randomWalks

All you hear are your own crazy thoughts, like a river of SHIT, ON AND ON! See your thoughts for what they are! Stop your helping! Stop your planning! There’s NO WAY OUT! Not for others! Not for you!

Humans are involved, as they regretfully always are, but this is also a story about merging ideologies, about one great tentacle-laden corporate-human entity, the Hedgefox, tumefying a tentacle and spraying great blasts of life-sustaining cash all over a smaller, quivering entity, the Foxhog. Then eating it.

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monkeyajb:

"Dear Steve,
Here’s another masterpiece for you to explore — On p187, a line that runs from Shakespeare to Stephen Daedalus starts to emerge by way of Hamlet, see what you think!
With my wish for your continued joy in discovery,
Frimi Sagan
June 2001”

To talk to your private self is the way to talk to all self. Personal is universal simultaneously.

If we do not seize this unique moment in our constitutional history to reform our surveillance laws and practices, we will all live to regret it.

What has struck me about the anti-war movement in America in these last few years –perhaps it is different elsewhere and perhaps it was different before– is generally how polite it has been. How ironic to chant, “Whose streets! Our streets!” while politely walking into pens and free speech zones. How strange to demand an end to the war while politely conceding to the demands of the NYPD that protesters not use Central Park, that they only march on these streets and not those streets so that order can be maintained, so that things can carry on as if there were no protest at all.

I want to make one thing clear: These were not low-level employees. They were what I would describe as upper mid-level managers. They told us that they had a combined fifty-five years of experience at the NSA. Without the support and consent of people like this, the surveillance machine could not exist. I don’t think that they are stupid people or evil people. I do think that they are people who have abdicated their moral agency and thus allowed for something very scary and very evil to come into existence.

There are some surprising cultural impacts of us not having minorities: people here are often condescending (you can probably read parts of that in my post as well) — though there are exceptions — but people get really condescending to: a). people they perceive as dumb and b). types of people they perceive to be dumb. The amount of jokes made about base school kids (i.e. kids who go to the schools that we would be going to if it weren’t for TJ) and judgments made about blacks or Hispanics is staggering. There are kids here who feel validated that kids at the base school are going to “working for them someday” as if someone’s high school in life was any valid indication of their work ethic, perseverance, intellect, and luck. You also hear comments about “ghetto” kids, generally meaning blacks and Hispanics, which is ironic considering we live in Northern Virginia where half the kids have pool tables in their basement and have lawyer/doctor/government-employed parents. Some people I don’t even know are comfortable regarding me as a “nigger” (but in a good way, y’know?) or telling me how I’m black, but not really because I watch avant-garde films and study philosophy. Our BSU (black student union, which no, I’m not a part of) was led by a white guy, which was partially deserved (iirc he had participated in the club all four years) and was partially indicative of how few blacks are involved in the club and how little notoriety the club has at our school versus Namaste (an Indian culture club) or the various Asian culture clubs (including the Asian Awareness club, whose irony does not escape a school whose biggest demographic is Asian). This isn’t to suggest that BSU should be a thriving community when it appeals to so little of the demographic, but I think it does show that when certain cultures are underrepresented at a school, some kids, even if they don’t don a white hat and burning crosses, let racially-inspired tendencies and beliefs get to them.

You would have thought that by now evryone with a browser and a modem would be following the online exploits of webloggers, but this is not in fact the case. Bloggers! We still have a lot of outreach work to do! There are still some people, perhaps even here tonight, maybe in the seat right next to you, who have never seen a weblog or who have never even heard of weblogs. Yes! It’s true! So I make this challenge: To all webloggers, and to our brother and sisters in the e/n, journal and webzine communities, let us join together in links of love and take back what is rightfully ours! Let us join together; for together we can take back the web!

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starring Kiefer Sutherland

Put yourself in Martin’s shoes, based on the scenario exactly as Zimmerman described it in that interview. An adult male has been behaving strangely and following him, first in his car and then on foot. It’s dark and a heavy rain is falling, making these actions even more suspicious. He has traveled on foot away from the street to a place behind condos near his residence, and there’s Zimmerman again. Martin confronts the man to find out why he’s being followed and the man doesn’t explain. Instead, he quickly reaches for something in a waist pocket. At that point, does Martin have any way of knowing the man isn’t reaching for a gun?

America has no functioning democracy at this moment.

This brings us to the second feature: the Zimmerman trial judge’s decision to sharply limit the explicit reference to race—including denying the prosecution the ability to argue that Zimmerman engaged in racial profiling. Studies of the legal system and aversive racism show that the less explicitly race is engaged in the discourse in the courtroom, the more likely aversive racism is to influence the decisionmaking process of the jurors. Thus, the judge’s decision also makes it more likely that race played a role in the outcome of the case.

When our children are gunned down in cold blood, I want it to be enough that they were simply ordinary as opposed to ‘innocent.’ In America, Black people will never be considered “innocent” and frankly it’s a label that we shouldn’t want to claim for ourselves. None of us is ‘innocent;’ most of us are just ordinary and flawed people. That should be enough to have the right to live.

It’s been hammered in my DNA to not “rock the boat”—which since I wanna keep it real means not make “certain people” feel uncomfortable. I mean, that is a crazy way to live. Seriously, imagine a life in which you think of other people’s safety and comfort first before your own. You’re kinda programmed and taught that from the gate. It’s like the opposite of entitlement.

It’s an appealing argument, and widespread, but simplistic and obtuse. It’s a belief most easily held when you’ve not witnessed peace rallies and makeshift memorials, when you’ve turned a blind eye to grassroots organizations like the Interrupters in Chicago working valiantly to stem the tide of violence in the city. It is the thinking of people who’ve never wondered why African Americans disproportionately support strict gun control legislation. The added quotient of outrage in cases like this one stems not from the belief that a white murderer is somehow worse than a black one, but from the knowledge that race determines whether fear, history, and public sentiment offer that killer a usable alibi.

It’s a vivid reminder that we must always be deferential to white people, or face the very real chance of getting killed.

www.youtube.com/watch

LeVar Burton: I put hands outside car when pulled over (by CNN)

Even senators. Even senators must fear to describe America’s laws to America’s citizens. This is, yes, democracy-suppression, but it is a vitally necessary arrangement. It keeps you and your adorable kids and even your cute pet dog alive.

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jack-was-here:

"I stopped at a little shack where a man sold hot red chili in paper containers; I bought some and ate it, strolling in the dark mysterious streets." - Jack Kerouac, On the Road

The shack is still there and they still sell hot red chili.

www.youtube.com/watch

niaking:

If you live in the Bay, and are not choosing to be willfully ignorant, you probably already know that gentrification is a huge problem here. San Francisco’s proximity to Silicon Valley has attracted a lot of techie-type young professionals who are pushing out SF’s previous residents, especially those that are low income people of color. Those displaced are often moving to the East Bay, pushing the East Bay’s low-income residents of color out into far-flung suburbs with little of the resources the “inner-city” provides, such as public transit. Nothing I’ve said so far is anything that hasn’t already been said over and over again.

Resistance to gentrification takes many forms. Some, like Causa Justa and the Right to the City Alliance organize against evictions and foreclosures. Others, like local Barry Jenkins, make thoughtful films like Medicine for Melancholy, a love letter to the city of San Francisco lamenting the fact that many people of color can no longer afford to live there. And then you have Miss Persia and Daddie$ Pla$tik.

When I first saw Miss Persia and Daddie$ Pla$tik perform at Marga Gomez’s Comedy Bodega at Esta Noche in the Mission, I knew immediately I was witnessing something amazing. As someone who wrote my undergraduate thesis on the power of queer and trans people of color’s performance art, I recognized the performance of “Google Apps” as protest art, the likes of which I had never seen before. Even as I watched the performance, I didn’t feel like my mind was open enough to fully comprehend what I was witnessing. Which is why I’m really glad they made a video.

Though the slowly atrophying academic part of my brain is tempted to do a close reading, I will not interpret every line for you. That would be like reading a choose-your-own-adventure book where all your adventures are already chosen for you. I will say that I disagree with the interpretation of the video/song’s message as xenophobic. It’s pretty clear to me that Miss Persia and Daddie$ Pla$tik don’t want to be white, they just want to be able to stay in their homes.

What else can I say about this video? It’s hilarious, it’s obscene, and it’s poignant. Though thousands more words are sure to be spent explaining and opining on the housing crisis in the Bay Area, perhaps none will do so more successfully or succinctly than “Moving to the East Bay/Living life the broke way/SF keep your money/F*** your money!”

I also want to know what are the qualifications that one needs to become a whistleblower because that sounds like a much more interesting job.

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new-aesthetic:

Twitter / AFP: ”Egyptian protestors direct laser lights on a military helicopter flying over the presidential palace in Cairo.”