Ashcroft pwned!

Check out how this 20-year old coed completely corners, traps, and ultimately pwns the former attorney general of the United States. In a public forum, no less.

ME: After WWII, the Tokyo Tribunal was basically the Nuremberg Trials for Japan. Many Japanese leaders were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture. And among the tortures listed was the "water treatment," which we nowadays call waterboarding...
ASHCROFT: (interrupting) This is a speech, not a question. I don't mind, but it's not a question.
ME: It will be, sir, just give me a moment. The judgment describes this water treatment, and I quote, "the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach." One man, Yukio Asano, was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor by the allies for waterboarding American troops to obtain information. Since Yukio Asano was trying to get information to help defend his country--exactly what you, Mr. Ashcroft, say is acceptible for Americans to do--do you believe that his sentence was unjust? (boisterous applause and shouts of "Good question!")
ASHCROFT: (angrily) Now, listen here. You're comparing apples and oranges, apples and oranges. We don't do anything like what you described.
ME: I'm sorry, I was under the impression that we still use the method of putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water down their throat...
ASHCROFT: (interrupting, red-faced, shouting) Pouring! Pouring! Did you hear what she said? "Putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water on them." That's not what you said before! Read that again, what you said before!
ME: Sir, other reports of the time say...
ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read what you said before! (cries of "Answer her fucking question!" from the audience) Read it!
ME: (firmly) Mr. Ashcroft, please answer the question.
ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read it back!
ME: "The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach."
ASHCROFT: (shouting) You hear that? You hear it? "Forced!" If you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring...does this college have an anatomy class? If you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring...
ME: (firmly and loudly) Mr. Ashcroft, do you believe that Yukio Asano's sentence was unjust? Answer the question. (pause)
ASHCROFT: (more restrained) It's not a fair question; there's no comparison. Next question! (loud chorus of boos from the audience)

Horizon

Hey Guppies!

Getting the finishing touches spit and polished on my thesis. I'm to that point where I've gone crazy and found myself, waiting for myself on the other side, the whole time saying, "Dude, where the hell have you been?"

It's been two years since I started grad skool and I must say--it has been quite the experience. Not only the work involved, but the relationships I have made with different people who share a common interest. I'll miss skool, but I look forward to what dreams may come afterwards.

Everyone has been asking me--what next? Truth is, I dunno. I like that feeling. It's the way I approach most things in life, especially skool. My old man talked me into junior college when I was unsure of what to do after High Skool. Six years later, my brother was hoisting my leg at Arco Arena (don't ask!). The opportunity to go to grad skool fell in my lap in a swift shot of serendipity when I was bored out of my skull in Omaha--now, I'm here.

Approach life like this. Take a chance--that's what life is for. Don't go through life saying money is the issue. Screw money. These pointless williams of useless federal barter paper is no reason to go about your life by falling back on the excuse of not making yourself better by exploring your deepest interests. Look beyond the constraints of society and find your own personal horizon.

Blast from the Past: 6.27.2002

It could be worse, you could be locked away in some third-world prison, competing with the rats for water. But what about life makes it so frustrating sometimes? I have an answer, the human mind. The mind is the most interesting muscle in our biology, it does things, sometimes, without our permission. A good example of that is ending relationship and wanting to move on, when you make up your mind to move on you do and you feel good. Good, until two days later you're deperssed and you miss that person and you go and do something stupid like call them, after you made up your "MIND" to move on. What was my point? Oh yeah, the mind endlessly needs challenges it seems, we don't have to compete with those rats so we venture into arguing about politics, sports, the best beer, the best pick-up trucks (*Chevy*), the best American band, the best way to grout your shower...but I digress. We as Americans need these kinds of challenges to move beyond what isn't challenging us, like finding food, shelter, and a decent night's sleep (although I've been battling that bear of late.) We take our liberties for granted sometimes. So be happy, you're free to do what you want, that is if you're not too scared, but I'll save that for later....

2012 Prognosis

A Simple Kind of Life

Urka turns 30 today, Happy Birthday Urka!

Ok, so Urka's family came out to Sac-Town this weekend, along with a flock of birds, alums from the Fresno chapter of Phi Mu--founded at Wesleyan College in 1852. It was quite the assortment of peeps. Anyhow, Saturday was the big dinner and dance affair. We ate at the Riverside Clubhouse in Old Land Park. It was very shi-shi. It had a nice bar and a gorgeous patio with a clay wall that had water cascading, the backdrop for the acoustic affair that took place later in the evening. We drank wine, shared many tales of the Urk (many that centered around her penchant for napping, earning her the nicker, "the sleeper.") Then after a collective rendition of "Hotel California," we took the show on the road.

To the tune of olde skool MJ jams, we pulled up to the posh night club, "The Park." I knew what to expect. What awaited us inside was overpriced drink, flocks of desperate birds and throngs of metro-sexual cattle that I knew in my heart--if it came down to fisticuffs, I could take down any metro-man if the night swung that way.

After a few dance numbers, I wandered solo, to observe all about me losing their heads. A thousand leagues of emptiness. I sat down on a big pillow that was resting on a bench. Flames kissed the night in a ambiance that would anywhere else seem ghoulishly arousing to the Young Master, but my soul wept and my mind wanted to relocate. To another time. To another dimension. In another life, it would have seemed like the ideal night to find love again. The feeling I had was quite the opposite. I rejoined the group and the night ended in a blur.

Sometimes, I get all Holden Caulfield about life. I can't help it. I observe and critique simultaneously. My brain is wired that way. It is my blessing. It is my curse.

What a life, eh?

Big Empty

My Sacramento News&Review horoscope:

Gemini (May 21-June 20)
What I hope you'll achieve in the coming days is a state of mind like that described by Dan Linton, one of my readers. This is his report. "Last night I went to Wal-Mart with a friend who was returning some tools. I walked around the store while he was at the service desk. In the shampoo isle, an unusual man who looked like an Aborigine made extended eye contact with me. He walked past, he announces in a happy tone, 'You mind is empty.' I was super excited and found my friend to tell him. 'Isn't that an insult? he asked. 'No,' I said. 'The guy meant that my mind was clear, which is true. The is the first time in two years I've found that my mind is free of shrunken expectations, limiting concepts and emotional distortions.'"

STP are back!!!

...and touring this summer!!

Further Proof

This old couple in Modesto has wild opium growing in their backyard, unbeknownst to them. This is simply amazing (said in my best Huell Houser). Imagine if he covered that in "California Gold." Someone would have to explain to him what heroine was. How would that convo go?

http://www.nbc11.com/slideshow/slideshows/15814933/detail.html

Isn't it funny how the police swoop in and confiscate this stuff and do lord know what with it. Yet, we "illegally" import the same stuff from Afganistan--a country we are at "war" with. One word sums up my life these daze...

Irony.

Blog Note: Sorry folks--having a little trouble linking that one up. You'll just have to copy/paste old skool.

In Bloom

The majesty of poppies and wildflowers comes in a cycle that makes me think that nature is more in tune with us than we are in tune with it. Let's face it, times have come back around to the tough--and if you know me, that's all you hear me talk about. But I'm not alone in my harsh assessment of reality and what it all means. Others have joined my crusade.

Friends, do yourself a favor and read Anthony Burgess' brilliant "The Wanting Seed." In one of the scenes the main character Tristram tells his history class of how history works in cycles. He names all the cycles and gives it logical zest. I even covered this to larger effect in my master's thesis and it has helped me make more sense of the world. Kinda.

Nature has helped me too. In 1978, the wild flowers bloomed in my hometown Woodlake (Reef?). I don't remember it so much--seeing as I wasn't even a year old. But I saw the many pictures my mom took and it was awesome. In 2008, the wildflowers are back--thirty years later. My mind asks, "A rebirth?"

Perhaps. Perhaps Walt Whitman was right. Perhaps if our generation embraces the future and believes that "this too shall pass," then we can move forward. I know I sound like a neo-hippy--and perhaps I am. The difference being that the neos shower.

Silent Porn Star!

Terrence McKenna Video I Promised!

On 2012.

A friend at work asked me if I have heard of the date December 21, 2012 and its numerous implications. I told I did and what it meant in layman's terms--the end of the Mayan calendar. She poked and prodded, knowing that I had more ideas than I was sharing. She seemed genuinely intrigued in my unknown hypothesis. I told her about the spectrum of the end of days to a new enlightenment. I told I didn't believe in the prophecy, yet, believed it all the same. She asked me to lunch and we talked more about 2012 and religion.

At lunch, I told her about the "Great Singularity," the idea that out ever expanding technology will become so advanced that it will be able to correct the bugs in the system without the creator's intervention. This might be an analogy for our God. Maybe we were "His" technology. Maybe we correct ourselves and we have no "need" for him. And yet we do all the same.

Terrence McKenna theorized that 2012 would be a new period of the unknown. He even used data to back this up on a graph that showed humanity on a downward spin as we head towards that date. I will find the video and post it later. But McKenna said that we might find out a way to time travel and we'll all go our separate ways--since we are alone in the universe. This is what the television show "Lost" is about, in my opinion.

My mind swims in and out of the realm of 2012. I fear what will happen, if anything--but with fear comes relief--that is a rule of nature I have found. The idea of the apocalypse has roots in religion and is used as a god-fearing tool. I find it hard to believe that it is the end of days, the new enlightenment idea works better with me--an enlightenment that sends us to the stars--beyond the heavens--where we all destined to go--if we be so brave. The rest will remain, on this planet, to pass--as they have all envisioned.

Everything is connected: religion, war, love, death, sex, children, happiness, denial, respect, space/time travel, psychedelic drugs, the police state, hope, fear...

My job in the next four years goes beyond a 401K or planning for the future. The future is now and what lies beyond that is clouded. Personal responsibility--towards our planet and those whom we love and share our lives with should be on our agendas--and with that comes hope. If we ride the wave of hope--it will take care of all of our problems.

Just think of the possibilities and your mind will set you free.

Stephen Hawking is an Alien!