randomWalks

Why does Bush pronounce it “nuc-yoo-ler”? (fark)

originally posted by daiichi

JPB: I'm discouraged with the role of the Internet in the antiwar movement. Because so far what I see happening is that cyberspace is a great place for everybody to declaim. There are a million virtual streetcorners with a million lonely pamphleteers on them, all of them decrying the war and not actually coming together in any organized fashion to oppose it. It strikes me that existing political institutions -- whether it's the administration or Congress or large corporations -- only respond to other institutions. I don't care how many individuals you have marching in the streets, they're not going to pay attention until there's a leader for those individuals who can come forward and say I represent the organization of those individuals and we're going to amass the necessary money and votes to kick you the hell out of office. Then they pay attention. But not until. And so right at the moment it would strike me that the Internet is counterproductive to peace.

MJ: I'm rather shocked to hear you say that.

JPB: Well, I'm rather shocked to say it.

MJ: Is it that people just leave their anger online?

JPB: You vent online and then you dust your hands off in satisfaction and that's the last you do.

          Let her now take off her hat in summer air the contour
Of cornfields     and have enough time to kick off her one remaining
Shoe with the toes     of the other foot     to unhook her stockings
With calm fingers, noting how fatally easy it is to undress in midair
Near death     when the body will assume without effort any position
Except the one that will sustain it

originally posted by daiichi

Think Outside the Bomb
It's NUCLEAR, not NUCULAR, you idiot!
Anything War can do, Peace can do better.

originally posted by daiichi

After the shock of losing wears off and an unmitigated free-for-all ensues, the Triads go back to talking their usual shit. There's an explosion and a Triad shouts, "Suck it!" Another player laments his own death: "Damn, dude! Fuck, I had, like, no life left! How'd you not die?" His opponent curses back. "Fuck you! Owned!"

originally posted by daiichi

The RIAA has staked out an untenable position that is as unrealistic as it is anti-consumer and anti-artist... Their solutions are not good solutions. They cling unsuccessfully to the past rather than embrace the stunning opportunities offered by the future. They will be unsuccessful in their attempts to criminalize the society, and in their attempts to stretch the drum head of old laws onto the drum of new technology. It is one thing to be unsuccessful, it's one thing to argue a bad position, but it's quite another to be silly and laughed at, and that's where the RIAA has ended up. They appear to be totally irrelevant except as bagmen.

originally posted by daiichi

"I don't want to belong to a country that attacks little countries."

originally posted by daiichi

The Other Face of Fanaticism by Pankaj Mishra.

originally posted by daiichi

Jean Shepherd on mp3; also Greenwich Village, Jean Shepherd & the Web Today by Lorraine McConaghy.

originally posted by daiichi

The rebel speaks for herself, by Ben Ehrenreich. (cf.)

originally posted by daiichi

"It isn't about being drug free," Cowan argues. "It's about being free."

originally posted by daiichi

Take a Newport and dip it into the bottle of Juice and smoke it down. I would be on a Dust cloud floating over Queens. I was in a trance thinking about the fuzzy feeling that surrounds your brain, and then your whole body. I loved the way Juice made me feel like an animal that has just been released from a zoo. How all inhibitions left and I felt wild.

originally posted by daiichi

"They have a communication system that rivals the CIA," Borg said.

originally posted by daiichi

I'll post 150 updates in a day (for my purposes, from 12:01 a.m. PST Tuesday, January 21, 2003 to 12:01 a.m. PST Wednesday, January 22, 2003) to this entry, playing along by bolding the entries' numbers (like so: [#1], [#2] and so on), typing at least two sentences per update and resorting to lists and other content-producing gimmicks on an as-needed basis.

originally posted by daiichi

If you want to know what marijuana is like, ask your co-workers. Or your neighbors. Or fellow PTA members. You won't be hard-pressed to find someone who knows.

By now the poetic groove was really cooking. Harold and Andrew were just riffing on the whole vibe.

"Whoa, the oil is very viscous," wailed Andrew.

"Yeah, our politics is Robert Fiskous," Harold responded.

originally posted by daiichi

Condoleezza Rice: The Devil’s Handmaiden by The Black Commentator; Bush’s alien views on affirmative action by Derrick Z. Jackson.

originally posted by daiichi

There’s something that punk porn sites are pushing besides pictures, and it’s what really makes the kids sign on: like any other porn, they’re selling fantasy. And in this case, it’s the fantasy of reality.

originally posted by daiichi

While it’s safe to say the demonstrations here and in the capital had zero effect on the White House and big media’s drooling class of pundits, protests against the pending incineration of Iraq are growing. And they are growing at a rate that required years, not months, during the Vietnam War.

originally posted by xowie

Stephen Johnson on game demos

“Congress, which voted overwhelmingly to support Bush’s war, includes only one member who has a child in the enlisted ranks of the armed services.” It is, of course, a trial balloon but nonetheless terrifying and impossible to ignore: Is the US going to have a military draft? How does the US Draft work, anyway?

Thou shalt not distort, delay, or sequester information.
You can drive a system crazy by muddying its information streams. You can make a system work better with surprising ease if you can give it more timely, accurate, and complete information.

Swiller tells the story of an abortion provider who, as she was preparing to perform an abortion, heard her patient call her a "baby killer." "She said, 'Excuse me? Are you sure you want to go through with this?' and then recognized her as one of the regular picketers. And the woman said, 'Well, I'm different. I'm married, I have two kids, and I had an affair, and my husband would kill me if he found out.' The point is that abortion is such a personal thing, it's hard to imagine yourself needing it until you're in those shoes."

originally posted by daiichi

We should all take a nice long look at the Big Game on Sunday in San Diego -- because it may be the last one we'll see for a while, at least until the War ends ... Ho ho. That is a nasty thought, as thoughts go, but it is the melancholy truth. Certainly it will be the last peacetime Super Bowl for another five years, maybe more ... But by then we will all be wearing uniforms, of one kind or another, and only the "Trusted Travelers" among us will be allowed to come and go as we please -- within reasonable military limits, of course, as long as we don't make waves and never gather in groups of more than three, and don't spit.

originally posted by daiichi

May our country, on the brink of war, take to heart the final refrain of America, the Beautiful: "America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law."

originally posted by daiichi