There is a little robotic space probe floating out in space that is not accelerating. We can take it's inertial frame of reference as v=0.
The engine, when on, provides 1 watt of power which is converted to kinetic energy. The probe has a mass of 2 kg. After one second, the probe has 1 J of kinetic energy, and it's velocity is
1 J = (2 kg)(v^2)/2
1 J/kg = v^2
1 (m/s)^2 = v^2
1 m/s = v
OK, so after one watt is used to accelerate the probe, it is now moving at 1 m/s with respect to the orginal frame of reference.
Now, I want to present two chains of reasoning:
A) If I run the engine for three more seconds, the probe will move at a speed of 2 m/s with respect to the original frame of reference as calculated by K=mv^2/2.
B) According to classical relativity, all inertial frames of reference are equivalent in terms of how the laws of physics acts within them. Thus, after the first second, we can choose a new inertial frame of reference that moves with the ship. Now the ship has v=0 and K=0 with respect to the new frame of reference.
We let the engine run for 1 s. Now the ship has a velocity of 1 m/s with respect to the new frame of reference. If we reset the frame of reference every second, this process will continue each second.
After four seconds, the probe is moving at 1 m/s with respect to the fourth frame of reference. The fourth frame of reference is moving at 1 m/s with respect to the third frame of reference, so the probe is mobing at 2 m/s with respect to the third frame...and 3 m/s with respect to the second frame...and the probe has a velocity of 4 m/s with respect to the probe's original velocity four seconds ago.
Why am I getting different answers?
2/9/10 A person whom I shall call BrotherGeeWhiz commented on my confusion:
I think the issue would be resolved if you took into account the acceleration, which is the quantity I like to think about in classical mechanics. It's proportional to force and invariant to changes in inertial reference frames. If one proposes some continuous form for the acceleration, then the velocities should add along different reference frames (as long as v < < c).
Also (tiny point), for an isolated mass in space to move, it has to propel some "fuel" in the opposite direction to conserve momentum. This changes the mass, but since the fuel can move arbitrarily fast, the change in mass can be made arbitrarily small.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Mexican - USA Border 5/1/10 Revision
5/1/10
The best solution to the immigration issue in my opinion is to vastly increase legal immigration AND to fence the border. Don't keep people out who want to come here to work honestly, but keep control of the situation.
The Mexican government will bar foreigners if they upset “the equilibrium of the national demographics.” How’s that for racial and ethnic profiling? – If outsiders do not enhance the country’s “economic or national interests” or are “not found to be physically or mentally healthy,” they are not welcome. Neither are those who show “contempt against national sovereignty or security.” They must not be economic burdens on society and must have clean criminal histories. Those seeking to obtain Mexican citizenship must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can provide their own health care. – Illegal entry into the country is equivalent to a felony punishable by two years’ imprisonment. Document fraud is subject to fine and imprisonment; so is alien marriage fraud. Evading deportation is a serious crime; illegal re-entry after deportation is punishable by ten years’ imprisonment. Foreigners may be kicked out of the country without due process and the endless bites at the litigation apple that illegal aliens are afforded in our country (see, for example, President Obama’s illegal alien aunt — a fugitive from deportation for eight years who is awaiting a second decision on her previously rejected asylum claim). – Law enforcement officials at all levels — by national mandate — must cooperate to enforce immigration laws, including illegal alien arrests and deportations. The Mexican military is also required to assist in immigration enforcement operations. Native-born Mexicans are empowered to make citizens’ arrests of illegal aliens and turn them in to authorities. – Ready to show your papers? Mexico’s National Catalog of Foreigners tracks all outside tourists and foreign nationals. A National Population Registry tracks and verifies the identity of every member of the population, who must carry a citizens’ identity card. Visitors who do not possess proper documents and identification are subject to arrest as illegal aliens.
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/04/28/police-state-how-mexico-treats-illegal-aliens/
Original Text -
I was chatting with this dude...really nice guy. We were talking to the bartender, a very cute chick with a buzz haircut.
It turns out this guy is very proud of being "off the grid" so the Man can't get him.
He doesn't pay taxes.
He's not a citizen. Despite his excellent English, it turns out he's Mexican, not American. He's not one of my people, he's not Chicano, he's a Mexican.
The two of them were chatting gleefully about how this country does nothing for them and how they don't give a damn about Uncle Sam.
Dude...why the Hell aren't you down in Mexico then? Right across the border, head down to Tijuana...or maybe you prefer Ciudad Juarez...you know, those little towns a few hours drive away from here (or El Paso) where the gangs recruit ex Special Forces members from the Mexican military and fight the police with grenades and automatic weapons in coordinated ambushes.
Every dead cop in this country rolled in his or her grave when I heard this.
I want a damned fence on the border.
3/13/10 -
*Acting on orders from the Mexican Mafia, Latino gang members in Southern California are terrorizing and killing blacks.*
January 20, 2007 Los Angeles, Calif
http://www.alternet.org/story/46855/
The best solution to the immigration issue in my opinion is to vastly increase legal immigration AND to fence the border. Don't keep people out who want to come here to work honestly, but keep control of the situation.
The Mexican government will bar foreigners if they upset “the equilibrium of the national demographics.” How’s that for racial and ethnic profiling? – If outsiders do not enhance the country’s “economic or national interests” or are “not found to be physically or mentally healthy,” they are not welcome. Neither are those who show “contempt against national sovereignty or security.” They must not be economic burdens on society and must have clean criminal histories. Those seeking to obtain Mexican citizenship must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can provide their own health care. – Illegal entry into the country is equivalent to a felony punishable by two years’ imprisonment. Document fraud is subject to fine and imprisonment; so is alien marriage fraud. Evading deportation is a serious crime; illegal re-entry after deportation is punishable by ten years’ imprisonment. Foreigners may be kicked out of the country without due process and the endless bites at the litigation apple that illegal aliens are afforded in our country (see, for example, President Obama’s illegal alien aunt — a fugitive from deportation for eight years who is awaiting a second decision on her previously rejected asylum claim). – Law enforcement officials at all levels — by national mandate — must cooperate to enforce immigration laws, including illegal alien arrests and deportations. The Mexican military is also required to assist in immigration enforcement operations. Native-born Mexicans are empowered to make citizens’ arrests of illegal aliens and turn them in to authorities. – Ready to show your papers? Mexico’s National Catalog of Foreigners tracks all outside tourists and foreign nationals. A National Population Registry tracks and verifies the identity of every member of the population, who must carry a citizens’ identity card. Visitors who do not possess proper documents and identification are subject to arrest as illegal aliens.
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/04/28/police-state-how-mexico-treats-illegal-aliens/
Original Text -
I was chatting with this dude...really nice guy. We were talking to the bartender, a very cute chick with a buzz haircut.
It turns out this guy is very proud of being "off the grid" so the Man can't get him.
He doesn't pay taxes.
He's not a citizen. Despite his excellent English, it turns out he's Mexican, not American. He's not one of my people, he's not Chicano, he's a Mexican.
The two of them were chatting gleefully about how this country does nothing for them and how they don't give a damn about Uncle Sam.
Dude...why the Hell aren't you down in Mexico then? Right across the border, head down to Tijuana...or maybe you prefer Ciudad Juarez...you know, those little towns a few hours drive away from here (or El Paso) where the gangs recruit ex Special Forces members from the Mexican military and fight the police with grenades and automatic weapons in coordinated ambushes.
Every dead cop in this country rolled in his or her grave when I heard this.
I want a damned fence on the border.
3/13/10 -
*Acting on orders from the Mexican Mafia, Latino gang members in Southern California are terrorizing and killing blacks.*
January 20, 2007 Los Angeles, Calif
http://www.alternet.org/story/46855/
Creditors and Debtors
"A provocative paper by Brent White, a law professor at the University of Arizona, makes the case that borrowers are actually suffering from a “norm asymmetry.” In other words, they think they are obligated to repay their loans even if it is not in their financial interest to do so, while their lenders are free to do whatever maximizes profits. It’s as if borrowers are playing in a poker game in which they are the only ones who think bluffing is unethical."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/business/economy/24view.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/business/economy/24view.html
Thursday, January 21, 2010
My Dreamworld 4/22/10 Revision
4/22/10 -
Some woman was gossiping. "He thinks it's true but..."
Later, I explained to my Aunt how I was always looking around, watching my back...
...flash to one of my Tae Kwon Do black belt fellow students, a little Asian woman with long curly hair, walking up unseen right next to me as I was lost in thought, poking me, and telling me I am supposed to be more aware of my environment...then the first Jr. High School, the one for smart kids that I failed out of...I am walking, lost in thought, looking down at the ground as I walk. My science teacher, a real cool dude...a "surfer dude" as one of the other students put it...asks me why I walk looking down...I tell him I like to think.
Flash to a police officer overlooking his partner as he arrests somebody. I avoid them while watching...to the overlooking officer I must have looked suspicious because he cranes his neck awkwardly to keep an eye on me as I walk behind him, eyes on him, full of curiosity and respect but apparently looking a bit threatening or suspicious.
Flash to the America's Army online shooter. I learn to look all around me for enemies...it increases my surviveability and kill count greatly. I set my mouse to move the cursor very quickly with only a small motion of the mouse so I can scan my environment faster.
Flash to a time I was two blocks from my building in the depths of night. I see them from far away. My alertness skill succeeded. But I don't do anything about it and they walk up right next to me as I walk home and threaten me. I should have run the two blocks home when I first saw them but I'm out of shape. I could have fought them but I didn't. I wasn't in the zone, and I could tell. Besides they had good tactics. The one who was threatening me was walking next to me, slightly ahead, and the other was behind us.
I'm not too worried but you never know so I give them five bucks I had loose in my pocket. I don't give them my keys and wallet despite their demands. As I go into my building and they walk on the other kid says "why did you bother that man?" to his companion.
Flash to the other one on the ground, bleeding, my foot ready to hit the concrete, passing through his skull on the way.
Original Entry -
H.P. Lovecraft writes of a magical dreamworld in some of his stories. Dreams are very powerful things in an emotional and psychological way. I’ve had lucid dreams, and the feelings of contentment and power within them are extraordinary.
Now, Lovecraft had his own personality, and his dreamworld is tainted by his mysticism, pseudo-religious horror theme, racism etc. However he has inspired me to find my own dreamworld. Much as I use religious figures as visualization aids in meditation despite my atheism, I feel I can use this strange biological virtual reality we experience every night to make my psychological flaws fade and virtues shine in the real world. In any event, I expect it to be a lot of fun.
Aiding and/or hindering me in my quest are the maximum dosages of two antidepressants - one of which causes cool dreams - and a lot of pot. I’ve been told to take them both in the morning but I find it works better for me to take the dream enhancing one at night before bed. This way, I reason, I get the full effect of it’s dream enhancing side effects, and I have an activity to do as a ritual before bed (take the pills). I have a difficult time getting to sleep early (it’s not the pills – it’s because I like to play on the computer, avoiding people, in the peace and quiet of night). It’s important to get up early so that I can get sunlight (good for depression) and do business during business hours. I hope to use pleasant dreams to help me with that as well.
Lovecraft writes of the portal to the Dreamlands being “descending down the seventy seven Steps of Lighter Slumber”, if I remember correctly, and being judged for worthiness by two bearded figures at the bottom. He also mentions the 777 Steps of Deep Slumber as well I think.
So, I start with a location in the dreamworld to visualize; the Steps. In addition I now and then spontaneously see a stone table in my mind’s eye. It sits in a dark forest (the forest of the Zoogs that the 77 Steps lead to?) and is covered with “runes” – not necessarily actual Runes but rather carved symbols and images of some sort. The table is suggestive of the stone table used to sacrifice Aslan (hmm, he's a cat) in the Chronicles of Narnia, and there is a sense of many Secrets about the region. Those who are initiated into a Secret often learn to unlock “magical” power. I write “magic” in quotes because there is no magic/nature dichotomy in my dreamworld. There are simply ways to harnass obscure natural laws through very specific and complex methods that are difficult to understand to produce marvellous effects. Those initiated into Secrets are often changed in strange ways as a result of the Initiation. Secrets are often incompatible with one another. Someone initiated into the Way of the Blade might, perhaps, never cover their flesh with anything tougher than cloth, for example, so that the Blade may split their flesh should it choose. These people may carve mystical and powerful symbols into their flesh in the form of scars, and might have a deathly fear of the tree canopy for no clear reason. Such Initiates, perhaps, could never learn the Secret of Stones, because the Blade cannot cut Stone…or something like that. I don’t remember details of their Secret but I do remember the Cult of the Blade. They never bothered me though.
The Table in the Clearing is a dark, scary place. The Seventy Seven Steps and their Bearded Judges aren’t scary but are tainted with horror simply because we’re talking about Lovecraft. The Forest of the Zoogs isn’t quite horrific, but it definitely has that creepy Unseelie vibe to it. All of this combined with my self-identification with Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, reveals a dark Lovecraftian horror theme I probably shouldn’t dwell on in my dreams too much. I need some pleasant places to visit.
I do seem to remember an image I associate with a lucid dream, but I’m not sure if I actually dreamed this one. I can identify where most of the imagery comes from and I am fairly certain I read about the bicycle technique of invoking lucid dreams while reading about them, well after I’d had several.
In any case it’s a place as vivid as the Table in the Clearing. The terrain is that of the Grapevine, or “the Dirt Road” from my childhood, or the pass from the Karanas to Highkeep (Highpass) in the Everquest game – a narrow road cut into the side of a cliff, high up in the lonely mountains, with a deadly fall on one side and a looming cliff face on the other. Sometimes there’s pea soup fog. Other times there’s snow and ice. Sometimes there’s both, and always the edge of the road is treacherously unstable (though sometimes there’s a fence, sometimes strong, sometimes not). Sometimes the dirt road gets muddy and deep ruts are dug into it, and sometimes there are rocks on or in the road that scrape the bottom of your car or even block the road. It’s a place where I am chased by a monster, but I have the power to make a bicycle appear and with it to escape the monster. It’s also a road in a mystical, magical place, where the sky has a flat, glass like roof and insanity and angels are above it…there’s the horror theme again.
When I’m driving in this region, and I want to avoid obstacles (like a roadblock of slow cars) or simply go in a direction the road doesn’t I can pull back on the steering wheel and make the car fly. Then I can fly over the undeveloped wooded canyons full of magical events, and even over the mountains (though there is a chain of mountains and tall walls which have chaos and angels on the other side…the Queen does not want me back there, but sometimes I have to go to fix things or protect myself). I can fly to the Elementary School at the peak of the hill, a very powerful and central place in my dreamworld. Sometimes I can teleport to certain locations (though it’s hard to remember how to do it), and the school is one of the more important ones. The imagery here is how Wizards could teleport to specific points in Everquest, and there’s a “land of gates” somewhere on rocky, rolling hills inhabited by gigantic fiery beasts. Fortunately they’re not horrific beasts…just dumb and animalistic. People hunt them for entertainment. They hunt people out of instinct. It's a dangerous place.
Teleporting to the School is less useful now though since our house isn’t ours any more…I’ve been there in the Dreamworld and it was empty, with a sense of anger at my trespassing. The backyard is a somewhat dangerous place too…I remember flying around there.
Sometimes the tide comes in and the ocean floods the backyard, and there is an organized enemy out on the islands and in the sea to fight in a lighthearted game (kinda like paintballing but far more complex and a little frightening and gloomy - I guess that's not lighthearted after all).
In the city, with all the tall buildings around, I can fly without the car, though sometimes I try and fail. The imagery is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas when you use the Jet Pack cheat, combined with a Spiderman-like ability to leap and cling. I often look in and go into windows in the buildings high up, or go onto the rooftops where it’s safe when I fly in the city. Stealth and evasion of people is usually important when I do this. I have a vague memory of using a motorcycle while flying to go shopping (or maybe shopping for a motorcycle?) and having to go onto the roofs to escape…someone…there was someone else who could fly too, not sure if he’s the one I was fleeing…I don’t think he was. The place I had to go shopping, a toy store, was on the edge of reality, and I wasn’t supposed to go further. The imagery here is something like being at the edge of the playable area in a game, and being able to see fuzzy structures and roads beyond, but not being allowed to go there because the programmers couldn’t program the whole world in…except maybe I could go into this partially undefined region, and maybe it would undefine me. Thus, I don't go there.
The roof I was on was above the motorcycle/toy shop, possibly directly above, possibly across the street, ten or more stories up, and there was a little hidden area where stuff was hidden that I found slightly significant. There’s a hotel, creaky and tall, drafty and of old construction, which I have stayed in with friends or family. We were generally not allowed to leave our top floor, and it was cramped with ugly steel framed bunk beds. I don’t know why we had to stay up there but it was very frustrating.
There’s another hotel in Vegas I use as a base of operations whenever I’m there in the Dreamworld, though I don’t like it in Vegas much. Then there is Berkeley…the dorms I don’t belong in any more (and never really did, being older and a bit odd), which are even cooler in the dreamworld than in real life (in the Dreamworld sometimes I leave things in my room which the new students never find but I need to retrieve)…the students there are elf-like beings (as late teen college kids away from home kind of are) who see me as a mysterious and slightly unwelcome outsider.
There’s a cavern dungeon thing too…the “final boss” is a dragon of such fiery might it’s incomprehensible and witnessing it will snap the minds of the weak…he lives at the far end of a giant chasm with only one straight stairway going far up it to his personal cave. To face him you must walk up this sloped, narrow path in a straight line. He can of course hurl enormous gouts of flame straight down at you, causing you and everything else in the cavern to turn to ash instantly. He is godlike as well. I potentially have the power to defeat him, as my alter ego Raistlin did when he was his alter ego Fistdantantalus or however it's spelled...Jim Morrison is another alter ego) but my bones turn to jelly at the thought.
There’s another room…now we’re in a Haunted House that’s connected to the Dragon Caves, as well as to some spooky place that’s a combination of a meat factory and an amusement park, where people are crammed prone onto the “rides” (conveyor belts with only enough room to lie down on)…there’s a horror undertone here…imagery is the factory-like "school" that the clay-faced children go through in the video of Pink Floyd's The Wall...we don't need no, education, BUM BUM BUM) but in the Haunted House, most of which is innocuous enough, is a Dark Room that one can fall into via a trap, with a Demonic Being in it of godlike power…very scary (the imagery is something like the final boss demon thing on the old C-64 game Forbidden Forest, which can only be seen in the lightning). There are also many secret passages but they’re so hard to find…for example, little cracks in the backs of filthy closets which lead to ANOTHER set of cracks you need to climb up to slip into…climbing over dirty laundry and slime molds…and in those passages are mysteries, and filth, and mobility. Inside there are rooms with piles of dirt and rats. There are also ways to get here and there via the secret passages. There are also pale skinned, developmentally stunted People, like the People from the movie People Under The Stairs.
The spooky meat packing amusement park place is connected to a Raging Waters-like amusement park, which is a wholesome and fabulous place built into the side of a beautiful mountainside in terraces. All of these places are interconnected…underneath Raging Waters Park, deep in it’s bowels, is Meat Packing Park. This connects via dank tunnels to the Haunted House, which has some connection to the Dragon Caverns...some hidden passage down into them.
There’s another labyrinthian house with a beautiful landscaped yard which is a place of horror too (The Shining, anyone?). Terror is buried deep in my psyche, which is probably why I feel a connection to Lovecraft. This house is owned by “Father”, an unimaginably huge and powerful man-giant with a beard who wants to eat us (myself and my friends). This place is really scary because it’s cyclical. Clambering out of one room to the open outside to escape Father leads my friends and I to the yard. I had hoped we’d escaped but he is coming for us. I run, through the yard, into the trees, on to the roof, back into a window, and then through the house to the exit I came out of in the first place…and then I realize I have to go through the same thing again, and again, and again – forever – without varying anything even slightly. It’s the only way to keep out of his reach, and it will never end unless I slip up – in which case he’ll grab me by a leg, bite off the other as I scream in agony…and he’s always JUST BEHIND ME…at best I evade him for a few minutes before he finds me again.
(A side note - my father is a wonderful, caring man who stayed with his family and kept food on the table through really tough times. I don't think he even ever hit me. Now, moving on...)
A forested, shrubby stream leading from the edge of Lowtown Park up to my neighborhood on Green Hill was another place. I remember shapechanging to a dolphin or something to go up it (or down it) once. Going up it’s a useful and hidden path to get “home”. Going down, it’s a path to riverbank adventure and beyond.
Another place is a campground. Except for the steep wooded hills defining the valley it’s all very flat. There is a very still pond that touches the edge of the campground and goes off around the corner of a hill and off into the distance…finding a boat lets me travel down to fabulous and generally NOT scary pond-bank adventures…the pond and the land are all flat, about the same level.
Oh yes, there’s an evergreen Tree high, high above the world, up near the angels’ realm, possibly or partially above the crystal ceiling of reality. It’s an interesting place with a building built into the branches. The windows let in witches who have their secret meetings way up there away from the mundane world, and which no mundane (like myself) can be permitted to witness and live. However sometimes I cling to the roof and look through the space between walls and roof (the eaves?).
There’s also a Tower which I identify with the nearby Indian Museum. It is mind-bogglingly tall and rickety, and perched on a mountain. Climbing up it leads to adventure but is more terrifying each step I go up. This is because I am terrified of heights. I don’t get far before I am crawling on hands and knees, having a hard time breathing due to an anxiety attack. I have never made it far in that tower. Just thinking of how high up it goes makes me uneasy.
Last night I had a nightmare in which my mother was cold and uncaring. I was really upset and tried to evoke sympathy by throwing a tantrum and declaring I was moving out, even if it meant I had to live in a shelter (running away from home I guess). She kept saying she didn’t care, never looking directly at me, with hard eyes and a straight back as she went about her tasks.
My mother is incredibly loving and sympathetic and her upper back posture is terrible, due to age, osteoporosis, lifelong bad habits and lack of exercise as well as the fact that she doesn’t look around her, but instead thinks, or reads, or cleans. I am sure the dream is about her sickness, which was probably (along with poverty) central to the creation of my anxiety disorder. I never remembered the time she was sick when I was little.
She has always evoked great passions in me – whether love and affection or rage and hatred. I am emotionally dependent on her. Everyone else in the world seems so damn uncaring, and I’m emotionally needy despite my desire to be alone most of the time and my cold mask. I’d probably seem uncaring to myself. I need to be able to go into the next room and have people I care about be in there, but not constantly chattering at me, looking over my shoulder, forcing me to stop thinking and pay attention to them, when I have fascinating thoughts to think and people are generally boring and fairly irritating.
The Beatles sing of the Dreamlands in Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, and the cartoon Yellow Submarine, while disapproved of by the Beatles, shows them (e.g. the Foothills of the Headlands) to us through the artist’s inspiration. This is a more colorful land that melds seamlessly with the brilliant colors of Munchkinland in Oz. The deserts around Oz border the land of the Calormen from the Chronicles of Narnia. Balloons on the wind have great power but generally stay up high, hidden in the clouds, spying on the lands below.
Somewhere there is a balloon so huge that even though it carries tremendous weight it still floats in air! This is because as an object gets larger, the surface area to volume ratio changes, as polar bears often tell us.
There is a fortified city upon it, and the entire balloon is armored with heavy steel plate. Once this city collided with a cloud city. The Giant was enraged, and he waged a war with the things in the city on the balloon.
The Irishman Lord Dunseny saw into it before Howard did, and opened Howard’s eyes and Tolkein’s as well.
And then they opened mine.
Moorcock understood too, and Morrison when he Broke on Through, and in another reality so did the Monkees.
"Come with me
I'll take you where
the taste of life's obscene
and every day new horrors to be seen
Remember that feeling as a child
when you woke up and morning smiled
It's time you felt like this again
Time to leave yesterday behind
and take a giant step outside your mind
You say for you there's no relief
you stare out There with no belief
I tell you what
I'll prove you wrong
Don't sit in your lonely room
Staring at the screen in silent gloom
But that's where I belong
It's where I'm strong
And someday they'll kneel at my feet
Because I have Secrets
EDIT 2/14/10 Strawberry Fields where nothing is real and nothing to get hung about...
Some woman was gossiping. "He thinks it's true but..."
Later, I explained to my Aunt how I was always looking around, watching my back...
...flash to one of my Tae Kwon Do black belt fellow students, a little Asian woman with long curly hair, walking up unseen right next to me as I was lost in thought, poking me, and telling me I am supposed to be more aware of my environment...then the first Jr. High School, the one for smart kids that I failed out of...I am walking, lost in thought, looking down at the ground as I walk. My science teacher, a real cool dude...a "surfer dude" as one of the other students put it...asks me why I walk looking down...I tell him I like to think.
Flash to a police officer overlooking his partner as he arrests somebody. I avoid them while watching...to the overlooking officer I must have looked suspicious because he cranes his neck awkwardly to keep an eye on me as I walk behind him, eyes on him, full of curiosity and respect but apparently looking a bit threatening or suspicious.
Flash to the America's Army online shooter. I learn to look all around me for enemies...it increases my surviveability and kill count greatly. I set my mouse to move the cursor very quickly with only a small motion of the mouse so I can scan my environment faster.
Flash to a time I was two blocks from my building in the depths of night. I see them from far away. My alertness skill succeeded. But I don't do anything about it and they walk up right next to me as I walk home and threaten me. I should have run the two blocks home when I first saw them but I'm out of shape. I could have fought them but I didn't. I wasn't in the zone, and I could tell. Besides they had good tactics. The one who was threatening me was walking next to me, slightly ahead, and the other was behind us.
I'm not too worried but you never know so I give them five bucks I had loose in my pocket. I don't give them my keys and wallet despite their demands. As I go into my building and they walk on the other kid says "why did you bother that man?" to his companion.
Flash to the other one on the ground, bleeding, my foot ready to hit the concrete, passing through his skull on the way.
Original Entry -
H.P. Lovecraft writes of a magical dreamworld in some of his stories. Dreams are very powerful things in an emotional and psychological way. I’ve had lucid dreams, and the feelings of contentment and power within them are extraordinary.
Now, Lovecraft had his own personality, and his dreamworld is tainted by his mysticism, pseudo-religious horror theme, racism etc. However he has inspired me to find my own dreamworld. Much as I use religious figures as visualization aids in meditation despite my atheism, I feel I can use this strange biological virtual reality we experience every night to make my psychological flaws fade and virtues shine in the real world. In any event, I expect it to be a lot of fun.
Aiding and/or hindering me in my quest are the maximum dosages of two antidepressants - one of which causes cool dreams - and a lot of pot. I’ve been told to take them both in the morning but I find it works better for me to take the dream enhancing one at night before bed. This way, I reason, I get the full effect of it’s dream enhancing side effects, and I have an activity to do as a ritual before bed (take the pills). I have a difficult time getting to sleep early (it’s not the pills – it’s because I like to play on the computer, avoiding people, in the peace and quiet of night). It’s important to get up early so that I can get sunlight (good for depression) and do business during business hours. I hope to use pleasant dreams to help me with that as well.
Lovecraft writes of the portal to the Dreamlands being “descending down the seventy seven Steps of Lighter Slumber”, if I remember correctly, and being judged for worthiness by two bearded figures at the bottom. He also mentions the 777 Steps of Deep Slumber as well I think.
So, I start with a location in the dreamworld to visualize; the Steps. In addition I now and then spontaneously see a stone table in my mind’s eye. It sits in a dark forest (the forest of the Zoogs that the 77 Steps lead to?) and is covered with “runes” – not necessarily actual Runes but rather carved symbols and images of some sort. The table is suggestive of the stone table used to sacrifice Aslan (hmm, he's a cat) in the Chronicles of Narnia, and there is a sense of many Secrets about the region. Those who are initiated into a Secret often learn to unlock “magical” power. I write “magic” in quotes because there is no magic/nature dichotomy in my dreamworld. There are simply ways to harnass obscure natural laws through very specific and complex methods that are difficult to understand to produce marvellous effects. Those initiated into Secrets are often changed in strange ways as a result of the Initiation. Secrets are often incompatible with one another. Someone initiated into the Way of the Blade might, perhaps, never cover their flesh with anything tougher than cloth, for example, so that the Blade may split their flesh should it choose. These people may carve mystical and powerful symbols into their flesh in the form of scars, and might have a deathly fear of the tree canopy for no clear reason. Such Initiates, perhaps, could never learn the Secret of Stones, because the Blade cannot cut Stone…or something like that. I don’t remember details of their Secret but I do remember the Cult of the Blade. They never bothered me though.
The Table in the Clearing is a dark, scary place. The Seventy Seven Steps and their Bearded Judges aren’t scary but are tainted with horror simply because we’re talking about Lovecraft. The Forest of the Zoogs isn’t quite horrific, but it definitely has that creepy Unseelie vibe to it. All of this combined with my self-identification with Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, reveals a dark Lovecraftian horror theme I probably shouldn’t dwell on in my dreams too much. I need some pleasant places to visit.
I do seem to remember an image I associate with a lucid dream, but I’m not sure if I actually dreamed this one. I can identify where most of the imagery comes from and I am fairly certain I read about the bicycle technique of invoking lucid dreams while reading about them, well after I’d had several.
In any case it’s a place as vivid as the Table in the Clearing. The terrain is that of the Grapevine, or “the Dirt Road” from my childhood, or the pass from the Karanas to Highkeep (Highpass) in the Everquest game – a narrow road cut into the side of a cliff, high up in the lonely mountains, with a deadly fall on one side and a looming cliff face on the other. Sometimes there’s pea soup fog. Other times there’s snow and ice. Sometimes there’s both, and always the edge of the road is treacherously unstable (though sometimes there’s a fence, sometimes strong, sometimes not). Sometimes the dirt road gets muddy and deep ruts are dug into it, and sometimes there are rocks on or in the road that scrape the bottom of your car or even block the road. It’s a place where I am chased by a monster, but I have the power to make a bicycle appear and with it to escape the monster. It’s also a road in a mystical, magical place, where the sky has a flat, glass like roof and insanity and angels are above it…there’s the horror theme again.
When I’m driving in this region, and I want to avoid obstacles (like a roadblock of slow cars) or simply go in a direction the road doesn’t I can pull back on the steering wheel and make the car fly. Then I can fly over the undeveloped wooded canyons full of magical events, and even over the mountains (though there is a chain of mountains and tall walls which have chaos and angels on the other side…the Queen does not want me back there, but sometimes I have to go to fix things or protect myself). I can fly to the Elementary School at the peak of the hill, a very powerful and central place in my dreamworld. Sometimes I can teleport to certain locations (though it’s hard to remember how to do it), and the school is one of the more important ones. The imagery here is how Wizards could teleport to specific points in Everquest, and there’s a “land of gates” somewhere on rocky, rolling hills inhabited by gigantic fiery beasts. Fortunately they’re not horrific beasts…just dumb and animalistic. People hunt them for entertainment. They hunt people out of instinct. It's a dangerous place.
Teleporting to the School is less useful now though since our house isn’t ours any more…I’ve been there in the Dreamworld and it was empty, with a sense of anger at my trespassing. The backyard is a somewhat dangerous place too…I remember flying around there.
Sometimes the tide comes in and the ocean floods the backyard, and there is an organized enemy out on the islands and in the sea to fight in a lighthearted game (kinda like paintballing but far more complex and a little frightening and gloomy - I guess that's not lighthearted after all).
In the city, with all the tall buildings around, I can fly without the car, though sometimes I try and fail. The imagery is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas when you use the Jet Pack cheat, combined with a Spiderman-like ability to leap and cling. I often look in and go into windows in the buildings high up, or go onto the rooftops where it’s safe when I fly in the city. Stealth and evasion of people is usually important when I do this. I have a vague memory of using a motorcycle while flying to go shopping (or maybe shopping for a motorcycle?) and having to go onto the roofs to escape…someone…there was someone else who could fly too, not sure if he’s the one I was fleeing…I don’t think he was. The place I had to go shopping, a toy store, was on the edge of reality, and I wasn’t supposed to go further. The imagery here is something like being at the edge of the playable area in a game, and being able to see fuzzy structures and roads beyond, but not being allowed to go there because the programmers couldn’t program the whole world in…except maybe I could go into this partially undefined region, and maybe it would undefine me. Thus, I don't go there.
The roof I was on was above the motorcycle/toy shop, possibly directly above, possibly across the street, ten or more stories up, and there was a little hidden area where stuff was hidden that I found slightly significant. There’s a hotel, creaky and tall, drafty and of old construction, which I have stayed in with friends or family. We were generally not allowed to leave our top floor, and it was cramped with ugly steel framed bunk beds. I don’t know why we had to stay up there but it was very frustrating.
There’s another hotel in Vegas I use as a base of operations whenever I’m there in the Dreamworld, though I don’t like it in Vegas much. Then there is Berkeley…the dorms I don’t belong in any more (and never really did, being older and a bit odd), which are even cooler in the dreamworld than in real life (in the Dreamworld sometimes I leave things in my room which the new students never find but I need to retrieve)…the students there are elf-like beings (as late teen college kids away from home kind of are) who see me as a mysterious and slightly unwelcome outsider.
There’s a cavern dungeon thing too…the “final boss” is a dragon of such fiery might it’s incomprehensible and witnessing it will snap the minds of the weak…he lives at the far end of a giant chasm with only one straight stairway going far up it to his personal cave. To face him you must walk up this sloped, narrow path in a straight line. He can of course hurl enormous gouts of flame straight down at you, causing you and everything else in the cavern to turn to ash instantly. He is godlike as well. I potentially have the power to defeat him, as my alter ego Raistlin did when he was his alter ego Fistdantantalus or however it's spelled...Jim Morrison is another alter ego) but my bones turn to jelly at the thought.
There’s another room…now we’re in a Haunted House that’s connected to the Dragon Caves, as well as to some spooky place that’s a combination of a meat factory and an amusement park, where people are crammed prone onto the “rides” (conveyor belts with only enough room to lie down on)…there’s a horror undertone here…imagery is the factory-like "school" that the clay-faced children go through in the video of Pink Floyd's The Wall...we don't need no, education, BUM BUM BUM) but in the Haunted House, most of which is innocuous enough, is a Dark Room that one can fall into via a trap, with a Demonic Being in it of godlike power…very scary (the imagery is something like the final boss demon thing on the old C-64 game Forbidden Forest, which can only be seen in the lightning). There are also many secret passages but they’re so hard to find…for example, little cracks in the backs of filthy closets which lead to ANOTHER set of cracks you need to climb up to slip into…climbing over dirty laundry and slime molds…and in those passages are mysteries, and filth, and mobility. Inside there are rooms with piles of dirt and rats. There are also ways to get here and there via the secret passages. There are also pale skinned, developmentally stunted People, like the People from the movie People Under The Stairs.
The spooky meat packing amusement park place is connected to a Raging Waters-like amusement park, which is a wholesome and fabulous place built into the side of a beautiful mountainside in terraces. All of these places are interconnected…underneath Raging Waters Park, deep in it’s bowels, is Meat Packing Park. This connects via dank tunnels to the Haunted House, which has some connection to the Dragon Caverns...some hidden passage down into them.
There’s another labyrinthian house with a beautiful landscaped yard which is a place of horror too (The Shining, anyone?). Terror is buried deep in my psyche, which is probably why I feel a connection to Lovecraft. This house is owned by “Father”, an unimaginably huge and powerful man-giant with a beard who wants to eat us (myself and my friends). This place is really scary because it’s cyclical. Clambering out of one room to the open outside to escape Father leads my friends and I to the yard. I had hoped we’d escaped but he is coming for us. I run, through the yard, into the trees, on to the roof, back into a window, and then through the house to the exit I came out of in the first place…and then I realize I have to go through the same thing again, and again, and again – forever – without varying anything even slightly. It’s the only way to keep out of his reach, and it will never end unless I slip up – in which case he’ll grab me by a leg, bite off the other as I scream in agony…and he’s always JUST BEHIND ME…at best I evade him for a few minutes before he finds me again.
(A side note - my father is a wonderful, caring man who stayed with his family and kept food on the table through really tough times. I don't think he even ever hit me. Now, moving on...)
A forested, shrubby stream leading from the edge of Lowtown Park up to my neighborhood on Green Hill was another place. I remember shapechanging to a dolphin or something to go up it (or down it) once. Going up it’s a useful and hidden path to get “home”. Going down, it’s a path to riverbank adventure and beyond.
Another place is a campground. Except for the steep wooded hills defining the valley it’s all very flat. There is a very still pond that touches the edge of the campground and goes off around the corner of a hill and off into the distance…finding a boat lets me travel down to fabulous and generally NOT scary pond-bank adventures…the pond and the land are all flat, about the same level.
Oh yes, there’s an evergreen Tree high, high above the world, up near the angels’ realm, possibly or partially above the crystal ceiling of reality. It’s an interesting place with a building built into the branches. The windows let in witches who have their secret meetings way up there away from the mundane world, and which no mundane (like myself) can be permitted to witness and live. However sometimes I cling to the roof and look through the space between walls and roof (the eaves?).
There’s also a Tower which I identify with the nearby Indian Museum. It is mind-bogglingly tall and rickety, and perched on a mountain. Climbing up it leads to adventure but is more terrifying each step I go up. This is because I am terrified of heights. I don’t get far before I am crawling on hands and knees, having a hard time breathing due to an anxiety attack. I have never made it far in that tower. Just thinking of how high up it goes makes me uneasy.
Last night I had a nightmare in which my mother was cold and uncaring. I was really upset and tried to evoke sympathy by throwing a tantrum and declaring I was moving out, even if it meant I had to live in a shelter (running away from home I guess). She kept saying she didn’t care, never looking directly at me, with hard eyes and a straight back as she went about her tasks.
My mother is incredibly loving and sympathetic and her upper back posture is terrible, due to age, osteoporosis, lifelong bad habits and lack of exercise as well as the fact that she doesn’t look around her, but instead thinks, or reads, or cleans. I am sure the dream is about her sickness, which was probably (along with poverty) central to the creation of my anxiety disorder. I never remembered the time she was sick when I was little.
She has always evoked great passions in me – whether love and affection or rage and hatred. I am emotionally dependent on her. Everyone else in the world seems so damn uncaring, and I’m emotionally needy despite my desire to be alone most of the time and my cold mask. I’d probably seem uncaring to myself. I need to be able to go into the next room and have people I care about be in there, but not constantly chattering at me, looking over my shoulder, forcing me to stop thinking and pay attention to them, when I have fascinating thoughts to think and people are generally boring and fairly irritating.
The Beatles sing of the Dreamlands in Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, and the cartoon Yellow Submarine, while disapproved of by the Beatles, shows them (e.g. the Foothills of the Headlands) to us through the artist’s inspiration. This is a more colorful land that melds seamlessly with the brilliant colors of Munchkinland in Oz. The deserts around Oz border the land of the Calormen from the Chronicles of Narnia. Balloons on the wind have great power but generally stay up high, hidden in the clouds, spying on the lands below.
Somewhere there is a balloon so huge that even though it carries tremendous weight it still floats in air! This is because as an object gets larger, the surface area to volume ratio changes, as polar bears often tell us.
There is a fortified city upon it, and the entire balloon is armored with heavy steel plate. Once this city collided with a cloud city. The Giant was enraged, and he waged a war with the things in the city on the balloon.
The Irishman Lord Dunseny saw into it before Howard did, and opened Howard’s eyes and Tolkein’s as well.
And then they opened mine.
Moorcock understood too, and Morrison when he Broke on Through, and in another reality so did the Monkees.
"Come with me
I'll take you where
the taste of life's obscene
and every day new horrors to be seen
Remember that feeling as a child
when you woke up and morning smiled
It's time you felt like this again
Time to leave yesterday behind
and take a giant step outside your mind
You say for you there's no relief
you stare out There with no belief
I tell you what
I'll prove you wrong
Don't sit in your lonely room
Staring at the screen in silent gloom
But that's where I belong
It's where I'm strong
And someday they'll kneel at my feet
Because I have Secrets
EDIT 2/14/10 Strawberry Fields where nothing is real and nothing to get hung about...
English Accents, Dialencts, Slang etc. 3/21/10 Revision
Chicano:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4DUi5Q_BPs
Brownie
"Where you from?" (i.e. "What gang are you in")
Female Standard American (Malibu/Beverly Hills maybe?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmS6mkO3_TQ
African-American Language/Afro-American/Ebonics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klxGFAnY4nI
"Heeeeeeyy"
"I wish you WOULD..."
"That's hot"
Sub-Saharan African ("extremist ANC youth"):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39vBhsoNdrA
Scouse (stereotypical Liverpool native):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39vBhsoNdrA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPGMqHQne3M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBYlXfjKru4
Portuguese:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBYlXfjKru4
German:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBAGuiLcA4E
Austrian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzI-UQ-JsaQ
Slang words and Phrases
Angel Dust
Apple Bottom
Blasted
(to) Blaze
Brownie
Bud
Chill
Cholo
Crew
Dude
Faded
(to) Fly Colors
Fly
Fool
(to) Front
Groovy
Homie
Hood
(to) Keep it on the Low Down
Popped
Posse
Post
Sweet
Tight
Wasted
Weed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4DUi5Q_BPs
Brownie
"Where you from?" (i.e. "What gang are you in")
Female Standard American (Malibu/Beverly Hills maybe?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmS6mkO3_TQ
African-American Language/Afro-American/Ebonics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klxGFAnY4nI
"Heeeeeeyy"
"I wish you WOULD..."
"That's hot"
Sub-Saharan African ("extremist ANC youth"):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39vBhsoNdrA
Scouse (stereotypical Liverpool native):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39vBhsoNdrA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPGMqHQne3M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBYlXfjKru4
Portuguese:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBYlXfjKru4
German:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBAGuiLcA4E
Austrian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzI-UQ-JsaQ
Slang words and Phrases
Angel Dust
Apple Bottom
Blasted
(to) Blaze
Brownie
Bud
Chill
Cholo
Crew
Dude
Faded
(to) Fly Colors
Fly
Fool
(to) Front
Groovy
Homie
Hood
(to) Keep it on the Low Down
Popped
Posse
Post
Sweet
Tight
Wasted
Weed
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Culture of Poverty 3/13/10 Revision
The chronically poor populations seem to all share certain characteristics. I believe this is due to a Culture of Poverty, inflicted by outside forces, but maintained in large part by the poor people themselves. It is not a racial or ethnic phenomenon except inasmuch as certain races and ethnicities suffer from poverty more than others.
Some evidence for this - black African immigrants are more of a "model minority" than East Asians. Black Americans, however, are not. Why? Because Black Americans' ancestors had their cultures systematically obliterated and a culture of poverty was intentionally put in place by white slaveowners.
Cultures of poverty are all over the place; Ciudad Juarez; Palestine; Appalachia; USA inner cities (Eminem?); all through Latin America and the Middle East; Russia; etc. The culture of poverty has certain predictable effects on the people of that culture. Violence; lack of value of intellectualism; treating women and other races badly; lack of respect for the law; a sense of entitlement (which I am not sure is unwarranted - poverty in the presence of extreme wealth violates the Right to Own (and Earn) Property).
Also, single moms, high incidence of AIDS, many children per family...These are, I believe, because poor people stop using k-type breeding strategies and move towards r-type breeding strategies. You'll also see either chaos (Somalia) or brutal oppression (China).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-selection
I do recognize that this is a biological theory that I am applying to sociology - Social Darwinism kind of thinking - and so is not necessarily valid.
I suspect this may be related to the commonality that Communists see in all people of the working class.
Because these are predictable effects, there is clearly something about poverty that influences people heavily to behave this way.
Basically, people get desperate and they'll start playing rough. It's human nature. There's little opportunity cost for their choices as far as they can tell. What do they have to lose?
Some evidence for this - black African immigrants are more of a "model minority" than East Asians. Black Americans, however, are not. Why? Because Black Americans' ancestors had their cultures systematically obliterated and a culture of poverty was intentionally put in place by white slaveowners.
Cultures of poverty are all over the place; Ciudad Juarez; Palestine; Appalachia; USA inner cities (Eminem?); all through Latin America and the Middle East; Russia; etc. The culture of poverty has certain predictable effects on the people of that culture. Violence; lack of value of intellectualism; treating women and other races badly; lack of respect for the law; a sense of entitlement (which I am not sure is unwarranted - poverty in the presence of extreme wealth violates the Right to Own (and Earn) Property).
Also, single moms, high incidence of AIDS, many children per family...These are, I believe, because poor people stop using k-type breeding strategies and move towards r-type breeding strategies. You'll also see either chaos (Somalia) or brutal oppression (China).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-selection
I do recognize that this is a biological theory that I am applying to sociology - Social Darwinism kind of thinking - and so is not necessarily valid.
I suspect this may be related to the commonality that Communists see in all people of the working class.
Because these are predictable effects, there is clearly something about poverty that influences people heavily to behave this way.
Basically, people get desperate and they'll start playing rough. It's human nature. There's little opportunity cost for their choices as far as they can tell. What do they have to lose?
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Faster Than Light
There are phenomena which travel faster than light, but they cannot carry information. To understand this concept, consider this:
Imagine a long conga line of people. Every beat in the music, someone raises their hand in sequence; first the first guy, then the second on the second beat, then the third on the third beat...
Every four beats everyone also takes a step forward.
The "raised hand" will move faster than the individual people will.
Or better, think of a football game when people do "the wave". "The wave" moves around the stadium very quickly but each person stays in their own spot.
If the people are photons, then the "raised hand" or "the wave" equivalent can move faster than c even as the photons move at c.
In the analogy, "the wave" is not the light itself, which has wave characteristics. It's the velocity of the "wave" that is formed when you combine light beams of different wavelengths. Different wave.
The waves themselves are doing "the wave" and THAT is what moves faster than c.
Another example:
A shadow can move faster than c. If you have a flashlight and an object in front of it, the shadow from this arrangements will move in an arc. Close up moving the flashlight 45 degrees might make the shadow move a meter; if you aim it farther away, in the same time the same movement will make the shadow move two meters.
Extrapolate this pattern and you can see you can make the shadow move faster than light as long as you aim it at something far enough away.
I think the idea is that nothing travels with the shadow. It's simply that the photons have moved apart. If a flashlight is moved from directly out of the north pole to perpendicular to the north pole in one second, after a minute one photon goes one light minute out of the north pole, and another goes one light minute perpendicular to this, nd they are now more than one light minute apart, right? Square root of two light minutes apart, and the "beam of light" and any shadow it caries with it has moved that whole distance in one second.
EDIT - I think this describes it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow#Shadow_propagation_speed
In a wave, the peaks will seem to "increase" and "decrease" as the wave moves. Like the wiki illustration here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Wave_group.gif
You can then see that the wave seems to move faster than its shape, because the highest peak eventually starts "decreasing" and the next peak becomes the largest one. So eventually you'll reach the same shape as before, but with the previous peak being the highest one! The speed of that shape is the group velocity.
Signal velocity is the speed at which a wave carries information. Imagine a disturbance in the wave, that disturbance would move at a certain speed which is the signal velocity. The easiest way to think about it is how fast it gets from point A to B from the moment when you originally send it from A (sometimes also called the front velocity, but it's the same AFAIK).
Palynka
I've learned about this phenomenon in school.
It's called subluminal (or superluminal, not sure) light and it is indeed the group velocity of waves that can be faster than c.
This is the velocity of peaks you get when adding all the different waves in a medium.
It occurs when waves of different wavelenghts have different wave speeds.
It seems unnatural but you have to remember that nothing is really moving with the velocity, it only seems that way. You can't use it to send information faster than light. How it all works is still a bit alien to me too.
Anyway, you can see an applet here:
http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/APPLETS/20/20.html
Fun fact: it is also possible to produce 'stopped light' with this!
Meneer Dries
Meneer Dries applet is excellent for visualizing it. Did you try it? You can see how group velocity can be much faster than the wavelets that form it. It's the same principle, as group velocity is just a velocity of a "pattern".
Palynka
Imagine two spiral arcs of two different galaxies that are crossing paths.
The arcs are closing like scissors.
The "phenomenon" of movement .. .the point of the crossing, can move faster than the speed of light, but not particular particle or wave is moving faster than the speed of light.
phenomena easily move faster than the speed of light.
coquette
http://www.playtheimmortalgame.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=124269
Imagine a long conga line of people. Every beat in the music, someone raises their hand in sequence; first the first guy, then the second on the second beat, then the third on the third beat...
Every four beats everyone also takes a step forward.
The "raised hand" will move faster than the individual people will.
Or better, think of a football game when people do "the wave". "The wave" moves around the stadium very quickly but each person stays in their own spot.
If the people are photons, then the "raised hand" or "the wave" equivalent can move faster than c even as the photons move at c.
In the analogy, "the wave" is not the light itself, which has wave characteristics. It's the velocity of the "wave" that is formed when you combine light beams of different wavelengths. Different wave.
The waves themselves are doing "the wave" and THAT is what moves faster than c.
Another example:
A shadow can move faster than c. If you have a flashlight and an object in front of it, the shadow from this arrangements will move in an arc. Close up moving the flashlight 45 degrees might make the shadow move a meter; if you aim it farther away, in the same time the same movement will make the shadow move two meters.
Extrapolate this pattern and you can see you can make the shadow move faster than light as long as you aim it at something far enough away.
I think the idea is that nothing travels with the shadow. It's simply that the photons have moved apart. If a flashlight is moved from directly out of the north pole to perpendicular to the north pole in one second, after a minute one photon goes one light minute out of the north pole, and another goes one light minute perpendicular to this, nd they are now more than one light minute apart, right? Square root of two light minutes apart, and the "beam of light" and any shadow it caries with it has moved that whole distance in one second.
EDIT - I think this describes it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow#Shadow_propagation_speed
In a wave, the peaks will seem to "increase" and "decrease" as the wave moves. Like the wiki illustration here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Wave_group.gif
You can then see that the wave seems to move faster than its shape, because the highest peak eventually starts "decreasing" and the next peak becomes the largest one. So eventually you'll reach the same shape as before, but with the previous peak being the highest one! The speed of that shape is the group velocity.
Signal velocity is the speed at which a wave carries information. Imagine a disturbance in the wave, that disturbance would move at a certain speed which is the signal velocity. The easiest way to think about it is how fast it gets from point A to B from the moment when you originally send it from A (sometimes also called the front velocity, but it's the same AFAIK).
Palynka
I've learned about this phenomenon in school.
It's called subluminal (or superluminal, not sure) light and it is indeed the group velocity of waves that can be faster than c.
This is the velocity of peaks you get when adding all the different waves in a medium.
It occurs when waves of different wavelenghts have different wave speeds.
It seems unnatural but you have to remember that nothing is really moving with the velocity, it only seems that way. You can't use it to send information faster than light. How it all works is still a bit alien to me too.
Anyway, you can see an applet here:
http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/APPLETS/20/20.html
Fun fact: it is also possible to produce 'stopped light' with this!
Meneer Dries
Meneer Dries applet is excellent for visualizing it. Did you try it? You can see how group velocity can be much faster than the wavelets that form it. It's the same principle, as group velocity is just a velocity of a "pattern".
Palynka
Imagine two spiral arcs of two different galaxies that are crossing paths.
The arcs are closing like scissors.
The "phenomenon" of movement .. .the point of the crossing, can move faster than the speed of light, but not particular particle or wave is moving faster than the speed of light.
phenomena easily move faster than the speed of light.
coquette
http://www.playtheimmortalgame.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=124269
Monday, January 11, 2010
Decision Cycles: OODA Loops and PDCA
This space is dedicated to the study and analysis of the "OODA Loop" concept and similar ideas such as the "Plan-Do-Check-Act" concept in business.
It strikes me that one reason I find face to face conversations frustrating is that I have a long decision cycle in a discussion and many others have a short one. This leads to other people dominating the conversation, constantly bringing up new ideas and information, while I'm still trying to absorb earlier comments and decide how I want to reply.
The intentional usage of this to disorient others must be what they call "Fast Talk".
It seems to me that the SECOND nuclear bomb dropped on Japan in WWII was important because it broke into the Japanese OODA loop, making them panic, while the first bomb might not have done that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_Loop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fast-talk
It strikes me that one reason I find face to face conversations frustrating is that I have a long decision cycle in a discussion and many others have a short one. This leads to other people dominating the conversation, constantly bringing up new ideas and information, while I'm still trying to absorb earlier comments and decide how I want to reply.
The intentional usage of this to disorient others must be what they call "Fast Talk".
It seems to me that the SECOND nuclear bomb dropped on Japan in WWII was important because it broke into the Japanese OODA loop, making them panic, while the first bomb might not have done that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_Loop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fast-talk
Thursday, January 7, 2010
World War II - 1/20/10 Revision
World War II is one of those topics that comes up over and over again when guys (and sometimes women too) start chatting. Even more often it comes up in online forums. This is the space dedicated to storing information and arguments about the topic e.g. contemporary quotes from both sides that claim strategic bombing is useless.
Finally, it is important to remember that no war has ever been brought to an end simply by indiscriminate bombing and mass killing of civilians. Indeed, there is abundant evidence that such strategies typically strengthened resistance.
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/650
Another vital lesson - one that has taken even air specialists by surprise - relates to the behaviour of civilian populations under air punishment. It had generally been assumed that aerial bombardment would quickly shatter popular morale, causing deep civilian reactions. ... The progress of this war has tended to indicate that this expectation was unfounded. ... These facts are significant beyond their psychological interest. They mean that haphazard destruction of cities - sheer blows at morale - are costly and wasteful in relation to the tactical results achieved. Attacks will increasingly be concentrated on military rather than on random human targets. Unplanned vandalism from the air must give way, more and more, to planned, predetermined destruction. More than ever the principal objectives will be critical aggregates of electric power, aviation industries, dock facilities, essential public utilities and the like." -- Major Alexander Seversky, US Army Air Force, Victory Through Air Power (NY, 1942).
After the war, the German Minister for Armaments Production, Albert Speer, professed shock that "vast but pointless area bombing" was being continued in favor of highly effective precision bombing.[10] According to Speer, the failure to continue regularly attacking Schweinfurt allowed the Reich to escape a "further catastrophic blow" because "armaments production would have been crucially weakened after two months and after four months would have been brought completely to a standstill."[11] "What really saved us," Speer continued, "was the fact that from this time on the enemy to our astonishment once again ceased his attacks on the ball-bearing industry."
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/war.crimes/World.war.2/Bombing.htm#AMERICAN OPPOSITION TO AREA BOMBING
In the case of the air war against the Third Reich, bombing only caused serious economic disruptions in the final year of the war, roughly from June 1944 to May 1945. By this time a German military defeat was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Based on such results, it is impossible to demonstrate that the bombing campaign would have achieved an economic breakdown of Germany since by the time such destruction was being caused, the fronts were already collapsing in both east and west. The Soviet Union, for all intents, had won the land war by the middle of 1944 and the successful Normandy invasion delivered the coup de grace. To make a case for the bombing campaign being decisive the reverse would have to be expected. That is, the fronts would have had to collapse after the industrial damage was done.
http://www.onwar.com/articles/9809.htm
J K Galbraith, "The Affluent Society", chapter 12. Book first published 1958.
A summary of the relevant part:
Because Galbraith was part of the strategic air command and was involved in the bombing of cities in WWII, he was intimately familiar with the consequences of that campaign, and he tells a story about how production actually increased after the bombing because all the people engaged in services, like waiters and housecleaners and barbers, went into production after the city had been destroyed.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R30M5KK6QY33DG
See also
http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS-PTO-Summary.html
In the days immediately following the surrender of Germany, the Allies
interrogated numerous high-ranking Germans. All were asked what chief
factor led to their country's defeat. Here is a sampling and summary of
what they said:
Hjalmar Schacht, Finance Minister:
"Your bombers destroyed German production."
Adolf Galland:
"Allied bombing of our oil industries had the greatest effect."
Gen. Jahn, Commander in Lombardy:
"The attacks on the German transportation system."
Generaloberst Heinz Guderian, Inspector General of armored units:
"Lack of German air superiority; the German Air Force was unable to cope
with Allied air power in the West."
Generalmajor Albrect von Massow, Luftwaffe Training Commander:
"The attacks on German oil production."
Generalmajor Herhudt von Rohden, chief of historical section, Luftwaffe
General Staff:
"Strategic bombing. It was the decisive factor in the long run."
Generalmajor Kolb, in charge of technical training, Air Ministry: "The
power of Allied day and night bombing."
General Ingenieur Spies, chief engineer of Luftflotte 10: "Strategic
disruption of communications."
Generaloberst Georg Lindemann, commander of troops in Denmark:
"Allied air superiority."
Gen. Feldmarschall Karl Gerd von Rundstedt, commander in chief in the
West:
"Three factors: the superiority of your air force, which made all
movement in daylight impossible; lack of motor fuel so that panzers were
unable to move; and the systematic destruction of all railway
communications so that it was impossible to bring even one single railroad
train across the Rhine."
Gen. der Infanterie Georg Thomas, chief of the German Office of
Production:
"Without strategic bombing, the war would have lasted years longer."
Fritz Thyssen, leading German steel producer:
"I knew that German steel production would be bombed and destroyed--as it
was."
Gen. der Flieger Hans-Georg von Seidel, C in C, Luftflotte 10:
"The decisive factor was disruption of German transport communications."
Gen. Feldmarschall Albert Kesselring, C in C in the West after von R.:
"Dive bombing and terror attacks on civilians proved our undoing."
Generaleutnant Karl Jacob Veith, in charge of flak training:
"The destruction of the oil industry."
Generalmajor Ibel, commander of 2 Fighter Div.:
"Allied air superiority allowed everything else to happen."
General Wolff, SS Obergruppenfuehrer:
"The ever-increasing disruption of production and transportation
facilities starved the frontlines to death."
Generaloberst von Vietinghoff, supreme commander SW Italy: "Allied air
attacks on the aircraft and fuel industries."
Oscar Henschel, industrialist:
"American bombing caused our production figures to drop considerably."
Unnamed director of Germany's steel combine:
"The virtual flattening of the great steel city of Dusseldorf contributed
at least 50 percent to the collapse of the war effort."
Feldmarschall Robert Ritter von Greim, Goering's successor: "The
destruction of the Luftwaffe."
Unnamed general manager of Junkers:
"The attacks on the ball-bearing industry disorganized Germany's entire
war production."
General Feldmarschall Hugo Sperrle, C in C Luftflotte 3:
"Allied bombing, particularly of communications."
Unnamed executive at Siemens-Schuckert:
"In March, 1943, one bomb ignited the oil tanks in our transformer plant,
which we believe is the largest in the world, and completely stopped
production of the large type of transformers needed for chemcial and steel
plants. We were the sole manufacturer of such machines. We were never
able to make them again."
Gen. der Flieger Karl Bodenschatz, chief of Ministeramt, Luftwaffe high
command:
"I am very much impressed with the accuracy of American daylight bombing,
which really concentrated on military targets, stations and factories, to
the exclusion of civilian targets."
Christian Schneider, manager of the Leuna Works, producer of synthetic
petroleum products:
"The 8th AF twice knocked out the plant and the RAF did once. Production,
once resumed, was a pitifully thin trickle."
Alfred Krupp, weapons maker:
"The Allies made a great mistake in failing to bomb rail lines and canals
much earlier. Transport was the great bottleneck in production. Plants
can be and were dispersed, but the Reichsbahn couldn't put its lines
underground."
General Dollman, diarist of the 7th Army high command:
"The continual control of the field of battle by Allied air forces makes
daylight movement impossible and leads to the destruction from air of our
preparations and attacks."
Herman Goering: "[USAAF] precision bombing had a greater effect on the
defeat of Germany than [RAF] area bombing because destroyed cities could
be evacuated but destroyed industry was difficult to replace. [8th AF]
selection of targets was good. Without the U.S. [Army] Air Force, the
war would still be going on."
Knoke was leading a group of Me 109s on 14 May 1943:
"The enemy raids Kiel.... Over Kiel we run into heavy flak from our own
guns. The shooting by the Navy is unfortunately so good that we are
considerably disorganized.
"I observe the Yank bombing. They dump their load right on the Germania
shipyards. I am impressed by the precision with which those bastards
bomb: it is fantastic."
From Hienz Knoke's "I Flew for the Fuhrer."
http://yarchive.net/mil/strategic_bombing.html
Finally, it is important to remember that no war has ever been brought to an end simply by indiscriminate bombing and mass killing of civilians. Indeed, there is abundant evidence that such strategies typically strengthened resistance.
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/650
Another vital lesson - one that has taken even air specialists by surprise - relates to the behaviour of civilian populations under air punishment. It had generally been assumed that aerial bombardment would quickly shatter popular morale, causing deep civilian reactions. ... The progress of this war has tended to indicate that this expectation was unfounded. ... These facts are significant beyond their psychological interest. They mean that haphazard destruction of cities - sheer blows at morale - are costly and wasteful in relation to the tactical results achieved. Attacks will increasingly be concentrated on military rather than on random human targets. Unplanned vandalism from the air must give way, more and more, to planned, predetermined destruction. More than ever the principal objectives will be critical aggregates of electric power, aviation industries, dock facilities, essential public utilities and the like." -- Major Alexander Seversky, US Army Air Force, Victory Through Air Power (NY, 1942).
After the war, the German Minister for Armaments Production, Albert Speer, professed shock that "vast but pointless area bombing" was being continued in favor of highly effective precision bombing.[10] According to Speer, the failure to continue regularly attacking Schweinfurt allowed the Reich to escape a "further catastrophic blow" because "armaments production would have been crucially weakened after two months and after four months would have been brought completely to a standstill."[11] "What really saved us," Speer continued, "was the fact that from this time on the enemy to our astonishment once again ceased his attacks on the ball-bearing industry."
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/war.crimes/World.war.2/Bombing.htm#AMERICAN OPPOSITION TO AREA BOMBING
In the case of the air war against the Third Reich, bombing only caused serious economic disruptions in the final year of the war, roughly from June 1944 to May 1945. By this time a German military defeat was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Based on such results, it is impossible to demonstrate that the bombing campaign would have achieved an economic breakdown of Germany since by the time such destruction was being caused, the fronts were already collapsing in both east and west. The Soviet Union, for all intents, had won the land war by the middle of 1944 and the successful Normandy invasion delivered the coup de grace. To make a case for the bombing campaign being decisive the reverse would have to be expected. That is, the fronts would have had to collapse after the industrial damage was done.
http://www.onwar.com/articles/9809.htm
J K Galbraith, "The Affluent Society", chapter 12. Book first published 1958.
A summary of the relevant part:
Because Galbraith was part of the strategic air command and was involved in the bombing of cities in WWII, he was intimately familiar with the consequences of that campaign, and he tells a story about how production actually increased after the bombing because all the people engaged in services, like waiters and housecleaners and barbers, went into production after the city had been destroyed.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R30M5KK6QY33DG
See also
http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS-PTO-Summary.html
In the days immediately following the surrender of Germany, the Allies
interrogated numerous high-ranking Germans. All were asked what chief
factor led to their country's defeat. Here is a sampling and summary of
what they said:
Hjalmar Schacht, Finance Minister:
"Your bombers destroyed German production."
Adolf Galland:
"Allied bombing of our oil industries had the greatest effect."
Gen. Jahn, Commander in Lombardy:
"The attacks on the German transportation system."
Generaloberst Heinz Guderian, Inspector General of armored units:
"Lack of German air superiority; the German Air Force was unable to cope
with Allied air power in the West."
Generalmajor Albrect von Massow, Luftwaffe Training Commander:
"The attacks on German oil production."
Generalmajor Herhudt von Rohden, chief of historical section, Luftwaffe
General Staff:
"Strategic bombing. It was the decisive factor in the long run."
Generalmajor Kolb, in charge of technical training, Air Ministry: "The
power of Allied day and night bombing."
General Ingenieur Spies, chief engineer of Luftflotte 10: "Strategic
disruption of communications."
Generaloberst Georg Lindemann, commander of troops in Denmark:
"Allied air superiority."
Gen. Feldmarschall Karl Gerd von Rundstedt, commander in chief in the
West:
"Three factors: the superiority of your air force, which made all
movement in daylight impossible; lack of motor fuel so that panzers were
unable to move; and the systematic destruction of all railway
communications so that it was impossible to bring even one single railroad
train across the Rhine."
Gen. der Infanterie Georg Thomas, chief of the German Office of
Production:
"Without strategic bombing, the war would have lasted years longer."
Fritz Thyssen, leading German steel producer:
"I knew that German steel production would be bombed and destroyed--as it
was."
Gen. der Flieger Hans-Georg von Seidel, C in C, Luftflotte 10:
"The decisive factor was disruption of German transport communications."
Gen. Feldmarschall Albert Kesselring, C in C in the West after von R.:
"Dive bombing and terror attacks on civilians proved our undoing."
Generaleutnant Karl Jacob Veith, in charge of flak training:
"The destruction of the oil industry."
Generalmajor Ibel, commander of 2 Fighter Div.:
"Allied air superiority allowed everything else to happen."
General Wolff, SS Obergruppenfuehrer:
"The ever-increasing disruption of production and transportation
facilities starved the frontlines to death."
Generaloberst von Vietinghoff, supreme commander SW Italy: "Allied air
attacks on the aircraft and fuel industries."
Oscar Henschel, industrialist:
"American bombing caused our production figures to drop considerably."
Unnamed director of Germany's steel combine:
"The virtual flattening of the great steel city of Dusseldorf contributed
at least 50 percent to the collapse of the war effort."
Feldmarschall Robert Ritter von Greim, Goering's successor: "The
destruction of the Luftwaffe."
Unnamed general manager of Junkers:
"The attacks on the ball-bearing industry disorganized Germany's entire
war production."
General Feldmarschall Hugo Sperrle, C in C Luftflotte 3:
"Allied bombing, particularly of communications."
Unnamed executive at Siemens-Schuckert:
"In March, 1943, one bomb ignited the oil tanks in our transformer plant,
which we believe is the largest in the world, and completely stopped
production of the large type of transformers needed for chemcial and steel
plants. We were the sole manufacturer of such machines. We were never
able to make them again."
Gen. der Flieger Karl Bodenschatz, chief of Ministeramt, Luftwaffe high
command:
"I am very much impressed with the accuracy of American daylight bombing,
which really concentrated on military targets, stations and factories, to
the exclusion of civilian targets."
Christian Schneider, manager of the Leuna Works, producer of synthetic
petroleum products:
"The 8th AF twice knocked out the plant and the RAF did once. Production,
once resumed, was a pitifully thin trickle."
Alfred Krupp, weapons maker:
"The Allies made a great mistake in failing to bomb rail lines and canals
much earlier. Transport was the great bottleneck in production. Plants
can be and were dispersed, but the Reichsbahn couldn't put its lines
underground."
General Dollman, diarist of the 7th Army high command:
"The continual control of the field of battle by Allied air forces makes
daylight movement impossible and leads to the destruction from air of our
preparations and attacks."
Herman Goering: "[USAAF] precision bombing had a greater effect on the
defeat of Germany than [RAF] area bombing because destroyed cities could
be evacuated but destroyed industry was difficult to replace. [8th AF]
selection of targets was good. Without the U.S. [Army] Air Force, the
war would still be going on."
Knoke was leading a group of Me 109s on 14 May 1943:
"The enemy raids Kiel.... Over Kiel we run into heavy flak from our own
guns. The shooting by the Navy is unfortunately so good that we are
considerably disorganized.
"I observe the Yank bombing. They dump their load right on the Germania
shipyards. I am impressed by the precision with which those bastards
bomb: it is fantastic."
From Hienz Knoke's "I Flew for the Fuhrer."
http://yarchive.net/mil/strategic_bombing.html
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Being ATY
10/28/14
Massive tension, guilt, rage, and it's been a good day. Maybe because it's been good and I've done everything I felt I should (though not perfect) I feel like it's ok to feel these things.
I have some self respect now. Not a lot. But a little.
1/5/10
I'm a little kid. My two front teeth have come out, and I am now a Saber-Toothed Growl, playing with my Mom like my cat does with me. I love her. My mom, I mean, though I also love my cat.
But my mother is weird. Irrational. Scary, angry, hateful. I don't understand why it's like this, I know growing up is not supposed to be like this. What happened? How could I ever love this...creature? I hate her! She's ruining my life! I can FEEL the psychological scars forming and I KNOW why they are forming and what has to change but THEY WON'T LISTEN TO ME!!!
My Dad's irrational too, he inherited multiple houses, but by the time I was a teenager I was nearly homeless...my Mom had to shower with a hose in a rat infested basement with only one wall, visible to the whole canyon...they sent me to live with my aunts, first the one, then the other. As I settled in to the second Aunt's apartment, the news came; Rodney King had been beaten by the police and the Black community was really, really pissed off. Next thing I know I've been spirited away to safety by my folks, while the barbarians set my city on fire. They ran down the street my aunt lived on, torching buildings. One guy tried to set off a Molotov on my aunt's condo building, I was told, but Korean gunmen on the roof scared him off.
My family sticks together. We can rely on one another. All the rest of them out there...all you zombies...you're strange, weird, people. I have one pair of jeans, two T-shirts...one purple, one green. I alternate them...chewing, slobbering nervously on the collar of my T-shirt, going from one side of campus to the other as ordered, not paying attention to the teachers in the slightest. I have no energy, no will. I piss in my pants as I walk across campus, because I can't muster the energy to go to the bathroom. I become good at spacing out and watching the clock until it moves fifteen minutes, then thirty, then forty five, now the next class. A pretty little thing with a tight body and gigantic pants held open with a belt and...did she have suspenders or something? I forget. Her outfit was such that I could look down and see her panties as she flirted with me in class, sitting close, pressing our hands together while she talks about how big and manly my hands are.
The teacher gets pissed off. While I didn't flip out emotionally while flirting with the girl in class, there was no way in Hell I could ask her out or anything. I don't think I even got her name.
My mother SCREAMS for hours, and hours, and hours, and hours at my father, never with the intention of stopping. No amount of reasoning or listening will soothe her. The putrid smoke from her chain smoking fills the house, choking me, filling my lungs and sinuses with nasty phlegm, giving me a headache, giving me cancer, keeping me from thinking and sleeping and when I open the window in my room a crack and put my nose to it so I can breathe she comes into my room and SCREAMS that it's cold and how dare I open a window? I crawl downstairs into the closet, piled high with old clothes, where my kitten kept her babies...one time I almost stepped on her while she was giving birth (she was very fertile!) and then I sat with her and pet her in the dark until she was done and began to carry them away.
Anyway, I crawled past the cockroaches that infested our home into that dark closet, smelling strongly of cat piss, and hid in the corner, hoping the night would pass quickly, because I was miserable. I learned that tears don't help. Crying doesn't matter. It just makes you look weak. All you zombies don't care. Maybe a little...but not very much. To get what I want, I need money. I need power. I need knowledge. I need to have things others want, because that's the only reason they're nice to me. My awkward hot-and-cold personality and the habitually grim look on my face, and the great amounts of time I need to spend alone to get over the stress that's been programmed into my nervous system...these things turn nice people mean, and I can't control them. I'm not a regular person. I can enjoy the company of regular people as long as I remember not to trust them too much.
I'm angry, and bitter, and depressed. I walk the streets of MY city at night, alone, in Highland Park where the Avenues are, down in South Central, in K-Town claimed by 18th Street, Mara Salvatrucha, White Fence and any number of other gangs. I WILL NOT be cowed by the ghetto trash. I listen to the Doors and early Beatles over and over as I walk for miles all night long. I hate school. I'm an incompetent failure. I'm unpopular, in a sense, though not disliked, and somewhat picked on...but I'm not a small guy, and I'm not a submissive guy, and they can sense it, and so I don't get too much crap. One day a tall kid - strangely, one of the few non Chicanos at my Jr. High School, a black kid - calls out to me, "Hey, white boy!" I ignore him. Another kid, a chicano, calls out "FIREBALL!!!" and they snicker. The next day the tall kid slaps me upside the head.
The boiling, fuming hatred and rage bubbles to the surface, spitting droplets of boiling, mindless fury. I fling myself into his face, inches from him, body tensed, one knee between his legs, the other leg behind me, in a stance something like I will one day learn is called Front Stance (though not really a proper Front Stance). I'm shaking.
"What the FUCK is your problem?!" I spit, hiss into his face. A comic expression of surprise passes over his features as he recoils slightly.
I turn and leave, watching him through narrowed eyes. Every time he I see him I watch him, ready for him to fuck with me.
He never bothers me again.
Now I'm in Horticulture class. We're all standing in a line outside, waiting for the teacher. We get bored. One girl leaves her place in line and begins inspecting the boys one at a time.
"Do you want a girlfriend? Do YOU want a girlfriend? Do you want a girlfriend?" She asks each in turn. Then when she gets to me, she looks into my face, considers, and says "Not you."
I'm a kid again. "You have to take a test now". "A test about what?" "Oh, don't worry, it's a kind of test you don't have to study for."
I don't get it, but I go where they tell me to go. They give me a paper with problems on it which involve spotting patterns and other various mental exercises. I finish and hand in the test. "Did I pass?"
"I can't tell you, I will tell your parents."
I'm nervous, scared. Not of my folks - they aren't abusive at all - but of failing AGAIN.
My Mom has a tense, anticipatory look on her face. I wait nervously. "Did I pass?"
"They said you're Highly Gifted!!! You might be the smartest person in the school!"
Ahhhh...now I understand.
Everyone else is just stupid. That's why this world is so crazy, so irrational, so painful and confusing.
Its my responsibility to fix all the problems. After all, I'm the one who can figure it out, right? I'm the one who breezes through Algebra class without trying while the other Highly Gifted kids in the magnet struggle.
But that's the only class. I fail the rest of them. Algebra's the only one where I get to think and puzzle out the answer instead of memorizing.
I'm still a failure. And despite the fact that I'm smart I still can't figure things out...I need a mentor, someone who understands...myself twenty or thirty years from now, time travelled back to this time to tell me I'm right and they're wrong and what to do and how to handle it. But no, I don't have such a mentor.
The most beautiful girl in the school is paying attention to me! She compliments my hairstyle, which I am very proud of, but not to me - I'm terrified, I can't look at her, she's RIGHT NEXT TO ME and there's another pretty girl too and they're talking about me I'm so glad but so terrified.... The cowlick on the right is brushed back on that side, using that natural feature to define my look. On the other side the hair comes down, almost over one eye. It's short and kept in place by gel. I guess she likes that kind of hairstyle; there's another boy with a somewhat similar hairstyle she is said to like, except his is longer and he doesn't use gel. I also have a single Ankh dangly earring. I liked the Ankh because it was the symbol of the Ultima games.
Later on I had to watch the girl who held my heart swapping spit with another guy. I fumed with jealousy, but somehow I knew that was just my place in the world. The loser.
Later on I got over most of my fear of women, and got over my first big crush, but with them left much of my faith in true love. It wasn't meant for me it seems. Maybe someday.
Tae Kwon Do class. I joined because I was out of shape and didn't know how to fight and I wanted to be able to HURT the cholos when they tried to jump me. Unfortunately the only time I had a chance to try this out I discovered I STILL couldn't fight, despite my Black Belt.
Next time I know where to aim. I know which techniques I'm not good at. No more roundhouse kicks to the ribs...my leg isn't strong enough to make that work. I'd have to train a lot to get that to work. No, next time it'll be the knees, the neck, the elbows, the eyes. The weak points where I don't need to be in top shape to hurt the bastard.
I fantasize about a poster. It has two images; one of Bernhard Goetz, and one of a rattlesnake. Each image has text over it. Goetz' face has written over it "Bernhard Goetz only got eight months." Over the rattlesnake it says "Don't Tread On Me."
I go online to gang websites (they're a joke, man these gangsters are so ignorant...we have a culture of ignorance here in inner city LA that I later find out is not part of African or Mexican culture - it's the culture of poverty, not of ethnicity) and rant and rave as AThousandYoung, my anonymous ID. I troll them, telling them how, when my cousin joined 18th Street and went to prison for an attempted gang assassination (with a knife, I think), my Chicano father said "I'm ashamed of him. He's not one of us anymore. I don't consider him family anymore. He has brought shame on the family name." I tell them how they affirm all the racism Latinos (or Blacks) have to suffer through, how they fire bullets into schools where little kids of their own ethnicity are playing. "Brown/Black Pride" my ass. I tell them they're nothing but human cockroaches - no, rats. Roaches don't gang up on babies and kill them. Vermin, dangerous vermin. And vermin, when it gets out of control, gets the exterminator.
Don't Tread On Me.
My gang colors are red white and blue, and my colors are there flying above the 'hood, not yours, bitches. Kill me, go ahead...my country's got my back, and I'll take a few of you with me. Oh? You're posting out in front of your local Mexican restaurant hangout, flying the 18th Street colors? I drive up real close and ask you for directions. I scan your face closely. I show no fear. This is OUR 'hood, not yours, you piece of shit. He looks frightened. Of me. This guy with the gang tattoos, gang clothes, scared of the white boy. I feel that thrill of power that some young men get addicted to, the power of intimidaton.
Everyone is afraid of my anger at the gangs. They ask me to stop harassing the teenagers who go on to my roof to smoke meth, and then look into our windows all night, talking about us...GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY BUILDING!
I make sure the security doors are closed, I get a video camera, I begin to patrol the building. I call the police, ask them to come in and check out the roof. I send in anonymous notes telling them about the filth on my roof, and they send cruisers and helicopters to my block, and I am glad. But everyone else asks me to stop, even the men who talk about how tough and macho they were and how they were violent and got into fights...but when I asked for backup, it turns out they're all talk. One guy tells me to stop, I'm endangering his life. This is the guy who talks about how he used to smash peoples teeth in with his forehead and who shouts enraged insults at people as we drive by. Talk's cheap I guess.
Only one person feels like I do; my little aunt. She sees gangsters on the bus and calls them baby killers to their face. She is awesome :)
We have a Right to Bear Arms precisely so that the People are not oppressed by violent...umm...oppressors, whether in the form of a formal military or not. I could get a rifle.
No, I'd probably shoot myself with it some time when I got depressed. I still have the knife scars. I remember wondering whether I was strong enough to do it, to open my own flesh. The real problem was I liked a girl and was too terrified to do anything about it, to the point of unconciousness due to anxiety attacks. I hated myself, was angry, wondered why I couldn't be normal with women. They like me...I like them...what's the problem? Why am I failing at this too?
I find a big, serrated bread knife. I wash it carefully, and my shoulder as well. Then I pull the serrations over the soft, baby skin on my shoulder - so much different than the skin on my forearms, which is a little tanned, a little tough and leathery. Knives down there didn't work all that well, though I'd jam forks into the forearm until it bled. That worked. But the knife worked best on the shoulder. One slice, two, three...now the other side, my left hand isn't as capable, those three lines aren't as clean and straight. I can see blood welling out, and I see the whitish yellow subcutaneous fat, and I am fascinated, and terrified, and so fucking alone. I cover the wounds with my long sleeves and never tell anyone. I forget about them until my Mom sees them, half healed, while I'm walking around without a shirt.
I'm an adult, and I know my Mom is the one person I can trust. I'm a Momma's Boy and I'm so emotionally fucked up I don't care about the mockery this gets me any more. I need people who care, who will back me up when I am freaking out and don't know what to do. All you zombies...you aren't like that. Only my family is. My Mom, my siblings, my aunts and uncles. The rest of you...
I have to watch my back around you. Yeah, you're charming, flirtatious, complimentary.
But that's when my mind clicks into perfect focus with reality and I understand it all...when I feel good, confident, charming. My voice gets deep and powerful...when I was an assistant instructor at my Tae Kwon Do school the little teenagers would sometimes fall down in fear simply at the power of my keyop on the rare occasions the Master would have me spar with them...it was funny, especially since I wasn't a good fighter.
The pleasant interpersonal relations are only when things are good...fair weather friends. I see how quickly you turn against me when it's not trendy to be nice to me any more, when I don't feel so in tune with this reality, when I feel irritable and depressed and can't think or breathe or speak with any volume.
I need to make sure I'm ready to fight back. But in this world the power is not only in the violence of the individual but more so in the form of the law, and persuasion of others. Logical reasoning, understanding, using references, pondering, making a solid point; that's where my gift is. That's where I have power and it will only grow with time.
You want to fuck with me, bank? You want to manipulate my withdrawals so as to charge me as much as possible? You, banker, want to defend them?
I walk in and loudly complain so everyone can hear. People start to leave. I make demands, complaints, make a scene. I write anonymous essays that dig at the bank's reputation. I look for building code violations, lack of disabled access, whatever I can get.
A smart person properly motivated is not something you can dismiss, Bank. I consider throwing a brick at the window, but no, that's a strategic mistake - I can't give the power of the law into their hands.
And guess what - the recession's over, and so are you. You're bankrupt. Your name is never seen again. But I'm still here. I don't claim credit, but I did my part. Fuckers.
Now I'm confused, depressed, tired, anxious. Am I manic depressive? I don't think so. I think they are mood swings and anxiety attacks caused by a messed up childhood. While some of the men in the family have psychological issues, the insanity only touches the women. Not only that; it passes from mother to daughter. My daughters should be safe.
I see my sister succumb to the paranoia, the delusions, the irrational rage. Then my aunt. Another aunt's brain is fried from the illness; she'll be in a home for the rest of her life. My grandma was sick too, I am told, which is the major reason other than the mental illness that my Mom has had a hard time in life. It takes two generations to recover, they say. My kids will be psychologically healthy, if I have them. Very few of my female maternal relatives are completely untouched by the madness.
Then one day, after I'd quit my job in an anxiety attack and run home to my parents who I knew would help out, my Mom asks me not to go downtown.
It seems THEY were out to get us; she and I. There was a CONSPIRACY.
I felt the blood drain from my head and neck as the terror set in. She's in no position to take care of me. It's my turn to take care of her.
Now I get it. It's not that they're dumb...I'm smart, and I'm still unable to make things work. Willpower is an illusion - I know what I need to do, and I don't do it, and demanding willpower from myself just leads to anxiety attacks and self-loathing when I fail. My Mom was sick, really, really sick, and my Dad stuck with her, despite all his own baggage. They're flawed people but they take care of family. The difficulties aren't really their fault.
The psyche has great power over us. That's the problem.
Hmm. I want to learn more about music. All kinds. Let's try gangsta rap.
Oh, snap! These guys GET IT! Dre understands! Eminem gets it! Eazy-E was an asshole, I don't like him, he's the kind of guy that gives rappers a bad name. But Snoop Dogg gets it. Sublime gets it. I'm a fan of gangsta rap for life. There is so much wisdom, so many Secrets of Power hiddin in the lyrics, and even fans of gangsta rap generally don't see them. But I do.
"They say we got to learn
But nobody's here to teach me
If they can't understand
How can they reach me?
I guess they can't
I guess they won't
I guess they front
And that's why I know my life is out of luck, fool"
Coolio, Gangster's Paradise
"Y'all know me
Still same OG
...
Hated on
...
Mad at me 'cause I can finally afford to provide my family with groceries
If it was up to me
You muthafuckas stop comin up to me
Wit your hands out lookin up to me
Like you want somethin free
When my last CD was out you wasn't bumpin' me
But now that I got this little company
Everybody wanna come to me like it was some disease"
Dr. Dre with Eminem, Forgot About Dre
"Dr. Dre be the name
Still running the game
Still, got it wrapped like a mummy
Still ain't tripping, love to see young blacks get money
Spend time out the hood, take they moms out the hood
Hit my boys off with jobs, no more living hard
Barbeques every day, driving fancy cars
Still gon' get mine regardless"
Dr Dre with Snoop Dogg, Still D.R.E.
"His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti
He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgetting
What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out
He's chokin, how? Everybody's jokin now
...
He won't have it, he knows his whole back's to these ropes
It don't matter, he's dope
He knows that, but he's broke
...
This world is mine for the taking
Make me king, as we move toward a, new world order
...
But hold your nose cuz here goes the cold water
His hoes don't want him no mo', he's cold product
They moved on to the next schmo who flows
...
All the pain inside amplified by the fact
That I can't get by with my 9 to 5
And I can't provide the right type of life for my family
Cuz man, these goddamn food stamps don't buy diapers
And it's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer,
this is my life
And these times are so hard, and it's getting even harder
Tryin to feed and water my seed, plus Teeter totter
...
I've got to formulate a plot or end up in jail or shot
Success is my only mothafuckin option, failure's not
Momma, I love you, but this trailer's got to go
I cannot grow old in Salem's lot
So here I go, it's my shot. Feet fail me not,
this maybe the only opportunity that I got"
Eminem, Lose Yourself
"When I was young, me and my mama had beef
17 years old kicked out on tha streets
though back in tha time, I never thought I'd see her face
ain't a woman alive that can take my momma's place
...
shed tears with my baby sister
over tha years we wuz poorer than tha other little kids
and even though we had different daddies
tha same drama when things went wrong we blamed mama
I reminisce on tha stress I caused, it wuz hell
hugg'en on my mama from a jail cell
and who'ed think in elementary, heeeey i'd see tha penitentiary
...
and even as a crack fiend mama,
ya always was a black queen mama
I finally understand for a woman it ain't easy trying ta raise a man
ya always wuz commited, a poor single mother on welfare, tell me how ya did it
there's no way I can pay ya back
but tha plan is ta show ya that I understand
You are appreciated......
...
Ain't nobody tell us it wuz fair
no luv for my daddy, cause tha coward wuzn't there
he passed away and I didn't cry
cause my anger, wouldn't let me feel for a stranger
...
I hung around with tha thug's
and even though they sold drugs
they showed a young brother luv
I moved out and started really hang'in
I needed money of my own so I started slang'in
I ain't guilty cause, even though I sell rocks
It feels good, putting money in your mailbox
I love paying rent when tha rents due
I hope ya got tha diamond necklace that I sent to you
cause when I wuz low, you was there for me
ya never left me alone, cause ya cared for me
and I can see ya coming home after work late
ya in tha kitchen trying ta fix us a hot plate
just working with tha scraps you wuz given
and mama made miracles every Thanksgiving
but now tha road got rough, your alone
trying ta raise two bad kids on your own
and there's no way I can pay ya back
but my plan is ta show ya that I understand
You are appreciated.....
...
pour out some liquor and I reminisce
cause through tha drama, I can always depend on my mama
and when it seems that i'm hopeless
you say tha words that can get me back in focus
when I wuz sick as a little kid
ta keep me happy theres no limit to tha things ya did
and all my childhood memories are full of all tha sweet things ya did for me
and even though I act craaaazy
I got ta thank tha Lord that ya maaaade me
There are no words that can express how I feel
Ya never kept a secret, always stayed real
and I appreciate how ya raised me
and all tha extra love that ya gave me
I wish I could take tha pain away
If you can make it through tha night, there's a brighter day
everything'll be alright if ya hold on
it's a struggle
everyday gotta roll on
and there's no way I can pay ya back
but my plan is ta show ya that I understand
You are appreciated......."
Tupac Shakur, Dear Mama
Massive tension, guilt, rage, and it's been a good day. Maybe because it's been good and I've done everything I felt I should (though not perfect) I feel like it's ok to feel these things.
I have some self respect now. Not a lot. But a little.
1/5/10
I'm a little kid. My two front teeth have come out, and I am now a Saber-Toothed Growl, playing with my Mom like my cat does with me. I love her. My mom, I mean, though I also love my cat.
But my mother is weird. Irrational. Scary, angry, hateful. I don't understand why it's like this, I know growing up is not supposed to be like this. What happened? How could I ever love this...creature? I hate her! She's ruining my life! I can FEEL the psychological scars forming and I KNOW why they are forming and what has to change but THEY WON'T LISTEN TO ME!!!
My Dad's irrational too, he inherited multiple houses, but by the time I was a teenager I was nearly homeless...my Mom had to shower with a hose in a rat infested basement with only one wall, visible to the whole canyon...they sent me to live with my aunts, first the one, then the other. As I settled in to the second Aunt's apartment, the news came; Rodney King had been beaten by the police and the Black community was really, really pissed off. Next thing I know I've been spirited away to safety by my folks, while the barbarians set my city on fire. They ran down the street my aunt lived on, torching buildings. One guy tried to set off a Molotov on my aunt's condo building, I was told, but Korean gunmen on the roof scared him off.
My family sticks together. We can rely on one another. All the rest of them out there...all you zombies...you're strange, weird, people. I have one pair of jeans, two T-shirts...one purple, one green. I alternate them...chewing, slobbering nervously on the collar of my T-shirt, going from one side of campus to the other as ordered, not paying attention to the teachers in the slightest. I have no energy, no will. I piss in my pants as I walk across campus, because I can't muster the energy to go to the bathroom. I become good at spacing out and watching the clock until it moves fifteen minutes, then thirty, then forty five, now the next class. A pretty little thing with a tight body and gigantic pants held open with a belt and...did she have suspenders or something? I forget. Her outfit was such that I could look down and see her panties as she flirted with me in class, sitting close, pressing our hands together while she talks about how big and manly my hands are.
The teacher gets pissed off. While I didn't flip out emotionally while flirting with the girl in class, there was no way in Hell I could ask her out or anything. I don't think I even got her name.
My mother SCREAMS for hours, and hours, and hours, and hours at my father, never with the intention of stopping. No amount of reasoning or listening will soothe her. The putrid smoke from her chain smoking fills the house, choking me, filling my lungs and sinuses with nasty phlegm, giving me a headache, giving me cancer, keeping me from thinking and sleeping and when I open the window in my room a crack and put my nose to it so I can breathe she comes into my room and SCREAMS that it's cold and how dare I open a window? I crawl downstairs into the closet, piled high with old clothes, where my kitten kept her babies...one time I almost stepped on her while she was giving birth (she was very fertile!) and then I sat with her and pet her in the dark until she was done and began to carry them away.
Anyway, I crawled past the cockroaches that infested our home into that dark closet, smelling strongly of cat piss, and hid in the corner, hoping the night would pass quickly, because I was miserable. I learned that tears don't help. Crying doesn't matter. It just makes you look weak. All you zombies don't care. Maybe a little...but not very much. To get what I want, I need money. I need power. I need knowledge. I need to have things others want, because that's the only reason they're nice to me. My awkward hot-and-cold personality and the habitually grim look on my face, and the great amounts of time I need to spend alone to get over the stress that's been programmed into my nervous system...these things turn nice people mean, and I can't control them. I'm not a regular person. I can enjoy the company of regular people as long as I remember not to trust them too much.
I'm angry, and bitter, and depressed. I walk the streets of MY city at night, alone, in Highland Park where the Avenues are, down in South Central, in K-Town claimed by 18th Street, Mara Salvatrucha, White Fence and any number of other gangs. I WILL NOT be cowed by the ghetto trash. I listen to the Doors and early Beatles over and over as I walk for miles all night long. I hate school. I'm an incompetent failure. I'm unpopular, in a sense, though not disliked, and somewhat picked on...but I'm not a small guy, and I'm not a submissive guy, and they can sense it, and so I don't get too much crap. One day a tall kid - strangely, one of the few non Chicanos at my Jr. High School, a black kid - calls out to me, "Hey, white boy!" I ignore him. Another kid, a chicano, calls out "FIREBALL!!!" and they snicker. The next day the tall kid slaps me upside the head.
The boiling, fuming hatred and rage bubbles to the surface, spitting droplets of boiling, mindless fury. I fling myself into his face, inches from him, body tensed, one knee between his legs, the other leg behind me, in a stance something like I will one day learn is called Front Stance (though not really a proper Front Stance). I'm shaking.
"What the FUCK is your problem?!" I spit, hiss into his face. A comic expression of surprise passes over his features as he recoils slightly.
I turn and leave, watching him through narrowed eyes. Every time he I see him I watch him, ready for him to fuck with me.
He never bothers me again.
Now I'm in Horticulture class. We're all standing in a line outside, waiting for the teacher. We get bored. One girl leaves her place in line and begins inspecting the boys one at a time.
"Do you want a girlfriend? Do YOU want a girlfriend? Do you want a girlfriend?" She asks each in turn. Then when she gets to me, she looks into my face, considers, and says "Not you."
I'm a kid again. "You have to take a test now". "A test about what?" "Oh, don't worry, it's a kind of test you don't have to study for."
I don't get it, but I go where they tell me to go. They give me a paper with problems on it which involve spotting patterns and other various mental exercises. I finish and hand in the test. "Did I pass?"
"I can't tell you, I will tell your parents."
I'm nervous, scared. Not of my folks - they aren't abusive at all - but of failing AGAIN.
My Mom has a tense, anticipatory look on her face. I wait nervously. "Did I pass?"
"They said you're Highly Gifted!!! You might be the smartest person in the school!"
Ahhhh...now I understand.
Everyone else is just stupid. That's why this world is so crazy, so irrational, so painful and confusing.
Its my responsibility to fix all the problems. After all, I'm the one who can figure it out, right? I'm the one who breezes through Algebra class without trying while the other Highly Gifted kids in the magnet struggle.
But that's the only class. I fail the rest of them. Algebra's the only one where I get to think and puzzle out the answer instead of memorizing.
I'm still a failure. And despite the fact that I'm smart I still can't figure things out...I need a mentor, someone who understands...myself twenty or thirty years from now, time travelled back to this time to tell me I'm right and they're wrong and what to do and how to handle it. But no, I don't have such a mentor.
The most beautiful girl in the school is paying attention to me! She compliments my hairstyle, which I am very proud of, but not to me - I'm terrified, I can't look at her, she's RIGHT NEXT TO ME and there's another pretty girl too and they're talking about me I'm so glad but so terrified.... The cowlick on the right is brushed back on that side, using that natural feature to define my look. On the other side the hair comes down, almost over one eye. It's short and kept in place by gel. I guess she likes that kind of hairstyle; there's another boy with a somewhat similar hairstyle she is said to like, except his is longer and he doesn't use gel. I also have a single Ankh dangly earring. I liked the Ankh because it was the symbol of the Ultima games.
Later on I had to watch the girl who held my heart swapping spit with another guy. I fumed with jealousy, but somehow I knew that was just my place in the world. The loser.
Later on I got over most of my fear of women, and got over my first big crush, but with them left much of my faith in true love. It wasn't meant for me it seems. Maybe someday.
Tae Kwon Do class. I joined because I was out of shape and didn't know how to fight and I wanted to be able to HURT the cholos when they tried to jump me. Unfortunately the only time I had a chance to try this out I discovered I STILL couldn't fight, despite my Black Belt.
Next time I know where to aim. I know which techniques I'm not good at. No more roundhouse kicks to the ribs...my leg isn't strong enough to make that work. I'd have to train a lot to get that to work. No, next time it'll be the knees, the neck, the elbows, the eyes. The weak points where I don't need to be in top shape to hurt the bastard.
I fantasize about a poster. It has two images; one of Bernhard Goetz, and one of a rattlesnake. Each image has text over it. Goetz' face has written over it "Bernhard Goetz only got eight months." Over the rattlesnake it says "Don't Tread On Me."
I go online to gang websites (they're a joke, man these gangsters are so ignorant...we have a culture of ignorance here in inner city LA that I later find out is not part of African or Mexican culture - it's the culture of poverty, not of ethnicity) and rant and rave as AThousandYoung, my anonymous ID. I troll them, telling them how, when my cousin joined 18th Street and went to prison for an attempted gang assassination (with a knife, I think), my Chicano father said "I'm ashamed of him. He's not one of us anymore. I don't consider him family anymore. He has brought shame on the family name." I tell them how they affirm all the racism Latinos (or Blacks) have to suffer through, how they fire bullets into schools where little kids of their own ethnicity are playing. "Brown/Black Pride" my ass. I tell them they're nothing but human cockroaches - no, rats. Roaches don't gang up on babies and kill them. Vermin, dangerous vermin. And vermin, when it gets out of control, gets the exterminator.
Don't Tread On Me.
My gang colors are red white and blue, and my colors are there flying above the 'hood, not yours, bitches. Kill me, go ahead...my country's got my back, and I'll take a few of you with me. Oh? You're posting out in front of your local Mexican restaurant hangout, flying the 18th Street colors? I drive up real close and ask you for directions. I scan your face closely. I show no fear. This is OUR 'hood, not yours, you piece of shit. He looks frightened. Of me. This guy with the gang tattoos, gang clothes, scared of the white boy. I feel that thrill of power that some young men get addicted to, the power of intimidaton.
Everyone is afraid of my anger at the gangs. They ask me to stop harassing the teenagers who go on to my roof to smoke meth, and then look into our windows all night, talking about us...GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY BUILDING!
I make sure the security doors are closed, I get a video camera, I begin to patrol the building. I call the police, ask them to come in and check out the roof. I send in anonymous notes telling them about the filth on my roof, and they send cruisers and helicopters to my block, and I am glad. But everyone else asks me to stop, even the men who talk about how tough and macho they were and how they were violent and got into fights...but when I asked for backup, it turns out they're all talk. One guy tells me to stop, I'm endangering his life. This is the guy who talks about how he used to smash peoples teeth in with his forehead and who shouts enraged insults at people as we drive by. Talk's cheap I guess.
Only one person feels like I do; my little aunt. She sees gangsters on the bus and calls them baby killers to their face. She is awesome :)
We have a Right to Bear Arms precisely so that the People are not oppressed by violent...umm...oppressors, whether in the form of a formal military or not. I could get a rifle.
No, I'd probably shoot myself with it some time when I got depressed. I still have the knife scars. I remember wondering whether I was strong enough to do it, to open my own flesh. The real problem was I liked a girl and was too terrified to do anything about it, to the point of unconciousness due to anxiety attacks. I hated myself, was angry, wondered why I couldn't be normal with women. They like me...I like them...what's the problem? Why am I failing at this too?
I find a big, serrated bread knife. I wash it carefully, and my shoulder as well. Then I pull the serrations over the soft, baby skin on my shoulder - so much different than the skin on my forearms, which is a little tanned, a little tough and leathery. Knives down there didn't work all that well, though I'd jam forks into the forearm until it bled. That worked. But the knife worked best on the shoulder. One slice, two, three...now the other side, my left hand isn't as capable, those three lines aren't as clean and straight. I can see blood welling out, and I see the whitish yellow subcutaneous fat, and I am fascinated, and terrified, and so fucking alone. I cover the wounds with my long sleeves and never tell anyone. I forget about them until my Mom sees them, half healed, while I'm walking around without a shirt.
I'm an adult, and I know my Mom is the one person I can trust. I'm a Momma's Boy and I'm so emotionally fucked up I don't care about the mockery this gets me any more. I need people who care, who will back me up when I am freaking out and don't know what to do. All you zombies...you aren't like that. Only my family is. My Mom, my siblings, my aunts and uncles. The rest of you...
I have to watch my back around you. Yeah, you're charming, flirtatious, complimentary.
But that's when my mind clicks into perfect focus with reality and I understand it all...when I feel good, confident, charming. My voice gets deep and powerful...when I was an assistant instructor at my Tae Kwon Do school the little teenagers would sometimes fall down in fear simply at the power of my keyop on the rare occasions the Master would have me spar with them...it was funny, especially since I wasn't a good fighter.
The pleasant interpersonal relations are only when things are good...fair weather friends. I see how quickly you turn against me when it's not trendy to be nice to me any more, when I don't feel so in tune with this reality, when I feel irritable and depressed and can't think or breathe or speak with any volume.
I need to make sure I'm ready to fight back. But in this world the power is not only in the violence of the individual but more so in the form of the law, and persuasion of others. Logical reasoning, understanding, using references, pondering, making a solid point; that's where my gift is. That's where I have power and it will only grow with time.
You want to fuck with me, bank? You want to manipulate my withdrawals so as to charge me as much as possible? You, banker, want to defend them?
I walk in and loudly complain so everyone can hear. People start to leave. I make demands, complaints, make a scene. I write anonymous essays that dig at the bank's reputation. I look for building code violations, lack of disabled access, whatever I can get.
A smart person properly motivated is not something you can dismiss, Bank. I consider throwing a brick at the window, but no, that's a strategic mistake - I can't give the power of the law into their hands.
And guess what - the recession's over, and so are you. You're bankrupt. Your name is never seen again. But I'm still here. I don't claim credit, but I did my part. Fuckers.
Now I'm confused, depressed, tired, anxious. Am I manic depressive? I don't think so. I think they are mood swings and anxiety attacks caused by a messed up childhood. While some of the men in the family have psychological issues, the insanity only touches the women. Not only that; it passes from mother to daughter. My daughters should be safe.
I see my sister succumb to the paranoia, the delusions, the irrational rage. Then my aunt. Another aunt's brain is fried from the illness; she'll be in a home for the rest of her life. My grandma was sick too, I am told, which is the major reason other than the mental illness that my Mom has had a hard time in life. It takes two generations to recover, they say. My kids will be psychologically healthy, if I have them. Very few of my female maternal relatives are completely untouched by the madness.
Then one day, after I'd quit my job in an anxiety attack and run home to my parents who I knew would help out, my Mom asks me not to go downtown.
It seems THEY were out to get us; she and I. There was a CONSPIRACY.
I felt the blood drain from my head and neck as the terror set in. She's in no position to take care of me. It's my turn to take care of her.
Now I get it. It's not that they're dumb...I'm smart, and I'm still unable to make things work. Willpower is an illusion - I know what I need to do, and I don't do it, and demanding willpower from myself just leads to anxiety attacks and self-loathing when I fail. My Mom was sick, really, really sick, and my Dad stuck with her, despite all his own baggage. They're flawed people but they take care of family. The difficulties aren't really their fault.
The psyche has great power over us. That's the problem.
Hmm. I want to learn more about music. All kinds. Let's try gangsta rap.
Oh, snap! These guys GET IT! Dre understands! Eminem gets it! Eazy-E was an asshole, I don't like him, he's the kind of guy that gives rappers a bad name. But Snoop Dogg gets it. Sublime gets it. I'm a fan of gangsta rap for life. There is so much wisdom, so many Secrets of Power hiddin in the lyrics, and even fans of gangsta rap generally don't see them. But I do.
"They say we got to learn
But nobody's here to teach me
If they can't understand
How can they reach me?
I guess they can't
I guess they won't
I guess they front
And that's why I know my life is out of luck, fool"
Coolio, Gangster's Paradise
"Y'all know me
Still same OG
...
Hated on
...
Mad at me 'cause I can finally afford to provide my family with groceries
If it was up to me
You muthafuckas stop comin up to me
Wit your hands out lookin up to me
Like you want somethin free
When my last CD was out you wasn't bumpin' me
But now that I got this little company
Everybody wanna come to me like it was some disease"
Dr. Dre with Eminem, Forgot About Dre
"Dr. Dre be the name
Still running the game
Still, got it wrapped like a mummy
Still ain't tripping, love to see young blacks get money
Spend time out the hood, take they moms out the hood
Hit my boys off with jobs, no more living hard
Barbeques every day, driving fancy cars
Still gon' get mine regardless"
Dr Dre with Snoop Dogg, Still D.R.E.
"His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti
He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgetting
What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out
He's chokin, how? Everybody's jokin now
...
He won't have it, he knows his whole back's to these ropes
It don't matter, he's dope
He knows that, but he's broke
...
This world is mine for the taking
Make me king, as we move toward a, new world order
...
But hold your nose cuz here goes the cold water
His hoes don't want him no mo', he's cold product
They moved on to the next schmo who flows
...
All the pain inside amplified by the fact
That I can't get by with my 9 to 5
And I can't provide the right type of life for my family
Cuz man, these goddamn food stamps don't buy diapers
And it's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer,
this is my life
And these times are so hard, and it's getting even harder
Tryin to feed and water my seed, plus Teeter totter
...
I've got to formulate a plot or end up in jail or shot
Success is my only mothafuckin option, failure's not
Momma, I love you, but this trailer's got to go
I cannot grow old in Salem's lot
So here I go, it's my shot. Feet fail me not,
this maybe the only opportunity that I got"
Eminem, Lose Yourself
"When I was young, me and my mama had beef
17 years old kicked out on tha streets
though back in tha time, I never thought I'd see her face
ain't a woman alive that can take my momma's place
...
shed tears with my baby sister
over tha years we wuz poorer than tha other little kids
and even though we had different daddies
tha same drama when things went wrong we blamed mama
I reminisce on tha stress I caused, it wuz hell
hugg'en on my mama from a jail cell
and who'ed think in elementary, heeeey i'd see tha penitentiary
...
and even as a crack fiend mama,
ya always was a black queen mama
I finally understand for a woman it ain't easy trying ta raise a man
ya always wuz commited, a poor single mother on welfare, tell me how ya did it
there's no way I can pay ya back
but tha plan is ta show ya that I understand
You are appreciated......
...
Ain't nobody tell us it wuz fair
no luv for my daddy, cause tha coward wuzn't there
he passed away and I didn't cry
cause my anger, wouldn't let me feel for a stranger
...
I hung around with tha thug's
and even though they sold drugs
they showed a young brother luv
I moved out and started really hang'in
I needed money of my own so I started slang'in
I ain't guilty cause, even though I sell rocks
It feels good, putting money in your mailbox
I love paying rent when tha rents due
I hope ya got tha diamond necklace that I sent to you
cause when I wuz low, you was there for me
ya never left me alone, cause ya cared for me
and I can see ya coming home after work late
ya in tha kitchen trying ta fix us a hot plate
just working with tha scraps you wuz given
and mama made miracles every Thanksgiving
but now tha road got rough, your alone
trying ta raise two bad kids on your own
and there's no way I can pay ya back
but my plan is ta show ya that I understand
You are appreciated.....
...
pour out some liquor and I reminisce
cause through tha drama, I can always depend on my mama
and when it seems that i'm hopeless
you say tha words that can get me back in focus
when I wuz sick as a little kid
ta keep me happy theres no limit to tha things ya did
and all my childhood memories are full of all tha sweet things ya did for me
and even though I act craaaazy
I got ta thank tha Lord that ya maaaade me
There are no words that can express how I feel
Ya never kept a secret, always stayed real
and I appreciate how ya raised me
and all tha extra love that ya gave me
I wish I could take tha pain away
If you can make it through tha night, there's a brighter day
everything'll be alright if ya hold on
it's a struggle
everyday gotta roll on
and there's no way I can pay ya back
but my plan is ta show ya that I understand
You are appreciated......."
Tupac Shakur, Dear Mama
Monday, January 4, 2010
The Right to Own Property 3/27/10 Revision
"Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough and as good left, and more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his enclosure for himself. "
John Locke
http://libertyonline.hypermall.com/Locke/second/second-frame.html
(Locke was the man who inspired the Founding Fathers to recognize a "right to property" through his writing.)
This space is dedicated to the exploration of the Right to Own Property. Often it is misinterpreted to favor the rich; the classic example is Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. As the above quote demonstrates, it does not apply when the accumulation of wealth is so great others cannot own significant property.
Extreme wealth disparity violates this Right. Nobody can own everything; if they could King George would never have been criticised for owning everything in the 13 colonies. The Right to Own Property does NOT allow anyone to own so much property that others are denied their access to property.
Corpses are not People any more and do not have this Right. Inheritance is a custom, part of our culture; not an Inalienable Right.
"This term [property] in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual." In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage...
EDIT 1/17/10 It has recently been asserted that Madison was an elitist who wanted to oppress the poor. This was offered as evidence:
A necessary fence agst. this danger would be to select a portion of enlightened citizens, whose limited number, and firmness might seasonably interpose agst. impetuous councils. It ought finally to occur to a people deliberating on a Govt. for themselves, that as different interests necessarily result from the liberty meant to be secured, the major interest might under sudden impulses be tempted to commit injustice on the minority. In all civilized Countries the people fall into different classes havg a real or supposed difference of interests. There will be creditors & debtors, farmers, merchts. & manufacturers. There will be particularly the distinction of rich & poor. It was true as had been observd. [by Mr. Pinkney] we had not among us those hereditary distinctions, of rank which were a great source of the contests in the ancient Govts. as well as the modern States of Europe, nor those extremes of wealth or poverty which characterize the latter. We cannot however be regarded even at this time, as one homogeneous mass, in which every thing that affects a part will affect in the same manner the whole. In framing a system which we wish to last for ages, we shd. not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce. An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labour under all the hardships of life, & secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former. No agrarian attempts have yet been made in in this Country, but symtoms, of a leveling spirit, as we have understood, have sufficiently appeared in a certain quarters to give notice of the future danger. How is this danger to be guarded agst. on republican principles? How is the danger in all cases of interested coalitions to oppress the minority to be guarded agst.? Among other means by the establishment of a body in the Govt. sufficiently respectable for its wisdom & virtue, to aid on such emergences, the preponderance of justice by throwing its weight into that scale. Such being the objects of the second branch in the proposed Govt. he thought a considerable duration ought to be given to it. He did not conceive that the term of nine years could threaten any real danger; but in pursuing his particular ideas on the subject, he should require that the long term allowed to the 2d. branch should not commence till such a period of life, as would render a perpetual disqualification to be re-elected little inconvenient either in a public or private view. He observed that as it was more than probable we were now digesting a plan which in its operation wd. decide for ever the fate of Republican Govt. we ought not only to provide every guard to liberty that its preservation cd. require, but be equally careful to supply the defects which our own experience had particularly pointed out.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_626.asp
http://www.playtheimmortalgame.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=124653&page=2
I analyzed this passage as follows.
This is the debate from which that passage was pulled:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_626.asp
The debate is on June 26, 1787. The topic:
"The duration of the 2d. branch [being] under consideration."
This means, I believe, that they are debating how long a Senator should serve before the next election. I thought the Second Branch was the Executive, but General Pinkney uses the word Senators.
Mr. Ghorum and Mr. Wilson suggest " "six years," one third of the members to go out every second year. "
General Pinkney prefers four years. He believes if Senators serve for too long they will lose their loyalty to their State and become loyal to the Federal Government and the State in which they work for it.
Mr. Read and Mr. Broome suggest "nine years. This wd. admit of a very convenient rotation, one third going out triennially. He wd. still prefer "during good behaviour," but being little supported in that idea, he was willing to take the longest term that could be obtained."
Now Madison begins to speak.
Madison opens his speech by observing that it's a good idea to clarify the purpose of the Senate before making this decision.
"first to protect the people agst. their rulers"
That's clear enough.
"secondly to protect the people agst. the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led"
Wow. WTF does that mean?
A people deliberating in a temperate moment, and with the experience of other nations before them, on the plan of Govt. most likely to secure their happiness, would first be aware, that those chargd. with the public happiness, might betray their trust.
So, when things get rough, and passions get heated across the nation, people might get concerned about corruption in government. Such corruption needs to be addressed.
An obvious precaution agst. this danger wd. be to divide the trust between different bodies of men, who might watch & check each other. In this they wd. be governed by the same prudence which has prevailed in organizing the subordinate departments of Govt., where all business liable to abuses is made to pass thro' separate hands, the one being a check on the other.
An anti corruption measure to protect the People in the same model as the rest of the government, sounds good.
It wd. next occur to such a people, that they themselves were liable to temporary errors, thro' want of information as to their true interest, and that men chosen for a short term, & employed but a small portion of that in public affairs, might err from the same cause. This reflection wd. naturally suggest that the Govt. be so constituted, as that one of its branches might have an oppy. of acquiring a competent knowledge of the public interests Another reflection equally becoming a people on such an occasion, wd. be that they themselves, as well as a numerous body of Representatives, were liable to err also, from fickleness and passion.
OK. Madison is arguing that if all representatives in both parts of Congress (House and Senate) have short terms, they'd never become competent at doing their jobs. One of the two should consist of a sort of council of Wise Men who are professionals and can take a longer view of things...who can take the time to "[acquire] a competent knowledge of public interests" and can help restrain the people from impulsive decisions made by Congress based on ignorance on the part of the representatives.
Another reflection equally becoming a people on such an occasion, wd. be that they themselves, as well as a numerous body of Representatives, were liable to err also, from fickleness and passion. A necessary fence agst. this danger would be to...
The context of your quote is that Madison describes a danger - the danger of having an impulsive, passionate Congress without any experience...ever.
This is the danger to which the "necessary fence" is against.
The Wise Men or "enlightened individuals" would, again, restrain against amateur impetuousness.
For example, it was probably the Senate's role to restrain Bush and the House from attacking Iraq. That they didn't do so suggests either that we chose poor Senators or that they don't have the power they need to do so.
Madison argues that having few Senators with long terms will allow them to provide that seasoned, restraining influence on the government.
He then suggests that the majority on occasion might impetuously, in the heat of the moment, decide to oppress the minority, and implies the Senate should be designed to restrain this sort of thing.
Madison observes that in all societies everywhere there have been classes. While in other nations the classes were based on birth, we had eliminated that. However no society ever has managed to not have classes, and different classes have different interests.
OK, clear enough. He's right; the classless society is a utopian ideal even now that has never been able to sustain itself when the people tried.
Madison also observes - this is important I think - that wealth disparity in the USA was much lower than in other parts of the world. Whether this is true or not I have no idea even when only considering white males, but this is part of his argument, which is very significant.
Next, Madison asserts that over time, as the population grows, wealth disparity will increase. He says roughly that someday this may result in people under the poverty line outnumbering those above it. Naturally this leads to power going to the poor.
Madison claims that there are faint signs that the poor are upset and might consider some sort of revolution or uprising - or maybe just vote more tax money be sent their way. I'm not sure. This is an interesting sentence:
No agrarian attempts have yet been made in in this Country, but symtoms, of a leveling spirit, as we have understood, have sufficiently appeared in a certain quarters to give notice of the future danger.
So Madison feels there is danger of an "agrarian attempt" to express a "leveling spirit" sometime in the future, when wealth disparity increases. OK, sounds reasonable.
Madison questions:
How is this danger to be guarded agst. on republican principles? How is the danger in all cases of interested coalitions to oppress the minority to be guarded agst.?
This is very interesting and ambiguous. It might imply a deliberate attempt to form the government into an instrument oppressing the poor; but then again, it might imply a deliberate attempt to form the government into an instrument for peaceful wealth distribution to counter the natural laissez-faire consequence of greater and greater wealth disparity.
Madison continues to emphasize that the Senate should act as a brake on the combination of amateur, passionate politicians and increasing wealth disparity. Still ambiguous.
The next part is weird, because now he's referring to some third person "he" and I have no idea what he means by that:
Such being the objects of the second branch in the proposed Govt. he thought a considerable duration ought to be given to it. He did not conceive that the term of nine years could threaten any real danger; but in pursuing his particular ideas on the subject, he should require that the long term allowed to the 2d. branch should not commence till such a period of life, as would render a perpetual disqualification to be re-elected little inconvenient either in a public or private view. He observed that as it was more than probable we were now digesting a plan which in its operation wd. decide for ever the fate of Republican Govt. we ought not only to provide every guard to liberty that its preservation cd. require, but be equally careful to supply the defects which our own experience had particularly pointed out.
Assuming Madison is talking about himself (highly uncertain), he says that because the Senate is to act as a restraining influence on impetuousity (sp?), it should consist of older people whose terms of service are long and who are so old they won't care if they can't get re-elected.
He then reminds the audience that they are making a Constitution for the ages, for a nation which is to endure, and to preserve liberty indefinitely. Thus the need for a restraint on passionate impulse in government.
Sounds creepy, but on deeper analysis I see no reason to think this means Madison was an elitist interested in being the Man keeping the People Down.
EDIT - 3/27/10 I have later seen writings of his that seem more incriminating, but even so - if he's an elitist, how does that explain bias in statements that argue for property ownership only in the midst of plenty, and that when land is highly populated the land ownership system begins to break down?
Also:
A modern myth is that some societies, notably Native American ones, appeared to exist without the concept of personal ownership. Members of a society would feel free to take any objects they had need of, and expect them to be taken by others. Recently, however, researchers have started to question just how collectivist Native American societies really were. Citing earlier studies done by anthropologists and historians "who were able to interview tribal members who had lived in pre-reservation Indian society," they argue that in fact, "most if not all North American indigenous peoples had a strong belief in individual property rights and ownership."[1] These researchers further assert that Native American collectivism is a myth originating from the first encounters with tribes who, because of their hunting-orientation "did not view land as an important asset", and indeed, did not have a private property system with regards to land. The collectivist myth was initially propagated by reporters and politicians who never actually had contact with Native Americans and then made into a reality by the collectivist property rights system forced on Indians by the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership#Ownership_Models
John Locke
http://libertyonline.hypermall.com/Locke/second/second-frame.html
(Locke was the man who inspired the Founding Fathers to recognize a "right to property" through his writing.)
This space is dedicated to the exploration of the Right to Own Property. Often it is misinterpreted to favor the rich; the classic example is Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. As the above quote demonstrates, it does not apply when the accumulation of wealth is so great others cannot own significant property.
Extreme wealth disparity violates this Right. Nobody can own everything; if they could King George would never have been criticised for owning everything in the 13 colonies. The Right to Own Property does NOT allow anyone to own so much property that others are denied their access to property.
Corpses are not People any more and do not have this Right. Inheritance is a custom, part of our culture; not an Inalienable Right.
"This term [property] in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual." In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage...
...Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected...
...That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where...monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called."
James Madison
March 29, 1792
http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/index.asp?document=57
"The twelfth law is that such things as cannot be divided, be enjoyed in common, if it can be; and if the quantity of the thing permit, without stint; otherwise proportionably to the number of them that have right."
Chapter XV of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
("John Locke [like Hobbes] also based his political writings on the idea of the social contract. He stressed the role of the individual. He also believed that revolution was not just a right but an obligation if the state abused their given power. Obviously these ideas had a huge impact on the Founding Fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/usconstitution/g/social_contract.htm)
"It is true, in land that is common in England or any other country, where there are plenty of people under government who have money and commerce, no one can enclose or appropriate any part without the consent of all his fellow-commoners; because this is left common by compact- i.e., by the law of the land, which is not to be violated."
John Locke
"But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government."
Federalist Papers
http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111fed.html
If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra taxation violates it.
[From Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert E. Bergh (Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), 14:466.]
http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/index.asp?document=31
"And the said Aldermen shall meet together, at the court-house of their county, at some time between the second Tuesday in July and the first day of August in every year, and by taxation of the persons and property, in their county, according to the mode of assessment prescribed by the law which shall be then in force, for raising money for the public exigencies, shall raise competent sums of money for the necessary relief of such poor, lame, impotent, blind, and other inhabitants of the county as are not able to maintain themselves. "
[From "A Bill for Support of the Poor," Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), 2:419-20, 422.]
http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/support-of-poor.html
EDIT 1/17/10 It has recently been asserted that Madison was an elitist who wanted to oppress the poor. This was offered as evidence:
A necessary fence agst. this danger would be to select a portion of enlightened citizens, whose limited number, and firmness might seasonably interpose agst. impetuous councils. It ought finally to occur to a people deliberating on a Govt. for themselves, that as different interests necessarily result from the liberty meant to be secured, the major interest might under sudden impulses be tempted to commit injustice on the minority. In all civilized Countries the people fall into different classes havg a real or supposed difference of interests. There will be creditors & debtors, farmers, merchts. & manufacturers. There will be particularly the distinction of rich & poor. It was true as had been observd. [by Mr. Pinkney] we had not among us those hereditary distinctions, of rank which were a great source of the contests in the ancient Govts. as well as the modern States of Europe, nor those extremes of wealth or poverty which characterize the latter. We cannot however be regarded even at this time, as one homogeneous mass, in which every thing that affects a part will affect in the same manner the whole. In framing a system which we wish to last for ages, we shd. not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce. An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labour under all the hardships of life, & secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former. No agrarian attempts have yet been made in in this Country, but symtoms, of a leveling spirit, as we have understood, have sufficiently appeared in a certain quarters to give notice of the future danger. How is this danger to be guarded agst. on republican principles? How is the danger in all cases of interested coalitions to oppress the minority to be guarded agst.? Among other means by the establishment of a body in the Govt. sufficiently respectable for its wisdom & virtue, to aid on such emergences, the preponderance of justice by throwing its weight into that scale. Such being the objects of the second branch in the proposed Govt. he thought a considerable duration ought to be given to it. He did not conceive that the term of nine years could threaten any real danger; but in pursuing his particular ideas on the subject, he should require that the long term allowed to the 2d. branch should not commence till such a period of life, as would render a perpetual disqualification to be re-elected little inconvenient either in a public or private view. He observed that as it was more than probable we were now digesting a plan which in its operation wd. decide for ever the fate of Republican Govt. we ought not only to provide every guard to liberty that its preservation cd. require, but be equally careful to supply the defects which our own experience had particularly pointed out.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_626.asp
http://www.playtheimmortalgame.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=124653&page=2
I analyzed this passage as follows.
This is the debate from which that passage was pulled:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_626.asp
The debate is on June 26, 1787. The topic:
"The duration of the 2d. branch [being] under consideration."
This means, I believe, that they are debating how long a Senator should serve before the next election. I thought the Second Branch was the Executive, but General Pinkney uses the word Senators.
Mr. Ghorum and Mr. Wilson suggest " "six years," one third of the members to go out every second year. "
General Pinkney prefers four years. He believes if Senators serve for too long they will lose their loyalty to their State and become loyal to the Federal Government and the State in which they work for it.
Mr. Read and Mr. Broome suggest "nine years. This wd. admit of a very convenient rotation, one third going out triennially. He wd. still prefer "during good behaviour," but being little supported in that idea, he was willing to take the longest term that could be obtained."
Now Madison begins to speak.
Madison opens his speech by observing that it's a good idea to clarify the purpose of the Senate before making this decision.
"first to protect the people agst. their rulers"
That's clear enough.
"secondly to protect the people agst. the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led"
Wow. WTF does that mean?
A people deliberating in a temperate moment, and with the experience of other nations before them, on the plan of Govt. most likely to secure their happiness, would first be aware, that those chargd. with the public happiness, might betray their trust.
So, when things get rough, and passions get heated across the nation, people might get concerned about corruption in government. Such corruption needs to be addressed.
An obvious precaution agst. this danger wd. be to divide the trust between different bodies of men, who might watch & check each other. In this they wd. be governed by the same prudence which has prevailed in organizing the subordinate departments of Govt., where all business liable to abuses is made to pass thro' separate hands, the one being a check on the other.
An anti corruption measure to protect the People in the same model as the rest of the government, sounds good.
It wd. next occur to such a people, that they themselves were liable to temporary errors, thro' want of information as to their true interest, and that men chosen for a short term, & employed but a small portion of that in public affairs, might err from the same cause. This reflection wd. naturally suggest that the Govt. be so constituted, as that one of its branches might have an oppy. of acquiring a competent knowledge of the public interests Another reflection equally becoming a people on such an occasion, wd. be that they themselves, as well as a numerous body of Representatives, were liable to err also, from fickleness and passion.
OK. Madison is arguing that if all representatives in both parts of Congress (House and Senate) have short terms, they'd never become competent at doing their jobs. One of the two should consist of a sort of council of Wise Men who are professionals and can take a longer view of things...who can take the time to "[acquire] a competent knowledge of public interests" and can help restrain the people from impulsive decisions made by Congress based on ignorance on the part of the representatives.
Another reflection equally becoming a people on such an occasion, wd. be that they themselves, as well as a numerous body of Representatives, were liable to err also, from fickleness and passion. A necessary fence agst. this danger would be to...
The context of your quote is that Madison describes a danger - the danger of having an impulsive, passionate Congress without any experience...ever.
This is the danger to which the "necessary fence" is against.
The Wise Men or "enlightened individuals" would, again, restrain against amateur impetuousness.
For example, it was probably the Senate's role to restrain Bush and the House from attacking Iraq. That they didn't do so suggests either that we chose poor Senators or that they don't have the power they need to do so.
Madison argues that having few Senators with long terms will allow them to provide that seasoned, restraining influence on the government.
He then suggests that the majority on occasion might impetuously, in the heat of the moment, decide to oppress the minority, and implies the Senate should be designed to restrain this sort of thing.
Madison observes that in all societies everywhere there have been classes. While in other nations the classes were based on birth, we had eliminated that. However no society ever has managed to not have classes, and different classes have different interests.
OK, clear enough. He's right; the classless society is a utopian ideal even now that has never been able to sustain itself when the people tried.
Madison also observes - this is important I think - that wealth disparity in the USA was much lower than in other parts of the world. Whether this is true or not I have no idea even when only considering white males, but this is part of his argument, which is very significant.
Next, Madison asserts that over time, as the population grows, wealth disparity will increase. He says roughly that someday this may result in people under the poverty line outnumbering those above it. Naturally this leads to power going to the poor.
Madison claims that there are faint signs that the poor are upset and might consider some sort of revolution or uprising - or maybe just vote more tax money be sent their way. I'm not sure. This is an interesting sentence:
No agrarian attempts have yet been made in in this Country, but symtoms, of a leveling spirit, as we have understood, have sufficiently appeared in a certain quarters to give notice of the future danger.
So Madison feels there is danger of an "agrarian attempt" to express a "leveling spirit" sometime in the future, when wealth disparity increases. OK, sounds reasonable.
Madison questions:
How is this danger to be guarded agst. on republican principles? How is the danger in all cases of interested coalitions to oppress the minority to be guarded agst.?
This is very interesting and ambiguous. It might imply a deliberate attempt to form the government into an instrument oppressing the poor; but then again, it might imply a deliberate attempt to form the government into an instrument for peaceful wealth distribution to counter the natural laissez-faire consequence of greater and greater wealth disparity.
Madison continues to emphasize that the Senate should act as a brake on the combination of amateur, passionate politicians and increasing wealth disparity. Still ambiguous.
The next part is weird, because now he's referring to some third person "he" and I have no idea what he means by that:
Such being the objects of the second branch in the proposed Govt. he thought a considerable duration ought to be given to it. He did not conceive that the term of nine years could threaten any real danger; but in pursuing his particular ideas on the subject, he should require that the long term allowed to the 2d. branch should not commence till such a period of life, as would render a perpetual disqualification to be re-elected little inconvenient either in a public or private view. He observed that as it was more than probable we were now digesting a plan which in its operation wd. decide for ever the fate of Republican Govt. we ought not only to provide every guard to liberty that its preservation cd. require, but be equally careful to supply the defects which our own experience had particularly pointed out.
Assuming Madison is talking about himself (highly uncertain), he says that because the Senate is to act as a restraining influence on impetuousity (sp?), it should consist of older people whose terms of service are long and who are so old they won't care if they can't get re-elected.
He then reminds the audience that they are making a Constitution for the ages, for a nation which is to endure, and to preserve liberty indefinitely. Thus the need for a restraint on passionate impulse in government.
Sounds creepy, but on deeper analysis I see no reason to think this means Madison was an elitist interested in being the Man keeping the People Down.
EDIT - 3/27/10 I have later seen writings of his that seem more incriminating, but even so - if he's an elitist, how does that explain bias in statements that argue for property ownership only in the midst of plenty, and that when land is highly populated the land ownership system begins to break down?
Also:
A modern myth is that some societies, notably Native American ones, appeared to exist without the concept of personal ownership. Members of a society would feel free to take any objects they had need of, and expect them to be taken by others. Recently, however, researchers have started to question just how collectivist Native American societies really were. Citing earlier studies done by anthropologists and historians "who were able to interview tribal members who had lived in pre-reservation Indian society," they argue that in fact, "most if not all North American indigenous peoples had a strong belief in individual property rights and ownership."[1] These researchers further assert that Native American collectivism is a myth originating from the first encounters with tribes who, because of their hunting-orientation "did not view land as an important asset", and indeed, did not have a private property system with regards to land. The collectivist myth was initially propagated by reporters and politicians who never actually had contact with Native Americans and then made into a reality by the collectivist property rights system forced on Indians by the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership#Ownership_Models
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Kings and Constitutions 1/18/10 vision
The United States of America was born as a protest over the arbritrariness of Kings. Instead our Forefathers chose a Constitution, in which the rules are clearly laid out and any commoner can argue his case with respect to the rules instead of beg for mercy from a politician who acts as judge and jury.
This tendency is part of me. I am a proud American and one reason I am is because of this choice of Constitution over King.
This tendency has led me into science, where the rules are "set in stone" - unchanging, reliable. Something I learned about science fifteen years ago may have been explained wrong at the time but the facts are still scientific facts, and still reliable. I always hated people telling me what to do - what to eat or not eat "because it's good for you"; following arbritrary parental orders "because I said so"; etc.
I've always like video and computer games for a similar reason; the rules of the setting are set in stone; no King is going to step in and decide the game runs differently now at some random moment.
I've also found that, despite my great attraction to them, I am generally frustrated and bored by tabletop roleplaying. When I try to get into it I am called a "rules lawyer", or I lose my ability to pay attention as the GM rambles on about Obama or how medieval swordsmen REALLY fought.
I'm a rules lawyer for the same reason I'm a scientist and a patriot. I don't like authority figures deciding things on whim (e.g. arbritrarily deciding when the group is "in game/character" and when we're just buddies shooting the breeze, something which in my experience at tabletop games typically happens frequently and without any sort of clear signal, leading me to miss "in game" details of great importance).
Perhaps similarly, I get annoyed at computer games in which the setting doesn't make sense. For example, in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, there are some characters who cannot die, but always get knocked unconcious, and others who always die, and never get knocked unconcious. Then some NPC tells a story about how he asked someone to choose to knock the target out but instead that person killed the target. It's a little thing; but it just doesn't make sense.
How does knocking someone out work in this world? I can't choose to knock someone out vs kill them. It doesn't make sense. I feel a setting should meld seamlessly with the rules in a game, so that events make logical sense as consequences of the laws of nature (aka the game rules).
Another, possibly similar example is the acronym WINR (Wesnoth Is Not Reality). The game Battle For Wesnoth has troops with strange characteristics; for example, Pikemen are nearly immune to arrows, but have no defense against slingers or people who hurl axes. The reason for this is that they have a high resistance to piercing weapons and no resistance to slashing and blunt weapons. It's kind of silly, and was done entirely for "balance reasons" so their team could handle charging lancers better. The idea is that "it's a game, and having fun is what matters, not historical accuracy" - but for a guy like me, the fun of the game in large part depends on how sensible the setting is and how well the rules agree with the setting and vice versa.
If my pikemen were getting destroyed by lancers, I'd either disband them, use them in combination with some other unit which could repel cavalry if it existed as pikes were used in the Tercio, or give them longer, sharper, stronger pikes and armor and train them more. This translates into, perhaps, more damage, and more general resistance to weapons, and perhaps more mobility. I'd also start using more lancers myself!
If this is overpowered so be it. In real life it WAS overpowered which is why formations of spearmen, both on foot and on horse, dominated so much of history from ancient Greece through medieval Switzerland into the early modern era. In fact they STILL use a sort of spear as the primary melee weapon in the modern military; the rifle mounted bayonet. Constantly interfering in the rules of the game to suppress particularly powerful troops in nonintuitive ways for "balance reasons" bothers the hell out of me.
I prefer a more organic method of determining balance, more like reality. If some technique is found to be overpowered and make other methods of doing the same (combat, typically) obsolete, then the old ways will disappear and the new ways will be adapted to, and a dynamic equilibrium between various powers will eventually come to be.
In my opinion, the setting should determine the numbers, and the numbers should shape the setting. In too many games the numbers and the setting are way out of whack and I find it very annoying.
As I said before; I'm an American, and I have the American desire for a set of written rules that I can learn and understand. I very much dislike having to deal with Godlike authority figures - and that include the Abrahamic God, if he exists. The only reason I'd take such a being seriously is if he tortured me or the world was asolutely without pain.
Instead of arbritrary Gods, I like Scientific Laws. Instead of drive-by shootings and posses, I prefer lawyers and police. Instead of Kings I like Constitutions. Instead of GMs making reality in a tabletop RPG game at whim I prefer computer games like Starcraft, or board games like Axis and Allies or even Heroquest in which there is a GM with clear capabilities and limitations - games in which one's knowledge of the rules is rarely or never made obsolete. Even when games are patched the new rules can be relied on for quite a while, and it's made explicitly clear what has changed.
For another example of this issue, see my "Obama Troll vs Maori Troll" entry. I got banned from a forum because the admins chose to be arbritrary rather than state what rule I had broken, which should have been posted with the consequences of breaking it on the FAQ. The admin's dominance was more important to that website's admins than having a coherent disciplinary system - even when the admin in question was personally invested in that particular conversation and therefore prejudiced against me for personal reasons (not rules breakage).
This tendency is part of me. I am a proud American and one reason I am is because of this choice of Constitution over King.
This tendency has led me into science, where the rules are "set in stone" - unchanging, reliable. Something I learned about science fifteen years ago may have been explained wrong at the time but the facts are still scientific facts, and still reliable. I always hated people telling me what to do - what to eat or not eat "because it's good for you"; following arbritrary parental orders "because I said so"; etc.
I've always like video and computer games for a similar reason; the rules of the setting are set in stone; no King is going to step in and decide the game runs differently now at some random moment.
I've also found that, despite my great attraction to them, I am generally frustrated and bored by tabletop roleplaying. When I try to get into it I am called a "rules lawyer", or I lose my ability to pay attention as the GM rambles on about Obama or how medieval swordsmen REALLY fought.
I'm a rules lawyer for the same reason I'm a scientist and a patriot. I don't like authority figures deciding things on whim (e.g. arbritrarily deciding when the group is "in game/character" and when we're just buddies shooting the breeze, something which in my experience at tabletop games typically happens frequently and without any sort of clear signal, leading me to miss "in game" details of great importance).
Perhaps similarly, I get annoyed at computer games in which the setting doesn't make sense. For example, in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, there are some characters who cannot die, but always get knocked unconcious, and others who always die, and never get knocked unconcious. Then some NPC tells a story about how he asked someone to choose to knock the target out but instead that person killed the target. It's a little thing; but it just doesn't make sense.
How does knocking someone out work in this world? I can't choose to knock someone out vs kill them. It doesn't make sense. I feel a setting should meld seamlessly with the rules in a game, so that events make logical sense as consequences of the laws of nature (aka the game rules).
Another, possibly similar example is the acronym WINR (Wesnoth Is Not Reality). The game Battle For Wesnoth has troops with strange characteristics; for example, Pikemen are nearly immune to arrows, but have no defense against slingers or people who hurl axes. The reason for this is that they have a high resistance to piercing weapons and no resistance to slashing and blunt weapons. It's kind of silly, and was done entirely for "balance reasons" so their team could handle charging lancers better. The idea is that "it's a game, and having fun is what matters, not historical accuracy" - but for a guy like me, the fun of the game in large part depends on how sensible the setting is and how well the rules agree with the setting and vice versa.
If my pikemen were getting destroyed by lancers, I'd either disband them, use them in combination with some other unit which could repel cavalry if it existed as pikes were used in the Tercio, or give them longer, sharper, stronger pikes and armor and train them more. This translates into, perhaps, more damage, and more general resistance to weapons, and perhaps more mobility. I'd also start using more lancers myself!
If this is overpowered so be it. In real life it WAS overpowered which is why formations of spearmen, both on foot and on horse, dominated so much of history from ancient Greece through medieval Switzerland into the early modern era. In fact they STILL use a sort of spear as the primary melee weapon in the modern military; the rifle mounted bayonet. Constantly interfering in the rules of the game to suppress particularly powerful troops in nonintuitive ways for "balance reasons" bothers the hell out of me.
I prefer a more organic method of determining balance, more like reality. If some technique is found to be overpowered and make other methods of doing the same (combat, typically) obsolete, then the old ways will disappear and the new ways will be adapted to, and a dynamic equilibrium between various powers will eventually come to be.
In my opinion, the setting should determine the numbers, and the numbers should shape the setting. In too many games the numbers and the setting are way out of whack and I find it very annoying.
As I said before; I'm an American, and I have the American desire for a set of written rules that I can learn and understand. I very much dislike having to deal with Godlike authority figures - and that include the Abrahamic God, if he exists. The only reason I'd take such a being seriously is if he tortured me or the world was asolutely without pain.
Instead of arbritrary Gods, I like Scientific Laws. Instead of drive-by shootings and posses, I prefer lawyers and police. Instead of Kings I like Constitutions. Instead of GMs making reality in a tabletop RPG game at whim I prefer computer games like Starcraft, or board games like Axis and Allies or even Heroquest in which there is a GM with clear capabilities and limitations - games in which one's knowledge of the rules is rarely or never made obsolete. Even when games are patched the new rules can be relied on for quite a while, and it's made explicitly clear what has changed.
For another example of this issue, see my "Obama Troll vs Maori Troll" entry. I got banned from a forum because the admins chose to be arbritrary rather than state what rule I had broken, which should have been posted with the consequences of breaking it on the FAQ. The admin's dominance was more important to that website's admins than having a coherent disciplinary system - even when the admin in question was personally invested in that particular conversation and therefore prejudiced against me for personal reasons (not rules breakage).
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