Jan 31
My life as late has been dominated by poker and whatever scraps fall off the felt are claimed by my actual job as a programmer. As such the only recent stories I have to relate involve the play of various hands or the theories behind my latest stored procedure. I have begun saving interesting hand histories while playing online with the intention of revisiting them later. If I feel I played a hand badly, could have played it better, or simply found it confusing I drop the history into a text file and then replay it in my mind, looking for ways that I could have played it better. I suppose I could post some of those histories, but I don’t imagine you would find it all that interesting.
I watched Syriana today. Basically it is the movie Traffic, but with oil instead of drugs. The story is told in the same stylistic, multi-faceted manner and ends with a similarly depressing, though realistic conclusion. Coming away from the film I swung over to The Moderate Voice to play a half-hearted game of Catch Up on recent national politics. I have to say, and I don’t want to dwell on the point for too long, that the frustration of a movie like Traffic or Syriana is only compounded when you look at American government and big business and realize that the horriffic storyline you just witnessed on film is in fact your reality. The movie ends, but the problematic situation continues. I voiced my concern to my roommate Matt who then pointed out today that Exxon announced recently that they just posted a fourth quarter profit of around 11 billion dollars (that’s only for three months… and it’s all profit). There yearly profits totalled more than $36 billion, which is more than a 40% increase over last year. It is the single largest corporate profit in the history of the world and the company credited their success to, “higher gas prices.” Well, no shit. Conspiracy theories aside it is also worth mentioning that one of the major differences between this year and last is the devastion of Hurricane Katrina which damaged our oil capabilities and was offered as justification for the price hikes at my local pump. Common sense would lead me to believe that horrible natural disasters should shrink a company’s profits, but once again I find that it’s Opposite Day in America. Matt then complained how ridiculous it was that our government allows the oil companies to get away with that, to which I replied, “You voted for Bush, not me.” He then touched his thumbs together while extending each index finger, “Hey man, I gotta vote for the W!!” How do you argue with that?
Incidentally the State of the Union is on tonight. I usually watch these things for about a half hour before changing the channel. Within that thirty minutes I am lucky to hear two minutes of content among the twenty-eight minutes of raging applause. “We need to beat the terrorists!”
To distract my mind from the frustrations of reality, I laced a cotton cloth with concentrated fiction and held it over my mouth until the pain was gone. I only did a brief and cursory search (I clicked on the very first link returned by google) but landed upon what so far seems to be quite the gem of a website. I only read a few of the shorter short stories, but they were generally pleasant. Particularly useful to me were the comments and ratings attached to each story. Anyway, if you like words, sentences, or the ideas they convey you might not completely be wasting time by visiting this site.
January 31st, 2006
i don’t know how to read
February 1st, 2006
If you watched the speech the majority of the time the Democrats didn’t stand up and clap – except of course when they stood up to clap in sarcasm in response to W’s statement that Congress didn’t pass his social security plan. I thought that was the best part. Interesting how people who voted for Bush often take no responsibility for the results of their actions.
Alito was confirmed today. Remember today not for the speech, or the Oscar nominations, or the death of Coretta Scott King. Today is a day that marks the beginning of the loss of civil liberties for Americans for decades to come. Today’s confirmation may unfortunatley be Bush’s lasting legacy. With the shift in the Supreme Court, we can only watch as the court erodes any expectation of privacy and our civil liberties. I was asked today to complete a survey by the American Bar Association. It asked about the actions of the government in the last 5 years to erode the attorney-client privilege, as the government, via the various regulators, demands access to all attorney work product. The government believes that corporation counsel must turn over privileged communications to them. In fact, the government has asked for copies of my emails to my clients providing advice, failing to recognize that a privilege exists that needs protecting. A small example of where this country is heading, but a true and scary one nonetheless. Given the ABA survey, this is happening on a regular basis. The confirmation of Alito only insures that this type of action will continue. Should we be glad that it took until 2006 for 1984 to arrive? This is a sad day for America. Mom
February 1st, 2006
The only part of the speech that I found interesting involved Bush’s remarks on domestic spying. He stared at the camera in a defiant way and basically said, “Yeah, we’re going to be spying on Americans. Because that’s what it takes to prevent another 9/11 and ensure our freedom.” The fallacy of that argument seems so evident that I’m amazed educated people buy into it. Then again, I got into an arguement with a girl at Northwestern because she asserted that the theory of evolution is a myth, preaching to me instead the truth of Creationism. The discussion actually left me speechless because I couldn’t imagine how someone could so genuinely disagree with what seems to me a scientific fact and unassailable truth. As if someone told me that gravity was a myth and my feet were actually pulled to the ground by God’s love. I view the reactionist response to terrorism with the same stunned disbelief. There are a great many legitimate points of contention and debate, but when educated and empowered people speak on the values of torture or of the necessity to deprive Americans at large of their civil rights in order to preserve their freedom, I find myself laughing in disbelief. I don’t really understand how this is a Republican versus Democrat issue either. Federal vs State, Big Business vs Small Business, Monetary policy vs Fiscal policy…. sure. But Freedom vs Terrorism? Liberty vs Security? I guess I have always just believed that human rights and civil liberties were universal ideals. Apparently being born with a concience and the gift of reason makes me a Democrat?
Republicans out there, and I know at least a few of my friends are, tell me what I am missing here, please. I think there is a much bigger ideological division here than simply a disagreement over method. I struggle to understand how that is possible.
February 3rd, 2006
I am not sure its a matter of ideology or politics. It was long ago during an herbally enduced moment of clarity that a friend of mine summed up the entirety of the problem with America- “just how is it that stupid people end up running all the important shit?”