The Wilderness

I'm currently reading a book, Against Medical Advice. It's about a boy growing up with Tourette's and OCD; but that's not important. Something this kid said, for he is the narrator, bothered me. Well, let's put it this way, it didn't bother me, per se, so much as it sparked deep cogitation and thoughtful enterprise.

In chapter 54 or 56 or so, this kid is sent away to wilderness camp because he is a chain smoker and alcoholic.

As an aside, I don't care if my child is born with a foot up his ass and teeth coming out of his forehead; I would never let him smoke at 13 and start drinking at 15. Anyway...

At this camp, there are other troubled teens and, the way he describes it, a great number of them were problem children who had run afoul of the law. During his stay here, the kid describes how the wilderness camp was a very restorative journey that removed his need to both drink and smoke. He also described how other children were helped by it too.

Here's what bothers me, though, and is the kind of back-assward thinking I do on the daily. When I head into the wild for a weekend or a week, I experience the opposite of what I should. When I sleep on the hard, compact earth, when I'm only separated from elements and animals by a thin piece of nylon, when I'm eating food from a bag and what I can catch, I am more at peace, tranquil, and alive.

I've spent a week a Yosemite, suffering mosquitoes, bears, raccoons, and frigid temperatures, and yet, I think back on that experience fondly as I think of the most refreshing and complete sleep I've had in years. I awoke every morning as the sun broke over the mountains feeling refreshed and energetic. What the hell? I have a $500 technologically advanced mattress, climate control, and a bug free environment in which I sleep at home. So what gives?

Maybe we're not meant to live this way.

What if, and bare with me here, we are denying a fundamental need to our psyche to be at peace through which we receive from our connection to nature? We've spent so long fighting nature and perhaps nature is the key to our sanity. Ever noticed how people are becoming more impatient, ruder, angrier, grumpier, etc. Maybe it's because they are more and more separated from nature? Maybe it's because we share something with nature that we are denying ourselves with technology? Maybe our discontent is because we are trying to fill a nature hole with a technology peg.

Consider this:

iRan, iRaq...iPhone.

Apple is a terrorist organization.

Why I will, unfortunately, be voting "Yes" on Prop. 19

1.) Prop. 19 will generate taxes in the range of 1.4 billion.

2.) Legalization of marijuana will go a long way towards reducing the amount of illegal drug trafficking from Mexico

3.) Less drug traffic means less money for Mexican cartels.

Why I don't want to vote "Yes"

1.) Now that it's legal to smoke in your home, I have to smell that shit and there isn't anything I can do about it. Whereas before, if you smoked in your home, you did your best to hide it.

2.) California is a non-smoking state. Tobacco smoke laden clothing is just as bad as marijuana smoke laden clothing.

3.) I hope the $50 tax is high enough to deter people from using their welfare check.

Wait a tick...

I just had a thought.

Let's say Prop. 19 passes and makes it legal to possess 1 ounce of marijuana for personal consumption. Now lets say that I don't want to pay a $50 tax, so instead, I head over to my buddies house and purchase an ounce from him because, under the new law, he can grow plants in his house. Now it's legal for me to carry 1 ounce and I just avoided paying the State of California a $50 tax. Hell, why don't I just grow my own plants and never pay the State of California. How does that generate taxes? It doesn't.

So, in reality, all this bill is doing is allowing people to smoke and mostly eliminating the need for an illegal marijuana trade from Mexico. However, we still need border patrol to check for other narcotics and to stop human smuggling. So what are we really voting on here? Allowing people to smoke?

I changed my mind. I will be voting "No."

Consider this:

If you're going nowhere, are you actually going no where or are you just now here.

Consider this:

People who reject the physical for the mental or the mental for the physical rarely realize how much they depend on those who have that which they neglected.

Consider this:

We wouldn't be having a discussion on government health care, pollution control, and waning natural resources if people stopped copulating. But, we can't talk about that because it's not the people's fault they can't learn that the juice coming out of their penis makes more people.

Consider this:

An honest word is hard to come by these days.

Proposition 8: Part 1

Let's set some ground rules before we begin:

First: Read the whole thing through. Nothing is more infuriating than taking words out of context and although wild accusations and suppositions take place, perhaps they are put there to get you thinking about the argument as whole, not just a right and a wrong side.

Second: Regardless of your what your stance is on the issue, don't let that clutter your thinking. Approach this read with as much ambiguity as you possibly can.

Finally: Consider this:

Proposition 8 has tentatively passed. There are some cheers and some boos and a lot more quiet onlookers. Yet, out of all of this, some things strike me as remarkable. Firstly, the very liberal people of California voted down the right for homosexuals to marry. Secondly, a very committed group of people urged the judicial system to weigh in on the validity and the constituionality of proposition 8. Finally, this has happened before.

Let's start with the third statement first as, I find, it's always good to know your history. In a bygone era, many states passed into law laws prohibiting interracial marriage. However, Supreme Court rulings concluded the laws to be unconstitutional and they were struck down. In 1967, before the Supreme Court rulings, 70% of Americans polled opposed interracial marriages. Now this statistic may be an accurate depiction of American beliefs, at the time, or it might be skewed. I don't have access to the method used to poll American's or the sample size and, therefore, I can't, with absolute certainty, say that this is a valid statistic. However, for the sake of argument, let's take this statistic as a valid statistic and explore its meaning.

Most of us, generally speaking, would look back on the 60's as a time of oppression and dogmatic thinking. However, it was also a time of exploration and new thinking for a younger generation. It is this younger generation, I believe, that comprises this 30% of Americans that support interracial marriages. So, the question I would propose is this: if 70% of the country opposes interracial marriages, but 30% of the country supports it, how long, if at all, will it take for 30% to turn into a majority given how the demographic of the United States of America is changing on a daily basis? Furthermore, and now we're getting into a little philosophy here, is the United States of America truly a country or nation in the classic sense?

I'll get into that second question momentarily, but first, lets consider the changing demographic that is the make-up of North American society. Every year approximately 1.2 million legal and illegal immigrants arrive in the United States and, every year, the United States issues approximately 900,000 permanent residency visas which far outweighs out-migration and deaths. Now let's take our 1967 example. In 1970, the number of immigrants living the United States was 9.6 million and the number has steadily risen to approximately 28.4 million in 2000. That's approximately 9.5 million immigrants per decade in addition to the increase in native population and the increase in population from immigrants whose children were born United States citizens. So, given this population bloom, how long before 30% becomes 51%? How long before the minority becomes the majority? Not very long. OK, but so what? What does that prove? That we should stick around and wait until there are enough homosexuals and homosexual supporters around to change public opinion? Not exactly, this leads me to my next point; is the United States of America truly a nation?

The dictionary defines a nation as: a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own. What is "sufficiently?" As far as I can remember, the United States has been marred with questions about its unity from day one. Are we a part of Britain? No; American Revolution. I like slaves and you don't; Civil War. Drinking? Absolutely not; Abolition. And so on and so forth. The United States has been marred by questions of its unity for all of its 234 years. But why? When we examine other nations in history, yes, we find strife, but we also find a level of unity and of consistent thought. So how is it, in a such a short expanse of time, that we've managed to break away from another country and break away from each other and still get away with calling ourselves a nation? The United States is not a nation and this is where, I feel, the disparity of thinking arises.

We have a flag, an emblem, a leader, a system of government, a military, a navy; we look and smell like a nation of people, but we aren't. The United States is a hodge-podge, rag-tag group of immigrants that were forced together out of very different and dogmatic ways of living in the hopes of carrying on a better life. Somewhere along the way, people began to think that they were the natives and, suddenly, this cycle of majority and minority that the immigrants attempted to escape has become a part of their life again. America's demographic is constantly in motion and the immigrant of yesterday, is the native of today. To think of ourselves as a nation is something to be met with confusion. The United States is a collective of people trying to live the life they want to live and they want their children to live. But therein lies the problem, in the pursuit of happiness, others are made unhappy. So who should prevail? No one. The United States has set laws preserving the rights of its people and the justice system is blind, so to speak, in their use.

This thought of the United States as a country is a dangerous one. If, on one hand, we want to be a nation, then the overturning of a voted proposition is blasphemous. Where is the sufficient unity? On the other hand, if the United States is a collective, than it is the duty of the justice system to protect the rights of the minority from the prejudices of the majority. Now I'm starting to get into the first statement: the very liberal people of California voted down the right for homosexuals to marry. I believe part of the issue that has arisen from this conflict is that some people view the United States as a nation and others view it as a collective.

To be continued.

Consider this:

Instead of being the world's greatest Guitar Hero player, why don't you pick up a real fucking ax. Douche.

Consider this:

Why is it called the projects? Whose project are these people? It's a fucking ghetto.

Beauty

Beauty ignites the senses

Brighter than words can tell

Beauty ignites the intent

Of minds filled with hell

Tearing down curtains of grace

Smiling in our face

Terrible things happen to the holy

Only to ignite our folly

Like a circle above our head

Or horns in its place

Which is why our visage

Remains plain to our race

Beauty ignites the senses

It fills us with hell

Beauty ignites the senses

And keeps us in our shell

Ass-Hole Thoughts

1) People pay other people for their sperm. Perhaps paying people to be chemically castrated might catch on and solve some issues.

2) I would like to see the '3 strikes, you're out' policy applied to abortion clinic's clients.

3) Why are people of clout adopting all these children from other countries when the foster system in America is so laden with children, that they aren't receiving the education, attention, or life they deserve?

4) Why has patriotism become a bad thing? Love of country doesn't stop because it's leaders are morons or because you want to be sensitive to the exchange student from Germany. Fuck that, which leads me to my next point.

5) Political correctness needs to take a hike; stereotypes are a good indicator; and if you have something to say to someone, say it to their face. Don't get on Facebook and update your status about it.

6) Don't give me shit because I drive a truck that gets 7mpg and try to make me feel guilty about it. Every day, 1 human expels .9 kg of CO2 and 1 gallon of burned gas expels 8.8 kg of CO2. So, if we got rid of 1 million people, probably by not producing them in the first place, we could burn 100,000 more gallons of gas every day. You don't see that figure floating around everyday do you?

7) Legalize all drugs, tax them, and use that money to fund a health care system for people who don't take drugs.

8) Who gives a shit if gay people want to live together and marry? Let them adopt all the kids who have had the misfortune to be born into the foster system in America and who are overlooked for some Ugliblahblah kid that gets better press. Then, provide them health care payed for by their heroin addicted, tweaked out birth mother.

9) The world will go on without me; but, while I'm here, I will continue to bitch about it.

10) If someone shipped porn and laughter to the middle east, things might calm down a bit.

Healthy Living

Anthropophagy has been on my mind lately or, more plainly, cannibalism.

It seems to me that if you're a cannibal living in modern times, humans would be a dietary disaster. Consider the intoxicating levels of soda, mass produced junk food, and genetically modified things we shove down our throats each day. Think back on it, I can't remember the last time I ate something that other people eat that wasn't tainted with human fiddling. The fruit in the store has been fiddled with, the vegetables have been fiddled with, and even good old bread has been manipulated in some way. So, thinking on this and the general assumption that most humans throw dietary consideration out the window, how healthy could a cannibal actually be?

Well, let's reconsider. I live in the United States and therefore, on any given day, people could be consuming any manner of chemical concoction that McDonald's has dreamed up, but what about some place like Africa?

Ahh...Africa; the cradle of civilization, if you will. On a side note, cradles often contain babies which, by knowledge of the taste of veal, we can assume are rather tasty. However, back to Africa; land of fruits, nuts, and lions. It seems to me if you were in the market for a tasty human steak, Africa would be the place to find it. Many of the inhabitants of inner Africa have never actually heard of McDonalds or even a burger. Sounds like Africa contains some quality organically raised humans.

But, you say, I'm not a fan of dark meat. Don't worry, the Inuit Indians of the Artic have been preserved in the sub-zero temperatures of the north free from the genetically modified and distorted food found further south.

Thus, in conclusion, I find that although modern day anthropophagists may find it more difficult to find find a healthy bite to eat, good food can be had if you know where to look.

It's been some time....

I'm the type of guy that was raised that if I don't have anything nice or productive to say; it's better to say nothing at all. In a sense, I've taken this to heart. It has been quite sometime since I've posted anything here. The reason is, of course, I really had nothing productive to say and I rarely have anything nice to say either. As always though, a short amount of time spent listening to the world without commenting on it has left me with a few more things to say.

To begin, I must say a word regarding me: who really cares what I say? If you are reading this, enjoying it, learning from it, etc. then enjoy, learn, etc. but keep in mind that I realize there are thousands of people with an opinion and thoughts. Don't for a minute think I'm trying to preach a set of beliefs or thinking on anyone. I've come to the realization, quite some time ago, that, in regards to society, the pessimistic approach is often the most realistic. The vast majority of society, regardless of age, sex, political or financial standing, beliefs, or any other category in which we, as a people, use to seperate ourselves from one another, is like an adolescent teenager. You can tell a teen to not stay out late, to do their homework, to save their money, but inevitably, most will shirk the experienced advice given to them and fail. Some will listen to the advice and be the better human being for it; some will learn from their mistakes and listen to the more experienced in the future; and some will never learn from their mistakes and will continue to ignore the time tested advice and life lessons offered to them. Society is nearly identical. A man can preach a better way and he can plead a better way, but ultimately, a society will learn by failing or by never learning at all. So, in other words, I'm not here writing to change society or common thinking; because I can't.

I'm here writing because a thought is a terrible thing to waste.