The Argument

"How has your political identity developed? What beliefs do you have, and what events or people have shaped them?"

My political identity has formed just as every other view, thought, or personality trait has over the years. Early on I thought that political views were solely represented by mast heads like Presidents (read: when I was a fucking child). As I became an adolescent, my views became adolescent; I looked to quantify things and pit them against one another in extreme dichotomies. Democratic V. Republican Steel Cage DeathMatch, FIGHT. Alas, once I was lost in thought over how cool Bill Clinton was. Then I thought he was overrated but powerful. Then I read Howard Zinn and realized that not only he, but the other politicians I thought were keen were in fact assholes too. I still miss the simplicity of loving Teddy Roosevelt.

These days? I just view it as one big show. I make jokes about cabals and smoke filled rooms where decisions are made months in advance but I also wouldn't be surprised. Politicians are lying assholes? Go on! No way. I once met a girl who seemed bright, though young. When she told me that-- "yes, large scale politicians are all corrupt assholes but local politicians are A-OK; I've worked with them"-- I just laughed. I believe in our power as a mass of people but I simply see us as too marginalized, too divided, and too apathetic.

Follow The Links

A reflective look on where we go on the Internet and why we got there. Why do I first look at amateur porn and other softcore varieties before I move onto the dirtiest of the dirty (thanks a lot Max Hardcore, now I can't wash my eyes hard enough). In truth, it's not the easiest thing to hop around to unrelated spaces of the Internet from one page to another. Main pages are often utilized as to not meander around, blindly clicking hyperlinks. Truly, the most populous of non sequitur links must be the advertisement. Gross. Who clicks on those?

There are domains (quite literally) and realms on the Internet where mostly one sort of intellectual ownership presides. Even where the land dictates open sharing, it's often through a few single sources and users return immediately to the main page(s). On web forums it's just the same; I may start at the forum, click a link in a thread, and perhaps another within that linked area but I'd normally return back to the forum shortly. Hell, we all have our favorite places to go on the internet. Firefox provides users with a graphical toolbar for all my multi-tabbed/windowed needs (I prefer windows with no limit on the amount of windows). I can go to Pandora Radio, DotA Allstars, Penny Arcade, The Evolution Control Committee, my e-mail, and/or The Rogan Board within a series of clicks-- all at the same time. But can I connect myself from one site to the other via links provided by those pages? Why bother? You can go and provide those links to those domains as to interconnect them in some way but it'd be much easier to simply save the URL.

But how do we find these places to begin with. Aha, here's where Internet exploration comes to fruition. Surely, if I hear of these things from other sources in my daily life then I can Google them. However, in the case of my infrequently visited Rogan Board, I stumbled upon a wealth of information by chance! I was investigating information on DMT when I found a video of Joe Rogan talking about the drug for 10 minutes! From there I saw videos of Joe's infamous and short-lived Joe Show (10 webisodes, I don't know why he stopped doing it. It's not like he canceled himself) and decided I join his internet community. From this place I've seen quite a lot. When the discussions are good there is much of worth to be said and read with links, references, and resources flying around like ricocheted bullets in the Old West. It's a place of many links like BoingBoing and Wonkette but there's more discussion and no one's paid to talk about it.

What do you do with the unknown? Discover it. When do you discover it? When you're feeling a little adventurous. Happy Hunting.

Dr. Thorson's Humor Scale

"You’ll be healthier if you lighten up. Our research has shown that those who score high on a multidimensional sense of humor scale have lower levels of depression and higher levels of purpose than those who score low in humor."

I'm not trying to presuppose that the humor scale is intent on relaying any sort of reliable information. I just see a glaring problem with the idea of telling the audience what the socially appropriate/beneficial response before they are measured. It's bad testing. Anyone who carries a doctorate would/should know this yet I digress-- even if all the items of measurement influence a biased positive answer.

But, as you can see, Columbo is perfectly depicted here for two reasons: (1) he's rubbing his brow in the classic facepalm.jpg fashion due to the massive failure of this scale, (2) he's iconic for the use of humor to diffuse a tense situation. It's not that I don't agree with what this scale is saying in terms of what humor, joy, and socially inherent behaviors (like laughter) are good for; I just don't agree with the validity of what this is trying to advertise. It's a bit misleading. It wreaks of silly girl magazines and hair-brained scheming.

I scored 54/64 which apparently means:"you use humor sometimes, but perhaps you could learn to let yourself go and enjoy more variety." Hm. The thing is that I think people generally need to be sad every so often. It's a requirement of life and existence. You can't simply go around doing whatever you want, happy all the time; where would you know from happy if you're never sad? Sadness rectifies human perception and that means it is necessary for our lives. It's about understanding, not happiness. If you are depressed or stressed then it is a responsibility that falls on you to understand and resolve the issue(s). Happiness comes from this. Joy comes from this. Sadness begets happiness which begets sadness. This isn't philosophical, it's factual.

Obligatory Video Posting

While on the subject of e-fame, why don't you do yourself a favor and check out the mighty The Show with ZeFrank, eh? Scoot through it all and if you really like it, check out everything else. That's how you explore the Internet. Lazy savages.

The interesting thing about zefrank was that he pulled the viewers into the community he piecemealed in his spare time. He had a silly way of unifying everyone that saw him through a pointy little box in our magical light squares. I'm sad at this very moment that I can't put his catchy songs on my cellular phone as to notify me of incoming communicae. Which reminds me that I really must learn how to make my own ring tones. Isn't that neat? You don't have to rely on overpriced corporate hackery to feel cool in public places when people want to talk to you (you overly self-involved ass). Though, you might have to read a manual.

Luckily there are manuals for everything, especially thanks to hard working men and women trying to make our larger world community a smaller, more informed one. I learn how to cook things every day from people I've never met, seen, or heard of. When you bring it all full circle, like a new age yuppie freak with his World music and his designer moccasins, I couldn't even communicate these thoughts were it not for many, many people before me helping many, many others. Just seems that we all need a bit of motivation to do things like people used to. What it seems that we need are people like zefrank to help us get enthused in things again.

Spring Cleaning The Internet

It can't be done. I quote the grate Joe Rogaine™ from the classic 90s sit-com News Radio, "Dude, you can't take things off the internet. That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool." And it is. I sternly agree with the likes of Doug Stanhope when he attacks the popular notion amongst the mainstream news media that "child pornography is rampant on the Internet", as if the Internet is a mad house of child porn. You can't even check your private e-mail anymore without seeing immature genitalia everywhere!

Doug and I have seen a lot of things on the Internet (yes, like him I've even seen cock fingering) but we've never seen child porn. I (nor he) deny that it's probably out there because sick freaks of all sorts still exist and most likely can jam keys on their desktop. What we are saying, however, is that if child porn is so rampant and it's so impossible to get things off the Internet then why am I not revolted by child porn at every click? It might seem that big news media corporations might have it out for the Internet? Muddying things up in the public eye? We'll see about that, jerks.

And why can't we know whatever we want to know? If the information is so important, it certainly isn't our fault for knowing about it. A bit of logic passed down from my father as to why he never kept up with religion, even at a young age, was that "when they started to talk about God judging my thoughts, I knew it wasn't for me." And isn't this the main fear? That we might eventually know something and give a damn about it to change the dynamics of power would ruin their parade of money and excessive influence. Better to keep us poor and dumb-- keep telling us everything we're doing is wrong and dangerous. People are easier to push around like that.

In the last 50 years the majority of freedom sucking skinbags have also been empowered and it's not easy adjusting to power for everyone.

For some people it's awkward and kinda sticky but for others that maybe hadn't noticed it and are just now getting into the whole idea, it's pretty neat. But it can get to be too much! ZeFrank started as a video blog and was intended to only last a year but as time lurched on and zefrank got better at talking to nobody that nobody would turn into somebody. And he got better at it. I caught the buzz right in the middle of the year long extravaganza and became addicted. I'm still saddened by the loss (yes, it did end in a year as planned); the guy was funny, highly entertaining and there's now no more of him. But as he became more empowered, he found it odd; he didn't expect so much and started to worry whether he could keep going at the same pace (with the same success).

Thank god anonymity takes off a lot of that pressure. So many of us are/can be heard while never even considering that who we're speaking as isn't who we are. Perhaps the power betters some of us and even worsens others (think: internet addictions that break up relationships/marriages or stunt life choices) but in the end it is this tool, the Internet that we can use as we please. It is a multifaceted tool at our ever present disposal which can not only make us celebrities (internet royalty) but can also tear us down under the weight of its power.

Use it or be used by it.

Learnapedia

As has been mentioned, this blog is a part of my Media & Communications Studies course (370) and because of that I get a lot of topics that I comment on from here. It's one of the more interesting courses I'm taking because it's based on material such as whether or not Wikipedia and other such toolings of The Interbutts are good or bad? Have people gotten dumber? Is it this newfangled series of tubes that's ruining America? And what the hell is a Washington Post?

To everyones surprise, the founder of Wikipedia (Jimmy Wales) thinks his e-child is awesome and can kick your e-child's ass. Not only that but he also thinks that his e-child is the future of the WORLD WIDE WEB and is singlehandedly making our lives better. And while sucking your own cock isn't masturbation and is, in fact, homosexual, I think Jimbo Wales has a point. Being a narcissist doesn't mean that you're inherently wrong. Because I'm almost always right. And modest.

Jacoby is wrong and Wales is right but the greatest thing is that their argument is on The Internet (ironic, eh Jacoby?) where anyone and everyone can get informed to any degree they want (or that's available to their ability to use a web browser) and weigh in. Like me, right now. Even though no one reads this blog, they could very easily; how easy would it be to find an essay I wrote on paper 2 years ago? And why are you going through my garbage? And in this way, one could say that The Internet is a flea market of intellectualism.

I don't think more people have really gotten any smarter in the last 50 years, in that there are roughly the same percentages of people around the world as smarter or dumber than the rest of the populations. For example, let's say America was 70% dumb and 30% smart in 1958; I don't think these percentages have changed much at all. There are more people to compose that 70% and/or 30%, certainly, but overall there are just as many smart jerks as there are dumb jerks. Have most of them become smarter? Of course! That's progress. What? You don't believe in progress?! Anti-intellectual.

I go to Google all the time for all my immediately information gratification. It usually brings me to Wikipedia and since it loads faster than Wikipedia's browser I just take the connected flight. I do not, however, use imitative crap like Encyclopedia Dramatica (as referenced above) for any other reason than explaining The Internet to outsiders and to a less indoctrinated audience because Google doesn't scrape the bowels of The Internet like a single user can given a few cold beers and an hour alone. E.D. is a cancer to the shadowy underbelly that makes The Internet so exotic because it exists to inform others of an area that should not be taught; it should be discovered. However, I am safe from being a big hypocritical jerkoff because no one reads my blog. And that's O.K. because it's better than a private journal and people used to do those things back in the 50s. What a buncha morans! if you don't get the joke then you lose the game.

Hey Ho

Just chiming in again about another blog of mine.

Enjoy the background contrast and critical commentary.

The War on Democracy

In keeping with this theme against democracy, please enjoy this film.

I'm going to assume you watched that video. Isn't that neat? A full documentary at your fingertips and it's all for free. Though, it's funny how big mean organizations try to hide information from us. This video makes several perfect examples of how information about events and news from South America and Central America is manipulated to impress upon us, the audience, an agenda that exudes money and power. Did I say funny? I meant faggy (no offense real fags*).

People who have motive to gain additional power or maintain power should not be trusted. The Internet is the most powerful communicative tool for democracy and if you're not digging into the deep dark soil then you're missing out. Stop going to the same places that you usually visit and start exploring everywhere else because the web is an ever expanding landscape created by mostly us. And porn. But you and I could make some porn. I like where this is going.

*I'm a firm supporter (no pun) of homosexuals. Go team!

Really Real And Real, Consumer

I discovered the issue of fluoridation a few months ago and found this recent development interesting. Hard not to fold up a tin hat when you read this sort of news. When I see things like this I sometimes think of Sicko. Despite what you think of everything else in the film, you have to love Tony Benn-- the guy is wicked smaaht.

I was surprised that his interview and name weren't more popularized after Sicko was made popular. Then again, most people know about TED Talks but how often do we discuss them. Well, I try but then no one talks back. Assholes. I mean, really, when smart people come around and their brilliance or deep thoughts are broadcast and/or made available to the masses, what happens? It feels like nothing. Damn system, keeping me marginalized and oppressed! Well, fuck 'em. These are questions and thoughts you should be having as to "why are things the way that they are?" And sure, maybe we'll all break out our Reynolds Wrap by the time we reach our conclusions but at least we'll have something more to say. There's not enough real argument today. The dynamics of argument range from complete belligerency to supreme apathy with very little in between. It's a bimodal mess. Tony Benn is just a big wooden spoon that gets the pot stirring. TL; DR:

Extended Tony Benn Reeeeemiiiiiiiix: