Strange
Day

It’s only going to get worse, but I have no desire to comment on this at the moment.
For now I simply refer you to what I wrote a couple months ago.

I work with a bunch of obnoxious assholes.
I say that in the most loving way. I would rather not work with any other kind of people. As the old saying goes, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
But is there anyone left who isn’t a victim?
In a discussion about soft drinks, after saying she didn’t drink pop, I mentioned, as might happen in a discussion, that I’d heard Coke was the number one selling beverage in the world.
The response involved an indignant rebuff, that she simply didn’t like any soda and didn’t drink it!
Who asked? Who offered? Who beat you about the head and shoulders with a 12 oz. can and forced a Sprite down your throat?
When a fact doesn’t apply to your life, it is hardly cause for great personal grief. My discussion of facts will not be curtailed by your indignation.
As if you didn’t know by now that I thrive on upsetting people. But if you make it too easy for me, it will just take all the fun out of it.

I’m disturbed.
More so than even Sara will tell you.
I have been the modern internet.
I have been through every trend and every type, before any of them became fashionable. I IRCaddicted and romanced. I cracked and pirated. I telneted to online music shops before CDnow was a nightmare in customer service. I learned to handcode HTML not to be cool, but because there was no other option. And even then, there was damn good money in it. I have been at least six months ahead of every major web design trend. (here’s a little tip: half of them were crap). When I lost all interest in being online for a while, it disturbed me. What would happen if the other half million did.
Where’s my money. Where’s my fame. Where’s my options. Where’s the obsessed fans?
If I saw all this, a step ahead of the masses, why didn’t I make something out of one of the ideas. I proposed these many of these things to friends.
I’m too fucking lazy.
………………..
I have no modesty, so don’t even bother telling me how concieted I am. Modesty is an utter waste of time.
You know when you have done anything of value. If you don’t, you’re probably too clueless to accomplish anything deserving pride or respect.
Pride is not a evil thing. The Bible was wrong. Egotism is what will destroy your soul.

You know..Ierjk .,, ,xc, ,, .,c , .
sorry… sneeze.
I was saying…
I have a hard time taking pictures in this city. A small part of it is no doubt that it is hard to find anything interesting in the familiar.
But the more looming problem is the lack of adequate subject matter.
I enjoy taking pictures of natural objects and situations. Something spontaneous or unplanned. Small items in everyday life.
But this is the District. Nothing goes unplanned here. Everything is a presentation. Whether it is federal, city, or private property, it all looks the same. They all plant the same flower beds. They all get the authentic antique looking accessories at the same Homebuilders store. They all put out the same faux iron benches.
The people are no different. Everyone is putting on a front. The homeless scream and yell or shuffle and moan. The politicians, likewise. The college student’s buy the just right unfashionable clothes, and attempt unnatural things with their hair. There are the fashionable yuppies leaving the bar after work in their black pants and blue dress shirt to rush home to their Dupont Circle apartments or suburban houses to change into khakis and sweaters, before heading off to a show later.
There are parts of this town where the facade doesn’t extend. But I tread carefully. They are not friendly places for a skinny little white boy with an expensive camera.
My best pictures come from travelling. I am going home to NY next week to see my family, and to see what I can see. I will not forget my camera.

You kind of get sick of the helicopcopters here. One reason or another, they’re always overhead. But sometimes the definition of overhead gets a bit ridiculous.
Last night there was something, presumably a helicopter, hovering at roof level somewhere in the neighborhood.
Quite a few neighbors were at their windows as well.
This, the night after a pair of F-16 fighter jets chase a UFO across the District.
……….
“When the US goal shifts from one of moderating Hussein’s behavior to the openly expressed purpose of ”regime change,” what does Hussein have to lose? And when Hussein knows an invading US force is surely coming, does he not have to ”use or lose” whatever weapons he has? Isn’t Washington forcing him to respond with his worst?”

— Boston Globe
When we finally do take it upon ourselves to enter Iraq, (and believe me, we will eventually) we’d better all just kiss our collective asses goodbye.
It will be the surest trigger to someone or some country to launch a major attack on the US to teach us a lesson.
Americans didn’t seem to get that idea from last September. It wasn’t some mental deficient intent on causing meyham just for the enjoyment of it. This was an organized movement of people, with no intention of a prolonged attack. Repeated attacks would have meant they were interested in outright destruction in this country. Don’t believe it was our security that prevented such attacks from happening. As I’ve said here before, even here in the heart of the country, no one in power knew how to respond immediatly after the attacks, or even for days.
Those attacks were a message. The US has been behaving as an imperial force for better than a hundred years now. We justify our foriegn military assaults and occupations for economic reasons by declaring the need to spread our morality. I for one have never heard God/Allah/Jehova telling me to go forth and convert yon savages.
We armed Iran to fight our enemies. We armed Iraq to fight our enemies. We armed central american drug manufacturers to fight our enemies. We armed Afghanastan to fight our enemies.
Maybe if we stopped being the world’s arm supplier, these people would stop stabbing us in the back. We’re only lucky that the biggest countries on the planet have always been our enemies, or else we would really be sorry for arming them.
We have a Shrub in the Oval Office who is drawing lines in the sand and taunting the enemy. He is the worst possible person to be in office right now. His very nature is being a business man. And a bad one at that. Every decision he makes is based on a business point of view. He has neither the historical perspective nor the national morality to truley inspire his own people, much less the global audience.
He will get me killed. When we get bitch-slapped, it will be close to home. But don’t worry… you can be sure he won’t be in town that day.
………….
The Shrub, the man of perpetual vacations, is leaving on another. He plans to spend a month on his ranch. Does anyone wish to start a pool now on how soon we send forces into Iraq?

Disturbing.
I disturb myself sometimes.
When I heard reports about the Supreme Court’s rulings involving schools a couple weeks ago, I don’t like how I reacted.
I did manage to ignore the obsession people seemed to have with the more religious of the two. Timed to coincide with the Pledge of Allegience debate, I have a hard time disbelieving it wasn’t intended to overshadow greateer things.
But as for the ruling that legitimized random drug testing in extracurricular high school activities, I said “Why not?”
yeah.
Why is it permissable to require drug testing as a requirement to participating in extracurricular drug testing?
The ruling was based on ‘Special Needs’ exceptions. The idea behind these exceptions was that some people are in positions so critical and dangerous that they should be examined that they can complete their duties safely and not endanger the public. These people are allowed to quit their jobs rather than face examination.
What does your average high school student do that fits this description?
In professional sports, athletes are often tested to ensure that they are not recieving an unfair advantage due to drug or biologicals use. These people are allowed to quit their jobs rather than face examination.
Again, how does this effect high school students? Will millions of dollars be at stake if East Bumpafuck defeats West?
But participation in extracurricular activities is often considered in college admissions. Try making it through school without participating in something? Do you believe that the definition of extracurricular activities won’t eventually be extended to school dances and graduation parties?
If schools are meant to prepare youth for the real world, why are they subject to searches that no free person would submit to? Or is it more of a matter of time before you could be subject to such a test?

Man… it hasn’t even been 24 hours since I read the first article on how Universal and Sony will start selling unprotected digital music online.
And already the walls are shaking, and cracks are appearing.
I just finished a suspiciously timely article about how when Disney broke ranks with the other major movie studios and started selling their movies to be broadcast on Television in the early days of broadcasting, it broke the studios resolve and they all started offering their products up for sale. Of course, this resulted and still results in massive new amounts of income for the studios.
The New Scientist has an article that speculates movie studios may start abandoning copy protection on their DVDs, since the copyprotection is likely costing more than it is worth. I say this was a test ballon, to see how well a Movie like Harry Potter, which should rack in millions, fares when people are able to copy it from their neighbors.
The same site features articles (1, 2) on some already well documented stories like Panasonic (the owner of the copyright on Compact Disc technology) being unhappy with copy-protected CDs, and the ease of breaking most copy protection schemes.
I feel like I’m living in Jericho, and somebody just started playing the horn.
(Did you catch the musical reference there… damn I’m good!)

Money.
Money. Money. Money.
Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money.
Does anyone else think the Shrub is on a spending spree with someone else’s credit card?
I’ve seen him do nothing but sign into law new multi-billion dollar initatives. Five billion dollars today for bioterrorism protection efforts.
Fucking hell, man.
We were three trillion dollars in debt back when I was in grade school. That is an obscene amount of money. It would take essentially every last cent collected in income tax this year to pay a debt like that. If it hadn’t continued to grow. If the money wasn’t needed elsewhere. If it wouldn’t destabalize the entire world market.
And here the Shrub is spending more money each day than even Bill Gates makes?
If only it would happen.
Money. Money. Money.
Come back to me in 10 years. Show me 3 of these programs that recieved all the funding they were promised. I’ll buy dinner at Georgia Brown’s.

"This weekend, in a luxury hotel outside Washington, D.C.," said the announcer, "Europe’s secret rulers are meeting their American counterparts %uFFD0 or that’s what some people believe. Today is the start of the annual gathering of the Bilderberg group. Never heard of it? That’s the whole point. It’s officially described as a private gathering, but with a guest list including the heads of European and American corporations, political leaders and a few intellectuals, it’s one of the most influential organizations on the planet."

— BankIndex.com

This is just fuckin’ disturbing.
Maybe I’m slow and I missed something everyone else knew long ago. But in playing around with a flash presentation on the Post web site, and went into the flash document settings. I’m sure it’s intended to be a legitimat feature, but the window that pops up asks you if the web site can have access to your web cam and microphone.
I was able to recreate this on about half the flash presentations I tried on various web sites.
No… no potential there for invasion of privacy. I’m sure noooooo one would find a way to make the default setting for this to be “on”.

Wait… you’re telling me that Robert Blake is still alive?
Frankly, Tony WIlliams can stick his party animals where the soft money doesn’t flow.
Enron is dead — hand me a shovel.
AOL is deathly ill — hand me a garrotte.
Trains, planes, the Shrub, and the Catholic Church are all crashing.
Why the hell should it take half an hour of channel surfing to find out… well… anything… in the morning. I nearly sprain my thumb on the worn-out remote trying to flip past morning shows before they exhibit another picture of whats-her-name’s colon. And if you subject me to one more traffic report from some bubbly bimbo with a cute name in a helicopter, I am going to cause my own jam by pitching the TV into the traffic outside my apartment.
We live in an age where we can watch live footage of military assaults on foriegn capitals live via television or ‘net. But all I see on every channel when I wake up in the morning is Barry Manilow singing in the middle of some New York street. (Do they have morning shows in LA?)
How much would you be willing to pay to see, unedited and unnarrated, the sun rising over a carribean rainforest? Or maybe morning prayers at a buddist shrine in Japan? Sunset in the desert?
You get the idea.
The more massive our technological capabilities become, the more massive amounts of crap we shovel with them.
I would pay every cent I have just to get that fucking body-builder infomercial off TV; replaced with a half hour of footage of someone hangliding through the Grand Canyon.

I thought when I heard the first motorcade pass my apartment, that it was the start of a long weekend. These meetings always bring in hundreds of diplomats and VIPs, roveing around town in their limos.
But this time… nothing. One motorcade and that was it.
Until the same thing happened before me one too many times.
You would be walking down the street, and see a police car or two. They weren’t apparently in sequence or after someone. They’re just waiting at the streetlight. Near them is a large white passenger van with tinted windows but no markings. And close by is a white compact car with the emblem of a private security company on the door.
Did it finally sink into someone’s thick head that maybe the police escorted motorcade may actually make for a larger target?

A note to all salespeople, on how not to be my friend.
When you come in to my job trying to sell us new telecommunication service, I will very likely not be interested, since I have sat through too many of those presentations, and been screwed over by too many ignorant salespeople.
Even so, I will politely tell you that we are not looking for any new service at the time, but that you can take our card and let us know about any new products or promotions you have, by mail.
At this point you ask me if I am really authorized to make decisions about my companies telecommunications service, or would the owner have the final say.
Dispite the fact you are being an obnoxious prick, I will tell you that the owner and I jointly make those decisions.
After you ask me if I’m sure, I will politely show you the door and walk away.
At this point you, the salesperson, will turn to the receptionist and ask if I was really the person authorized to be making decisions about the company’s telecommunications service. Since she is much more tolerant than I am, she will again tell you that I am that person.
We’ll all laugh at you after your gone.
Then, an hour later, you will call up the owner directly, and ask him if I have the authority to make such decisions, or if you, the salesperson, can deal with the owner directly.
Thankfully, the owner is a relatively intelligent and nice guy, and I’m sure he politely told you to fuck off.
This is how not to be my friend.

This is a time for bigger men.
Without bigger men, there will be no final outcome from this conflict in the Middle East.
Say the US sticks to it’s standard of supporting Isreal no matter what. What if every Western nation supported Isreal. It wouldn’t take much of an effort at all for Isreal to wipe Palestein from history and the planet.
However, the minute Isreal declares war, it signs away the lives of millions of it’s own people. Every Arab nation in the region — all of which have been amassing weapons and troops in the general vicinity of Isreal — will come across that border and they aren’t going to stop. If there’s one people Sadam Hussein hates more than Americans and Kurds, it’s the Isrealies.
But what if we went the other way. Could we find some way to justify palestinian actions and side with them, against Isreal? Could western civilization overcome their 60 year old guilt-trip long enough to bitch-slap Isreal and tell them they better start playing nice with their neighbors because they aren’t going to be bailed out any more?
I don’t see it happening.
So we either do the impossible, or we watch one state commit hari-kari by destroying a nation.
Or will this be the time of bigger men?

Colin Powell is in Isreal and Palestein, again trying to broker a peace between the Jews and Arab Palestinians.
And every one laughs.
No one believes it will help any more. They look at the situation and see it utterly hopeless.
I am looking at the man, and think he may be the best chance they have right now.
This is General Colin Powell we are talking about. The former Head of the Joint Chiefs. He has been on a battlefield and seen his friends die. He has been a commander and ordered men to commit acts which would lead to their deaths. He has led the entire military complex of the most powerful nation on earth. He now is the very embodiment of this country’s foriegn policy.
This man is one big ass 900 pound gorilla. You better give him whatever banana he asks for.

There is a beautiful idea taught in classrooms across the country that the founding leaders of this country where men who believed in equality for all, and that every man was your brother.
It’s very pretty. And very wrong. The government, as it was set up then, very much protected the rights of wealthy individuals from the “Mob”, as the majority of the poor and ignorant were known. There is no direct election of the president. There was no direct election of the Senate. The Supreme Court is appointed by the President. Of the three branches of the federal government, only seventeen percent were even marginally elected directly by the whole of the people (barring slaves of course). Even then, the elected officials were more likely to be mmen of a certian class.
It is now 2002.
1. The Secretary of State advises all government agencies to resist Freadom of Information Act requests. We wouldn’t want people being able to oibtain some information perfectly legally.
2. Director of Homeland Defense, who is third in power of the Executive branch, behind only the President and his Chief of Staff, refuses to testify publicly before congress, stateing he will only do so in closed hearings. (When did this become a homeland? Maybe more on this later.)
3. The Shrub issues an Executive Order that all presidential documents and communications are the property of the President’s estate. This violates so many laws it isn’t even funny.
This is a man who know’s he will not be in office for a second term.
Keep watching, out there in TV land. You don’t think he’s done trying to protect ‘them’ from the Mob yet, do you?

Three large U.S. companies were named in a lawsuit on Tuesday filed on behalf of black Americans descended from slaves, the first-ever class action seeking reparations from firms for profiting from slavery.

— Yahoo!

*deep breath*
*Calming thoughts*
Okay…ummm… Fuck You.
You have no rights in this case. You were damaged in no way. There hasn’t been slavery in this country for over a century. The last widow of the last slave is dead.
This has nothing to do with helping black people.
Where would the money go? No person alive can lay claim to personal injury.
Give it away to just every black person in this country? How black is black? And what about those people who got here after slavery. And what about those black people who’s ancestors owned slaves?
Do you really think the money would go to help educate and uplift the culture as a whole? Helllllllllllll no. An educated, self-confident black man or woman is not going to wallow in the cesspool of victimization necessary to instigate lawsuits such as this.
I can’t stand people who wallow in the past, blaming it for all their miseries. You will find black people in every sector and every level of life in this country. There is no glass ceiling. Pull your head out of your ass and try to do something with your own life.
I sat on the subway tonight listening to 2 Live Crew’s Banned in the USA. It’s a powerful song, with a beat and lyrics that make the heart and mind burn.
And it really kind of depressed me. At the time, 2 Live Crew was considered the lower end of Rap anyway, dealing mainly with partying and sex. But if you listen to that song, those lyrics and his voice are so much clearer, so much more intelligent than black music today.
Banned talks about taking back the power. But it never happened. Pop black culture has degenerated into a self-destructive, hedonistic lifestyle. They react to eachother like playground kids, and disassociate themselves from other cultures simply for being different. The rapper shootings were the most visable result. For a while, everyone stepped back and said, “This is nuts”. But we’re right back on that path again.
Your minds are being bought and sold by the same old white guys — the media moguls that control everything you see and hear. I think you need to step back from that slavemaster, before you worry about what might have happened to your ancestors.

Hot Air
You’ve got to hand it to the Shrub. He must have balls the size of watermelons. It would take at least that much to make thse demands.
First he officially withdraws the United States from the Kyoto Protocals; the first major environmental treaty agreed upon by every major industrial nation in the world.
Then he goes back to Japan with his own idea of what should be used as environmental policy.
And this policy doesn’t even fix a damn thing. It only seeks to curb growth of toxic emissions.
Would this Kyoto Protocals have put a great deal of pressure specifically on the U.S.? Yes. Have we earned it through wholesale environmental massacre? Yes. Even if we hadn’t earned it, shouldn’t we try to be the bigger man, and set the standard for others to follow? Yes.
We’re not talking about smog here. We’re talking about the eventual death of the human race, and potentially all life on this planet. And we’re not talking about “if”, but “when”.
We know the causes. (We were the causes). It takes a real jackass to sell out the planet’s future because he wants to get re-elected.

Schools Shy Away From Washington Field Trips
Boneheads. Fuckin’ Boneheads.
I am so utterly and inccredibly sick of the ignorant speech and actions of people in relation to Washington DC.
I’d be surprised to hear anyone anymore mention the Pentagon when discussing the September 11 th attacks. I can only imagine how the people in Pennsylvania feel. In all likelyhood, that plane crash there saved my very life.
But when people do discuss Washington, it is mainly to say they don’t feel safe about coming here. They no longer seem concerned to fly, which is where the only danger to most civilians was on September 11th in Washington. And the anthrax infections never managed to spread from the buildings they originated in.
So what the hell are you scared about?
Those hundred or so nuclear ICBMs pointed at our heads for the last 50 years don’t seem to matter much to you. Fifty missing back-pack sized nuclear bombs, which disappeared after the overthrow of the Soviet Union, don’t seem to be making anyone nervous. A murder rate higher than anywhere else in the country never affected tourism.
Kneejerk, ignorant, selfish reactions.
You need to fold up your american flags, put them back in their plastic bags, and return them to the stores. You have already lost. Consider yourself a prisoner of war. When you started reacting based on fear insteaad of logic; when you started allowing the assaults to change the way you lived your life, then you let the enemy beat you.
I live in this city. I have been here four years already, and not a day goes by that I am not in awe of some aspect of this city or the people in it. To teach your kids that dispite common sense and factual evidence, you won’t take them to a place such as this where every building and tree is a piece of history. You’re pitaful.
On a side note, this author needs to be bitch-slapped.

Students who visit today find a city visibly changed; police are stationed at nearly every corner, and concrete barricades encircle the monuments like scattered dominoes. Chaperons enforce an unpopular 6 p.m. hotel curfew.

Bullshit. The concrete barriccades were there before September 11. And the city has actually been replaccing many of those gaudy conrete slabs which have been around for years with more suitable and attractive fences and posts. And maybe once a week do I see a cop or military officer I didn’t see before. This is Washington Fuckin DC. Do you think we don’t have security here? And what the hell does a high school student’s curfew have to do with this city?

I can just see tommorrow’s headline:
“Scriptkiddie found with computer parts sticking out of every body orafice.”
No, this isn’t the hacker I’m upset with.
Just another wannabe. I miss the days when I woulda shitcanned him. But strangely enough, I got a little taste of reality, and I liked it. I’m done bitching.