how can supporters of capitalism and free trade support the WTO.  it doesn't make sense.

after reading harriene's blog http://harriene79.motime.com/  i remembered how nerve racking it can be when you are going through somethine tough or expecting something hard.  it can be really hard to see outside the situation or problem but there is often i time when we realize how much we can go through.  no matter how bad things can get we can handle it.  a really extreme version would be the guy that cut his arm off when it was trapped under a rock while he was hiking.  truly incredible, but human.  we can deal with a lot if we realize we will get through it..... so on another topic.....  i was listening to an interview with howard dean tonight.  he is a really bright guy.  it is a shame he wasn't nominated. 

i remember when i was younger i was pretty scared of the dark.  i used to think things were right behind me.  so when i was in the dark i would force myself to be scared.  I would walk really slow so if anything was behind me it could get me, just to prove to myself the my fear was unfounded and irrational.  i still do it sometimes when something scares me and i think it is an irrational fear.  why i torture myself i don't know.  i don't think it actually made a difference. 

i think i've decided that religion doesn't cause a lot of problems (which i saw it as going before) it merely perpetuates them.  I think it is the same for the good results of religion.  it doesn't necessarily cause the good things just sorta pushes them on, adds to it all. 

strange... i can't look at my comments on here anymore? what's up with that.

What do people spend all their time thinking about?  I suspect most people spend most of their time thinking about people.  I suspect they think about their relationships with other people.  This is just a wild stab in the dark but if I personally think this takes up the largest time slot in most lives.  Actually now that I ponder this a little more, it is probably just people with easy lives that think about relationships all the time.  If I had more serious things in my life I would probably think about those things more often.  I also wonder if the great philosophers and great scientist or any of the "great" thinkers for that matter were/are great because they didn't spend all their time thinking about relationships.  Was Einstein fixated whether or not she really loved him.  Was Socrates concerned about the little scolding he had just received and if that meant they weren't friends anymore.  Perhaps these people just spent more time not thinking about these trivial things that occupy our minds and, in the long run, never really make a difference that we think about them.  Or perhaps I just don't have enough persepctive on the world to realize that most people really don't bother with these trivial things, although I do suspect these obsessions and fixations can be found in most people minds.

so what's the point of an online journal.  i would imagine if you are talking about your emotions then it is for the interaction and input from other people.  Although, this does make sense I think it is sorta disgusting.  I was reading an entry from http://banzaidescent.motime.com and the entry confirmed what i've always sorta thought.  People who write about their emotions strive for some sort of contact with other people in a lot of cases.  I think that is one goal of my blog.  In the end though that search is given up because any contact is pretty superficial.  How can this un-reality provide us anything very real after all.  I do believe my blog has other purposes though.  I like recording my thoughts. Although, I never feel as if I get them all.   I also spend way too much time on the computer and it is easier to just have a journal here than an actual physical journal.  So this has got me thinking about something else.   Our experiences with other people online are very unfulfilling because they aren't very "real".  At least that is what i think.  So the feeling we get when we listen to music, are those "real"?  I love music but perhaps it is also just very unfulfilling.  It is merely a representation of something we can actually experience.  Then again, perhaps we are experiencing this emotion or feeling that is represented in music when we listen to it.  I would compare the experience to reading a book or looking at art or watching a movie.  If music is not real then none of those can be either.  I don't know.  A lot of my entries end with a very inconclusive statement.

http://cnn.aimtoday.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?flok=FF-APO-1107&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20040719%2F1524610616.htm&sc=1107   wait aren't we forgetting one other country responsible for 9/11... o yea north korea, i'm sure that is next.

i've remembered what i've been meaning to post about.... something i read about a little while ago.  the idea of experiencing our feelings rather than living through them.  nothing in our life is constant, ideas, feelings, they come and go.  so instead of agonizing over everything we experience, we just note things as they come.  just sorta realize that it is a feeling or an idea and live it but not get stuck on it.  sorta like meditating.... i guess it isn't good to do this all the time but then i don't really know, something to toy with.

watched requiem for a dream tonight... intense...  so what is your fix?  i've often stated that reality is escapism.  this movie sorta relates to that.  so ya know everything in moderation i guess....

i was trying to think of very specific differences between CNN and the BBC when i discovered this.  CNN does not report on Africa.  there was one story today i saw about Nelson Mandela's birthday and that was all.  i have sorta come to the conclusion that most of the stories on CNN are US related.   yes it is a US company but the BBC has stories on everything.  strange....  so why doesn't CNN report on Africa?  i can't even remember hardly any stories on it that i have read.  Even with the whole thing going on in Darfur.  does this strike anyone else as being really strange?

saw winged migration last night.  it's good.  that's all i can say about it.  it's just really good.  it really amazes me how many stories are not mentioned on CNN that the BBC covers.   the whole perspective of the news seems different.  it is really crazy.

ya wanna know what's creepy..... driving on the freewar when it is raining and there are no other cars, edge lines, or reflectors.  you definitely feel like you are going much faster than you are..... i locked my fucking keys in my car.....  today there was a fire in one of the buildings near my house.  all the neighbors came out and watched the fire fighters at work.  i always thought it was sorta gross how dissaster captures our attention.  we all become spectators as other people's lives fall apart. then as i was walking away to go about my daily business i also though, it is disgusting that we can just go on living our normal lives as our neighbors lives fall apart.....  but then every day people's lives fall apart and we just keep on buying our big macs, filling up our SUVs.... so i'll end with a quote i like "europeans work to live, we live to work". don't know who said it originally but it was the impression i got while i was there.

got my official rejection letter from oberlin today. i think it is funny how the letters say that i will experience success at the college i end up going to and how i can consider transferring next year. ha. no i didn't get into a college i really wanted to go to so i'm not going. there will not be a successful happy academic career ahead of me this next year. nope. i will be what colleges despise, the uneducated worker, experiencing life. before i give it all another shot next year. i wonder what i will do when i don't get into any colleges i really want to go to again. settle i suppose. the idea makes me sick to my stomach. compromise and settle is something i never really wanted to do with my life. i see all these people that ended up in all these different places, forgotten their dreams and aspiration, doing something because they could.... i wonder if it is unavoidable though... we'll just have to see

i just finished reading an adbusters and there are a few things i really liked and wanted to share. (if you don't know adbusters check out my culture jammers link)

My best friend died this summer.  I went to her funeral.  I watched as people framed her life in a pragraph, a picture and a song.  I leaned against a cold brick wall at the very back of the church and listened as strangers told me what I will miss the most.  I shook hands with her dad and saw the wet tears on his cheeks.  I searched for someone else who had tears to share with me.  People held onto small styrofoam plates of dessert and talked loudly about things that made them talk loudly.  I looked at her picture on the piece of paper I was given and remembered the sound of her laugh.  I went to her grave.  There was no tombstone yet but I saw the sunflowers on the fresh dirt, the shadow of pine trees on green grass. I wondered where she was.  I wondered how a person leaves everything they own and disappears.  I wondered how much a person might pay for one more conversation or where someone might be able to purchase another few seconds of eye contact.  I wondered why it was only now, standing beside a freshly dug grave that I missed her most.  That's when everything changed.  I found myself staring reality in the face.  I saw through the glitz and glamour, rush hour in the city, bright lights and neon sighs, chrome detailing and the white-blue glow of TV in the dark. I woke up to the faint scent of pine needles in the breeze and the feeling of sweet, sweet pain burning a hole in my heart.  All alone under the wide blue sky.  I realized that despite our success in building islands in the sky and castles in the sea, we are really only silly people convered in skin, making this up as we go. Dixon Wixie

I thought this was very well done. here are a couple other excerpts from the magazine.

When the Left deconstructed its utopias as "totalizing" and "unrealistic", it lost its way.  Deconstruction has destroyed our utopias.  It has destroyed the Left. We have lost our ability to dream.  -- Murat Ergin

The Left isn't dead.  Indeed, kids in my age group (twenties) are far more liberal than our parents.  The problem is apathy.  The looks on people's faces when I tell them to vote are incredulous.  It's hard to move this generation to care about anything, let alone a voting system which is viewed to be far removed and corrupt.  The problem isn't the country moving to the Right, which is a widely held misconception on the part of the Left, rather it is moving people to give a damn and make a difference.  --Andrew

 

 

carbon-copy conversations, also known as small talk.  it is dull.  why can't i enjoy it.  just something you put up with until the conversation is steered towards something interesting.

there are no absolutes in the world.  not even murder. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/3876615.stm 

here i am adding another blog to the sea of painful blogs.  i realllly shouldn't read about everyone else's pain.  for some reason i keep doing it though.  i have music to make me depressed enough, we don't need to skim through a bunch of people's lives, letting their emotions out because everyone experiencing pain is a writer.  strange how depressing the blogging sphere is.  just reconfirms that the best writers and poet's were not people with particularly good lives or just plain depressed.  what is it about pain that makes us so much better at expressing art? goes to show the close correlation between pain and beauty i think.  i don't know.  life's a tricky thing.

ok, i've never belevied in absolutes and this blog made my night.  everyou should educate themselves and read it.  http://contradict.motime.com/

how do you know if a relationship is worth pursuing?  if you are unsure and it involves five hours of driving is it worth it?

if you could write something that you know would never disappear what would it be?  i don't think i could take that responsibility.   but then on the other hand we are always writing things and putting them places that leave us no control as to when it will become nonexistent.  do we think about that?

i will not be watching fireworks this fourth.  there are a lot of thoughts behind that little fact but i dont' know how to write anymore...