"comfort is a means, not an end. the modern world seems to regard it as an end in itself, an absolute good. one day, perhaps, the earth will have been turned into one vast feather-bed, with man's body dozing on top of it and his mind underneath, like desdemona, smothered"

"the condition of an expanding and technologically progressive system is universal craving...desirelessness is the condition of deliverance and illumination."

-Aldous Huxley

And through Dr. Miller in Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza:

"i've never really liked it, you know. not what's ordinarily meant by prayer at any rate. all that asking for special favours and guidances and forgivenesses--i've always found that it tends to make one egotistical, preoccupied with one's own ridiculous, self-important little personality. when you pray in the ordinary way, you're merely rubbing yourself into yourself. you return to your own vomit, if you see what i mean. whereas what we're all looking for is some way of getting beyond our own vomit."

i need to read Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy i think.

in other news...

Herb Brooks, the brilliant, complicated coach who led the United States to the "Miracle on Ice" at the 1980 Olympics, died Monday afternoon in a car accident.

so i was bouncing around a bit just now, trying to figure out how to improve this blog attempt of mine and i was reading what i have on here so far and it struck me as mildly humorous that i'm the only person that ever reads this crap. i'm sure some psychologist could draw some interesting conclusions about my mental stability or lack there of by the fact that i write all this like someone else is gonna read it, when they never really do. then again, there's nothing wrong with a little self-serving flattery once-in-a-while. maybe years from now this page will be ellaborate and witty and "cutting edge" and such and people will find it amusing to reread (nix the "re" i suppose) my initial comments to see all the stupid crap i was espousing. yes yes. love the big words sometimes.
i'm pleased that i've started writing in here more. sometimes i'm amazed that people are given the opportunity to write a "column" in mass produced media publications. they often, if not always, consist of their thoughts on a particular topic that just popped in their head and i wonder, what's so freakin' unique about the crap this guy's got to say. (you, the imaginary reader are probably asking yourself the same thing right now)

The Kids Aren't All Right

so i guess i didn't originally intend for this little ditty i call supposedly to consist mainly of links to articles that i find intriguing, but if it feels good do it. i really appreciate articles that sorta serve as wake-up calls to me and make me realize how i might not have understood exactly what's going on around me. this article's a review of a book by this guy Henry Giroux, but it's actually much more than that. it puts into perspective how we're all being conned into playing this goofy little game. we're systematically convinced to care about certain things, which actually may be of minor significance, when we are surrounded, literally, day by day by gross atrocities.
now let's just say, hypothetically, that our government was intending to push forth its own self serving interests while neglecting the wants and needs of the general population. if that were the case, wouldn't they do their best to convince us that something else matters besides what we know, truly does? they don't underestimate the populace, they know we're smart folks. so they come up with all sorts of distractions to prevent us from addressing real, down to earth everyday american realities.
well anyway, i digress. that's what this article's about. an author who does a way better job than i do to remind us about what we should really be paying attention to. phew.

bits and pieces. so much of our world today is about creating the illusion of choice when actually the choices we are making are less and less significant. who fuckin' cares what sugar water i put in my body or what kind of motorized vehicle i move around in? it seems to me that so much of this "choice" is just a bunch of crap. six of one, half a dozen of another. the real choice would be drive a car or walk or ride a bike or stay at home and don't go anywhere in the first place. or drink sugar water or drink plain old water or stop giving a fuck about what kind of sugar your consuming--it's all the same old crappy white powder in the end anyway. the choices we are supposedly given are just distractions. keeping us occupied so we never bother asking ourselves real questions about who we are, what we care about, and what the hell is going on around us.

check this out (Claritas is a marketing firm btw):

(Claritas) breaks down the U.S. population into sixty-two psycho-demographic clusters, based on such factors as how much money people make, what they like to read and watch, and what products they have bought in the past. For example, the "suburban sprawl" cluster is composed of young families making about $41,000 a year and living in fast-growing places such as Burnsville, Minnesota, and Bensalem, Pennsylvania. These people are almost twice as likely as other Americans to have three-way calling. They are two and a half times as likely to buy Light n' Lively Kid Yogurt. Members of the "towns & gowns" cluster are recent college graduates in places such as Berkeley, California, and Gainesville, Florida. They are big consumers of DoveBars and Saturday Night Live. They tend to drive small foreign cars and to read Rolling Stone and Scientific American.

From Wired News:

Long Distance Relationship
A Russian cosmonaut circling 240 miles above the earth on the International Space Station married his fiancé in Texas on Sunday in the first space wedding. Bride Ekaterina Dmitriev blew her new husband Yuri Malenchenko a kiss as the two exchanged vows on a satellite hookup before 200 people. A beaming Dmitriev, dressed in a traditional white wedding dress, told reporters she was very happy. "It's a celestial, soulful connection that we have," said the bride, adding that their long-distance communication brought them close. A wedding organizer said the ceremony was highly traditional except for the absence of the groom. Well, hey, let's not stand on convention. Only thing is, will they be able to talk in person?

Setting It Right by Al Gore

if only mr. gore had given a speech like this in, say october of 2000, we might not be in the mess we're in right now. on the other hand, maybe a bright side of things is that georgie pooh's ticked off so many people now that the opposition is slowly finding its identity. and since al's not running for prez he has the ability to say some pretty strong stuff about the current administration. i hope to hear more speeches like this in the coming months.

oh yeah, and check out Move On if you haven't already.

yeah yeah yeah.

Killing Saddam: A Summer Blockbuster
is killing saddam the next bit of reality tv headed our way? Tom Hayden seems to think so:

"The Iraqi people, on the other hand, are seen by the Pentagon as the frightened villagers in "The Wizard of Oz." Once they sing "Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead," they will shake off their fears and sign up for their duties in the new order: to work happily for Bechtel and Halliburton and start policing their malcontents."