Sunday, January 17, 2010

Should Evolution Still Be Taught In School?

Darwin was wrong.  Science was wrong.  It was with some pleasure that I read about epigenetics in Time Magazine.  Now, I'm certain the reporter got several key points completely wrong, because reporters always do, but clearly this discovery is somewhat embarrassing for the Evolution believers.  Don't get me wrong -- I'm no Creationist.  I simply know that Evolution is scarcely less an issue of Faith.  What I love is seeing Science forced to admit that it has been Wrong for so many years about something so fundamental to its theory of creation.  I like seeing hubris shot down wherever it is found.

But Darwin was wrong and I was right.  I have theorized for some time that genes change over the course of a life and that the genes passed on at one point would be different than those passed on at another point.  Things like cancer and mutations were what I looked at.

The most disturbing aspect of this discovery is the effect it will have on the potential for increased social control.  The idea that today's decision can directly effect generations of descendants is going to increase the temptation for the Controllers to criminalize a lot of activities.  Not to mention the power to turn on and off our genes selectively.  Yeah, great, we can use this discovery to cure a lot of diseases and further purify the human race.  Our Master Race will be so beautiful and polite, perfect and athletic.  Everybody will be athletes and dancers, singers and artists, creating the earthly Nirvana thanks to Pharmakon and Epigenetech.

While the other billions starve because the Combots drive them off the good land and away from the valuable resources.  You know, those who can't afford designer babies and Domestic Robots.

So, now that Evolution has proven to be fallible theory and not Incontrovertible Fact, should it still be taught in school?

Thursday, January 14, 2010

PeriPateticking Around

If you've checked my profile, you know I have a couple other blogs.  I also have a private one that none of you guys who aren't reading this blog have access to.  So, while this particular blog has not been active for a while, I have been posting regularly.  I have been devoting my time to organizing my thoughts on marijuana legalization, my new book, and some deep religiphilosophical explorations.  The last has me really questioning my sanity, and the sanity of the society around me.  I have also been very busy with my practice, which is a good thing.  It means that survival begins to look better.

My thinking has once again veered sharply radical.  Bitterly opposed to The Way Things Are.  The system is just fucked up, and we all know that.  Now is the responsibility to do something and not just continue to obliviously grant it our consent.  We need to make our Change, and not count on just electing some guy president who says "Change" and "Hope."  Yes, we need those things, and it was good that he brought those words back into the political discourse, but WE need to BE our Change and Hope.  If we want Change that is going to benefit US, WE have to make it happen.

How do we do that?  We have to research and learn, develop our principles as individuals, and figure out how we can put them into practice.  We need to gather with like-minded people and pool resources to make our common vision real.  And, we need to ally with different-minded people who share our core interests or principles in pursuit of those interests and principles against those people who are actively seeking to harm our interests and destroy our principles.

It's just a shame that the middle class always sides with the Rich against the Poor.  I guess the middle class hopes that it will be granted entry to the Rich, and not become the Poor.  Side with the winner.  Unfortunately, only a very few of the middle class ever gain entry into the Rich -- like one in a 10,000 or 100,000 -- while the Rich-serving policies of the last 25 years have pushed thousands if not millions of the middle class into the Poor.  The middle class is like the runty, dorky twelve-year-old hanging around with the high school varsity football players hoping to be let into their pickup game.  They shove him aside and laugh at him, and next weekend he's out there again, hopping and skipping at their heels saying, "Can I play?  Can I play?"  He's a fucking moron!  That's what he is: a crazy fucking moron!

-- All new construction should be required to generate at least half its own energy, and recycle at least half its incoming water.  Including renovation, remodeling, and addition.

-- All new development should be required to promote pedestrian traffic and inhibit vehicular traffic.

-- Parking should be scarce and on the periphery, while buildings are close together and linked by public greens.

-- People should be allowed -- nay, government must recognize that people have the right -- to conduct business at their home and in their yards.  The right is not unlimited, and should be denied to limited liability entities.  Business size in residences should be limited, but large enough to allow the family to provide itself a life of luxury and travel.

-- Government must recognize that people have the right to grow and enjoy the fruits of any crop they choose on their property.  The right is not unlimited, and they can be required to do so in a fashion that protects the rights of their neighbors, but a person who wants to have chickens and devises a way to keep them from waking everybody up every morning should be able to do so.  Of course, if we knew our neighbors and had a sense of shared purpose (i.e., we're all in this together) with them, it wouldn't be as much of a problem.

Secessionism is in the news.  It is fascinating.  It is timely.  The world is changing.  The days of the nation-state may very well be ending.  I read that article with interest, because I, too, have become a secessionist.  Not necessarily that I want my state to secede from the Union, but that I want to secede my family from the United States.  But not just from the United States: from the world the Superclass is creating.  The United States is just the kernel from which the Superclass will create its world.  I want no part of it.  No, my thinking has been dominated by two related words:

Exile

Exodus

Open your eyes and look within
Are you satisfied with the life you're livin?
We know where we're going
We know where we're from
We're leaving Babylon
We're going to our Father's land

Come out of him my people
Come out of him


Yes, exile and exodus.  Exile is being driven away or leaving your land without agreeing that your ties to it are broken.  If you are in exile, you are away from home with the intent to return when you can.  You cannot live under the political power of the time, but if that power ends, you will return.  Exodus is the flight of a people from a land where they are oppressed to a land where they believe they can live in freedom.

My family is leaving the United States as soon as we can.  We want to live in a place that cares about its citizens, that sees providing the basic needs of all as being its primary purpose.  We want to live in a place that values health care for its citizens over the ability to project military force over every square inch of the globe, and into the space around it.  So we will leave.  We don't know where we will go, but it might be to the west coast, given the increasing divergence between those states and Washington, D.C.  We might choose internal exile, or internal exodus.

That is primary news piece number one.  Our goal is to leave the country.  We do not agree with the governance of this country, and we no longer consent to its rule over us.  I was born a citizen of the Republic, and I want no part of the Empire.

The other piece of news is my renewed determination to write.

A writer is one who writes, so if you want to be a writer, write.  I saw or heard that aphorism somewhere recently.  I do not remember where or who said it.  I just know that it resonated within me and gave me a mental slap in the face.  It is so obvious.  If you want to be a writer, write.  Don't worry if it will ever sell or if anyone will ever read it.  Write it, and let the rest take care of itself.

So I am writing again.  Writing is my number two time priority now.  First is work.  Must pay the bills.  Second is writing.  I guess I should talk about "productive time priority."  The people in my life will not be neglected.  I love my time with my wife and with my daughter.  That time is crucial.  That is the time that makes us human.

I have begun another book.  When I wrote Broken Doll, I did a couple of things.  I got Mary's ghost out of my brain.  I told her story.  And I completed a book.  So only a few people ever read it and I will never sell it or publish it.  I wrote it.  I am now starting my second book.  And it is my first.  I am returning to the book I spent my college years writing.  I was like a pickup truck in the middle of a wet cornfield.  Blind Faith.  This time I am going to complete it.  The book is my vision from my college years.  It is my life's work.  This time, I am going to complete it.

In addition, I am blogging.  Every day, I will blog something, whether it is in this blog or one of the other blogs.  I will not stop.  Finally, I am going to return to pamphleteering.  It's in my soul.  Samizdat was one of the best things I ever did, even though the readership was so small.  I will make and print a small journal with news stories and my own writings.  I will invite a couple other people to write for it.  I will point people to a website for it.

It is suddenly time for me to go.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

I was going to attend the Virginia People's Alliance rally and march on the State Capitol today with my camera, and submit a report, but when we drove by it was so pathetic I didn't want to waste the time.  There were about 20 people there.  I think the cops and media outnumbered the rallyers.

But then what is the point of a rally and march today when nobody is there.  You want to show it to these rich corporations and the legislators by rallying and marching on a day they aren't even in their offices?  Wow, that makes your statement loud and clear.  No, if you want to put pressure on them, you go in on a weekday.  You get an army of unemployed men and women, including high school and college students, and you march down 9th Street at 8:45 A.M. Monday morning.

We have a very long way to go.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

How long is it polite to sit at a coffee shop for an espresso drink and muffin?

When a bottom-feeding employer can play off good employees and solid citizens against each other to keep hours, wages and demands low, then something is seriously fucked in the Capitalist-worker bargain.  This is where we find ourselves after 29 years of Reactionary rule.  Good middle class citizens fighting it out for minimum wage work.  When you go shopping this week, wherever you go, look around at the people you see working there.  They are probably making less than $10 an hour.  If you're in a chain store, the store manager is probably making shockingly piss-poor money.  Like less than a plumber.  And he's top dog in the local store.

That's what our economy has produced.  The American Dream reduced to $10/hour and living with your parents or children.  You know what?  I got no problem with the latter part, because rebuilding our extended families would be a good thing for the country.  But it shouldn't be done this way, by devaluing all labor to the point where fewer and fewer people can afford their own place even though they work full time.

It's our own fault.  We've rolled over and let them fuck us.  As a result, they have gleefully fucked us harder and faster as each year has gone by, each legislative session, each presidential administration, each bullshit business cycle.  They plan to wear us out even more, because as with all other deviancies, theirs is a progressive addiction.

I keep reading about the collapse of the world financial system.  What collapse?  That was the global ponzi scheme that collapsed, the financial system is alive and well.  Frankly, this latest recession was probably no worse than any other, except that for the first time the rich lost a lot of money too.  They lost half their wealth in a hurry.  Damn, some probably even had to sell the fourth or fifth house and delay buying the eighth car.  No, for us it is the same as every other recession.  But now that the portfolios of the wealthy are rising again, we hear that it is a recovery.  Yeah, well, unemployment is not coming down and we are told it is going to be a jobless recovery.

That's no recovery.  Do not let them bullshit you.  Forget recession and recovery.  What we are in is a regression.  The Great Regression of the Late American Era, 1981-.  The statistics that matter for the people that matter -- the People -- have been consistently dismal for almost thirty years.  It has been a sustained regression, coincidentally beginning at the same time Ronald Reagan took over and busted the unions.  The political history of America from 1981 to the present has been about the Destruction of Labor.  It is time to end that story and begin a new one, the one where the People rise up.