We were hacked yesterday.  Sorry for any inconvenience.  If you notice anything amiss please contact me via FB or the e-mail below.

When you grow up

you tend to get told
the world is the way it is
and you’re life is just
to live your life inside the world.
Try not to bash into the walls too much.

Try to have a nice family,

have fun,

save a little money.

.

.

.

That’s a very limited life.

.

.

Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact:

.

Everything around you that you call life

was made up by people that were no smarter than you

and you can change it,

you can influence it,

you can build your own things

that other people can use.

.

Once you learn that,

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

you’ll never be the same again.

– Steve Jobs

.

.

.

This reminds me of an old Sufi proverb,

that the first barrier to anything
is not imagining it can be done
once you imagine it can be done
you can never return to a time when
you didn’t imagine it could be done
this is why the first barrier
is also called the last

Had the sad / unfortunate experience to watch someone crash & burn recently.  To protect the privacy & feelings of innocent 3rd parties, I’m obscuring all the details, though I will say while the person in question did some things wrong, they also did some things right & deserve credit for that.

The key points:

1. Your sins will find you out.  This is especially true in the Internet age.
2. It’s never the crime, it’s always the cover-up.
3. That being said, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
4. If you make a record of something, you are giving tacit approval to share it with the world.
5. If you make a digital record, sharing with the world is compulsory.
6. Do nothing you aren’t willing to share with the world.
7. Handles create a false sense of security.
8. Nothing is ever as it seems.
9. If you can’t answer a personal question with “Yeah, so?” you are doing something wrong.

“The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.  They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.  They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.  Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.  A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.” – Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience”

“The problem with sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ableist, etc., remarks and ‘jokes’ is not that they’re offensive, but that by relying for their meaning on harmful cultural narratives about privileged and marginalized groups they reinforce those narratives, and the stronger those narratives are, the stronger the implicit biases with which people are indoctrinated are.  That’s real harm, not just ‘offense.’” — Scott Madin, “I Don’t Care If You’re Offended”

Had a lotta stuff I wanted to upload over the last week but I was abducted by leprechauns the best-laid schemes o’mice and men gang aft agely.

So while waiting for the other posts to be readied, try visiting the ever insightful Tony Isabella’s new blog.

Or if you’re of a more musical bent, watch first this video…

…then this one.

(Minor NSFW at
the beginning of
the clip.)

“The first thing to remember is that there are two kinds of problems in this world.  You might be unfortunate enough to have both kinds at once but you should never forget that there are two kinds — the ones that can be largely solved by One Phone Call and the ones that can’t.  ‘I don’t have a job’ can be solved with One Phone Call.  Someone calls up and hires you…

“The other kind of problem is the kind that can’t be solved by One Phone Call.  Being very ill would probably be the most obvious example but it can also be a relationship problem that isn’t going to get better and we can all imagine plenty of other situations…

“People keep plunging themselves into depression and despair because they mistake the first kind of problem for the second kind.  Neither is fun and I’m not suggesting the second kind is necessarily hopeless.  I know plenty of folks who’ve recovered from pretty severe disasters.  I just think it’s valuable to distinguish between them and to not overdramatize the former into the latter.” — Mark Evanier

1. Enthusiasm

2. Disillusionment

3. Panic

4. Search for the guilty

5. Punish the innocent

6. Praise & reward the non-participants

Had a real John Carpenter moment recently w/someone dear to me.

I am irritated that we have let public discourse degenerate in this country to the point where it’s no longer possible to have a rational discussion.  People shut one another off w/o hearing the full argument.

Our culture has been taught that every situation must be regarded as polarizing, w/no shades or hues between, w/no degrees of magnitude.  We have been taught that compromise is weak, that only victory is desirable, and anything less than the utter crushing of opposition is a failure.

What an utter load of crap.

We can not successfully live together & solve problems if we are not willing to hear one another out, to at least open our minds & hearts to the point where we’re willing to hear what the other person has to say so we can grasp some degree of understanding why they are saying it.

Instead we let vested interests set the agendas that keep us focused away from the real problems & onto petty differences.

I don’t know which is more harmful, the vested interests who at least benefit directly from the shift in focus, or the water carriers hoping to curry favor with them.

Put on the glasses.

“This is what I mean by my constant insistence on ‘moderation’ in government.  Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things.  Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas.  Their number is negligible and they are stupid.” — Dwight David Eisenhower

(found via Andrew Sullivan)