Thursday, September 13, 2007

Deaths Come in Twos

Mama always said that people die in threes.
When she watchin' some deaths on the news she says,
"I know there gonna' be another" and for awhile
I was sho she was right.

See, Mama is a God-fearing woman and if the Devil
tell ya that deaths come in twos, well then he plain wrong.
At least that what I was taught.
But I only think that twos are bettah than threes
Cuz when a man and his wife depart this life togethah,
Well, that bettah than a man, his wife, and some other man's wife.

Make sense, naw?
I feel like this, when a man dies
He takes his two feet and his two good hands
And if he ain too old, then maybe e'en two seeing eyes
So I swear this death coming in twos ain't no work a' da Devil
Cuz I think the good Lord... well He like things in pairs.

So I'za reckon to myself that when my dead soul
Ain gonna look up and see those shovels
Pouring dat dirt on toppah ma head, I hope I ain't alone
Cuz I just hope that death comes in twos and I ain the only one.
Devil or no Devil...

Re: (Week 6): Voluntary organisations should take over many functions currently performed by governments.

Hello. Hello Hello....

You can't start a blog entry by tapping on the microphone and expecting the audience to wait while you find the switch. There's this ocean of pain which is swimming through my skull and it's louder than an avalanche crashing on a mezzo-soprano (FA_LA_LA_LAAAAA) and more toxic than DNT detonations in proximity. There was the Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative (RRPI) which was to juggle the act of shutting down and keeping open and I sense some parallels with the 7-11 whose midnight clerk has been shot in the conundrum - but all the cash was left to remain while PARABLES oozed from his glands (it flows slower and slower as the 6 o'clock shift nears) And wouldn't you know, it's the pork rinds which were stolen? There are crimes that come in the heat of the moment, some are of the heart, some are of the intestinal tract.

Friends, regardless, was the 7-11 open or closed? And if it was open, who would be the one to serve the next customer? Hah! Not open. If it was closed, who was the one who locked the door? Hah! Not closed. Likewise, there's this psycho-babble-ish half-state where poles don't meet and Poles don't meat and ... I forgot about that purchase of neodymium magnets I was so excited about back in 3rd Watts... Adam, what about our magnets? Did they get the address wrong again and send the marked goods to another evil-PHYGISIST?- - ---
--
-

Such an irrational act, so I was looking up high [and mighty] for clarification and the only sense I got that anyone was listening appeared to descend. [doop] the giant rain clouds opened up for the 3237437th day in a row. I don't know how to cope. Honestly! My umbrella is 7' long and it's like political fanfare everytime the showers come down and the maroon circle goes up. No demonstration, no remonstration, no counteraction, nothing but bombastic bloggery with no follow-through.

I'm tired. Hello hello hello! it's the sound of every lecturer who throws pint-sized textbooks (are they dialect-ICAL dictionaries, LAH?) --- yes, who throws pint-ZISED TECKSTBUX. yes, they throw them and they throw them and I can't seem to wake up from this horrible, horrible 12,000 mile nightmare and I'm sitting on the bus, but the bus isn't moving and the conductor keeps saying ALL ABOARD! ALL ABOARD! and if anyone else hops on the floorboards will bust right through and then I'll have to Wilma Rubble my way over to North America. yabba dabba -

I'm tired of the security guards with the long-drawn faces and their walkie-talkies set to channel 4. I've got a proposal - it's gain-sharing at it's best when the computer labs are silent and dead and the hallways are silent and dead and the 7-11 when the clerk was shot and his parables spilled everywhere --- well, then that (wo)man was also silent and dead. These guards - they bear the world's weight in curled fists that land squarely on spouses chins. 1000 POINTS FOR THAT ONE CHAMP!

It's the women who abuse their men, doncha know, doncha doncha? This paradigm of global this-way that-way, this-way that-way gender violence has been all wrong. We are the generation of female-perpetrated violence and mass emasculation. So sad, he attaches patches on his back everyday just to calibrate testosterone levels. Women - this is what you have subjected the lesser sex to.

So - what have you accomplished today? I saved a powerpoint from near-collapse by pumping its gills and expecting its prongs to open up. PLEASE, PLEASE, CALL 911 --- my powerpoint is DYING!

At the end of the day all you have is an inkless pen with no readers. They left you because you make no fucking sense.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Live Earth, New7Wonders, and TreeHugging

Yesterday's Live Earth event, which featured concerts on all continents in a 24-hour campaign to spread awareness about climate change, came under intense spitfire from high-profile figures. Among them, the likes of Bob Geldof, organizer of the Live Aid concerts, and other artists like Roger Daltrey and Muse, jointly accused Live Earth performers of jetting around the globe in their private planes in a hypocritical bid for public attention to spotlight energy conservation and education about climate change.

While I'll side with the critics inasmuch as recognizing the carbon emissions caused by transportation to the event (though carbon offsets were purchased in the hopes of absolving guilt for this AND the event was regionalized partially to minimize transportation) runs counter to the ethic prevailing through the event, it would be myopic to let the criticism linger and not focus on the potential long-term gains from convincing large crowds of people to modify their lifestyles and decrease their carbon footprints. Of course any large-scale campaign to affect awareness on climate change will consume natural resources; you simply have to conduct a life-cycle assessment to see whether or not there's a net improvement.

What I'm more concerned with is not juxtaposing the good intentions of concert organizers and concert-goers against the actual outcomes, but the irony with which this event was timed perfectly with the release of the NEW Seven Wonders of the World list. The new Wonders list was compiled from some 100 million votes collected by SMS and internet ballots and replaces the ancient Greek list of sites found in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

This is ironic because it's obvious how this will spike tourism numbers for countries like Jordan, Brazil, and Peru among the others as vacationers worldwide will be seeking to witness these 'wonders' first-hand. The wonder that worries me is how this is compatible with widespread calls for reducing our reliance on aviation since unless you have the good fortune of living near Agra, India, good luck on visiting the Taj Mahal and not getting there by plane. I'm certain that's what Bertrand Piccard was hinting at with his appeals for climate change awareness at the announcement ceremony before he was removed from the stage.

I'd say that the difficulty of this situation has been made more apparent to me as I was browsing through the forums at a website I otherwise respect, TreeHugger, where a most disturbing thread on the connection between veganism and climate change had been posted. While I do agree that some of us vegans tend to be a bit proselytizing when it comes to animal ethics and the reasons to become vegan, I'd say there may be good cause to bring light to the carbon emissions caused by meat consumption. So the title of the article may have been innaccurately worded (something to the extent of vegans in Hummers causing less harm to the environment than meat-eaters in Priuses), the original email solicited one of the most rancorous displays of carnivorous aggression I've seen for some time. Honestly, we're not asking you to launch into why you love meat, why the animals are here for your well-being, why you think that biologically we're constructed to consume meat, etc. - we've heard it all before too many times to count, but I would appreciate you stepping down from your ivory tower for one moment to simply consider how your dietary choices affect the land from where your food comes. Not to do this because you are a thoughtful human, but because you are a self-branded 'environmentalist' spending your time tooling through the TreeHugger forums. The failure and unwillingness for even meat-eating environmentalists to be self-reflective and consider their personal impact means we'll never make it to 2050 without exceeding 550ppm.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Google and Intel Lead Climate Change Initiative

Technology Group Seeks to Save Power
By LAURIE J. FLYNN
Published: June 13, 2007 - New York Times
Google and Intel are leading a consortium of major technology companies in an effort to sharply reduce the amount of power wasted by personal computers and servers. In a separate development, Intel is expected to cut prices on some of its higher-end processors in July to make room for new power-saving chip technology expected in the second half of the year. (more...)

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Our objective is to come up with a comprehensive list of objectives...

Twenty-three candidates crowd the playing field today. Twenty-three... like the nameless rage which for years cleared the courts for showmanship and bat cracking and now primary ballot dropping. It's time to get an objective and we haven't months to spare. Rhetoricians may have overtaken Berkeley's commencement exercises, but rhetoricians will never assume Capitol Hill Kingship. See, the former had substance.

Tomorrow is t + 1 month. My world's grown infinitely more acronymized and I swore this defied the possible. Your United E-Fares email includes the most recent list of discount domestic fares! O'Hare and Laguardia and BWI are so far away -- they are the distance of all cars floundering in Sao Paulo traffic, stacked back to back in a line to reach into the dorms of Columbia University with the grasping power of Inspector Gadget's Claw, retracting and peacefully setting you down onto tropical soils with frangipani-laced ears. shhh, everything soon becomes clean and the sand washes away the.. the... dirt.

Today is t + 1 month - 1 and a descent into pitiful games of name-dropping and skirt-twirling to demonstrate we've really made it now. Now there's no time for personal pursuits, no time for development - no time to even consider how it feels when the soul is dissolved and you melt slowly into your leather-backed chair thinking how great it is to be no one at all, but this creature, this odd fuckup of synaptic impulses that magically came together in some mysterious event that's really no more curious than the 300 million receptors in Mr. Snail's nerve center -- he happily downs the beer in your MIT examining room.

There's blood that drips steadily from the ceiling, but no one lives upstairs. They moved a long time ago and you remember this keenly because they stole the furniture you wanted for yourself. If you could slime yourself up there past the crimson pool you'd forget you ever saw anything. Such is the trend when you're living for self-preservation.

My objectives are always up for revision. I think about that everytime I hand out a business card my money never purchased. My money doesn't purchase anything anymore. Definitely not a clean conscience about profit-driving or ODA. I still want to figure this out -- the analyticals weren't cut out for this world, never were. Not since they killed off Socrates and the rationality buried beside him.

Friday, April 20, 2007

loneliness is an art in the making

[from 19 oct 2005]

pleas(e) sent heaven-bound,
held up at nimbus gates
with neither turnaround
nor change in mental states.

prayer is as senseless
for the anointed
as it is for people like






us.

i wait and wait for some
e-communi-
que?
coronary ribbons separated,
teased out
tussled and tossed.
why be great and unhappy
when i could be weak
and wonderful?
why wait for the imminent
when i can craft
the end
myself?
why the curly bracket upon
the period that should provide
closure, hugging the bend
in a space
that should not even exist
{ ? }

loneliness is my given
depression is my downfall
understanding is my injection.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Ha Noi

Viet Nam, May 4th - May 10th.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

January was skipped...

...and February is half-dead with ambitions that the New Year fuelled, but the new year killed. Malaysia is only days away, but contingent valuation, and West Point discipline, and Fuzzy Set theory are here right now. Daily postings will keep me on my toes. This blog's become no poetry, and all prose...