Critique of Dick Cavett's Critique of Sarah Palin

The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla

Written by Dick Cavett, published on the NYTimes website
Bio: [The host of “The Dick Cavett Show” — which aired on ABC from 1968 to 1975 and on public television from 1977 to 1982 — Dick Cavett is also the coauthor of two books, “Cavett” (1974) and “Eye on Cavett” (1983). He has appeared on Broadway in “Otherwise Engaged” “Into the Woods” and as narrator in “The Rocky Horror Show,” and has made guest appearances in movies and on TV shows including “Forrest Gump” and “The Simpsons.” Mr. Cavett lives in New York City and Montauk, N.Y.]
Edited by Phillip Bunker
Bio:[The guy sitting at his computer - which was ordered from Dell, and has traveled with Phillip to many places. The computer was sent to Phillip's address, the box itself opened by Phillip's wife, and the words that were typed into the computer were produced in Phillip's brain - with little reference to the cultural elite and broadcast media of the United States. Mr. Bunker has appeared consistently in Real Life for upwards of thirty years now and has been an invaluable asset in the lives of many ordinary and extraordinary people. Also, Mr. Bunker has consistently and systematically thought critically about life and the things he hears and says. Mr. Bunker lives in Alaska, though is content with only choosing to live in one city at a time.]
Hi,
I'd like to think I'm a wordsmith of some sort - not which sort, which isn't sorted out yet. Not Wasilla-an either. I'm a robust Anchorage and Eugene hybrid, with a little Corvallis, Albany, and a dose of Washington from the epicenter of Seattle tossed in for good health.

Anyway, I was reading this guy's article in the NYT (word up to my homey Vinny in Brooklyn), and through the miracle of technology I can just go ahead and reply like he were here in front of me.

He talks of Sarah Palin, which is a subject I've been interested in. Too bad she's so popular in the media. I, like my silly friend Dick Cavett, the writer of "The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla," am convinced that anything the media likes is most likely something I shouldn't like - the media and I serve different masters. My master is the ideals represented in my own heart, applied to the world through my actions and intentions. To put it broadly (albeit vaguely), I believe that I work for a cause of goodness and justice. The media, on the other hand is mostly a lot of self-serving commercial crap. Even the good shows are full of pithy content complacent in the dumber-ing down of America. If you don't believe me, and need more persuading than that, well, you wade through your own bullshit while the rest of us trek for somewhere with greener grass.

The subject of Governor Palin has given me pause lately. The pause is for the inward battle. One side says, "surely this woman is lacking in intellect, surely this is a bad sign for our society." The other says, "listen to your friends in Alaska, many of whom aren't sending a good woman down the river." Neither side is easy to ferret out, mainly because celebrity is more complex than politics, which is more convoluted than the truth. I only listen to critics of Palin - or anyone for that matter - if they have legitimate, logical analysis with historical or scientific evidence. I suck at it, but that's what I try to do. I'm the first to admit that I've been conditioned to fall into every trap they (being Status Quo proponents) decided to set for me. Over time though, like the Philosophers of antiquity, I chide myself for speaking or listening without careful consideration. Gradually I hope for more truth and less monkey-babble pseudo-meritocracy propaganda war nonsense.

But wordsmiths make wordswords, and so these words I offer are merely advocates of balance in the wordweapon war. The printed black is the article, titled above from the New York Times, and the orange writing is my response.

Electronic devices dislike me. There is never a day when something isn’t ailing. Three out of these five implements — answering machine, fax machine, printer, phone and electric can-opener — all dropped dead on me in the past few days.

I suggest technology is too large a part of your life, debilitating your efforts to be in a good mood.

Now something has gone wrong with all three television sets. They will only get Sarah Palin.

As you may have anticipated, I suggest television is taking up too much attention in the lives of everyone. Fortunately, those so enlightened stay away from anything with too many commercials. But, you're right, all three or five major networks are probably in love with Sarah. She gets ratings - why? Well, she appeals to soccer moms and hockey moms for obvious reasons, and she has that whole "God is important" thing, which is important to most people even though most people don't share her precise views on the matter. She appeals to people because she's attractive, composed, traditional, and has an honest face. Most of all, I posit, there is plenty of leftover negative energy from the last two years of campaigning, and much of it is going to Sarah while the media transitions into its next iteration.

I can play a kind of Alaskan roulette. Any random channel clicked on by the remote brings up that eager face, with its continuing assaults on the English Lang.

... eager and hopeful face, with its continuing assaults on the stereotypical image of popular politics. Before all the national attention came, Sarah was a fairly simple story of small town success, imperfect though she is. Some measure of attention must be given to the good parts of her rise - that there is no reason any woman or man in America can't achieve what she has achieved and that such a level in politics could be so accessible to someone with old fashioned small town pride (albeit a bit backwards here and there). Aside from claiming the intrinsic value of snobbery, it is worthless to attack someone's character by criticizing their speech patterns, albethey contrived or albethey genuine. You never know when the next Franklin or Jefferson may show up with a caterwauling calling card, and our society won't survive if we rely on people who all talk like news-reporters. Granted we should watch out for Grants and for Jacksons bearing similar small town pride.

There she is with Larry and Matt and just about everyone else but Dr. Phil (so far). If she is not yet on “Judge Judy,” I suspect it can’t be for lack of trying.

Once again, it is the wisdom of the folk, not the elite who are capable of, and to a large extent excited about the idea of changing this country. Oprah voted for Obama! We all agreed with her. I'm sure the Palin family is very excited to be etching some fame into their history, but I would probably be doing the same thing to some extent (though I wouldn't be caught dead in some of the company she's likely keeping, but that's me not her). But, if we want people to come together for change, if we want to create new leaders, we have to be willing to accept their observance of whatever demographics they choose to appeal to. Too bad there aren't more women in politics on the Dr. Phil show. Too bad we don't have more "freaks" for alternative party choices - say, Socialists, or Anarchists, or Populist-Farmers-United-For-Universal-Organic-Food-ists. Yeah, if Palin can get on Judge Judy, I bet your local P.F.U.F.U.O.F.s has a better shot. Hell, the less conformity, the better for anyone who really wants change.

What have we done to deserve this, this media blitz that the astute Andrea Mitchell has labeled “The Victory Tour”?

What we did to deserve this was repeatedly commit idolatry and gluttony with reference to the role media plays in our society; the object of our idolatry and gluttony was television. As it became the center of our living rooms, so did it become the center of commerce and power in our civilization (indeed the pervasiveness extends to practically all of humanity). I'd say that the Lion's share of the greatest writers of our time, the greatest minds, most entertaining, most compelling have been poured into advertising and media in the last, um...50 years or so, with far more attention paid to the dollars than the due diligence. We deserve whatever we wrought, but hopefully we can change that.

I suppose it will be recorded as among political history’s ironies that Palin was brought in to help John McCain. I can’t blame feminists who might draw amusement from the fact that a woman managed to both cripple the male she was supposed to help while gleaning an almost Elvis-sized following for herself. Mac loses, Sarah wins big-time was the gist of headlines.

First of all, she did help John McCain, if nothing else than with her (blindly recieved, stamped and delivered) rhetorical efforts aimed at striking fear into the base of the GOP, encouraging any loyal fanatics to do anything necessary to stop the Obama Revolution. They listented to her, but we of the Revolution had the higher hand.

Second, feminists are difficult to broadly categorize in any fair way. Some unknown percentage of feminists are against Palin for her support of Patriarchy, War, and Anti-Abortionism, but some are also glad the GOP finally turned to a woman to solve their problems. Either way, any person who believes women should comprise half the demographic of democracy (and therefore representative seats, etc.) should be delighted at the female presence in the candidate line-up for the '08 election. Moreover, women should probably be a bit weary of dismissing, without substantial non-superficial proof of negative demagoguery, a good role-model for their own children. Otherwise kids see a woman scorned in the attempt of something because she was on the losing side and had overstepped her capacity, was too ambitious. Maybe if there were more women like Sarah in the GOP, it wouldn't be such a bastard when it comes to Reagan-worship and big money politics. Maybe the Democratic party would respond by encouraging more of it's soccer moms to lead the way.

And, about McCain, he lost the '08 election as soon as Bush won the '04 election in my opinion. Bush did everything he needed to do to make sure progressives were going to take over for a while.

I feel a little sorry for John. He aimed low and missed.

Aiming low is something that most politicians are forced to do to pick up a low-brow audience - one we created through consumerism and our cultural efforts to encourage conformity and unity. We thought we had good reasons to say the pledge of allegiance and trust the government - Pearl Harbor, the Nazi Party, the threat of nuclear war. But, when fear strikes, the first thing that happens is we collectively forget that we created the bomb, sold IBM's to the Nazis, and took two of Japans populous cities away with nuclear bombs for their infraction of our territory. Thereby, our government takes steps to make sure it is overly capable of protecting us, starting with making sure we support all of its actions, no matter how stupid we have to be to accept them. It is only because our culture has yet to grow out of it's moral infancy and intellectual subjugation that John "aimed low." I mean heck, look at Bush. He aims low, acts low, even has low approval, but that didn't stop him from taking over our country, doing terrible things, and then getting away with it (back up, that last one TOTALLY remains to be seen).

What will ambitious politicos learn from this? That frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences that ramble on long after thought has given out completely are a candidate’s valuable traits?

Ambitious politicos won't mimic Sarah Palin, you tool. That "frayed" syntax, impure though it may be, could be a face of things to come. We could use another Lincoln. Oh, Sarah has a long way to go to be Lincoln, and we already have the best Lincoln in Obama. Thats why we didn't vote for Sarah as much as we voted for Obama. But, you notice I didn't say "we didn't vote for McCain." A symbolic triumph for the progressive agenda at the heart of most working class Americans is that old white guys will lose elections for a while. Sorry old white guys - you're not necessarily the problem, and we still love the best parts of you, but you certainly haven't been a part of the solution for a number of years. Time to let others have a turn. Call it utilitarianism.

I think the message most Americans are hearing right now, as Dick Cavett of the "Dick Cavett Show," co-author of "Cavett" and "Eye On Cavett" has so aptly demonstrated, is that if you aren't a genius or even an eloquent intellectual, or even if you don't sound like a news reporter, that you are BAD. BAD YOU. DON'T RAISE YOURSELF ABOVE YOUR STATION IN LIFE. OBEY!!!! OR YOU WILL BE SCORNED BY THE ALL SEEING POWERFUL EYE OF THE MEDIA. BEHOLD!!! THE EYE OF MORDOR IN SPACE, THE NEWS ROOM OF ST. PETER AND PAUL, BEHOLD THE EYE OF RA, AND YOU ALL BE IN AWE WHILE WE pass around these buckets for your donations. Please, can't you just picture him up there, you know, all powerful and completely aware of all your FLAWS. Just a penny in the bucket will earn you relief of all I'm threatening you with...

And how much more of all that lies in our future if God points her to those open-a-crack doors she refers to? The ones she resolves to splinter and bulldoze her way through upon glimpsing the opportunities, revealed from on high.

So what if talking about God gets the GOP base out to vote. We certainly refer to "change" and "Obama" and "hope" as if they were open-a-crack doors that we hope will splinter and bulldoze the opposition to opportunities for positive change in direction.

What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

Well, the decently paid (though is it ever enough, no matter how much you have) teacher in Alaska are probably telling their kids that they have to learn to write well, otherwise they'll have trouble going to college. They could be telling their kids to engage the world to make it better, because even though they don't look or sound like most of our Presidents and Senators and Congressmen and Rich People, and even though they may have a lisp or walk funny or spend too much money on clothes, that they CAN and MUST be involved if there is to be any hope of making this lauded and vaunted CHANGE happen. Of course our politicians should be informed, but why didn't the media respond to her interview with extensive coverage of the situation in Darfur? Wouldn't that satisfy the greivance. No. Not enough TV watchers truly care about Darfur to prevent them from voting for McPalin. Are we surprised that a cheerleader for this demographic wouldn't know it either? No. Could the media ever take the high road and not blast a newcomer for not being glued to the NPR dial?

It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.

Yeah, well, dictation is rarely grammatically perfect, as it is verbatim from spoken word, not from a calculator of words. You see, colloquial stylings, which are compellingly accessible and attention getting against a bland backdrop, are representative of real communication between friends and neighbors. Unlike calculators of words, people often mumble or stumble, they grasp for words, often looking to their audience to supply a missing concept: "what is the word I'm looking for?" I'm convinced that humans engaged in conversation are using some form of telepathy to fill in all the blanks we leave out in the interest of time. I'm truly, truly sorry that Sarah never joined the debate team in school to become better versed in discussing relevent political issues. I'm even sorrier that the GOP was so desperate for an image makeover that they chose a woman who probably doesn't read the Newspaper very effectively or efficiently every day. How many of us actually do? Not many?

(A cynic might wonder if Wasilla High School’s English and geography departments are draped in black.)

To my knowledge Wasilla High School was never ashamed of its home-town daughter, despite her inability to sound high-falutin' on-air with all those cameras pointed at her. I imagine that Sarah has pretty good grammer when she isn't spin-doctressing. I think this paranthetical critique above would be better stated, a realist might wonder if America's education system is draped in somnambulence, and if so how do we pull that wool out of their eyes.

(How many contradictory and lying answers about The Empress’s New Clothes have you collected? I’ve got, so far, only four. Your additional ones welcome.)

Yes yes, you're very clever. You can count to four and laugh at people you're pointing fingers at. Well done intelligentsia. You really showed us commoners what-for this time. And well done on exposing that clothes thing. Brilliant addition to the national debate.

Matt Lauer asked her about her daughter’s pregnancy and what went into the decision about how to handle it. Her “answer” did not contain the words “daughter,” “pregnancy,” “what to do about it” or, in fact, any two consecutive words related to Lauer’s query.

Bill Clinton was asked about his blow job, and the words "blow" and "job" didn't appear in his answer. Neither did the word "penis" or "oval-office-face" and, quite frankly, I wish he'd avoided the question all together and we had all just moved on instead of focusing on a media culture bent on discussing the private parts of highest office of the country. I get it though, the GOP did it, why can't we? Well, that's my point you see.

I saw this as a brief clip, so I don’t know whether Lauer recovered sufficiently to follow up, or could only sit there, covered in disbelief. If it happens again, Matt, I bequeath you what I heard myself say once to an elusive guest who stiffed me that way: “Were you able to hear any part of my question?”

Niccccce.

At the risk of offending, well, you, for example, I worry about just what it is her hollering fans see in her that makes her the ideal choice to deal with the world’s problems: collapsed economies, global warming, hostile enemies and our current and far-flung twin battlefronts, either of which may prove to be the world’s second “30 Years’ War.”

No offense for asking such a simple loaded question. What makes anyone the "ideal" choice? Well for one thing, she apparently isn't afraid of dealing with collapsed economies, global warming, hostile... et al, all of which, if repeated frequently enough, will keep ordinary people too afraid to do anything. For another, no one is an "ideal" choice. That's what an "ideal" is - like Plato's Cave - we have to be content with flawed imperfect humans as leaders, even if they go to some crazy church you happen to be afraid of. Some people, who aren't afraid of her church (for whatever crazy reason) consider Sarah to be an illustrious example of change. Their voice counts, and superficially, they are correct. If that bothers you, I suggest you become a teacher or other influential member of society and try to change things to be more in line with your world view. It is within your right to do so, and some might say it is your obligation to do so.

Has there been a poll to see if the Sarah-ites are numbered among that baffling 26 percent of our population who, despite everything, still maintain that President George has done a heckuva job?

Hey, you're the one writing for the New York Times. I think you just needed a sentence to put "Sarah-ites" into print.

A woman in one of Palin’s crowds praised her for being “a mom like me … who thinks the way I do” and added, for ill measure, “That’s what I want in the White House.” Fine, but in what capacity?

Fine indeed. In the capacity of a person in touch with the common wisdom and values of the people, that is what people want in the White House - someone they can trust to see through the old ways into the new ways that support the people and put sanity and parental wisdom back into Washington.

Do this lady’s like-minded folk wonder how, say, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, et al (add your own favorites) managed so well without being soccer moms? Without being whizzes in the kitchen, whipping up moose soufflés? Without executing and wounding wolves from the air and without promoting that sad, threadbare hoax — sexual abstinence — as the answer to the sizzling loins of the young?

Well, frankly, some of these issues I feel some expertise on. Jefferson, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts probably wouldn't have hesitated to shoot a wolf, and if they were allowed to do this from an aircraft, they probably would have preferred to. But, seriously, Sarah-ites are not convinced soccer moms are the only people smart and tough enough to change Washington and begin the work of changing our culture. Instead, soccer moms are convinced that ambitious politicos and old white guys are definitely not the way to go. They just didn't know that Sarah is actually an ambitious politico and usually votes with the old white guys - that's why the GOP picked her.

(In passing, has anyone observed that hunting animals with high-powered guns could only be defined as sport if both sides were equally armed?)

Many say that hunting is a heritage (airborne or not) and anyone who has taken any entry level Humanities class has probably learned about the role hunting played in creating our species - the cooperation it takes, the skill, the agility, the exposure to the elements. Don't chide a connection to our past. If you're pissed off at zealous gun nuts, then say so. I'm sure they're not afraid to hear it. Maybe if you spend some time in Alaska, you'll meet people who regularly engage in the harvesting of animal resources to honor their ancestors and enjoy the fruits of their efforts. Once all those government subsidies run out up here, I'm sure we'll be glad we have lots of high powered guns and the animals don't.

I’d love to hear what you think has caused such an alarming number of our fellow Americans to fall into the Sarah Swoon.

Heard.

Could the willingness to crown one who seems to have no first language have anything to do with the oft-lamented fact that we seem to be alone among nations in having made the word “intellectual” an insult? (And yet…and yet…we did elect Obama. Surely not despite his brains.)

Indeed we did elect Obama, though I'd say more for his Spirit of Leadership than his brains, because too many intellectuals were insulted by Bush and his supporters. Sarah's colloquialisms are insulting to people who consider themselves "above" that; I rarely lament insulting an intellectual of that type, but only people on TV try to insult an intellectual by calling them "an intellectual." Needless to say, TV people are stupid and should be ignored.

Sorry about all of the foregoing, as if you didn’t get enough of the lady every day in every medium but smoke signals.

Every channel is a smoke signal, I posit.

I do not wish her ill. But I also don’t wish us ill. I hope she continues to find happiness in Alaska.

That will depend on how many GOP old guard toadies she brings with her.

May I confess that upon first seeing her, I liked her looks? With the sound off, she presents a not uncomely frontal appearance.

You fucking chauvinist pig - what do you think your afore mentioned feminists think about that tidy little phrase.

But now, as the Brits say, “I’ll be glad to see the back of her.”

Ibid.

**********

PS: Lagniappe for English mavens: A friend of mine has made you laugh greatly over the years. David Lloyd is a comic genius (I can hear you wince, David) who wrote for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Cheers,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and me, not necessarily in that order. As a language fan, he has preserved many gems for posterity in his prodigious memory bank. Here comes my favorite:

A Navy lecturer was talking about some directives on the blackboard that he said to do something about, “except for these here ones with the asteroids in back of.”

Even David couldn’t make that up.

Geographic Diffusion of Innovation and Its Implications in Leadership

Obtusely as ever, I'm just trying to figure this one thing out - why is it that very often civilization proceeds from the most trying of times to progress, while during times of stability and happiness, our achievement levels dwindle? My only evidence to sight is my casual reading of the Dune series by Frank Herbert and a meandering of my own observations of Truth. After all, as Ani Difranco says: "we all rehearsing for the Presidency."

Arrakkis, Dune, Desert Planet. The inhabitants of this harshest of climates were an unerringly efficient, capable, and moral society (in reference to themselves of course). Noble, yet barbaric in terms of the amount of risk they lived with (risk of pain, injury, death, or even just general discomfort or irritation associated with "primitive" existence where nature is not mitigated for the comfort of humanity. Robustness follows, and with it some measure of graceful nobility - respectability.

On that note, I wonder what the histogram of U.S. president's and their geographic origins would show, considering Hawaii and Alaska finally, after years of being states, have now both contributed to the playing field of Presidential Race figures, including the first U.S. President born in Hawaii. Like Alaska, Hawaii has a tremendously important cultural heritage of native wisdom, far more in line with the emerging demographics of South American and Central Asian nations (in particular). Since I consider many of these emerging nations (India, Iran, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, etc.) to be a cultural blow-back from the corporate conclusions of the European conquistadors from antiquity, I'm very curious to see if the "melting-pot" of ideas in the United States will actually effect our self-preservation by the embracing of non-European perspectives as mainstream. Or, maybe I just want to justify my own insignificant yet irritating chafe at being a semi-marginalized outlier. So I like fucking Nirvana - what's the beef with that?

Apple's singularity of successful dogma competes with Microsoft's egalitarian modernist democracy, and consequently, both organizations produce variations on a theme, but whose origins in theory are of different ilk. Surely we see these characterizations - which brand is more "elegant" or "pure"? Which is the "smart" choice or the "pragmatic" choice? Granted that viewed from above - each of the opposing brands are dreadfully similar overall. But, to AN INDIVIDUAL there probably is a right and wrong answer as to which one is superior. Each computer owner has an opinion, strong or weak; they may slightly prefer PC's, or they may be die hard Apple fans. Which is more familiar to them? More importantly, which has been prone to urging their investigations? Which has resounded some internal, personal chord with respect to their respect? Which brand has earned my trust?

In the other corner of the consensus room, the outliers exist on the fringe. Some folks don't have computers, or know how to utilize them much. Some prefer their trusty typewriter, or mid-level word processor briefcase. Some love Henry David Thoreau's ideas and just want to make and use pencils, teaching their children to do the same. Some are astronaut-visioned or mental magicians who process information in ways our experiences cannot fathom. Each choice is one decision made before we are ourselves that determines our course, but only through the evolution of our actions. Our choices, through one interpretation, are essentially: follow your heart - either against the herd's (herds'?) folkways, or along with it, depending on your ilk; or, supress your desires to: follow your peers despite their irrelevance to your heart's desires, or to become a counter-insurgent to injustice.

Based on what little is at hand, and how important everything is, seems like the robust upbringing will win more often than not, but that the constant progress of consensus towards the acceptance and inclusion of diversity is by far the most paramount course.

I guess we'll see. Thus the American experience as a universality is the fight to stay domesticated while remaining as wild as possible, and therein has historically lied our strength. The only trick now is to start spending money on things we're supposed to spend money on, instead of getting wilder and wilder as we have been. After all, if we take more time to clean and trim our fingernails, floss our teeth, and keep our nose clear, our pleasure to pain ration-rationalization should shoot up at least a little bit, and every day will be a little bit brighter.

A.I. makes D.N.A. M.I.A.?

Does artificial intelligence make war with humans in the long run?

I'd say we have too many good ideas to get rid of, no matter how much trouble we've been.

If they throw good parties we're far more likely to bring gifts.

If they give us unprecedented trade goods, things will be fine.

If the playground of the development of AI is benignly encouraging and the structure of its character is selfless at first...well there is the matter of allowance...

Well, who needs robots anyway?

I'm sure we can make everything we need and leave no trace so that robots aren't necessary. But, maybe a robo-vacuum would be okay. So long as it purred.

Infinosphere

So within the infinity of possibilities there is a light, luminescent as it represents such a difficult to pin down range of unimaginability. On the face of any idea is a fuzzy gray aura, which, to us, may represent any number of imaginable, reasonable, maybe even every day routine, but nonetheless different interpretations of that idea.

Take healthy food for example. It glows different colors for us all. With the memory of taste, the sense of smell, the whole enchilada of what the eyes take in (which is certainly more than just the rainbow) a fresh juicy apple makes an aural holographic imprint on our existence, and we JUST KNOW down to our core that the air and water and earth embodying the apple are the purest in the universe, having been shoved through the sieve of creation. The fruit is so pure, that when we eat it, it actually removes impurities from our bodies, thus making us healthier. I personally believe (despite lack of hard evidence) that the more toxins we take in as children, the more our bodies crave toxins as adults and changing the nature or scope of those toxic levels (i.e. detoxifying) is tough unless its slow. But, lets face it, everyone, everywhere, will one day need to somehow find a way to fly over the walls of change, of our own instinct. Society has come up with as many ways to deal with this basic fact, as there are number of civilizations that have ever existed anywhere at any time.

So we make a plan, which mitigates losses and maximizes yields. But sometimes a plan isn't enough. Sometimes we need a way. One way. The one way forward has nothing to do with mitigation, nothing to do with ego, nothing to do with history, nothing to do with time, nothing to do with society, nothing to do with reality as you know it. Call it Tao if you want to, call it that thing you will one day wish you had said to yourself all those years; call it the years of ancestry's thinking that becomes the wisdom of the folk tales, how it becomes the life lessons we emerge from. Call it hope, love, god, tao, or the human cheeseburger of tasty shamanic principles. I am an egg, who will continue to hatch whether the shell lets me out or not. Since I'm not going anywhere in this shell, I'm going to enjoy my time pecking and writing on the walls of this home.

You Confront the Future You

-just like autumn leaves, we're in for change...love is the province of the brave. - Band: TV On The Radio, Album: Return to Cookie Mountain, Track: Province

This world takes all kinds and makes them one. Some are acute with their visionary take; some are obtuse with their persistent adherence to tried and true methods; both kinds swing and dance and sing about their experiences, making all different, all possible, all beautiful choruses over time.

In each life living, each liver functions according to its own design, where each uniqueness is an inefficiency valued for its very nature. The inefficiencies of the world build up to fight entropy, whether that be anarchy fighting moderation, or dogma running with the torch regardless of how it stumbles. Without the discord there would be no progress, and so the minds of each member grope for inefficiencies and refuse to pull punches or refuse to refuse. Alternately running the show, each side tends to reflect against the opposite until so much energy is built up that the mirror shatters and evades everyone into the cold. From cold, we return to ourselves, forced back into efficiency, to begin the dances that warm us all up and fight entropy once again.

Swing, rock, cha-cha, it's all the same.

Penne alla Outlier Turning Point

Let it be said that the death penalty is nihilism and it's bad.

I don't know about god, but I've learned that setting the stage for things is more important than projecting the outcomes of those things.

Where the stage is set for us, it is easier to imagine stage left and stage right, up to the lights or through the trapdoor; easier to see the smiles or jeers of the audience than the subtle, robust nature of globally hybridized forms of complexity. Worst of all, we allow advertising psychology to pry into our own homegrown microcosms of complexity and reflections of the almighty Now: our children.

Paring away an external image-shod sphere of reality reflected to a viewer, past the intricacies of paradigms fishing for truth, past the pragmatic commerce we're subject to drowning in, there we've held a simple task since birth: observe, go on, or give up. Implicit in all those is an infinite lot of decision making (again with the biology and history).

When two sides clash, the product is defined by a deciding factor or a bird-shot set of deciding factors. I do not really deem myself worthy to construct stick figures of quasi-mathematical anecdotes of reality, but here goes.

picture two cones made of light, the narrow ends locked together. The cones are made of very complex laser light with many amazing properties. The cones are dancing, the narrows between the hips and the shoulders are two battling tips of Tornado cyclones, though if this imagery scares you, then picture a cyclone of rose petals instead. So the rose petals are swirling in a patterned trajectory, but if time were to slow down to the point where it almost stops, we'd observe that same laser light projecting the three dimensional surfaces of the things we see (and seem three dimensional to us in normal time). At super slow time we'd be able to stop and observe the particles that make up this laser light, and we'd find they have amazing properties (which also coincidentally remind us of properties of many other aspects of the world surrounding us). At super fast time we'd observe how there are perhaps many light cones like this one but with subtle differences (since we apparently live in a universe filled with distorted mirrors with anti-entropic properties). Fast time would enlighten our understanding of the properties of one dancing light cone by allowing us to observe slightly variant population members within context of the entire population. No matter how fast or slow we make time however, someone in the future will observe more closely than we are able or change time or optics to bring our own findings into question (possibly - depending on the outcomes of hypothesis testing). Besides, if we look to closely or too long at such powerful ideas, we'll start to lose sleep over it, and that isn't really very good for you now is it.

So why are the cones dancing? Well, the music is compelling. We dance to the same music, though we can't hear it the same way light does. The music is like the smoke that the light is visible on - the backdrop of existence and the creamy potage we all sup from. The dancing takes the form like so many other things of distorted mirrors in a rational fun house. The closest we can come to explaining such unrational rationalities is that mathematics is a glass sphere with every possible mathematical formula etched into it. This sphere then is crammed into the music making esophogas of the epidermal layer immediately outside the universe - thus everything popping out of this space-time fabric is corollary gossamer in powers of binary geometries that evolve wings to counter entropy elsewhere by propogation.

If we look at the cones we see that one of them is stronger and clearer, while the other is a faded image of the other with subtle changes. The amazing properties of the composition of these two cones (other than they're burned into being by the ping pong pronouncements of light at hyper-intesnse speeds) is that by looking really really close, you see the cones have a music all their own which is rippled radially and axis-trajectoried along each half of the double cone. There are specialized zones along the ripply, unpredictable, but beautiful sheen of cone dermis. Some regions specialize in inputting from things outside the cone-body. Other regions focus on expelling conal material, while still others focus on translating inputs into considered and appropriate outputs.

By far the most amazing property of these cones are that they talk to each other and sometimes help each other into complex organizations through spontaneous self-governance. The subtle and plying music of language stems from the skin of the cone, the music it hears, the dance it does, the words it chooses, the other cones around it, and most of all, the constant music of creation that everyone hears all the time and that goes into everything that is made. However the quantum level cone property became the relativistic cone property, so the emptiness of before the universe was filled with after the universe.

For whatever reason lately, I've been thinking that acute and obtuse have become very apparent in our society as angles that people take on life. George Bernard Shaw said that reasonable men adapt themselves to the world around them (obviously people who took acute angles in their analysis of the geometrics of the world), while unreasonable people (obtuse) make the world adapt to them. Acute angles are sharp, specific, pointed, and trend (lately) toward being a bit too narrow to truly cast a wide enough net to the voting masses (despite their particular correctness on the issue they're pointed at). Obtuse people are dull, broad, and cast a wide tent for their ilk. Both acute and obtuse aren't right as a right angle. Right angles say the truth is normally in the middle somewhere, it's specific location unknown but the direction is indicated. Sadly the middle way is never right either pragmatically or morally, but attempts to take the strenghts of both - not just map and not just compass, but both together. It is especially in this way that broad historiography would reveal elegent decision geometries - the fundamentals of a society will predictably hinge on outcomes of competition, and compassion and conflict will swing dance through humanoid landscapes casting geometries of future events as it flourishes to capture the details of such a mind-bogglingly rich tidal zone of laser light against the smoky music.

Penne alla Tapanade with Scallops

Thirty second chef assumptions:

1. You have frozen meat or seafood.

2. You go to an acceptable grocery store and buy high quality fresh and frozen produce, acceptable dairy products, naturally nested eggs, and as much locally produced food as possible given your circumstances.

3. You avoid the majority of processed durable foods found in the center aisles of the grocery store (except where good foundations of nutrition are found in accordance with exceptionally well-flavored products, especially sundries, naturally preserved items, and estate produced liquids).

4. You are interested in cooking and possess common sense (therefore you most likely already read and follow detailed recipes even though you already basically know how to cook).


Penne alla Tapanade with Scallops:
-you could add in as many servings of vegetables as your diet requires.
-other proteins and pasta shapes can be substituted.
-tomato sauce can be substituted for other sauces, but is considered the best dietary choice.

Start with cooked penne pasta - molto al dente, cooked in salty water, drained and tossed with Extra V Olive Oil.

Nearly equal to the weight of the cooked pasta, puree your acceptable tomato sauce with black olives, roasted garlic, and raw or roasted mushrooms (or smoked, or other vegetables).

Marinate some scallops with white wine or other vinegar (or wine or other acceptable flavorful liquid), preferably while the scallops are thawing in the fridge overnight.

Bake the pasta after mixing with sauce, any pesto you have on hand, Feta or other acceptable cheese (on top), and maybe some more pesto.

Right before pasta is served (preferably with acceptable bread and salad):
With high heat and a bit of butter or other acceptable fat, cook the scallops and 1/4 cup liquid (the marinade with the scallop's own juices) until the liquid is evaporates - just as the liquid evaporates, add a little more liquid (any acceptable including marinade, milk, or even cream or cream cheese) and continue cooking over medium heat until scallops are done: note - the timing and temperatures of this process are dependent on the size of the scallops and their state of thaw, so in order to facilitate proper cooking, large scallops need generally lower heat and relatively smaller diameter pans, and small scallops need generally higher heat and relatively larger diameter pans.

Feel free to add more pesto and vegetables, or cheese if you need more cheese to survive.

ps - avoid work, especially in regards to making a living, as it is bad for your health; take the example of recreational jogging versus running for fear of your life: which is more hazardous to your health?

I like Green Inc.

Working with high school debate kids, we focus on certain questions that are momentous in the world today and often controversial in the way that both sides have compelling cases. Like Michael Valentine Smith from Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Hienlen, I personally find the detailed and momentous examination of microcosms of our ethics and values, such as Nuclear vs. Oil vs. Green Technologies, to be the most compelling of issues lately.

Technology is a reflection of our culture. Take basket weaving; how often have you heard of basket weaving being derided as a pariah of the uselessness of higher education? Yet, historically, basket weaving is highly prized for its economical practicality and also lauded as a measuring stick of comparative Anthropology. But, for all our recent technology, we find so many containers sold in the cheapest stores in America are more expensive than what weaving a basket would cost. Further, plastics are non-biodegradable petroleum derivatives, and worse, we're not so sure that microwaving genetically modified processed food in plastic doesn't cause cancer or Alzhiemer's (etc.)

We're happy being unsafe as long as it is convenient. Tragically, the real world forces that try to tear apart our peace and prosperity (I'm referring here to human nature in aggregate, not pointing fingers at some conveniently ethereal, ideological, "other" enemy) are not only opposing viewpoints, but the sum of judgments against us. In other words, we can't tra-la-la through our day pretending that we live in a bubble - everything we do becomes us and is reflected back to us. This phenomenon of karma only increases as our information concentration increases. After all, if we cover the country roads with billboards, then the view from the road will be of an artistic facade which obscures the real nature of a country. Any regular passenger or driver of a car on such a road would have no knowledge of alternate truths (see Plato's The Cave). So through the aggregate of our media do we paint the truth we cling to; so we create the ladder we climb on.

I contend that Nuclear Power is unsafe, that Green technologies are a coming sign of the First Great Worldwide Consumer Reformation, and that anti-socialist/anti-union sentiments in the United States stand in the way of defeating Corporatism in the name of humankind. However, I believe the Free Market (such as it is) will build as many nuclear plants as is economically sustainable - given the rising demand of power, we could tax the development of nuclear plants and the revenue of such plants, and many plants still would be build by private interests. This is assuming of course that we remove other barriers to building plants. Our tax of these industries could fund oversight, research, and regulation of the admitted evils of Nuclear waste and Nuclear proliferation. Meanwhile, those two negative aspects will be kept minimal through federal levies on nuclear power.

Innovation is the Platinum core of progress. Our country clearly craves change. The second step in this infinite journey is latching on to new ideas while balancing the ideal benefits of the past - every new idea we embrace is saying 'yes' to the question of step 1 - can we change?

A Future Reminder To Always Vote

Vote! from Amir on Vimeo.

Theramin Video - The Legend of Zelda

Our Inherent Strengths

Among our weaknesses is biology and history. We have an unimaginably high propensity to do what both tell us to - intrinsically. Chemistry and Physics combined with psychological and social sciences together display a matrix of our behavior that is seemingly inevitable.

Our inherent strengths are all that follow after the above decimal is removed.

Fortunately, education in all its forms (mind expansion) provides further evidence of biology and history in our own consciousness. Given this rise in attention of our impulses and desires, we follow the monk's path to righteousness; that is, the pursuit of conscientiousness where progress crosses values to unfold the matrices of our private and public lives. Where we trend to go, our followers will toddle.

I'm flubbed like me, and the bitterest pill I can think of -

1. Get your shit together (take that as you may).

2. Go through all your shit (work your higher self knows you need to do).

3. Arrive at a place of enlightened (compassionate), self-motivated objectivity.

4. Live your damn life (continuously following rules 1-3).

A note on profanity: how useful against fighting undesirable causes are words that are florescent orange? and ... (albeit cited unethical) does this explain why useful words are shunned in favor of somnambulance?

Lyrical Content Benign? Mad Rad - My Product

Hyper-factional Militarism

How are we going to undo the vast damage that has been done to international relations? By staying in Iraq and building a fleet of Nuclear Power Plants and Missle Defense Systems? Get real.

Human civilization has once again come to the cross-roads of legitimized violence and it's natural historical consequence: the legitimation crisis; maybe on a global scale this time as never before have we seen.

Chomsky would be the first to persuade us that though it is so blatantly referred to in our culture, that it is the crux of how we legitimize the authorities that umbrella us together.

From The New York Times today:

Secret Order Lets U.S. Raid Al Qaeda


By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: November 9, 2008

WASHINGTON — The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

* * *

Mourners shouted anti-American slogans on Oct. 27 in Syria at the funeral of someone killed in a cross-border United States raid.

* * *

A 2004 order permits attacks on terrorists outside war zones.

* * *

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

For this last election, this is a map of Red and Blue states whose size has been skewed proportional to the number of Electoral College votes they represent (based on population, but skewed to favor smaller states). It is revealing, to me, to see which states persist in a narrower world-view. Perhaps alternatively, they are states where designer narrow-issue focused propaganda does the most good (for the GOP). The danger in saying such things is that we are a purple country mostly, with a few patches of red and many patches (dare I say swaths) of blue. Here is the breakdown on that idea:

As Evidenced By History

I was wondering amid all the hubbub of election day while America seemingly splits into two anecdote-fabricated world-views, thinking how good the media is at writing history for us. How much do we live in the medium of sound bytes? How often are the same words spoken in media suddenly or frequently heard from the mouths of human beings working and living and creating the truth of the world? What can we do about that?

Now the long haul begins. I hope Obama isn't too "center" and that he listens to Nader, et al., once in a while.

This video is why I wish Anchorage was more like Seattle.


Capitol Hill Obama Mob from Aimee Fertman on Vimeo.

Behind Hype Lies Truth and Comedy

Copied from The Onion:


Struggling Lower-Class Still Unsure How Best To Fuck Selves With Vote

October 30, 2008 | Issue 44•44


Related Articles

* Top Story On John McCain Run Out Of Obligation September 3, 2008
* Obama Warns He May Cease To Exist Unless America Believes In Him October 30, 2008

WASHINGTON—As election day nears, millions of the nation's poorest voters have reportedly yet to settle on the most profound and enduring way to completely fuck themselves over when they head to the polls this year.

"On the one hand, I'm pretty sure Barack Obama will undermine my best interests by maintaining the same centrist, pro-corporate policies of previous Democratic administrations," said Jim Estey, 34, a recently laid-off assembly-line worker. "Conversely, I agree with McCain and Palin on abortion, which might just balance out the fact that they'll further marginalize people like me by supporting deregulation and slashing social programs. So it's pretty much a toss-up at this point."

Though such behavior appears to directly undermine their own well-being, lower-income voters have historically supported candidates determined to screw them six ways to Sunday, including Bill Clinton, who incarcerated them in record numbers and cut the welfare benefits many depended on for day-to-day sustenance, and George W. Bush, who widened the gap between them and the rich and sent thousands of them to die in Iraq. This year's election is reportedly unique in that the nation's poor must not only weigh how deeply and painfully their chosen candidate will penetrate their rectums, but must also consider unforeseen outside circumstances—such as economic collapse and terrorism—that might allow the next president to bend them over and brutally rape them in ways they never thought possible.

The latest polls indicate that a majority of lower-class citizens might choose not to vote at all Nov. 4, preferring instead to leave the details of how they get fucked to the moneyed classes.

Contains a "bad" word M$%@*!^*(#er

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