Lowbar: 02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004

Friday, February 27, 2004

Interesting, Sure

Not that I disagree, HH, but... As the author points out, San Francisco can be accurately described as a "progressive open-minded convoluted messed-up liberal bubble." In my interactions with a lot of people there (nowhere near as many as Bay Area residents ApeRobot and HH, but still) it has come to my attention that the liberal intellectuals of San Francisco live in a completely and totally different world than the rest of America. Quoting the article again, "No matter what the final outcome, this past week will go down as one of those defining moments, a seminal point in American history."

Don't want to bust the "liberal bubble," but that is absolutely untrue. While it is being run by major news outlets fairly regularly, it's hardly a topic of discussion outside of the dilletante community. Frankly, most people simply don't notice or care, except your wackos who are violently against it. Even my gay friends don't have much to say about it.

What may end up being historic about this whole thing is that one of those violently-opposed to the general interest of "the folks" (to borrow a Bill O'Rielly term) is doing a stint as President of the United States. While gay marriage really isn't something that matters much to me, stem cell reserach is. So does his assessment of global climate change studies as "pseudoscience" (particularly interesting in parallel with his interest in returning instruction on creationism to schools). So does "improving the economy" the old trickle-down way...which actually has demonstrated efficacy, when the jobs being created aren't trickling down and out to Mexico, India, etc.

People of America, regardless of your political leanings, you need to recognize that the Replubican party and its leaders no longer represent you (unless you are in the top 5% or so of finanical strata). Please vote accordingly, or don't vote at all. Ah, who gives a fuck.

My point, which I'm not making well, is that while San Francisco is in an idealogical bubble of sorts, so too seems to be the President of the United fucking States. Something's not right with that.

Friday, February 20, 2004

These Are Interesting Times
As most everybody has heard our once loathed now semi-tolerated Mayor of San Francisco has legalized same sex marriages (for this week at least). We've all seen the lines of gay and lesbian couples wrapping around the block of City Hall and the photos of couples exchanging vows. I personally found it quite moving to watch it all and found myself saying "how could anybody find anything wrong with this?" Yesterday a columnist named Mark Morford wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle an article titled: Now, "That's" San Francisco . In that article Mark states that "[what is happening down at City Hall] makes you say, oh my God, I am right now so incredibly proud to say I live here." I wrote the columnist an email saying simply, "amen."

Today that same columnist wrote a very scathing Op-Ed against hateful religious types, Is Your Religion Unsanitary?. As I read this article, I couldn't help but think about all of the hate mail this guy is undoubtedly going to get. He has decided to bypass the smaller issues and go right to the heart. It's funny, I've been thinking for a while along these same lines but without the fervor and eloquence that this columnist has. The reason I even bring it up here is that it seems to me that the world is becoming stratified along two major levels. Simply put, 1) those that feel indignant at something like 9/11 and want revenge at any cost and 2) those that accept it and value peace and look upon those that perpetrated such an act as misled and "not knowing what they do." And as we move closer to Election Day I know this dichotomy of thought will become more and more prevalent. Our President lives in thought construct #1. He can't see out of it. Every time he speaks, he speaks from the heart but from a limited viewpoint. The world for him is "us vs. them." This kind of thinking may provide short term relief to our perceived problems but severe actions such as invading sovereign countries in the name of "war on terror", detaining prisoners indefinitely as "enemy combatants", stripping civil liberties as the "Patriot Act" and denying a couple that loves one another the right to a legal marriage, will just bite us all in the ass. How? I don't know the specific form those repercussions will take and I'm not saying the wrath of God will smite George W. but it will keep us in a holding pattern until we can break out of it and as long as we are not progressing we will keep reliving the same painful lessons.

All of this reminds me of a theory called Spiral Dynamics, which states that collectively we evolve into higher states of consciousness but some of us get stuck in the previous states. According to this theory, George W. is subscribing to the "Authoritarian Meme" which came into being about 5,000 years ago. Since that time, we've had four major advancements in human evolution. So while thinking that George is "one of them" back on level 2 is educational in my understanding of why things are the way they are, I am also left with the same sentiment that I was left with after 9/11: I accept it and "he [Bush] knows not what he does." Vengeance and hatred against those that think differently than me just feeds the flame of the same bonfire. I do however have an opinion and I think that the person who runs our country, which is supposed to be the most advanced nation on Earth, should be working to advance mankind, not be reacting to the world through fear and paranoia.

Saturday, February 07, 2004

Jumbley-ass

1. Superpantts

2. Fart-Sounds Junction

It's time to listen to fart sounds with your ears.

3. A complete overhaul of everything written so far

- the notion that you don't control your own time
- the notion that you must harness time
- the notion that a job, no matter how ideal, is still a job
- the notion that time has stopped
- the notion that everything is futile
- the notion that everything is equally worth trying
- the notion that people will stab you in the back
- the notion that you are running out of time
- the notion that playing the lottery is a waste of time and money
- the notion that playing the lottery is smart