So I took a test to see how Machiavellian I am. It is a few years old, but the idea of what it means to be a "Machiavel" has not changed. Of course it is always been off the mark, since Machiavelli was always more of a republican than an authoritarian, though these days it's easy to confuse the two. The test is alright, even though its basis is a false understanding of Machiavelli, but they needed to tie it to someone and HOBBS-IV just doesn't have the same ring I guess.
1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neutral, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree
1) Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so.
1 2 3 4 5
I put four down because it makes sense, you tell someone something because you think it is useful.
2) The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear.
1 2 3 4 5
I put a four down in this case because there are situations where it is better for you to tell someone the hard truth, or just plain tell them off.
3) One should take action only when sure it is morally right.
1 2 3 4 5
I put a three because I was unsure how they defined "morally right." My belief is no one ever does anything immoral willingly, that there is a confusion in their hearts or heads. What is moral is what people on some level already want. Now someone else will disagree with them, but they are doing what they think is moral, always. Hitler did what he thought was moral and we bombed the hell of Germany because we felt it was the moral thing to do to stop him.
4) Most people are basically good and kind.
1 2 3 4 5
I was in the middle here, people don't usually go out of their way to screw you, but they also are fairly impotent when it comes to helping others. People are self-interested, but not selfish.
5) It is safest to assume that all people have a vicious streak and it will come out when they are given a chance.
1 2 3 4 5
Plenty of experiments have confirmed this, as has my childhood experiences on the playground when no adults are watching.
6) Honesty is the best policy in all cases.
1 2 3 4 5
Sometimes you have to tell a little lie, but I find that lies get you into more trouble than honesty most of the time.
7) There is no excuse for lying to someone else.
1 2 3 4 5
The old murderer at the door problem, I know Kant would say this, but I believe better to lie to him than let the murderer find out from you where your friend is hiding.
8) Generally speaking, people won't work hard unless they're forced to do so.
1 2 3 4 5
I have noticed this amongst my fellow students. This might only apply to Americans though.
9) All in all, it is better to be humble and honest than to be important and dishonest.
1 2 3 4 5
Dishonesty wins a person no friends and in the end that's what you need if you are going to hold onto anything.
10) When you ask someone to do something for you, it is best to give the real reasons for wanting it rather than giving reasons which carry more weight.
1 2 3 4 5
I always try to make them the same.
11) Most people who get ahead in the world lead clean, moral lives.
1 2 3 4 5
Look at the current administration. I would like to quote Balzac here, "behind every great fortune, there is a crime."
12) Anyone who completely trusts anyone else is asking for trouble.
1 2 3 4 5
But then again, some people like trouble
13) The biggest difference between most criminals and other people is that the criminals are stupid enough to get caught.
1 2 3 4 5
Proof: There is a difference between a bank robber and me. He robs banks. I do not. He could be out on the lam, still not caught, but still would be a criminal. I have not just simply evaded the cops, I have not held up a Wachovia at gunpoint.
14) Most people are brave.
1 2 3 4 5
You see both in Human affairs. So I am going to go with a three
15) It is wise to flatter important people.
1 2 3 4 5
Who would argue with this? It is also wise to be honest when they ask you, but the question isn't trying to find that out.
16) It is possible to be good in all respects.
1 2 3 4 5
You make sacrifices when you are a leader, even just to live with other people requires some ideals to be given up. Why do you think there are so many saints who were hermits or lived in cloisters?
17) P.T. Barnum was wrong when he said that there's a sucker born every minute.
1 2 3 4 5
If 255 people are born in a minute, then one could potentially be a sucker. Statistically I think it is possible.
18) It is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there.
1 2 3 4 5
Yes, it is hard, but that does not mean it is right. A Machiavellian and an idealist could both agree here and draw different conclusions. The former would say "Yes, so..." while the former would answer "Yes, but..."
19) People suffering from incurable diseases should have the choice of being put painlessly to death.
1 2 3 4 5
I don't see what this question is supposed to do. If they are voluntarily ending their lives, I don’t see what that has to do with Machiavellianism. One could believe in euthanasia as a humanist.
20) Most people forget more easily the death of their parents than the loss of their property.
1 2 3 4 5
I've read too many biographies of famous people to believe this. The absences of one or more parents is always mentioned, rarely the loss of a house. Both can be traumatic, but in terms of what people are more likely to actually swear revenge over is the former tragedy.
The test tells me I am a 68 out of a 100, a "high Mach." I think that this test really is not able to make that claim. Several of the questions could rank the same for either a low or high Mach, and 68 is not that far from the center, I feel. Being a high Mach seems like something you have to do fully or else you will end up hating yourself for everything you do and fail to do. I think a high Mach has to be an 80 or 85, at least.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
A wikiHow Article
How to Lose a World War from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit
It isn't as easy as it sounds, but there are two basic ways to do this.
It isn't as easy as it sounds, but there are two basic ways to do this.
Steps
- 1. Invade Russia, or
- 2. Attack the USA
Tips
- Make sure you don't have lots of spare oil all over the place.
- You might want to distract yourself with a genocide.
- Beware of badgers.
Warnings
- Attacking Poland is not an effective substitute for invading Russia
- Neither does Canada count as the USA
Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Lose a World War. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
"Simple Use of a Substance"
Cerulean Rain, a new literary journal, has a poem by yours truly in the first issue. Check it out.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Thoughts on Atheism, Theism and Agnosticism, Part V
Well, I am going to resurrect (pun probably intended) this old set of essays because, well I have a lot of free time on my hands. Of course this does not mean I will kneeling down and sitting in prayer, but rather continuing in my analysis of the atheism vs. theism debate, or should I say more accurately WAR, given the way that the vitriol on both sides has recently increased, mostly due to the fact that Atheist writers and apologists, who largely ignored theist attacks against them until now, have begun turning out book after book with titles designed to inspire their fellow non-believers, and inspiring fear and hatred among fervent theists.
Let's take a look at what trend I'm talking about:
This is George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God. From the Amazon site, it seems to have come out in 1980. It seems fairly non-combative, almost part of a legal argument and not something heated, purely philosophical. If you disagree with the author, fine, you can go and believe in God, he's not going to hurt you or haunt you in your dreams. On an added not the color scheme reminds me of NYU, where purple and white are the school colors and they like to throw yellow in to grab your eye (and your dollar).
Here is another atheist classic, perhaps the first, Bertrand Russell's 1927 "Why I am Not a Christian." The cover design hints at the religiosity of the text, but it is not overpowering. One is led to think that he is taking about Christianity as if it were a hobby of sorts. The contorted shape and the cross in middle slightly resembles a candy wrapper with the sweet taken out and devoured. The title is a simple declaration, part of a conversation. If you want to sit down and learn why the author is not a Christian over a cup of tea, fine, but if not, well then that's okay too.
Since the beginning of religion, particularly theistic religions, those who have refused to believe have been called atheists, often inaccurately (as was the case with early Christians for not believing in the Roman pantheon of Gods). They were tortured, exiled, forced to convert, and even killed. But throughout history, Atheists generally have kept their cool. That notable exception was of course, the Marxists, who went after the religious as much as the religious had gone after freethinkers previously, as well as the radical French Republicans, who most of today's religious people believe all atheists are inspired by and want to emulate.
But like I said earlier, Atheists have generally kept themselves out of the limelight, wishing to be left alone and to educate all those willing to listen. This however has changed, and it is reflected in the publishing world. There are two main reasons I think for this:
(Forgive the awkward pasting job) 9-11 and the rise of the evangelical (and conservative Christian vote in general) I think have caused atheists to remember that religious beliefs are not just abstract things. They are value systems that are the basis for action, unfortunately action that causes harm to other believers as well as to atheists. Watching the rise of Islamic terrorism and calls to establish theocracies through the Muslim world, atheists, I believe, have had to sit back and think about just how damaging religion can be. It is no longer about the inquisition and the Crusades, but about things going on today. Likewise the rise of W. Bush and his cohorts demonstrates hostility to the secular values that atheists want to see guiding American domestic and foreign policy.
Consequently, there has been a rise in books whose purpose is to rally fellow non-believers and make them understand what is at stake in the modern age, hoping to avoiding a return to the 17th century wars of religion. We see titles the are meant to be provocative and refuse to be nice or make compromises. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. Militant atheists are often blamed for forcing their beliefs on others, but I have never heard any Atheist American, no matter how militant utter anything like the following:
"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
- President George H.W. Bush in 1988
Many of you will be familair with the titles that have been published so far:
Well, how have things changed! We have Atheism with muscles now, Atheism that doesn't just debate in university dorm rooms or bring cases to the Supreme Court, this is an Atheism for the average man, who like his non belief like his liquor, strong and undiluted! These books take no prisoners! They are bleak and sleek, killers of God. I suppose that publishers have discovered good money can be made in rational argument, fanning the flames of the old disputes about the existence of God. They can sell a religious books on one hand, and atheist books on the other, apologetics and screeds, a great business.
I do wonder if it is all about money, about selling and not reaching. Perhaps Dawkins' originally wanted to title his book: "Some Thoughts Regarding the Non-Existence of a Popular Supreme Being." But then the agents and editors told him it wouldn't sell in Peoria if he called it that so he sexed up the title. With Hitchens, I'm sure that he had wanted to go it something worse. "God is not great, He's a Bastard, Worse than Mother Teresa."
Let's take a look at what trend I'm talking about:
This is George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God. From the Amazon site, it seems to have come out in 1980. It seems fairly non-combative, almost part of a legal argument and not something heated, purely philosophical. If you disagree with the author, fine, you can go and believe in God, he's not going to hurt you or haunt you in your dreams. On an added not the color scheme reminds me of NYU, where purple and white are the school colors and they like to throw yellow in to grab your eye (and your dollar).
Here is another atheist classic, perhaps the first, Bertrand Russell's 1927 "Why I am Not a Christian." The cover design hints at the religiosity of the text, but it is not overpowering. One is led to think that he is taking about Christianity as if it were a hobby of sorts. The contorted shape and the cross in middle slightly resembles a candy wrapper with the sweet taken out and devoured. The title is a simple declaration, part of a conversation. If you want to sit down and learn why the author is not a Christian over a cup of tea, fine, but if not, well then that's okay too.
Since the beginning of religion, particularly theistic religions, those who have refused to believe have been called atheists, often inaccurately (as was the case with early Christians for not believing in the Roman pantheon of Gods). They were tortured, exiled, forced to convert, and even killed. But throughout history, Atheists generally have kept their cool. That notable exception was of course, the Marxists, who went after the religious as much as the religious had gone after freethinkers previously, as well as the radical French Republicans, who most of today's religious people believe all atheists are inspired by and want to emulate.
But like I said earlier, Atheists have generally kept themselves out of the limelight, wishing to be left alone and to educate all those willing to listen. This however has changed, and it is reflected in the publishing world. There are two main reasons I think for this:
(Forgive the awkward pasting job) 9-11 and the rise of the evangelical (and conservative Christian vote in general) I think have caused atheists to remember that religious beliefs are not just abstract things. They are value systems that are the basis for action, unfortunately action that causes harm to other believers as well as to atheists. Watching the rise of Islamic terrorism and calls to establish theocracies through the Muslim world, atheists, I believe, have had to sit back and think about just how damaging religion can be. It is no longer about the inquisition and the Crusades, but about things going on today. Likewise the rise of W. Bush and his cohorts demonstrates hostility to the secular values that atheists want to see guiding American domestic and foreign policy.
Consequently, there has been a rise in books whose purpose is to rally fellow non-believers and make them understand what is at stake in the modern age, hoping to avoiding a return to the 17th century wars of religion. We see titles the are meant to be provocative and refuse to be nice or make compromises. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. Militant atheists are often blamed for forcing their beliefs on others, but I have never heard any Atheist American, no matter how militant utter anything like the following:
"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
- President George H.W. Bush in 1988
Many of you will be familair with the titles that have been published so far:
Well, how have things changed! We have Atheism with muscles now, Atheism that doesn't just debate in university dorm rooms or bring cases to the Supreme Court, this is an Atheism for the average man, who like his non belief like his liquor, strong and undiluted! These books take no prisoners! They are bleak and sleek, killers of God. I suppose that publishers have discovered good money can be made in rational argument, fanning the flames of the old disputes about the existence of God. They can sell a religious books on one hand, and atheist books on the other, apologetics and screeds, a great business.
I do wonder if it is all about money, about selling and not reaching. Perhaps Dawkins' originally wanted to title his book: "Some Thoughts Regarding the Non-Existence of a Popular Supreme Being." But then the agents and editors told him it wouldn't sell in Peoria if he called it that so he sexed up the title. With Hitchens, I'm sure that he had wanted to go it something worse. "God is not great, He's a Bastard, Worse than Mother Teresa."
Separated From Birth?
Well, judge for yourselves
The image on the top is of Bob Dylan, the bottom is of Ezra Pound. One was Jewish, the other an anti-Semite, one turned to the troubadours of old, the other was a modern one. One did great work for others, while the other had his work made great by them. Thanks to Andrea for the pointing the similarity out and supplying me the links.
The image on the top is of Bob Dylan, the bottom is of Ezra Pound. One was Jewish, the other an anti-Semite, one turned to the troubadours of old, the other was a modern one. One did great work for others, while the other had his work made great by them. Thanks to Andrea for the pointing the similarity out and supplying me the links.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
RIP Harry the Pig
Well, sad news. Perhaps tasty news in a sense, but mostly sad. Sad not in the sense that I am crying or losing sleeping, but maybe more just a little disappointed. I found out on Christmas Eve (that's December 24th for all you ultra-secularists out there and Jews)that Harry the Pig, pet pig for my Aunt Chris out in Kansas City, passed away.
I assume it was a peaceful death. She has dogs but they were not responsible. No autopsy has been performed though, so the possibility of being poisoned will never be solved. Of course who would want to poison such an adorable creature?
He was a pot-bellied Vietnamese pig who legend has it, came from the foothills of the Mekong, or a whorehouse in Saigon, who wanting a better life, traveled on a rickety boat first to Malaysia, then Australia, then back to Vietnam, and then finally, to Kansas, where my cousin Trey found him and soon he became an almost accepted member of the Hornbeck clan. That's no optical illusion (or allusion) you are seeing. He really was that front heavy, looking like a tube of toothpaste that had been squeezed too much on one end. He lived off dog food and dog treats, and was known for his biting prowess (ask my sister Anne.) He was the highlight of our vacations out west, often pausing beneath the trampoline my cousins owned while we jumped up and down and landed on his hairy back.
Now I've been home, and bored, and so have decided to re-imagine Harry. I have dubbed him a pig of mystery, capable of assuming many different identities and disguises. A post-Modern pig, as it were. Yesterday I began trying to turn him into Napoleon from Animal Farm. I gave him a moustache, monocle, goatee, and bowler hat, but that left the rest of his sausage shaped body unadorned. For some reason I made him into a Nazi pig. I guess I figured that it would be natural for a pig to be an anti-Semite.
I felt sorry for Harry, and decided instead that he should be imagined as a tough sort of creature. He was always able to keep up with the dogs and never let any of us kids tell him what to do. He was always in control, sitting (or sleeping) mighty in the little house that the Hornbecks let him use. So, I decided to make him a punk pig.
I admit I started out trying to make him like Mr. T. I guess I ended up turning him into a white trash punk. This is not to downplay the more delicate and beautiful elements of Harry the pig, who was known to be quite stylish and dainty at times. This was a picture I recreated from memory of one occasion I saw him getting ready for the big pig ball, where he would meet his own prince charming.
Still, I had to revel in Harry's ancestry, his roots, his political leanings. It was wrong to forget where he came from, where his bloodlines began. I actually wrote about him to the government of the People's Republic of Vietnam, and they dug through their files and we both learned that Henry was used as a VC base during the war with America. This could have potentially caused Harry to end up in jail, or worse, bacon, ham, and sausage. But luckily for him this picture was never shown to anyone, including my aunt and uncle, in the states:
I assume it was a peaceful death. She has dogs but they were not responsible. No autopsy has been performed though, so the possibility of being poisoned will never be solved. Of course who would want to poison such an adorable creature?
He was a pot-bellied Vietnamese pig who legend has it, came from the foothills of the Mekong, or a whorehouse in Saigon, who wanting a better life, traveled on a rickety boat first to Malaysia, then Australia, then back to Vietnam, and then finally, to Kansas, where my cousin Trey found him and soon he became an almost accepted member of the Hornbeck clan. That's no optical illusion (or allusion) you are seeing. He really was that front heavy, looking like a tube of toothpaste that had been squeezed too much on one end. He lived off dog food and dog treats, and was known for his biting prowess (ask my sister Anne.) He was the highlight of our vacations out west, often pausing beneath the trampoline my cousins owned while we jumped up and down and landed on his hairy back.
Now I've been home, and bored, and so have decided to re-imagine Harry. I have dubbed him a pig of mystery, capable of assuming many different identities and disguises. A post-Modern pig, as it were. Yesterday I began trying to turn him into Napoleon from Animal Farm. I gave him a moustache, monocle, goatee, and bowler hat, but that left the rest of his sausage shaped body unadorned. For some reason I made him into a Nazi pig. I guess I figured that it would be natural for a pig to be an anti-Semite.
I felt sorry for Harry, and decided instead that he should be imagined as a tough sort of creature. He was always able to keep up with the dogs and never let any of us kids tell him what to do. He was always in control, sitting (or sleeping) mighty in the little house that the Hornbecks let him use. So, I decided to make him a punk pig.
I admit I started out trying to make him like Mr. T. I guess I ended up turning him into a white trash punk. This is not to downplay the more delicate and beautiful elements of Harry the pig, who was known to be quite stylish and dainty at times. This was a picture I recreated from memory of one occasion I saw him getting ready for the big pig ball, where he would meet his own prince charming.
Still, I had to revel in Harry's ancestry, his roots, his political leanings. It was wrong to forget where he came from, where his bloodlines began. I actually wrote about him to the government of the People's Republic of Vietnam, and they dug through their files and we both learned that Henry was used as a VC base during the war with America. This could have potentially caused Harry to end up in jail, or worse, bacon, ham, and sausage. But luckily for him this picture was never shown to anyone, including my aunt and uncle, in the states:
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Hello
Well it has been a while since this blog has been updated, and I shall remedy this situation. Expect more groundbreaking essays and critical work, humour examinations of daily life, and possibly a poem or two. The big project this winter break will be to finish my novel Three Days in September, teach myself Italian again, evaluate poems for the undergrad journal West 10th Street, and continue submitting things for literary magazines. Check out a poem a wrote for Cerulean Rain's first upcoming issue.
Monday, October 29, 2007
E-Mails I've Received
This is probably the least motivational E-mail ad for a product I have ever received.
To start off with, it was sent by a guy named Gard Irwin. That sounds like a name from a Homestarrunner cartoon, one of the sketchy people with a pimply face and big glasses that are created to be random authors and such. That should have been enough, but the subject line gave away the whole reason I was being graced with Gard's communication.
"Get rid of your lilliputian penis."
Thank God I had read Gulliver's Travels this summer. Otherwise, I would never had known just how small my penis is. The prefix "lilli-" might have given it away (although it is the suffix for my last name). Coincidentally, Swift's work was not above ribald antics. He has a character in the story named Master Bates.
Of course I have gotten emails like this, as people with and without penises all over the world have too. We know that a subject line that mentions the organ at all tries to sell a medication or an herb. Rarely do they sell a castration service. Opening the e-mail up confirmed my suspicions.
With a big penis you can beat up all the other men
CHECK NOW
Now your penis will be too big to big covered by your hat.
The first line made me laugh. I never knew that this was the point of a large penis, to beat other men up with it. Not to impress the women (or the men), not to pleasure, but to abuse. I could be the king of the hill. Others might come to me with guns and Ninja stars, but I would just have to drop my pants and spin in a circle. Victory would then be mine.
What really scared me out was that the last line talks about having a hat. I am one of the few people who wears one regularly. How did they know? How did they know that my hat his a humble one, not a cap (which I think would be too small as things stand right now ;) ) but not a top hat, which could hide a very large member.
Of course I did not click on the link. Not even in the library where they couldn't trace me back to my laptop. Overall, it is an honest ad, but totally fails to do anything but amuse me.
Meanwhile, Lionel Blake (upstanding and British, perhaps a poet laureate?) sent me a message,"breaking news."
We start:
No smokescreens here
What you see is what you'll get.
Good. finally. I was excited, yet worried that I was getting another e-mail begging to get its electronic hands on my genitals.
SHOTPAK Inc (SHTP) has a unique product that's causing ripples across the globe.
Notice that SHTP looks a lot like SHIT, though of course I have bad vision, even at five inches away from the screen.
The company's shares are going through the roof, up 42 % today alone.
Hmmm, perhaps cheap Viagra? That would make things rise quickly.
see the recent headlines
- ShotPak Signs Major Import Agreement For South Korea
- ShotPak Signs Letter of Intent with India Importer
- ShotPak Signs Letter of Intent with India Importer to Be Available in 120 Hotel Mini Bars Throughout Country
- ShotPak Ships Throughout Texas
It is an interesting choice of markets, South Korea, India, and Texas. But it will be in mini bars, which is a growing market, because I know how popular they are. You just go into your room and knock a few whiskeys and bags of nuts back.
And so on and so on.
This is a real company with real products NO SMOKESCREEN
Look into it and get in on the action.
But they won;t tell me what they are. I am supposed to get in on the action. Do they want to mess with my penis?
To start off with, it was sent by a guy named Gard Irwin. That sounds like a name from a Homestarrunner cartoon, one of the sketchy people with a pimply face and big glasses that are created to be random authors and such. That should have been enough, but the subject line gave away the whole reason I was being graced with Gard's communication.
"Get rid of your lilliputian penis."
Thank God I had read Gulliver's Travels this summer. Otherwise, I would never had known just how small my penis is. The prefix "lilli-" might have given it away (although it is the suffix for my last name). Coincidentally, Swift's work was not above ribald antics. He has a character in the story named Master Bates.
Of course I have gotten emails like this, as people with and without penises all over the world have too. We know that a subject line that mentions the organ at all tries to sell a medication or an herb. Rarely do they sell a castration service. Opening the e-mail up confirmed my suspicions.
With a big penis you can beat up all the other men
CHECK NOW
Now your penis will be too big to big covered by your hat.
The first line made me laugh. I never knew that this was the point of a large penis, to beat other men up with it. Not to impress the women (or the men), not to pleasure, but to abuse. I could be the king of the hill. Others might come to me with guns and Ninja stars, but I would just have to drop my pants and spin in a circle. Victory would then be mine.
What really scared me out was that the last line talks about having a hat. I am one of the few people who wears one regularly. How did they know? How did they know that my hat his a humble one, not a cap (which I think would be too small as things stand right now ;) ) but not a top hat, which could hide a very large member.
Of course I did not click on the link. Not even in the library where they couldn't trace me back to my laptop. Overall, it is an honest ad, but totally fails to do anything but amuse me.
Meanwhile, Lionel Blake (upstanding and British, perhaps a poet laureate?) sent me a message,"breaking news."
We start:
No smokescreens here
What you see is what you'll get.
Good. finally. I was excited, yet worried that I was getting another e-mail begging to get its electronic hands on my genitals.
SHOTPAK Inc (SHTP) has a unique product that's causing ripples across the globe.
Notice that SHTP looks a lot like SHIT, though of course I have bad vision, even at five inches away from the screen.
The company's shares are going through the roof, up 42 % today alone.
Hmmm, perhaps cheap Viagra? That would make things rise quickly.
see the recent headlines
- ShotPak Signs Major Import Agreement For South Korea
- ShotPak Signs Letter of Intent with India Importer
- ShotPak Signs Letter of Intent with India Importer to Be Available in 120 Hotel Mini Bars Throughout Country
- ShotPak Ships Throughout Texas
It is an interesting choice of markets, South Korea, India, and Texas. But it will be in mini bars, which is a growing market, because I know how popular they are. You just go into your room and knock a few whiskeys and bags of nuts back.
And so on and so on.
This is a real company with real products NO SMOKESCREEN
Look into it and get in on the action.
But they won;t tell me what they are. I am supposed to get in on the action. Do they want to mess with my penis?
Thursday, October 18, 2007
History of Poland
Today I had my midterm for the history of Poland. It was alright. I finished with time to spare. Basically I wrote in a Blue Book, identifying several terms and trying to explain how they were significant. I had studied all of them and found it was most difficult how to repeat information without sounding like I was just spitting out the same answer, since the terms all related to the big dates of Polish history at that point: 1386, 1414, 1569, 1648 etc.
It is an interesting class, closer to the kind of history I took in High School than what I have learned in College. One might decry the fact that it was all names and dates, no grand post-modern theories deconstructing the whole notion of "Polish-ness." But I am learning about the history of a country and its peoples, and I find it interesting. it is a good lesson of how not to build your government. I feel bad that it was the Poles who seemed to have a state and constitution that was a laughingstock of Europe. Its most ridiculous provision was that it let nobles legally revolt and fight the king with their own armies. How the country survived for so long without being conquered is the real miracle of the country's history.
Since I knew only the basics of the country's history, this is the approach that works best. I am learning things I can share with other people. One of the kids in my class is in the same fiction workshop as me and we tried to out-do each other in telling our instructor, Darin Strauss,of all the poor decisions Poland made from 966 to 1795.
Imagine trying to teach the history of the US to kids on the model I have experienced in college. They would learn nothing. Even if it was all myth, they would still know something and then could deconstruct it to see what was underneath. Before Racism can be taken apart or the notion of freedom, the concrete history of slavery and the adoption of the constitution has to occur. Grand theorizing is fine (I do it all the time) but without any grounding in time and space, its just wasted energy.
It is an interesting class, closer to the kind of history I took in High School than what I have learned in College. One might decry the fact that it was all names and dates, no grand post-modern theories deconstructing the whole notion of "Polish-ness." But I am learning about the history of a country and its peoples, and I find it interesting. it is a good lesson of how not to build your government. I feel bad that it was the Poles who seemed to have a state and constitution that was a laughingstock of Europe. Its most ridiculous provision was that it let nobles legally revolt and fight the king with their own armies. How the country survived for so long without being conquered is the real miracle of the country's history.
Since I knew only the basics of the country's history, this is the approach that works best. I am learning things I can share with other people. One of the kids in my class is in the same fiction workshop as me and we tried to out-do each other in telling our instructor, Darin Strauss,of all the poor decisions Poland made from 966 to 1795.
Imagine trying to teach the history of the US to kids on the model I have experienced in college. They would learn nothing. Even if it was all myth, they would still know something and then could deconstruct it to see what was underneath. Before Racism can be taken apart or the notion of freedom, the concrete history of slavery and the adoption of the constitution has to occur. Grand theorizing is fine (I do it all the time) but without any grounding in time and space, its just wasted energy.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Great Success!
Great success for me on the publishing front! I have been accepted by two publications. The first is Canopic Jar. I have two poems appearing in an issue in a week or so. The second just came to me in the mail. I was a little optimistic holding the letter because it was light and I saw no poems stuffed into it, which is a signal for rejection. It is the opposite of applying for most things. Getting into college, for example, means that you are receiving a big fat envelope in the mail. Not so with publishing. The less, the better. The thin envelope I received was for Lachryma, Modern Songs of Lament. My long poem “Starry Night” was accepted, and I received a check for $3. Enough for two Samosas, it is probably the same amount of money someone like T.S. Eliot or Pound could expect for publishing when they were my age. Back then it would buy a whole meal.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Why No Revolution?
It is time someone posted something on here that should be required to read, or at least something that approaches it. It is time that we start to use such forums as these to change the world and not simply tell anecdotes involving the adorable antics of our pets or gripe about being older. Things are too serious today for us to shirk our world historical duties.
We are living under an unsustainable regime. We are living on borrowed time and we can barely pay the interest. We are citizens of a country gone mad with wealth and power. We are living in a culture that has become a parody of itself. We are in an era of widespread pessimism and cynicism. We are surrounded by an abundance we have no way of appreciating. We have a way of life that is insecure and unable to procreate itself, it produces a society that collapses ever twenty to throaty years, with one generation torn against another. We are members of a government that no one can take seriously. We engage in public rituals that mean nothing for us, but we go along for the sake of appearance, even though we know no one is is watching. We have grown distant and cold to one another. We have given up our dogmas in exchange for new ones that preach total conformity to the consumerist way of life. We live and fight to live, even though we have no idea what to do with this life. We consider ourselves superior to the past, yet gradually sink back into it. We are unable to grow up. We are free but have become self-repressed. We feel no desire to defend the system and we all secretly hope that some deus ex machina will come and dismantle it.
Well, nobody is going to save us from ourselves, but us.
We're too strong to expect to be liberated. Who would do such a thing for us? Canada and Mexico could not do it, Russia and China are too far away, and they would not liberate us anyways, only treat us as a colony. We cannot expect an enlightened despotism to take root either. Our richest politicians, the ones poor into the patrician circles of New England and the South, feel no obligation to us, the common plebeians. Our system is an oligarchy on their behalf, yet their inability to pronounce the five letter C-word lets them think some grand meritocracy is at hand behind the workings of the system. Such a delusional group looks out for themselves because they think they are on an equal footing with us, even though they are in a world few of us could ever enter, no matter how hard we try.
The only solution is the most patriotic thing imaginable, a revolution. The founding fathers would be amazed that we have gone so long without one. They knew that they were necessary to keep our liberties fresh and the Constitution of our society up to date. Instead we have turned what was for them an imperfect document, into our Bible, infallible. Libertarians, for all their radical rhetoric, are more concerned with upholding the faith of the founding fathers as they see expressed in that flawed (yet still noble for its time) document, than with advancing the understanding of true freedom beyond the 18th century and its notions. True radicals ask only if something is right and makes sense. They do not ask if it is constitutional.
We need a complete overhaul of the system. Any system that could allow the abuses of this presidency to go unchecked for so many years, needs to be reevaluated. All the old institutions that were supposed to check the president's madness have been compromised. They have begun to engage in conspiracy with one another to keep things running smoothly, and to block any real change. Democrats and Republicans, we see they are the same. We all know things are rotten. We can smell the decay, almost taste it when we watch the news, yet still there is no revolution. Why?
There are plenty of blueprints out there for change. Countless manifestos that can be tried or combined. we have the whole history of the past to learn from, ancient Rome, Athens, the USSR, colonial America, Sparta, Florence, Venice, Absolutist France, Anarchist Barcelona, we can see different rules at work and we can compare these. If anything, we have Livy and Machiavelli to help us, along with Locke, Mill, and Marx, men operating on theory more than experience, but still giving us truths of human nature to consider.
We have avenues for change. We have third parties that we can get involved in. We have labor unions, benevolent associations, churches, synagogues, reading groups, Internet forums, coffee houses, libraries, marketplaces, places to get together and try to make change. Why no revolution? Why not even a storm on the horizon? it is getting constantly humid, yet still, it is not raining, nothing changes and nothing is being washed away. Why?
We have become trapped. We have erected blinders, sometimes literal fences that prevent us from seeing things clearly. But our hearts have betrayed us. We can feel them sharply and our attempts at peaceful living are disturbed by events in the outside world. Some of us, like Ausonius in the face of the barbarian invasions, shut ourselves away, or like St. Augustine, engage in otherworldly contemplation. Those who are left in the streets, trying to find others to march with and banners to hold, as well as hands, are disappointed and we cannot but help feel powerless, freedom in our society has become an instrument of repression.
I am not talking about abstract freedom, the freedom that the founding fathers adhered too and valued, a freedom each person cultivates within themselves. I am talking about the freedom that has replaced that, consumer freedom. Real political choices, political parties, diversity of political opinion and religious ideas and philosophical contemplations has been replaced by the worship of coarse liberalism, the celebration of different kinds of toothpaste and thousands of channels to choose from on television (owned by the same group of people, showing the same kinds of programs despite claims to the contrary).
This consumer freedom works to make us hate choice, it presents us with responsibility for things which require no real decision making. These products are all the same, stripped of false coloring and fancy packages, there are no remarkable differences. yet still we must have these debates within ourselves when we go shopping, what to buy? Which container? Which label? Overwhelmed by this freedom, we hide in the labels. We run for these easier designations and give up thinking for ourselves.
If this attitude could contain itself to just our consuming sphere of life, it would not be a problem, but our attitudes do not contain themselves easily. They shape our world views and lead to other actions that we might never have considered to stem from them. Our fleeing into the safety of labels leads us to gradually abandon free though all together. We take up restricted isms and ideologies or worse, we simply go with the flow of things, we join the bandwagon. Though the devout Communist or Fascist might be simple minded, they at least take a position against the bandwagon and have some freedom of thought, even though amongst themselves they have their own churches and chains.
Because we have fled from thinking for ourselves, we let others think for us. We become deluded into believing this collective thought is democratic and comes from the masses. Our patriotism, our understanding of political reality, the holidays we celebrate and how we do so, are viewed as something we are a part of and that we are merely reacting to others. We fail to see that the elites, the oligarchs, really run the show and give us these values and these ideals to mull over. The Christmas Tree, the roses for Valentine's Day, the doctrines of the Democratic and Republican parties, all of these are produced, planned, and executed by the few on behalf of the many, tricking us with elaborate ruses to make it seem like these are simply manifestations of the popular will.
Another thing that holds us back from revolution is the leveling down of our society. This is a phenomenon that has occurred while at the same time society is becoming more stratified economically and politically. That is not to say that this attitude and its effects are very real things, but they are a show put on for us, a distraction that is used to hide the real differences in our society.
What is this leveling down I speak of? In a sense it is conformity, but it is more complicated than that. it is trying to make every opinion equal, to view everybody's contribution as the same, to celebrate every little thing and every choice as invovling something greater than all of us. it is the attitude that turns all choice into teh same thing, so that voting a tyrant out of office becomes the same as getting a new pair of shoes. it attacks intellectualism as a form of elitism because it is intellectualism that can stand up to the real forms of elitism, the concentration of wealth and therefore power, in the hands of a few. All articles, songs, movies, and books are to be dumbed down. No one is to be seen as haivng any hidden greatness within them. Everyone is presupposed to be the same, want the same things, be satisfied in the same banal manner.
This leveling raises no one up, but lowers them to the lowest common denominator. Democracy infects the culture as it leaves the sphere of political economy. The thumping sounds of punk and hip hop are mistaken for real revolution while jobs are sent overseas and people's votes are gradually rendered meaningless, the elites already having decided what the political agenda for the country is going to be. That everyone comes together to listen to the same songs and laugh at the same jokes is mistaken for democracy in action despite the advertising that makes avoiding such phenomena impossible.
This leveling fails to inspire people to better things and that is what is most dangerous and repressive about it. It creates a world where people can be lazy and they become lazy in droves. It does not challenge, it rejects the concept outright and because it does so it weaves a cocoon of false security around people.
Unprovoked, people fall back on cultural artifacts that are easy to absorb, that require no advanced taste or comprehension. Junk culture you could call it. It is soothing, it is comfortable, like a pair of pajamas. It makes you fall asleep and issues no call to action, only inaction. If someone is inspired by it, usually it involves buying the handbag the character in the book has or to grind on the dance floor and try to physically abandon one’s own self for the frenzy of the mob.
A culture that embraces heroics, troubling questions, unhappy endings, not-so-catchy tunes, that challenges people with real dilemmas, makes them see the world in new ways and is enlightening. It lets people become aware of their own powers of thought and perception. From this they can begin to question, they gain confidence in their own abilities and gradually educate themselves. They seek out others and because they are challenged they seek out others who can help them overcome trying to understand the more difficult books and pieces of music. Together, these groups can then turn their attention to unraveling the socio-economic knots that hold them back, and thus real change can come about.
Is this an elitist view of culture? Of course, but it is also a meritocratic view as well, one that wants to lay open possibilities for people, not shut them off. It is a view of culture that is in actual practice far more freeing than what currently passes for music, art, and literature. This is not to say our culture should be difficult to understand, but it should not deal with what is given, to operate slowly on a machine made of clichés, familiar notes, expected colors, and worse of all, labels and brands.
But besides this is our material culture than accompanies it. This is the culture of consumerism. It is the way we consume now that prevents us from coming together under the banner of revolution and bringing about change. Compare our time with the 1960s and 1970s, when people came together over many marvelous projects. Not everything they stood for I agree with, but it is admirable that they had such energy and hope. They undertook it upon themselves to bring about change, in some cases, they succeeded. Why were they so eager to go into the streets and we are content to let the world grow ever more terrible?
Because they did not have the consumer culture we do to soothe them. They were able to open their eyes and keep their ears open because they did not have ipods to block everything out. They did not have to worry themselves with all kinds of summer choices. They were not busy wondering what their ring tones should be or what color their cellphones had to be. They did not take pictures of everything hoping in vain for something to be preserved for posterity, they went out and they made history.
A rejection of the “false” new is what we must first undergo in order to set the groundwork for collective change. The false new is the new of consumer goods which float past us and sing their siren songs asking to be snatched from the corporate vines through make them sprout from the ground. We must embrace the true new, the new of institutions responding to popular demands, the new of social change, the only change that matters. What new products might be dangling in front of us we must ignore. They are part of the whole culture of leveling down, not the culture of rising up, which we wish to cultivate, those of us who still carry the embers of some hope inside of us.
In addition, revolution must become a good word again. It must inspire us and makes feel arm just to hear it rubbed between the lips of another, as flaming as any cigarette. We in America have a unique opportunity to reclaim this word and shape it because we were the first ones to make it practical, to turn it from an abstraction, or a mere reference to astronomical bodies, and bring it down to the earth. We are in love with change, we must learn to once again love radical change, change that shifts the ground beneath us and creates a whole new way of seeing the world.
We are in a sense blessed by the fact that none of us lives with the memory of a domestic revolution. Revolution has become a tainted word because of other countries’ failures, but not our own. We have no reason to doubt ourselves capable of creating a better order, a more humane and rational society. We should not be depressed like those in Europe, Asia, or Latin America, if they have failed it is their own doing, we should critically examine such failures, but they should not hang like millstones around our necks, but rather serve to help make our path forward straighter without the distractions of collapsed utopias.
Revolution must become celebrated again as the last real adventure for us to take.
The present system has mapped everything around us, has come to understand geography, astronomy, and the most relevant parts of physics and psychology. But still it has no idea of the future and what potential human effort and endeavor can hold. We must turn to revolution if we are going to feel truly free and in any way the crafters and shapers of our own futures. If nothing else, hopefully it can be fun for all involved, exciting and enlightening, with every experience important and nothing regretted because lessons will always be learned. We have such short lives and there is no scoreboard ready to reward us for being meek, or laid back and letting things go on. There is no consolation prize. Even for those who believe in an afterlife, such a thing can only be won through a struggle. There is no reward for those who take a hands-off approach to life and society. What would be the point of getting in if it was the case?
I am not here to advocate one kind of revolution, but to call for a lifting of the repression around this concept. This is in fact a revolutionary approach, I feel. You, loyal reader who has reached the bottom of this article, could have dismissed this essay as a simple tirade, an angsty denouncement of everything coming from one who has not grown old enough to sample the delights of the status quo. Such an ad hominem attack might have merit if I was arguing for the overthrow of the system to be replaced with a definite alternative, providing you with knee-jerk revolutionary propaganda.
However, what I am in fact calling for, is for us to begin to debate radical change and what we can accomplish, how and why. We must throw open the doors to discourse first, realize what our possibilities are, and then work to achieve them in practical terms. We must start being as radical as reality itself.
We are living under an unsustainable regime. We are living on borrowed time and we can barely pay the interest. We are citizens of a country gone mad with wealth and power. We are living in a culture that has become a parody of itself. We are in an era of widespread pessimism and cynicism. We are surrounded by an abundance we have no way of appreciating. We have a way of life that is insecure and unable to procreate itself, it produces a society that collapses ever twenty to throaty years, with one generation torn against another. We are members of a government that no one can take seriously. We engage in public rituals that mean nothing for us, but we go along for the sake of appearance, even though we know no one is is watching. We have grown distant and cold to one another. We have given up our dogmas in exchange for new ones that preach total conformity to the consumerist way of life. We live and fight to live, even though we have no idea what to do with this life. We consider ourselves superior to the past, yet gradually sink back into it. We are unable to grow up. We are free but have become self-repressed. We feel no desire to defend the system and we all secretly hope that some deus ex machina will come and dismantle it.
Well, nobody is going to save us from ourselves, but us.
We're too strong to expect to be liberated. Who would do such a thing for us? Canada and Mexico could not do it, Russia and China are too far away, and they would not liberate us anyways, only treat us as a colony. We cannot expect an enlightened despotism to take root either. Our richest politicians, the ones poor into the patrician circles of New England and the South, feel no obligation to us, the common plebeians. Our system is an oligarchy on their behalf, yet their inability to pronounce the five letter C-word lets them think some grand meritocracy is at hand behind the workings of the system. Such a delusional group looks out for themselves because they think they are on an equal footing with us, even though they are in a world few of us could ever enter, no matter how hard we try.
The only solution is the most patriotic thing imaginable, a revolution. The founding fathers would be amazed that we have gone so long without one. They knew that they were necessary to keep our liberties fresh and the Constitution of our society up to date. Instead we have turned what was for them an imperfect document, into our Bible, infallible. Libertarians, for all their radical rhetoric, are more concerned with upholding the faith of the founding fathers as they see expressed in that flawed (yet still noble for its time) document, than with advancing the understanding of true freedom beyond the 18th century and its notions. True radicals ask only if something is right and makes sense. They do not ask if it is constitutional.
We need a complete overhaul of the system. Any system that could allow the abuses of this presidency to go unchecked for so many years, needs to be reevaluated. All the old institutions that were supposed to check the president's madness have been compromised. They have begun to engage in conspiracy with one another to keep things running smoothly, and to block any real change. Democrats and Republicans, we see they are the same. We all know things are rotten. We can smell the decay, almost taste it when we watch the news, yet still there is no revolution. Why?
There are plenty of blueprints out there for change. Countless manifestos that can be tried or combined. we have the whole history of the past to learn from, ancient Rome, Athens, the USSR, colonial America, Sparta, Florence, Venice, Absolutist France, Anarchist Barcelona, we can see different rules at work and we can compare these. If anything, we have Livy and Machiavelli to help us, along with Locke, Mill, and Marx, men operating on theory more than experience, but still giving us truths of human nature to consider.
We have avenues for change. We have third parties that we can get involved in. We have labor unions, benevolent associations, churches, synagogues, reading groups, Internet forums, coffee houses, libraries, marketplaces, places to get together and try to make change. Why no revolution? Why not even a storm on the horizon? it is getting constantly humid, yet still, it is not raining, nothing changes and nothing is being washed away. Why?
We have become trapped. We have erected blinders, sometimes literal fences that prevent us from seeing things clearly. But our hearts have betrayed us. We can feel them sharply and our attempts at peaceful living are disturbed by events in the outside world. Some of us, like Ausonius in the face of the barbarian invasions, shut ourselves away, or like St. Augustine, engage in otherworldly contemplation. Those who are left in the streets, trying to find others to march with and banners to hold, as well as hands, are disappointed and we cannot but help feel powerless, freedom in our society has become an instrument of repression.
I am not talking about abstract freedom, the freedom that the founding fathers adhered too and valued, a freedom each person cultivates within themselves. I am talking about the freedom that has replaced that, consumer freedom. Real political choices, political parties, diversity of political opinion and religious ideas and philosophical contemplations has been replaced by the worship of coarse liberalism, the celebration of different kinds of toothpaste and thousands of channels to choose from on television (owned by the same group of people, showing the same kinds of programs despite claims to the contrary).
This consumer freedom works to make us hate choice, it presents us with responsibility for things which require no real decision making. These products are all the same, stripped of false coloring and fancy packages, there are no remarkable differences. yet still we must have these debates within ourselves when we go shopping, what to buy? Which container? Which label? Overwhelmed by this freedom, we hide in the labels. We run for these easier designations and give up thinking for ourselves.
If this attitude could contain itself to just our consuming sphere of life, it would not be a problem, but our attitudes do not contain themselves easily. They shape our world views and lead to other actions that we might never have considered to stem from them. Our fleeing into the safety of labels leads us to gradually abandon free though all together. We take up restricted isms and ideologies or worse, we simply go with the flow of things, we join the bandwagon. Though the devout Communist or Fascist might be simple minded, they at least take a position against the bandwagon and have some freedom of thought, even though amongst themselves they have their own churches and chains.
Because we have fled from thinking for ourselves, we let others think for us. We become deluded into believing this collective thought is democratic and comes from the masses. Our patriotism, our understanding of political reality, the holidays we celebrate and how we do so, are viewed as something we are a part of and that we are merely reacting to others. We fail to see that the elites, the oligarchs, really run the show and give us these values and these ideals to mull over. The Christmas Tree, the roses for Valentine's Day, the doctrines of the Democratic and Republican parties, all of these are produced, planned, and executed by the few on behalf of the many, tricking us with elaborate ruses to make it seem like these are simply manifestations of the popular will.
Another thing that holds us back from revolution is the leveling down of our society. This is a phenomenon that has occurred while at the same time society is becoming more stratified economically and politically. That is not to say that this attitude and its effects are very real things, but they are a show put on for us, a distraction that is used to hide the real differences in our society.
What is this leveling down I speak of? In a sense it is conformity, but it is more complicated than that. it is trying to make every opinion equal, to view everybody's contribution as the same, to celebrate every little thing and every choice as invovling something greater than all of us. it is the attitude that turns all choice into teh same thing, so that voting a tyrant out of office becomes the same as getting a new pair of shoes. it attacks intellectualism as a form of elitism because it is intellectualism that can stand up to the real forms of elitism, the concentration of wealth and therefore power, in the hands of a few. All articles, songs, movies, and books are to be dumbed down. No one is to be seen as haivng any hidden greatness within them. Everyone is presupposed to be the same, want the same things, be satisfied in the same banal manner.
This leveling raises no one up, but lowers them to the lowest common denominator. Democracy infects the culture as it leaves the sphere of political economy. The thumping sounds of punk and hip hop are mistaken for real revolution while jobs are sent overseas and people's votes are gradually rendered meaningless, the elites already having decided what the political agenda for the country is going to be. That everyone comes together to listen to the same songs and laugh at the same jokes is mistaken for democracy in action despite the advertising that makes avoiding such phenomena impossible.
This leveling fails to inspire people to better things and that is what is most dangerous and repressive about it. It creates a world where people can be lazy and they become lazy in droves. It does not challenge, it rejects the concept outright and because it does so it weaves a cocoon of false security around people.
Unprovoked, people fall back on cultural artifacts that are easy to absorb, that require no advanced taste or comprehension. Junk culture you could call it. It is soothing, it is comfortable, like a pair of pajamas. It makes you fall asleep and issues no call to action, only inaction. If someone is inspired by it, usually it involves buying the handbag the character in the book has or to grind on the dance floor and try to physically abandon one’s own self for the frenzy of the mob.
A culture that embraces heroics, troubling questions, unhappy endings, not-so-catchy tunes, that challenges people with real dilemmas, makes them see the world in new ways and is enlightening. It lets people become aware of their own powers of thought and perception. From this they can begin to question, they gain confidence in their own abilities and gradually educate themselves. They seek out others and because they are challenged they seek out others who can help them overcome trying to understand the more difficult books and pieces of music. Together, these groups can then turn their attention to unraveling the socio-economic knots that hold them back, and thus real change can come about.
Is this an elitist view of culture? Of course, but it is also a meritocratic view as well, one that wants to lay open possibilities for people, not shut them off. It is a view of culture that is in actual practice far more freeing than what currently passes for music, art, and literature. This is not to say our culture should be difficult to understand, but it should not deal with what is given, to operate slowly on a machine made of clichés, familiar notes, expected colors, and worse of all, labels and brands.
But besides this is our material culture than accompanies it. This is the culture of consumerism. It is the way we consume now that prevents us from coming together under the banner of revolution and bringing about change. Compare our time with the 1960s and 1970s, when people came together over many marvelous projects. Not everything they stood for I agree with, but it is admirable that they had such energy and hope. They undertook it upon themselves to bring about change, in some cases, they succeeded. Why were they so eager to go into the streets and we are content to let the world grow ever more terrible?
Because they did not have the consumer culture we do to soothe them. They were able to open their eyes and keep their ears open because they did not have ipods to block everything out. They did not have to worry themselves with all kinds of summer choices. They were not busy wondering what their ring tones should be or what color their cellphones had to be. They did not take pictures of everything hoping in vain for something to be preserved for posterity, they went out and they made history.
A rejection of the “false” new is what we must first undergo in order to set the groundwork for collective change. The false new is the new of consumer goods which float past us and sing their siren songs asking to be snatched from the corporate vines through make them sprout from the ground. We must embrace the true new, the new of institutions responding to popular demands, the new of social change, the only change that matters. What new products might be dangling in front of us we must ignore. They are part of the whole culture of leveling down, not the culture of rising up, which we wish to cultivate, those of us who still carry the embers of some hope inside of us.
In addition, revolution must become a good word again. It must inspire us and makes feel arm just to hear it rubbed between the lips of another, as flaming as any cigarette. We in America have a unique opportunity to reclaim this word and shape it because we were the first ones to make it practical, to turn it from an abstraction, or a mere reference to astronomical bodies, and bring it down to the earth. We are in love with change, we must learn to once again love radical change, change that shifts the ground beneath us and creates a whole new way of seeing the world.
We are in a sense blessed by the fact that none of us lives with the memory of a domestic revolution. Revolution has become a tainted word because of other countries’ failures, but not our own. We have no reason to doubt ourselves capable of creating a better order, a more humane and rational society. We should not be depressed like those in Europe, Asia, or Latin America, if they have failed it is their own doing, we should critically examine such failures, but they should not hang like millstones around our necks, but rather serve to help make our path forward straighter without the distractions of collapsed utopias.
Revolution must become celebrated again as the last real adventure for us to take.
The present system has mapped everything around us, has come to understand geography, astronomy, and the most relevant parts of physics and psychology. But still it has no idea of the future and what potential human effort and endeavor can hold. We must turn to revolution if we are going to feel truly free and in any way the crafters and shapers of our own futures. If nothing else, hopefully it can be fun for all involved, exciting and enlightening, with every experience important and nothing regretted because lessons will always be learned. We have such short lives and there is no scoreboard ready to reward us for being meek, or laid back and letting things go on. There is no consolation prize. Even for those who believe in an afterlife, such a thing can only be won through a struggle. There is no reward for those who take a hands-off approach to life and society. What would be the point of getting in if it was the case?
I am not here to advocate one kind of revolution, but to call for a lifting of the repression around this concept. This is in fact a revolutionary approach, I feel. You, loyal reader who has reached the bottom of this article, could have dismissed this essay as a simple tirade, an angsty denouncement of everything coming from one who has not grown old enough to sample the delights of the status quo. Such an ad hominem attack might have merit if I was arguing for the overthrow of the system to be replaced with a definite alternative, providing you with knee-jerk revolutionary propaganda.
However, what I am in fact calling for, is for us to begin to debate radical change and what we can accomplish, how and why. We must throw open the doors to discourse first, realize what our possibilities are, and then work to achieve them in practical terms. We must start being as radical as reality itself.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
American Cheese Represents Everything Wrong With Our Country
Back in the day, I used to really love American Cheese. I was soft and yellow and I love how malleable it was. I used to try and see how many times I could fold the slices, creating tiny squares that I could put on my pre-pubescent tongue and feel them melt. Part of the reason was that my father used to eat them too, a dozen or so Kraft singles at a time. We would watch the evening news on the bed together, pulling apart pieces of cheese or eating the slices all at once.
Now, I've graduated to eating better kinds of cheese, French, Italian, Spanish, English, all the great cheeses of Europe. It's not an act of anti-American feeling, I enjoy cheddar cheese from Vermont and Cream Cheese as well. But I will not touch American cheese, will only eat it out of desperation, or in a dare. When I think back to how much I used to eat of it, I get sick. My Father has stopped his regimen of Kraft singles too, mostly for health reasons.
When I look at it, I cannot but help to look at the name of the product. Most cheeses are given regional names, but here is one that has a national moniker. That attaches all sorts of images and ideologies to a simple slice of cheese. One might be able to transcend the regional implications of a cheese, but national ones are harder. Eating American cheese is the patriotic thing to do, it is a unifying bond that holds all of our grilled cheese sandwiches together.
But naming a cheese after a country also makes you see the downside of it. All the negative facts can become symbolized. France avoids this problem with 400 different kinds of cheese. No one can hold one up and say, "this Brie shows us how we are failing as a nation." Because then somebody can hold up a Roquefort and challenge the assertion. But when you have "American" cheese, you cannot but think of America. I know that how they sell slices.
You see in American cheese a miracle of modern science of mass production. There is no miraculous feeling in eating it, but it comes to you regular and without any frills, just like our elections. Constant and always present, yet never exciting. It has great uniformity of taste, which leaves it without any sense of distinction. It is bland and every piece is like the other, just like the suburbs of this country. Save for the flora and fauna, you could pretty much go to any suburb and not know where you are (unless you see a Waffle House).
It does nothing to offend. It has no bitterness, no sharpness, it contains no smoky flavor, or crumbling texture. There is nothing to object to, except the lack of things to find fault with. It is an angelic cheese, once that is alien to everything about the world. It contains no impurities of field or cave, from wooden vat or leather case. It was conceived in a laboratory, born in a factory, living on a shelf after being taken there by a truck. The air was never allowed to touch it. It is isolated, it is alone. It likes to think of itself as pure and that is why it is disliked, but in reality, it is because it is a boring cheese to know.
Now, I've graduated to eating better kinds of cheese, French, Italian, Spanish, English, all the great cheeses of Europe. It's not an act of anti-American feeling, I enjoy cheddar cheese from Vermont and Cream Cheese as well. But I will not touch American cheese, will only eat it out of desperation, or in a dare. When I think back to how much I used to eat of it, I get sick. My Father has stopped his regimen of Kraft singles too, mostly for health reasons.
When I look at it, I cannot but help to look at the name of the product. Most cheeses are given regional names, but here is one that has a national moniker. That attaches all sorts of images and ideologies to a simple slice of cheese. One might be able to transcend the regional implications of a cheese, but national ones are harder. Eating American cheese is the patriotic thing to do, it is a unifying bond that holds all of our grilled cheese sandwiches together.
But naming a cheese after a country also makes you see the downside of it. All the negative facts can become symbolized. France avoids this problem with 400 different kinds of cheese. No one can hold one up and say, "this Brie shows us how we are failing as a nation." Because then somebody can hold up a Roquefort and challenge the assertion. But when you have "American" cheese, you cannot but think of America. I know that how they sell slices.
You see in American cheese a miracle of modern science of mass production. There is no miraculous feeling in eating it, but it comes to you regular and without any frills, just like our elections. Constant and always present, yet never exciting. It has great uniformity of taste, which leaves it without any sense of distinction. It is bland and every piece is like the other, just like the suburbs of this country. Save for the flora and fauna, you could pretty much go to any suburb and not know where you are (unless you see a Waffle House).
It does nothing to offend. It has no bitterness, no sharpness, it contains no smoky flavor, or crumbling texture. There is nothing to object to, except the lack of things to find fault with. It is an angelic cheese, once that is alien to everything about the world. It contains no impurities of field or cave, from wooden vat or leather case. It was conceived in a laboratory, born in a factory, living on a shelf after being taken there by a truck. The air was never allowed to touch it. It is isolated, it is alone. It likes to think of itself as pure and that is why it is disliked, but in reality, it is because it is a boring cheese to know.
Friday, September 7, 2007
The Only Thing I Can Do Right is Write
Oh well, I hope at least someone other than me thinks so
Today I was supposed to have a meeting with someone for Teach for America. We would sit around a table, drink coffee, and talk for an hour. Actually I was hoping that it would be less, because I had to take part in an economics experiment later on today. I was looking forward to making a few bucks for a minimal amount of work. However I was running behind as soon as I woke up. I haven't been able to sleep well, or do anything well for that matter, and I called the guy I was supposed to meet and said I would be fifteen minutes late. he said that was fine and hung up.
It was time to get dressed. I threw on the shorts and shirt I have been wearing for the past four days and left my room and took the elevator down. I had forgotten one crucial detail. Earlier in the week, I had received an e-mail telling me about the meeting and what to look for when trying to pick out one young guy sitting by himself from a whole room filled with them. It turns out the distinctive marker was a blue mug that appropriately said "Teach for America" on it.
Well, I didn't know that at the time I was out of the building and making my way to cross Houston Street. So I went into the coffee shop and looked around, expecting someone with a giant sign above them announcing who they were and what organization they were representing. I had no id what he would look like. I suppose I thought young and urbane, not in a suit and tie, maybe glasses, but probably not. If he had been a teacher himself, he probably would have exchanged rims for contacts, to appear younger and less overly erudite.
I saw plenty of people who could have been the man I was looking for, the man who was looking for me. There were some sitting with lap tops and I wondered if these were likely candidates. I had expected to share an empty table and exchange forms, brochures, numbers, and my resume. So what would he need a computer for? Maybe if I bored him he would starting surfing the Internet, checking out personals on Craigslist.
Pacing around, looking at my watch, and rocking back and forth on my toes didn't seem to catch Antone's attention. A few people looked at me, but not int he inquisitive way I hoped, trying to figure out if I was the one they were waiting for, the promised child, the future teacher for America. I'm sure the staff working behind the counter were pleased, seeing this young man with a beard looking around, clutching a bag close to himself, not ordering anything.
Finally, I gave up. I left, wanting to catch my experiment in time and to be able to catch a bite to eat before then. I had a pumpernickel bagel and in change I got back dimes and nickels, the man was out of quarters. it was a bad omen. Or a bad closing. Well, one thing that I didn't expect and know how to deal with.
I went inside the building for the experiments and waited until they were ready to let me into the lab. Now these were economic experiments, I would play a lame computer game and I would be paid base don my decision making skills. The people running the experiments would collect the data and weave grand theories out of it. I would get a few bucks and science and society would be advanced by the cause. I suffered no setback in getting into the experiment, my name was on the list and there was a computer available for me. I was relieved. Something good was going to happen.
However the experiment was more structured than I thought it would be. There was little left up to me. I had to choose the right combination of balls, marked with either an X, a Y, or a Z. Then I was eligible for a lottery were I could win $105 dollars. If I chose wisely, or more accurately, I was lucky. I could choose to change the balls I had, in any combination, or to keep them the same and then risk not getting the payout. If I did not choose the right balls in the electronic urn (harking back to Ancient Athens' juries) then all I would get was a show up fee, minus the cost of switching balls.
I decided on a compromise, changing one ball and keeping the other two the same. I thought that this was like a Monty Hall problem or something like it, but I didn't know what was the best solution in this case. I wanted to keep as much of the show-up fee as possible, so I lost a dollar by changing one ball. Anyways, the computer turned its gears and decided that despite my efforts, I was not worthy of the grand prize. I knew I was not alone, most of the people in the room with me probably didn't get it either, but that solidarity would not pay for a nice meal and a bottle of Scotch.
So today was a day of failure in regards to events within my control and for events regarding luck. At least I was able to buy my groceries without any problems. If only the one guy who did win the huge prize wasn't in line next to me at the Bursar's office, waiting for the petty cash officer to count off his plethora of twenty dollar bills.
Today I was supposed to have a meeting with someone for Teach for America. We would sit around a table, drink coffee, and talk for an hour. Actually I was hoping that it would be less, because I had to take part in an economics experiment later on today. I was looking forward to making a few bucks for a minimal amount of work. However I was running behind as soon as I woke up. I haven't been able to sleep well, or do anything well for that matter, and I called the guy I was supposed to meet and said I would be fifteen minutes late. he said that was fine and hung up.
It was time to get dressed. I threw on the shorts and shirt I have been wearing for the past four days and left my room and took the elevator down. I had forgotten one crucial detail. Earlier in the week, I had received an e-mail telling me about the meeting and what to look for when trying to pick out one young guy sitting by himself from a whole room filled with them. It turns out the distinctive marker was a blue mug that appropriately said "Teach for America" on it.
Well, I didn't know that at the time I was out of the building and making my way to cross Houston Street. So I went into the coffee shop and looked around, expecting someone with a giant sign above them announcing who they were and what organization they were representing. I had no id what he would look like. I suppose I thought young and urbane, not in a suit and tie, maybe glasses, but probably not. If he had been a teacher himself, he probably would have exchanged rims for contacts, to appear younger and less overly erudite.
I saw plenty of people who could have been the man I was looking for, the man who was looking for me. There were some sitting with lap tops and I wondered if these were likely candidates. I had expected to share an empty table and exchange forms, brochures, numbers, and my resume. So what would he need a computer for? Maybe if I bored him he would starting surfing the Internet, checking out personals on Craigslist.
Pacing around, looking at my watch, and rocking back and forth on my toes didn't seem to catch Antone's attention. A few people looked at me, but not int he inquisitive way I hoped, trying to figure out if I was the one they were waiting for, the promised child, the future teacher for America. I'm sure the staff working behind the counter were pleased, seeing this young man with a beard looking around, clutching a bag close to himself, not ordering anything.
Finally, I gave up. I left, wanting to catch my experiment in time and to be able to catch a bite to eat before then. I had a pumpernickel bagel and in change I got back dimes and nickels, the man was out of quarters. it was a bad omen. Or a bad closing. Well, one thing that I didn't expect and know how to deal with.
I went inside the building for the experiments and waited until they were ready to let me into the lab. Now these were economic experiments, I would play a lame computer game and I would be paid base don my decision making skills. The people running the experiments would collect the data and weave grand theories out of it. I would get a few bucks and science and society would be advanced by the cause. I suffered no setback in getting into the experiment, my name was on the list and there was a computer available for me. I was relieved. Something good was going to happen.
However the experiment was more structured than I thought it would be. There was little left up to me. I had to choose the right combination of balls, marked with either an X, a Y, or a Z. Then I was eligible for a lottery were I could win $105 dollars. If I chose wisely, or more accurately, I was lucky. I could choose to change the balls I had, in any combination, or to keep them the same and then risk not getting the payout. If I did not choose the right balls in the electronic urn (harking back to Ancient Athens' juries) then all I would get was a show up fee, minus the cost of switching balls.
I decided on a compromise, changing one ball and keeping the other two the same. I thought that this was like a Monty Hall problem or something like it, but I didn't know what was the best solution in this case. I wanted to keep as much of the show-up fee as possible, so I lost a dollar by changing one ball. Anyways, the computer turned its gears and decided that despite my efforts, I was not worthy of the grand prize. I knew I was not alone, most of the people in the room with me probably didn't get it either, but that solidarity would not pay for a nice meal and a bottle of Scotch.
So today was a day of failure in regards to events within my control and for events regarding luck. At least I was able to buy my groceries without any problems. If only the one guy who did win the huge prize wasn't in line next to me at the Bursar's office, waiting for the petty cash officer to count off his plethora of twenty dollar bills.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Should I Vote in 2008?
Seriously, I wonder what the point is.
Let me preface this by saying that I never would have thought I would ever think like this. Such a question used to hit me as the most unpatriotic thing a person could consider. Flag burning and draft dodging have their place as far as I was concerned, but the ballot was sacred. To not put a marked card into a slot, or press a button to deliver an opinion, this was the highest sacrilege, as bad as burning the original constitution or moving to Canada.
Basically, I used to care who won the elections, specifically the presidential ones. Every four years it was exciting to see who would get their party's nomination, who said what, the promises that were made, the characters revealed, the stump speeches delivered, it was all so interesting to me. I was a Democrat and believed that my party could change things and that it was always right, and everyone else simply had to be educated to understand why they were wrong. This is after all, the opinion of anyone who identifies with any party. It is the belief of anyone who holds Liberal Democracy dear to their heart, that reason and discussion will lead to change, and change for the better. Education and discourse are all you need.
But as I saw how the Democrats lost their spine during the Clinton years and under the Bush presidency, I wanted to supposed another party. Certainly it was not going to be the Republicans, whose hypocritical religious stances I could never support. I believed in radical change. I believed the system was rotten, so in 2004 I voted for Nader. I knew he had a long shot in winning, but I wanted to at least vote my conscience. So many liberals I knew did otherwise and even though they compromised during that election, they still lost.
I thought the solution was supporting a third party. But the system seems to be so stacked up against the formation of any new political entity that could seriously challenge the Demopublican machine. it is so hard for new parties to get ballot access, media exposure, funding, and to be allowed to debate on national television. Willpower isn't enough. One of the major parties has to self implode. That was how the Republicans got started, in the collapse of the Whigs in the 1850s. Maybe it could happen in the Republican Party, as I explained in my essay, 'End of a Marriage" and it could always occur for the Democrats, who have a much broader tent, so to speak.
Still, that leaves me dependent on two parties and what they think the major issues should be. If it is not on their agenda, it does not exist. Between the parties I see no difference on Iraq, as much as the Democrats claim to want to get out, no difference on political reform, and fundamentally no improvement for the working classes of this country addressed by them. Getting rid of the stupid electoral college and granting real rights to people in DC and those who have served their time in jail never enter their radar screen. It's all about gay marriage and looking tough on terrorism and soft on immigration.
I know I'm not alone. Most Americans generally don't vote, especially in the primaries and in congressional elections. These are the worst, it is nearly impossible to unseat an incumbent, unless they literally unseat themselves with a wide stance like senator Craig of Idaho, or put their foot in their mouth like George Allen (I suppose Va. senators are cursed with running lackluster campaigns, unless they were married to Elizabeth Taylor). But the Presidential race looks depressing despite it being full of promise.
Why? Two things. First there is no one from the two major parties who is either running again for the presidency, or was vice-president (baring Al Gore entering the race). this means that everyone is able to run on their own records and will face competition within their ranks. Second we have had such a bad eight years under this administration (there really is not any precedent for how incompetent Bush is, he should be impeached for Iraq or Katrina alone, but this again proves my theory about the weak spines of the democrats) that for the first time in years, Americans are angry enough to have real change happen.
But the candidates that have forward are depressing. The Republicans can't either be trusted (Mitt Romney with his false conservative credentials) or have sold out (McCain, there is a reason his campaign does not have the momentum of 2000, when I was depressed he failed to carry Va.) or do not offer any significant challenge to the status quo established by the Bush administration. Stay the course seems to still be the party line.
The democrats have failed to produce anyone with a real vision for this country. Worse, it seems Hillary Clinton is in the lead. This is disastrous for the Democrats. We need change. We need someone from outside the Beltway to tighten it and make it fit this country's needs better. She is more of the same. We cannot go back to the 1990s, and we shouldn't. There are a lot of problems we face today because we let them simmer during the Clinton years. I hate so-called liberals who praise her pragmatism. Pragmatism in the absence of real idealism is hollow electioneering. When power becomes its own ends, rather than a means to an end, nothing ever changes. The other candidates for the most part are the same, with the except of Kucinich and Gravel, the latter is too old, sorry to say, and the former does not give off the kind of charisma necessary to make major change happen. We need a radical version of Reagan, no more Dukakises. Sadly none have come forward.
Obama has potential and if he wins the nomination, I might vote for him. He's a freshman senator, he doesn't have the most experience, but Cheney & co. had plenty of it and look how fine they have been for us. But an Obama - Hillary ticket I just couldn't stomach. unfortunately this appears to be the most likely outcome, since the media likes to do everything they can to make this seem inevitable. Maybe if it is a really close election I'll go out and vote, and even then, only if it is a sunny day. No use feeling limited in your options while standing in the rain.
Let me preface this by saying that I never would have thought I would ever think like this. Such a question used to hit me as the most unpatriotic thing a person could consider. Flag burning and draft dodging have their place as far as I was concerned, but the ballot was sacred. To not put a marked card into a slot, or press a button to deliver an opinion, this was the highest sacrilege, as bad as burning the original constitution or moving to Canada.
Basically, I used to care who won the elections, specifically the presidential ones. Every four years it was exciting to see who would get their party's nomination, who said what, the promises that were made, the characters revealed, the stump speeches delivered, it was all so interesting to me. I was a Democrat and believed that my party could change things and that it was always right, and everyone else simply had to be educated to understand why they were wrong. This is after all, the opinion of anyone who identifies with any party. It is the belief of anyone who holds Liberal Democracy dear to their heart, that reason and discussion will lead to change, and change for the better. Education and discourse are all you need.
But as I saw how the Democrats lost their spine during the Clinton years and under the Bush presidency, I wanted to supposed another party. Certainly it was not going to be the Republicans, whose hypocritical religious stances I could never support. I believed in radical change. I believed the system was rotten, so in 2004 I voted for Nader. I knew he had a long shot in winning, but I wanted to at least vote my conscience. So many liberals I knew did otherwise and even though they compromised during that election, they still lost.
I thought the solution was supporting a third party. But the system seems to be so stacked up against the formation of any new political entity that could seriously challenge the Demopublican machine. it is so hard for new parties to get ballot access, media exposure, funding, and to be allowed to debate on national television. Willpower isn't enough. One of the major parties has to self implode. That was how the Republicans got started, in the collapse of the Whigs in the 1850s. Maybe it could happen in the Republican Party, as I explained in my essay, 'End of a Marriage" and it could always occur for the Democrats, who have a much broader tent, so to speak.
Still, that leaves me dependent on two parties and what they think the major issues should be. If it is not on their agenda, it does not exist. Between the parties I see no difference on Iraq, as much as the Democrats claim to want to get out, no difference on political reform, and fundamentally no improvement for the working classes of this country addressed by them. Getting rid of the stupid electoral college and granting real rights to people in DC and those who have served their time in jail never enter their radar screen. It's all about gay marriage and looking tough on terrorism and soft on immigration.
I know I'm not alone. Most Americans generally don't vote, especially in the primaries and in congressional elections. These are the worst, it is nearly impossible to unseat an incumbent, unless they literally unseat themselves with a wide stance like senator Craig of Idaho, or put their foot in their mouth like George Allen (I suppose Va. senators are cursed with running lackluster campaigns, unless they were married to Elizabeth Taylor). But the Presidential race looks depressing despite it being full of promise.
Why? Two things. First there is no one from the two major parties who is either running again for the presidency, or was vice-president (baring Al Gore entering the race). this means that everyone is able to run on their own records and will face competition within their ranks. Second we have had such a bad eight years under this administration (there really is not any precedent for how incompetent Bush is, he should be impeached for Iraq or Katrina alone, but this again proves my theory about the weak spines of the democrats) that for the first time in years, Americans are angry enough to have real change happen.
But the candidates that have forward are depressing. The Republicans can't either be trusted (Mitt Romney with his false conservative credentials) or have sold out (McCain, there is a reason his campaign does not have the momentum of 2000, when I was depressed he failed to carry Va.) or do not offer any significant challenge to the status quo established by the Bush administration. Stay the course seems to still be the party line.
The democrats have failed to produce anyone with a real vision for this country. Worse, it seems Hillary Clinton is in the lead. This is disastrous for the Democrats. We need change. We need someone from outside the Beltway to tighten it and make it fit this country's needs better. She is more of the same. We cannot go back to the 1990s, and we shouldn't. There are a lot of problems we face today because we let them simmer during the Clinton years. I hate so-called liberals who praise her pragmatism. Pragmatism in the absence of real idealism is hollow electioneering. When power becomes its own ends, rather than a means to an end, nothing ever changes. The other candidates for the most part are the same, with the except of Kucinich and Gravel, the latter is too old, sorry to say, and the former does not give off the kind of charisma necessary to make major change happen. We need a radical version of Reagan, no more Dukakises. Sadly none have come forward.
Obama has potential and if he wins the nomination, I might vote for him. He's a freshman senator, he doesn't have the most experience, but Cheney & co. had plenty of it and look how fine they have been for us. But an Obama - Hillary ticket I just couldn't stomach. unfortunately this appears to be the most likely outcome, since the media likes to do everything they can to make this seem inevitable. Maybe if it is a really close election I'll go out and vote, and even then, only if it is a sunny day. No use feeling limited in your options while standing in the rain.
A Shot at Upshot
Okay, so school is starting and that means lots of people who aren't students descending on campus. I go to school in a city so it is easy to get in and get things to students. We are a group of people, largely foolish, with a lot of either cash or plastic on hand so promoters of all types want to get us hooked on their products. Even living in the dorms I have menus and postcards for promised wild parties slid under my door. it irritates me because they are getting paid to litter.
Anyway, many times people hand out small promotional samples of their products. It is never for anything useful, such as wine, cheese, or gasoline. Usually it is for a drink of some kind because everyone who goes to NYU is on a strictly liquid diet, except for Ramen, which is of course cooked in a quid with flavoring. I enjoy a hearty meal (just ask anyone who runs a buffet in a thirty minute radius of Washington Square Park) but most of my peers live off of coffee, juice, and energy drinks. Consequently, this is what I usually see samples given out of.
Turning the corner, I saw people with stacks of little bottles. My first thought was that I had hit pay day, they resembled the small bottles you get on airplanes or in hotels, small containers of scotch and whiskey, vodka and gin. The liquid diet I enjoy involves these and clamato or orange juice. However I saw they were not handing out liquor, of course, but samples of an energy drink. A promoter saw me standing, trying to gaze at the labels looking for a proof. She handed me two samples of an energy drink.
It is called Upshot, One bottle was magenta colored and is considered to be "fruit" flavored. The other was brown, a light brown, and is "mocha" flavored. One sees the problem here and I should have seen the fruit flavor as a magenta flag. An orange, a grape, a melon, a kiwi, and a tomato are all 'fruit" something that tries to resemble all of them is doomed to distateful failure. No doubt about it. Unfortunately I had faith in modern science and chemistry and took the two bottles, drinking them on a street corner in front of a garbage can, so I could dispose of them if I found them horrible.
Since I was sure teh mocha tasted better than the fruit, I started with the fruit flavored concotion. Opening it up, i saw that it was bubbly and sticky, like a bottle filled with soap for blowing bubbles. I had a drink. it was disgusting. It tasted like window cleaner. Something trying to hide its being sanitary with a color adn a smell. I finished the bottle and grasped for air, hoping the stale scent of cigarettes and piss would give my mouth something better to grasp.
Failing that, i tried the mocha instead. it tasted like mocha, but with a shot of bleach in it. I thought I was drink something collected off the floor of a Starbucks. Examining the labels on the bottles I saw that they claim to have "More Power. Less Liquid" I think this is precisely the problem. They need less power and more liquid. They need to be diluted. I can say though, they do provide one with energy, as I am able to write this whole article rather lucidly despite it being mid day and time for my usual dozing off.
I guess it is a trade off. there is no good tasting energy drink, except for coffee itself, the original energy drink, the one fortunes, empires, and the rise of the industrial society are dependent on. today's energy drinks have nothing on coffee. Coffee brings people together for intellectual stimulation. Energy drinks keep one awake at bars or at work. They make one bluntly awake, providing no sharpness of vision.
Anyway, many times people hand out small promotional samples of their products. It is never for anything useful, such as wine, cheese, or gasoline. Usually it is for a drink of some kind because everyone who goes to NYU is on a strictly liquid diet, except for Ramen, which is of course cooked in a quid with flavoring. I enjoy a hearty meal (just ask anyone who runs a buffet in a thirty minute radius of Washington Square Park) but most of my peers live off of coffee, juice, and energy drinks. Consequently, this is what I usually see samples given out of.
Turning the corner, I saw people with stacks of little bottles. My first thought was that I had hit pay day, they resembled the small bottles you get on airplanes or in hotels, small containers of scotch and whiskey, vodka and gin. The liquid diet I enjoy involves these and clamato or orange juice. However I saw they were not handing out liquor, of course, but samples of an energy drink. A promoter saw me standing, trying to gaze at the labels looking for a proof. She handed me two samples of an energy drink.
It is called Upshot, One bottle was magenta colored and is considered to be "fruit" flavored. The other was brown, a light brown, and is "mocha" flavored. One sees the problem here and I should have seen the fruit flavor as a magenta flag. An orange, a grape, a melon, a kiwi, and a tomato are all 'fruit" something that tries to resemble all of them is doomed to distateful failure. No doubt about it. Unfortunately I had faith in modern science and chemistry and took the two bottles, drinking them on a street corner in front of a garbage can, so I could dispose of them if I found them horrible.
Since I was sure teh mocha tasted better than the fruit, I started with the fruit flavored concotion. Opening it up, i saw that it was bubbly and sticky, like a bottle filled with soap for blowing bubbles. I had a drink. it was disgusting. It tasted like window cleaner. Something trying to hide its being sanitary with a color adn a smell. I finished the bottle and grasped for air, hoping the stale scent of cigarettes and piss would give my mouth something better to grasp.
Failing that, i tried the mocha instead. it tasted like mocha, but with a shot of bleach in it. I thought I was drink something collected off the floor of a Starbucks. Examining the labels on the bottles I saw that they claim to have "More Power. Less Liquid" I think this is precisely the problem. They need less power and more liquid. They need to be diluted. I can say though, they do provide one with energy, as I am able to write this whole article rather lucidly despite it being mid day and time for my usual dozing off.
I guess it is a trade off. there is no good tasting energy drink, except for coffee itself, the original energy drink, the one fortunes, empires, and the rise of the industrial society are dependent on. today's energy drinks have nothing on coffee. Coffee brings people together for intellectual stimulation. Energy drinks keep one awake at bars or at work. They make one bluntly awake, providing no sharpness of vision.
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