit might be someday as outdated as a pithecanthropus, that America might not be the greatest country in the world, that the status quo of the good old days might need some revision and growth after all, even reinterpretation--in short, the very simple-yet-complex fear of being superseded, both in reality and in the process of human consciousness, morality, honour, ethics, whatever they pride themselves on as a separation to keep from realizing that everyone and everything must keep on growing and learning and adapting in order to survive.

Personally, I believe in emanation, not creation--with a direction and purpose, yes, but not arbitrary, and certainly not dropping in a species from above to have dominion over the earth and its creatures. Biological domination, apart from environmental circumstance, takes intelligence on the inside of a creature, not from the outside via deus ex machina.

The paranoia that's always lain at the heart of every religion-based scientific reactionary trend is the fear of being displaced from the center of the universe, from the apple of God's eye, from having unquestioned rulership and exploitation rights over all. It happened with astronomy, it happened with evolution, and now people are still trying to drag it back into that literal Ptolemian egotism that allows no doubt as to plan or priority, and conflate it withall their other fears as well. In short, they're afraid of not being the superior species, or type, or culture. Creationists fear for their existence, because they have reduced it themselves to such an absolute of domination or utter helplessness, irrelevance in the scheme of things. Therefore they must bolster their delusions and try to force others to believe them as well. If not, they just might become...well, extinct. >:)

Pharmacists (and others) w/ incapacitating moral scruples....

Original Date: Sat Jun 11, 2005 3:05 am

[Posted as reply in another group, in response to a member opining it
wrong to "coerce" pharmacists to fill prescriptions against their
moral beliefs.]
==========================================
"I'm with you except for one thing: passing a law obligating
a pharmacist (or anyone else) to do something against their moral
principles is a NO-NO in my eyes. If the pharmacist won't fill
someone's script because of moral objections, then take it up
with the store manager and get someone else or some other company to
fill your script. Enough people going to the store manager or
another company about their script not being filled on moral
principles will ultimately result in removal of pharmacist X to a
different job.
To force an unwilling pharmacist to fill a script against
his/her moral code is just as bad as any other form of coercion.
As for me, I'm strictly pro-choice."]
=================================================================

If a pharmacist refuses to fill prescriptions given to him
(and incidentally, I sincerely doubt that any female pharmacists are
having these "moral" dilemmas), than why the heck is he in the
profession?

A pharmacist is by definition the person who dispenses medications at
the express request/order or a physician. Call it enabling, whatever-
-that's their function, deal with it. They dispense drugs. They can
keep whatever suspicions or doubts or dislikes they want as to the
uses involved, but a valid prescription legally ought to be honoured--
or, information given as to another pharmacy that will not be so
(pardon the term) "obstructionist".

It is /not/ part of their job to second-guess either the physician's
judgement or the patient's needs, regardless of their own personal
beliefs. I live in Illinois, and I'm glad that Gov. Blagojevich
(yes, I can spell his name w/o looking it up) had the extreme
common sense to pass this measure telling pharmacists to fulfill the
logical duties of their job.

Aurey

(Chronically and unmedicatedly intellectual :P )

_______________________________________________________________________
Furthermore...... (I added)

Most consumers are sheep when it comes to complaining to stores and
getting any positive changes out of it. In some areas, going to
another pharmacy may be extremely difficult if not impossible. Free-
market economics are not always operating under free conditions,
contrary to the gospels of Ayn Rand.

And most of all, have you NOT NOTICED that this whole idea of
protecting "moral beliefs" in the workplace is basically a cover for
Christian right-wingers in any/all professions to refuse to do
their jobs without bias or prejudice, to withhold services and
information selectively according to their own opinions and not the
real needs of the patient, customer, client or student?

That means all medical personnel, high-school counselors (guidance
and school psychologists), librarians, public-school teachers,
police officers, and everyone else whose job description ordinarily
and properly states that they are not to let their own moral scruples
interfere with the actual job at hand, nor let them favour any person
above another in terms of attention or quality of care,
confidentiality, dignity, and civil rights.

Some people, in case you've forgotten, do not 'morally believe' in
civil rights.

All told, I'd rather 'coerce' them all to err on the side of putting
another's /needs/ above their own /preferences/. Anyone got a moral
problem with that?

Aurey

Isn't an "unwinnable" war more useful, though?

 

Some people I've read criticise George W. Bush for not having fully realized the size and complexity of the task of "securing" peace and freedom (and cooperative oil contracts) within Iraq -- they say he's an idiot and all manner of other derogatory things.  They refer back to his drunkenness, his drug use, anything to make the point that this guy has no idea where he's goin, what he's doing, or why he's dragging the rest of us into the firing line ahead of him.

 

Please, folks--this man is more canny than you know.  After all, who else in American Presidential history had the blinding foresight to spend his time and energy in college not on any piffling particular of discipline like law or political science but on the essential business of schmoozing itself.  Socio-political networking and buddy-building was his real major, as the Bush vs. Kerry duo-documentary "The Choice 2004" (Frontline) conveyed very objectively and clearly, and for that he no doubt should have been valedictorian rather than maintaining only "gentleman's 'C's" in his studies.  Diplomacy?--he's a master of it, so long as it suits his current needs.  This is not a stupid man, and his choices for foreign policy and personnel are not mere diplomatic gaffes but do have, mirabile dictu, a method that underlies them.

 

So....who ever said that Bush really wanted a winnable war?  Having the war ongoing does two very useful things: it keeps him in power through the threat that no other leader would be firm enough to sustain the "good fight" that he has fabricated, and it provides a rationale for whatever civic austerity measures and reactionary/repressive legislation he and his bunch want to put through.  It nicely blurs over the slow-but-steady erosion of security for the average person, as they are after all merely sharing a small part in the uncertainty and patriotic suffering of our forces overseas.  He takes on the doubting world as a Crusader king, an image that conjures up to many more of heroism and virtuous triumph than of the necessary feudalism and total monarchic rule that made such ventures imaginable upon the backs of the people.  As I think has been amply demonstrated by resent disclosures (such as certain memos/minutes?), Bush wanted a war, and a big flashy one to cover up cold-blooded actions with the hot-blooded exploits and drama of extended combat.  Peace, and the leisure of critical thought and close examination that it brings, is his real enemy.

 

Just like in "1984", the war is never really meant to be won and completed, no matter how the opponent shifts in name -- it's the guilt-complex-inducing background noise of 'our' troops dying that's meant to keep us docilely in line, and the threat of terrorism in response to 'our' own acceleration of insults and injuries to the rest of the world that is meant to keep us afraid of changing horses in mid-stream -- even if a different horse (perhaps one with actual combat experience to temper/hone his ideology?) would have seen the mess and gotten us the hell out of the swamp we're in by now.

Pre-emptive wars = "Weapons of Mass Distraction"....isn't that a catchy line?

 
Anyhow--do give the man a little credit.  I think he knows exactly what he's doing here.

 

============================================

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_________________________________________________

Fifteen minutes of fame....what Andy /really/ meant, dammit!

The most famous Andy Warhol quote of 'em all, now a household phrase invoked at every opportunity for fame, fortune, visibility, et cetera....and yet, we regard it as a ration, a set and finite span of time to be used or wasted and then--"out, out, brief candle"--no more.

Personally, in that spirit I haven't even begun to nibble at my own fifteen minutes, barely done a thing to try and seize the spotlight for myself. Why?--because it might be for the wrong reason. I don't want to waste my time on something that might be unworthy, petty, something less than all that I'm supposed to be and to show. Some people, you can tell when their fifteen minutes has come--there's a completion you can feel, that in a way this event, this issue encapsulates them, and they aren't going to turn up again, in news or in memory, except in relation to that one thing. A one-trick pony, perhaps, a one-hit wonder. The ironing is delicious.

Some people, on the other hand, may show up in the radar beam--even in the highest levels of celebrity--but you get a feeling they're not done yet--their story/saga/movie of the week has yet to receive its final draft from the writing team; there's still another twist or two to come in the theme before one can close the casefile.

And yet, what did Andy really mean? What he really said was, "In the future everyone will have fifteen minutes of fame." Not that that was a maximum allowance--more of a minimum lifetime requirement, I'd say.

And yes, it was a typical idealistic-artistic manifesto-ish thing to say...but do you see where he's coming from there? It's like a sabbatical rest-day law, or mandated health benefits....everyone deserves, everyone will, by virtue of their equal rights as human beings, be guaranteed fifteen minutes of fame. Absolute, word-on-the-street, everybody-knows-your-name fame. People will think of you, will notice you, will not ignore you. You will be a somebody. Everybody will be somebody. Nobodies of the world, unite--we shall not be invisible.

And of course, as most manifestos are apt to see far less than the original lofty spirit of their intent, we have a degraded version of that around us constantly now. Reality TV--game shows--lotteries--contests (and their underminings) that have far less to do with worth or quality or dignity than with the most atavistic drives for attention. People will eat maggots for attention, dress up in a cow costume for a singing audition, sell their bodies for advertising space, expose themselves and fight with their families and lovers onstage...anything to be noticed.

Does anyone see the desperation here, that after so much time this situation of fame has become even worse than before?--that there's a Never-Neverland (geez, thank you, Jacko...) of the "celebrity" world, which we hope to connect to if we're lucky, and then the everyday world of "real people" scrabbling to get out of the general crab-pail?

Look at that, and look at the socio-economic situation. Look at the gaps and the poverty of attention, how fleeting it is and yet how far people will go on a hope to escape their poor anonymity. Andy Warhol may have been a total pop-culture flake, but when it comes to fame his dream of the future has yet to be realized in its real and revolutionary form.

Argument re certain celebrities and their (fans') politics.....

"Pre-Election 2004 Fracas....(Aurey making trouble, like hyper-intellectual Bolshevik...)"

Old news, old bit of an affair online that I was involved in last year regarding David Soul's comments re the then-upcoming presidential election...but a large part of this this goes under the heading, actually, of why I do think that celebrities deserve to have their views listened to seriously--at least as seriously as anyone else's who hasn't got that level of visibility, or an audience of fans to care what comes out of their mouths.

This material was compiled 28 October 2004 from various posts, all commenters' names/mails/groups but mine are deleted for civility's sake. Altough I'm quite sure they'd try to have my head if they ever read this out in the open.....
=========================================
Date: Fri, 27 May 2005
From: "K. Aurencz Zethmayr"
Subject: Pre-Election Fracas....(Aurey making trouble, like hyper-intellectual Bolshevik...)

Here's the whole progression of things I actually said back then....there are a lot of things that other people said in the meantime which, as I mentioned, I still have saved in Daily Digest email-format. Anyhow.....*snickers*....enjoy...

==================================================
=====(28 October, 2004--to "Striped Tomato's Revenge")=====

Okay....this is a fight I'm still fuming over, but I guess it sums up
the insular nature of a lot of Starsky & Hutch fangroups, and of most fangroups
in general. I say one thing that happens to highlight political
opinion, and a whole firestorm fills the message lists...just
beautiful. And of course no one bothers to think about the content
of either "original message" here.

But anyhow--the subject line is perfectly readable, so anyone who
didn't want to read this can ignore/delete it in their mail without
further ado. I'm merely reversing the order of the original top-
posted reply and its catalyst-excerpt, so that maybe the whole
thought will have the effect I originally meant.

DM/Aurey

==========================================================
Subject: Re: Why does David live in Britain? ("Talking
politics".....)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
--- [previous message, name and group deleted]
Hi all,

I just found this wonderful article obviously written by David that
tells us all about, why he came to England in the first place and a
lot more, too. Enjoy!

My home is where my art is
When David Soul was growing up on the
prairies of America's Midwest, he never imagined that, aged 61, he'd
be sitting in a grey council office, pledging his allegiance to the
Queen of England. Here, he explains how it happened...
20 October 2004

The initiation ceremony at the Haringey Civic Centre was sweet and
warm, not unlike early memories of being welcomed by the principal on
the first day of school... except that then, with my hand over my
heart, I would have pledged allegiance to the United States of
America.
[.......]
British citizenship does not mean that I am cutting my ties with
America. My children and my ageing parents still live in the States,
so I'll be visiting them, and I will be voting in the US presidential
election next month (if my vote actually gets counted). God help us
if George Bush is re-elected. Still, my choice is to belong here, and
in that belonging, I rejoice. Finally.
[.......]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
[and then my reply, based on that statement and well-apparent concern
for the integrity of the voting/election process]

Okay, I'm going to take a wild guess that no one here had any
intention of talking politics (just like some of my mother's
relatives...).

Nevertheless, I'm going to break the ice with a proverbial
sledgehammer and say, damn right!!--God help this country and the
whole world if we get another four years of Bush. I am sick and
tired of being ashamed of this nation's actions under the Bush
Administration, and of our global reputation turning into that of an
incipient (if not manifest) Fourth Reich. I was raised to believe in
integrity and social ethics, not to mention to think for myself--I
guess being educated in the post-Watergate spirit tends to do that to
a person.

The blind nationalism, greed, and self-righteous arrogance I have
seen over the past four years have cost us dearly both in lives and
in quality of living, and they have gravely set back the cause of
humanity itself in the world. The United States is being tested--in
rather literally Biblical fashion, though most seem curiously blind
to this--and I certainly pray it can muster itself to pass the ordeal
and regain its honour, for the sake of all.

There. Now I'm going to go back to work on making politically-
incendiary gravestones for the front yard...I'll blend them in with
the rest of the ghastly decor......

Aurey

(now trying to figure out just where the gulags will most logically
be established in a second-term Bush presidency....

.........................................................................
===(elapsed time of indirect arguing over all this)===

"OT": Personal/Political, Fiction/Reality

[general letter]

I have to say, I'm really quite amazed that with all the ruckus this caused on the list, no one posted here to address me in the least over having started it. But then, I'm hardly a member of the fantelligentsia by nature.

At any rate, I am making this letter perfectly conspicuous for any reader to ignore and delete unread, as some of you seem of a type to do. But I thought perhaps, if you *had* gotten upset over my comments, you just might care to hear the reasoning behind them, and my own response to some of the reactions that have been going on around me.

First off: my comment was not technically "off-topic"--it was on the topic of part of what David said in his article. The fact that it happened to to be agreeing with and elaborating on a "political" statement, as opposed to any other topic, is of no importance save to those who avoid "talking politics" (i.e., hearing any actual challenge to their views, no matter what they are or how shallowly formed) like the plague.

And logically, I would *never* have posted such a comment gratuitously on this list. I own about ten groups myself, of various kinds--so I understand the importance of keeping things relevant. I also indicated clearly what the salient facet was of the message that I was responding to--i.e., "talking politics". Right there in the title line. Anyone who actually *wanted* to avoid talking politics could have simply ignored or deleted right there instead of complaining indirectly for the better part of a week.

Enough of that point, though...what really surprises me, in this group, is how many people seem to assume that a person's personal life and values can be discretely separated from the political views resulting therefrom, and the end choices (so far as elections go) conveniently ignored.

If I really care about and admire a person and their work, celebrity or not, I am truly interested in how they think, what they feel, what goes on in their life and the choices they have made therefrom. That's acknowledged, at least with a token sensitivity, as a major part of every fangroup I've ever seen.

So what makes it so taboo to mention the "politics" side of this when it's impossible to make a clear division between personal and political, between values and the choices that are made thereby? At least they indicate that a person *is* thinking, *is* operating according to some strongly-formed principles.

Just about every "serious" fangroup that I have seen about David and Paul takes note of and promotes their areas of activism as well as their creative work. And these do not come out of any frivolous or self-aggrandizing motivations, either, as I am well aware. And yet somehow, when it comes down to the wire of who they'd vote for, a person can seriously and hopefully say, "Well, people do change"?

So, there's the other tack--"Ah well, too bad they're flawed by not agreeing with my views" (paraphrasing of course)--let's all just get away from reality and focus on fiction, think about the boys and how sexy they are...rather than for a moment realizing that that very fiction is *not* the opposite of reality.

For heaven's sakes, this was a rather topical and explicitly-drawn TV series to begin with, and even the sheer sense of social purpose itself draws a line that is hard to ignore. Names may well not be named, "but the problems are real"--and whenever you have real problems, and realistic characters who deal with them and battle the real underlying evils of the system in which they live...well, where exactly are you hoping to escape to?

Off-duty utopias, perpetually, I suppose--places where it doesn't matter that even fictional characters are shaded with motives and values too, and that beneath the surface of sex appeal--and ingrained *with* the emotional closeness and loyalty that we all can see and resonate with--there are some elements of this that just might draw near to "political views" as well, applied to this same situation at hand.

But you're all quite free to ignore such niggling thoughts.

DM/Aurey

P.S.--Anyone who actually wishes to argue with me off-list is welcome to do so--I am not averse to challenge, and the only thing I ask is well-supported views. Actual evidence, if you will--and logic, not hearsay.

==================================
From: "David Michael Starsky" <aureantyev@y...>
Date: Thu Oct 28, 2004 7:08 am
Subject: Re: "OT": Personal/Political, Fiction/Reality [LAST POST

--- In ----, ----... wrote:

This discussion was ended last night and will remain so but since
you seem to think it was so on topic I've pasted your email Friday Oct 22
below. No where in that post was David or Paul mentioned. It was clearly
you stating your political opinions. It didn't belong on this list nor did
the responses.
This is the last post I'm going to make on this. I repeat take it
off list.
(name deleted)

Dear (name deleted)--

"This discussion" (meaning the original one) was ended, so to speak,
unilaterally, without any resolution save that of censorship--and
frankly, the email of mine that you so thoughtfully provided was also
thoughtfully truncated of what I was actually referring/replying to

Which was the relevant paragraph of David's article where he says,
and I quote exactly, "God help us if George Bush is re-elected." I
happened to agree with him very emphatically on that sentiment, and
that was the sole reason why I posted as I did--i.e., because it was
not my opinion alone. Thank you so much for taking my remarks out
of their original context and totally misrepresenting my intentions.

Would it have been technically on-topic just so long as I mentioned
his name directly?

That latest "OT" post, btw, was a 'new' topic in the sense of trying
to bring up some general issues relative to Paul and David and their
personal values without naming other names or making any specific
political issue of it again.

But again, thank you for assuming my complete ill intentions. I have
no intention of posting anymore here on the "forbidden" topic--and if
you wish to argue against me directly on this matter, please come
off-list and do so. My case is closed as of this post.

DM/Aurey

===================================(and the last exchange here)===

-- In ----, ----... wrote:
How come people are allowed to talk about RED SOX but not politics?
Who are RED SOX and what sport do they play? I guess Paul supports them,
that's why we are allowed to talk about them? Just as we are allowed to talk
about politics because, in his recent article, David talks about not wanting Bush
to win?
With the election only a week away I guess this subject would have died a
natural death in a week or so anyway but its very hard not to be interested in
how David and Paul feel about the election of the most powerful man in the
world. **name deleted**

(Trying not to mention that I am inclined to believe that all those not
wanting the thread to continue were Republicans)

Oh, of course they are (I reply confidentially from the site)....and moreover, they know that they haven't got a leg to stand on logically...therefore making the topic off-limits is the only way to make sure their own opinions aren't critically assaulted, demolished, etc.

Personally, I think that most of the people who say they're voting for Bush, even though his policies will only hurt them more in the long run, are actually secretly afraid 'cause they haven't real evidence to back him on--only propaganda and peer pressure. Still, they're even more afraid of being proven wrong in their trust, and pride is a powerful force. Even though the only people in this country who can trust in Bush have to be making at least $200,000 a year to afford that luxury of ignoring the good of everything and everyone else--if they so choose.

But hey...as the Talmud says (and I quote this off the tag of an herbal tea bag), "You can educate a fool, but you cannot make him think."

I think that's the lesson for the past week, actually...

Aurey

"...the howling vacuum of anonymity...."

Whatever inequities (and we all know there are many) our modern society holds, one of the greatest disparities--and sources of despair, I may as well add--is the attention gap that lies between "celebrities"/other "personalities" and the rest of the world. It's greater than the economic gap and keeps growing every day in the world at large; it's fueled by all the tempestuous tension of a teenage love affair. Same needs, same primal and aching needs--to be known, to be seen. And for millions of people those needs are denied, distracted, pushed under the red carpet. Most of the people in the world are ignored, unrecognized, unremembered until the hour of their deaths and then ever after--like prophets unaccepted in their own countries, their gifts and potentials never fully realized by those closest to them, never given that blessing of sight from those in whose presence they live.

Given no honour--given no credit, really, because there's this deepdown strong-rooted thing that, based in our own general need for attention, draws most of us to hitch our wagons to the momentarily brightest stars, the ones that everyone can see, hoping that they will draw us up as well, like Cyrano de Bergerac's championship-bullsh***ing ruses of getting to the moon (Act III of Rostand's play):

"With crystal vials filled with morning dew,
And so be drawn aloft, as the sun rises,
Drinking the mist of dawn!
[...]
Or again,
Smoke having a natural tendency to rise,
Blow in a globe enough to raise me."

Smoke in a globe--apt enough, to hope to rise aloft by the smoke of one's own incense, prayers and devotions and sacrifices to your Well-Known God...and don't think that I haven't been there, done that myself. If I didn't know the phenomenon well, and from both sides moreover, do you think I'd have this bitterness to sharpen my words?

Love is an energy--hate is an energy...all attention that we give is energy spent, channeled onto another or onto ourselves. Nathaniel Hawthorne said that the strongest instincts of hate and revenge were as powerful as the deepest passion of love (this in The Scarlet Letter, re Roger Chillingsworth's pursuit of Arthur Dimmesdale to destroy him)--and we have proof through history that the worst thing you can do to people is not to hate them passionately as individuals but to group and dehumanize them en masse in one's mind, in one's actions and policies. Reducing people to statistics, demographics, religions, ethnicities, anything rather than giving them the dignity of their own identities.

When people are focused on each other at hand--in the closest forms of cameraderie and communion--their emotional energy flows to the other and back, strengthening each and all. When people are focused together on a common goal or adversary, their mutual energies gather and multiply, gaining force that may cause greater change than we can calculate or prove. When people focus together on one person as their leader or idol or sex symbol, that has a power too--but one that is unlikely to ever return benefit upon those who worship, unless this person in question truly has them in heart as well. Kings and dictators, I believe--politicians and televangelists and cult leaders, oh my--draw on this power widely to strengthen themselves, as if it were a net of devotion sustaining them, keeping them from mortal harm, feeding them out of their followers' own lives. And even the gods themselves (anyone watch old Star Trek episodes lately?) cannot hold their sway without the worship of mortals...

But gods are supposed to answer the plaints of their votaries, and kings have duties as well as rights if they want their homage and tributes to keep coming without relying entirely on force of arms. Sending your attention out to all that which does not answer and cannot help you--i.e., the "professional" world of celebrities--does you no good...it's only a fantasy. If you're going to choose idols, choose them wisely. Choose them for actual reasons and virtues, not just their good looks and the trend of the moment. Choose them for what they change and make better (or reveal better) in the real world, not just for being addictive distractions from a lackluster life. And try to notice other people, closer people a little bit more, to give their real lives some serious airtime, not just a passing blurb...and remember that celebrities are just people too, in every good and bad and human way.

"...The howling vacuum of anonymity"...the best phrase I've ever read to describe these times, and the one that finally got me writing on something I've felt and railed against for years. It struck me like a bolt the first time I read that speech, as that thought, that thing is something that I've always felt lies at the core of this nation's particular dysfunctionality, and exacerbates every other poverty and injustice here. The vast chasm that lies between those that everyone knows and those whom nobody knows--whether they're good or bad, idiots or geniuses, rich or poor, wrong or right. The fact that we can see some people on TV and in the news and talk about them, fantasize about them, argue about their guilt or innocence, send them our love and our hate, and yet not shed the same light for each other, not give a damn. Such a gross imbalance of attention as we have in the United States--and exported from it--is practically obscene. And when I use that word, it harks back to my father referring to The Stroop Report--the verbatim and photo-facsimile report of the SS destruction of the Warsaw Ghettos in 1943--as the "the most obscene book in this house." Go figure a little deeper to understand that one...

So, yeah, I think it's serious--a serious enough thing that people live their lives craving for fame and attention, and thrive and feed or wither and die or blow their brains out one way or another if they don't find what they really want after all. I'm not saying that people never deserve the spotlight they have--after all, there are definitely those I look to and follow their careers out of admiration, appreciating what they've shown me for my own journey--but the glare of celebrity does tend to be...rather overblown.

And besides, why should the rest of us be living in darkness?


Next topic: What "fifteen minutes of fame" was supposed to mean...

Look at the finger, look at the finger....[spinning Memogate]

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The best minds of our generations....

I felt a strong vibe just before I steeled myself and told my brother that Hunter S. Thompson was dead, that I'd read it in one of my mailgroups and then in the daily headlines. Was just reminded--and then reminded again. It was a feeling of numb despair, and it wasn't mine...

I'm not sure what I'm hearing, what I'm feeling now. This is the sort of thing where you think, well, if even he couldn't laugh it off scathingly, what does that say about where the future stands, what are we facing here? Because I don't doubt for a second that it's the state of this nation/empire, even as the rest of the civilized world seems to be evolving and learning from its mistakes, that would lead an American of such stature to put a bullet through his head.

We are regressing here, backsliding insidiously via loopholes and legislation riders and myriad condonings back towards an idyllic-framed mediaevalism, feudalism, whatever will satisfy the demands of the rich and their corporate interests. Blink as a bill goes through and you'll see nothing changed on the surface--compare the national views of a week, a month, a year...and you start to see more than you want to. The various layers of state and federal and local obscure it, if you look too closely at one or the other--but see the big picture, and the big words, and the shapes are clear. And you ask yourself, if you haven't already, is this actually my country?--the one I used to believe in as an ideal??

And maybe the answer is no. Maybe the most certain thing in this brave new world is the acceptance of lies and those who spread them, and the vilification of those who assert that "the truth" has any meaning. After all, the truth changes nothing--it has not yet raised up any Senate Investigatory Committees or other dei ex machinae, because there is no independent power left in the legislature to move that mountain, no matter what our faith. The system has been gradually hamstrung while its citizens were distracted by war--the strings are all leading right into the White House, with all action under the 'yea or nay' shadow of a single political party that has been gathering its forces and wish lists for decades. We are even now living in a state of unconstitutional lawlessness, whatever the official line of the day might be.

In such a time as this, one longs for Victor Hugo, for Emile Zola, for Aldous Huxley, for Fyodor Dostoyevsky, for Albert Camus, for George Bernard Shaw, for George Orwell, for Eric Hoffer--for everyone who has stepped to the forefront of their times, boldly or subtly, and cut through the crap to say what needs saying. We want their voices along with Bill Moyers, Noam Chomsky, Kurt Vonnegut, and all the rest of us here--everyone with the gift of words--to clarify, to show the subtle, to speak the truth and give it back its power before it's all stolen away in more distractions, more violence, less bread and more circuses but always the promise that we're getting better and better every day...

National improvement is not a natural process. It takes stern will and honesty, and willingness to plan for the future not for immediate gratification, whether it be misleading tax cuts or being able to gamble away your own retirement money unhindered. It takes looking at the needs of all people, regardless of whether they go to church or not, or how much they gave your campaign or that of your opponent--it takes intelligent humanity, not just the will of some God whose name and supremacy you latch to your cause...and "humanism" is not, must not become another dirty word, tainted with spin. Humanity is our ideal as humans, not a thing to be demeaned at every turn.

And it also takes the effort of those who will hold a nation to its own avowed ideals--the ones who will needle and nag, the ones who will deftly prick egos and tip sacred cows, and test whether people practise what they preach in this still-ongoing (till further notice) "experiment in democracy." To cite last night's "most controversial episode ever," this country may even owe a great deal of its remaining intellectual freedom (and even capacity, I daresay) to "The Simpsons"--and I've said more than once, the day when that show is forced off the air is the day that we lose all intelligent media in America.

But here we have another defining event--though "forced off the air" is perhaps too blunt and implicating a term for what has been technically ruled a suicide. And in the wake of this passing, perhaps we can make sure that his signature spirit of reckless inquiry and irreverence to all things arbitrary never leaves but only grows stronger now, pulling more people out of the wings and the shadows, off of the sidelines here.

There is too much to be done to let Hunter S. Thompson be forgotten...or Arthur Miller...or anyone who has written things that need to be spoken again, and firmly, and unmistakeably. Time to set about cutting the crap.

"The Masque of the Mary Sue"

[This is specifically referring to the literary area of "fan fiction", but as usual I never quite stay within the lines...]

Bad...writing....hurts....

Physically and undeniably hurts to read it, and all the more so when you know it's being unfaithful to character/time/place/etc. as well.  That's why I very rarely hang around any fanfiction that isn't very overtly erotic/intimate, and most-preferably slash at that....because anything that has a hint of authorial wistfulness, mental prudishness or conventional idealism in it tends to overturn the balance of aesthetics in really insidious if not blatant ways.  And at least if it's just the 'original characters' developing relationships and making out, that means there's some halfway serious thought that had to go into planning and orchestrating the whole thing--not just plunking in someone new and shoehorning in a romance that has no firm basis in the rigours of actual character psychology.

I hate Mary Sues--I can smell 'em, I can hear their awkwardly eager manner of speech and self-description (oh, damn well do I know their scent after all this time with Ancient Pine Resin...or Pine-Sol, as represents both her Circean-solar nature and the natural desire to wash out all one's direct memory of her after parting ways.  Fire may have purified 'salem's Lot, but I'm still working on the appropriate exorcisms for this one...)--and even when there's no one technically there in the verbal flesh, I can tell where her spirit lingers near, meddling and manipulating and making characters do what they never would in any saner state. 

That is, the Mary Sue is the manifest Avatar of an immature ego trying to justify itself in words. I will give her that--after all, I was once in that stage myself, trying to make exact mirrors and reinvent the wheel before I started to see the keener and more fragmented reflections of selfhood all around me.  Most of all signs in the world of human expression, the blatantly ideal and aggressively omnipresent Mary Sue character is proof that the authors do not yet know themselves as they naturally are, much less well enough to let other people/characters be as they naturally are.  Because, of course, the Mary Sue is the center of her own universe as presented to others, and she displaces or warps all existing characters around her to suit her needs, whatever their normal and sane reactions would be to whatever she does--in short, there is never the slightest chance allowed that she will be rejected in the end, that her image will be objectively tarnished, that her dreams will fail, because she's not a real character in the first place--just an intrusion of the power/s-that-be into this appropriated world.  Nothing can stand against her, not tradition nor fact nor logic.  She is the incarnation of a determined Demiurge, and has all the attendant modesty of Jehovah (no matter what sweet and self-minimizing words may be put in her mouth at any given time--"Why me, out of all the other girls...?"--"I'm just a normal person..."--et cetera, ad infinitum...) 

Why her?--because it's likely all the writer has of him/herself so far, and more than anything there's the fear of losing one's nominal "uniqueness"--and therefore every personal detail must be agonised over (insofar as one's capable of agonising), every facet polished exactly in the mind's eye, no matter how little of this preparation will actually cross over into the details of "reality" here.  In a more experienced writer or actor this is called building the character--but here, where character itself has not yet been recognised and developed, this building is merely surface presentation, and the object beneath the gilding as insubstantial as a wraith...having as its closest legitimate relative the incorporeal form which tenants and vivifies the blood-soaked vesture and stiffened mask of the Red Death itself.

Edgar Allan Poe knew good writing when he saw it, and knew where to aim the pointer at a story's flaws.  And no doubt he would recognise the Masque of the Mary Sue as well, as he had much experience in dealing with the society poetesses and authoresses of his day--I make no judgement as to their literary ability per se--since it has always been a tendency of the feminine awareness, or at least its typical situation, to write forth fantasies where there is no chance to live them out in the physical world.  There might not have been the phenomenon of "fan fiction" in his day (unless it started covertly with Werther instead of with Sherlock Holmes), but I'm sure he would recognise the type.

Perhaps he might also--I do need to check my dates to be sure--relate it to a specific character--and one of the most famous in the history of first-person literature, that created by the pseudonymous "Currer Bell", aka Charlotte Bront:e.  Is Jane Eyre a Mary Sue?--a governess like the author, poor and persecuted yet virtuous and rewarded in the end with the love of a brooding Byronic hero, her prime flaw being her "passionate nature", and the situations of her life being all-so-closely related to the popular novels and classics of her day?    

But the answer there must be a subtle but certain "no"--because Jane Eyre is a real character in her own life, is plain and small and unvarnished and consciously self-doubting as to her own real character, suffers all the mistakes and slips and tarnishments of a real character, does not live in a fairytale world with a fairytale ending but deals with a world of tragedies and unrightable wrongs and disappointments like a real character--no, like a real person, let us say.  Her existence is perhaps drawn from that of her creator, but she does not exist merely to live out vicarious pleasures and goals, whether of status or wealth, romance or unbounded popularity.  She lives within a fully-delineated/shaded story, and its plot-shapes are not necessarily any kinder to her than to any other character, whatever old-fashioned contrivances within them may catch the eye.  Her resemblance to Charlotte Bront:e is one of conscious causality, not of glossing-up and glorification...

And so perhaps Poe would recommend that book, as I do, to anyone looking to get past themselves and learn to write characters with actual skill and nuance and humour and details drawn out of a familiar world. It certainly couldn't hurt...

"Jane, here's your mission...."

("Onegin, Tatiana--you come too...")

When the crazies and cults take over....

[Note: I'm not gonna say what I'm actually watching on TV at the moment (6.40pm CST, Chicago suburbs), because you might take this less seriously on account of it being catalyzed by a piece of pop culture...but I will say that this episode does have a slightly polarizing effect on a person's perceptions. Anyone who gets that reference wins the key to the planetarium...good for getting over those white nights...]

The frightening thing is not that there are fanatics and rabid ideologues in the world, or even the fact of their belief in itself, but the moment when you realize that you're in their world now, and that they've been pulling the strings far longer than you thought. When the insane becomes accepted routine all around you, and the sane is vilified and belied like the sun being just a big idealised table lamp, a lion being a hyped-up pussycat, and nothing you firmly believe in is given the credit of its own truth but just used as an empty shell of words, filled with whatever they want, shifting like desert sands in the prevailing wind...where hashisheen hold sway and no one calls their bluff, and maybe you even start to think, "well, what if they're right...?"--what if their vision makes some sense, what if the God or power they worship truly is the only thing and all logic and commonsense humanity dust in its sight...?

When you hear the urge of the herd boil up in chants and salutes and sacred signs, when the meaning of a single life becomes nothing atall compared to the great Leader, the great Idea...wherever men do not hold their own lives as forfeit for killing, but die--and fervently--so that they may kill, then the crazies have taken hold. It happens all over the world and we condemn it. It happens with strange names and foreign-looking faces and we call it evil. But what do we do when it happens under familiar names, and "in the name" of those things we dare not refute in themselves, things wherein we've invested our faith as well?

Have we the keen discernment to slice through the veils of lies and spin, the twistings of dogma, the elaborate irrationalities held over our heads and closing in around us? The strength to step upon the drug-laced fire and quench its mind-fogging fumes, no matter that we get burnt for our witnessing?

No need to go looking afar for our soul's greatest threat, or a clear and present danger--it's right in our own backyard, and stuck like a beam in our collective eye. We have met the enemy and he is us, and perhaps the best thing in the world is for all the crazies of the world to go gather at Armageddon and kill each other off in the name of their beliefs, and leave the world to those who actually value their own humanity.

But then...it's just as likely that all or most of the crazies are already far in cahoots, strange bedfellows true but under the covers all the same--and with them running things as they like, making over the world in their own puristic, fundamentalist, orthodox images...

Would that it were only a jarring dream, and not one played out in all these waking hours.

"The dreamers of the day are dangerous men..."


We badly need a few good dreamers now.

Preternatural trifecta beat....(Scavenger Hunt #1)

"Yes, but can I dance to it.....?"

Okay, people, this is where I'm gonna get a little bit idiosyncratic and leave a few pieces out of the referential puzzle, seeing as I'm just a downright evil & sinister smartass at heart. Takes two to tango, but I'm not inclined to show all my steps--so I think I'll just give you the keyword search instead:

Keyword Search Results (there, that was simple enough...)

And then I'll say, isn't it interesting how many of us constantly underestimate, aye, even undermine the intellectual capacities and aesthetic discernment of those who don't happen to fit an established mould of the type we want all proper luminaries to be, and can't even appreciate their known qualities without typecasting them into being something that can be handled, labeled, kicked around with impunity...?

Maybe it's the nature of the pop celebrity business, that rewards pseudo-crossovers into a constructedly "classical" space as well as those "wild & crazy" "outside the box" forays--but all the same must categorize for its own categorical survival, and heaven help us if the homegrown tomatoes should mix with the cultivated gladiolii...either way, it's seemingly much easier to assume an elitist pretension in someone's words the closer it looks like--or worse, is--the real deal itself.

That is, intelligence, clarity, acuity, sensibilities. We (the mass of us) don't want that sort of thing to spoil our boys, to ruin the drunken frat-party. After all, if they showed a credible intelligence...they might be, on some level, actually better and smarter than those who consume the fruits of their labour--hey, and their labour itself might actually have some seriousness in it, something like craft and discipline, instead of just being what some lucky people get to do while the rest of us work our tails off trying to get by.

The world at large loves idols of the heart, not the head. It weeps and laughs with Paula Abdul, and boos and hisses at Simon Cowell, and it insists that really, really....all the famous people whose movements we follow aren't really any smarter or subtler than us, not in that hairsplitting or morally scathing sort of way (think of Marlon Brando, for example, or Orson Welles...)--they can have some wisdom, perhaps, but it has to be the homespun-&-homely heartwarming kind, that encourages without challenge, that inspires without really implying pain, or risk, or danger along the way of dreams. Safe celebrities--that aren't really any "better" than us--just our betters somehow in this great hierarchy of attention and soundbites and significant trends.

It would disarrange the system, in short--much as if an errant but popular prince delivered a speech fit for Whitehall. Unsettlement. Uncertainty. Chaos...in short, you have a ghastly mess--which is why all our flowergirls, by the way (I know, I jumped movies there), are best-liked while they retain their lower-class accents and say no more than is comical or flirtatious. Should they turn trenchant and succeed therein, the whole place would go up in flames....

Sorry, didn't mean to torch it like that...nothin' like a little flamboyant intellectualism...but seriously, folks--why is it that we either overlook or coo over the stupidest things that an airheaded ditz says about her aspirations, but let someone say something halfway of real consequence and suddenly they have to be dragged down by that good old stereotyping of themselves? Are we living in Harrison Bergeron's time already, by the way?--oh but yes, of course we are...it's been a guiding theme through the ages since that little stroll through a field lopping off the tallest stalks of grain, making sure no one sticks up too high, too clearly.


But then...I'm a tall stalk of grain myself by nature, and I know firsthand how people love to cut things down.

Selfhood and 'containing multitudes'....(part of my manifesto)

[This was first posted on the MSN group The Flowered Grave--I was responding indirectly to some rather exhortative meditations/catechisms that had been posted lately by another member, and directly to some poems posted by the group owner.]


From: Aureantes_ in response to Message 3
Sent: 2/18/2005 3:07 AM

Hmmm......I'm rather fond of all those great personalities too. Characters, even....or, as the saying goes, character is what you have when no one is looking.

My deliberate approach to life is like the opposite method of going around the world--the actor's and novelist's way. By maximizing and multiplying awareness of selfhood, a spark of spirit caught in circumstance, and living as many lives or slices-of-lives as possible, like Walt Whitman--"I am large, I contain multitudes" ("Song of Myself")--and Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "Renascence":

... I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence
But could not, -- nay! But needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out. -- Ah, fearful pawn!
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.

All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire,
--Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each, -- then mourned for all!

A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.

No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God. ....

A thorough odyssey there, to contain and feel all--but there, that's the whole thing, as Atticus Finch said in To Kill a Mockingbird, that you never know a man "till you've walked a mile in his shoes." Empathy carried toward its positive extreme exceeds individual selfhood, making each such contemplative a myriad light, less and less worried for his particular place and title and status even as he plays his own instinctive/allotted part. If you follow the dictum "Know thyself" and carry it to the nth degree of seeing yourself in others, others in yourself, than gradually this myriad light is multiplied times itself, onward and deeper and higher. Not that the personal self must disappear "in the end", but that its boundaries cease to matter, its own anxious self-definition ceases to be a need, for it is at home in the consummation of all selfhoods, all awareness. The culmination is bliss and paradox.

Here's some pages I came across while looking up these quotes--and a thesis I find (of course) extremely intriguing and valid:

http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage1.htm
http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage2.htm
http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage3.htm
http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage4.htm (with the Whitman quote of "contain multitudes")

Enjoy....

"Working for the man".....

[Alright.....this starts off me feeding this blog in earnest, with annotations and hyperlinks even, starting with a semi-personal post from today in one of my rather more recreationally topical groups--the site, if you find yourself intrigued atall, is
Striped Tomato's Revenge --and I think I'll just leave that all to speak for itself when you get there....anyhow, I did not get that job with the local police department.....though, the general commentary re jobs still stands as I reread this a good while later. You wanna know more about the fangs and blue eyes, check out Starsky & Hutch--BloodPromises...otherwise known (well, still unknown, mostly) as one of the most original and daring Starsky & Hutch roleplays ever concocted.....]
____________________________________________________

--- In stripedtomatosrevenge@yahoogroups.com, "David Michael Starsky"
wrote:

--- In stripedtomatosrevenge@yahoogroups.com, jill wrote:
> I love the fangs!!! And the blue eyes are awesome!!
>
> You actually WANT to work for the PD? You want to
> work for the man? What's wrong with you??!! Yeah,
> okay, a job's a job..I guess. DO they run a background
> check for that position?
>
> What is this "Research" you're doing????
>
> [....]


'Research' means watching S&H Season 2 episodes, in this case--they're running them out of order on Channel 23, so it's a little tricky as to exactly what'll come up when. So I watched "The Committee" before hitting the hay, basically.

And yeah...a job's a job, and this one pays pretty well. I'm technically well-qualified for it, but my main worry is just that I'm temperamentally too much a live wire for most regular jobs--if I can dominate the situation, that's fine, but I'm apt to clash with people on account of hating 'arbitrary authority' till proven otherwise. The main reason for trying for bein' a parking clerk, since the ad appeared in the paper, is that I wouldn't have to make or justify any decisions on my own account, whether I agree with them or not--only deal with people reasonably and tactfully according to what's on the books, which I *can* do. It's a bit Lawrence-of-Arabia-after-Arabia, in terms of abnegating individual discretion, but I hate being stuck in positions where it's a limbo of vague accountability. I either want to be completely responsible for things where I have the
widest latitude, or not have to be responsible for anything decision-wise besides getting the paperwork and data entries right and keeping people's tempers cool about it.

Plus, I see it as a learning experience more than anything else (besides having a steady income, of course). I see a lot of things that way--of course, sometimes all that it shows is how deeply unsuited I am to the rest of the workaday world, and how much I disturb the rest of them...that sort of thing. I'm just not the steady and consistent foundation upon which society is based.

There is a background check (and a drug test), but I myself can likely pass that--the worst they'd find is that I'm pretty much flat broke and 'living at home', unfortunately distractable when not securely employed, and that I should have applied for a deferment on my student loan payments a long time ago. Smart people need firm niches and/or higher academic credentials--I got "Leonardo da Vinci Syndrome" instead (one of my terms for ADD)...too many talents, not
enough definite footholds for a specialized world. Or, to put it another way, a foot in every pie and a finger in every door.

But really--and I'm assuming I'm not even going to make an interview for this thing--it's a bit the wrong time for me to have any wholly- positive regard for the establishment. I respect people for doing the best they can do in an often-thankless job, but that doesn't, unfortunately, change the facts of the climate in which we are living. The needs will always be there, but the priority of going about them will also always be a dicey and often-f**ked-up balancing process, and idealism--like stubbornness--is both a strength and a weakness of mine. So far as the whole establishment goes, I oughta be working as a profiler for the FBI or something--I have those skills, that overview of things--but how long do you think I'd last in any initial-foundational-literal process getting in, before I could get around to doing some good?

The same thing happens to teachers, too--the best ones, the ones with a vocation (I take that word very seriously) are often burnt-out on account of the training system itself before they have a chance to apply their vision and energy to the classroom...it's the ones who play it safe and burn dim-but-steady who get their earthly rewards, so to speak. The real point of the job is far too often obscured with its own trappings and hierarchy, and it takes a lot to persist through all that while retaining real passion and integrity for the work itself. To continue playing with fire analogies (hey, I started it in the last post anyhow...), the more of it you have, the more likely you are to either get burnt-out or burnt-up by the others around you. A person needs a whole lot of close moral support to keep going when those are the odds.

But I really should stop sermonising--or, as I said I was going to do, save it for my formal blog (I'll forward this to it directly, actually--ah, the wonders of modern technology). I had a rather odd dream involving royalty last night/this morning, in convenient metaphor--but that's another one to dissect elsewhere, I suspect...>:)

Glad you like the pics...I always say I'm "doing dastardly deeds" with Photoshop whenever I tinker with stuff like this.

DM/Aurey
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--- End forwarded message ---