:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Monday, December 16, 2002 ::

Sunday December 16, 2002 American River College
i think these are one of those night you remember forever--that what why I emBOLDend my date


So I had my first play produced tonight. I don’t really know what it feels like yet. I never
thought I’d see my head cut open and exposed for everyone. They even screwed up one
or two lines--which I liked, it wouldn’t be me to get things exactly as I planned them.
Afterwards people kept saying they liked it, but I don’t believe them--it wouldn’t be me to believe
them. I guess it was just nice to get out thoughts that wouldn't be proper to speak in public at random moments, stick them on a stage and people are okay with them. I could have done better, I guess thats what next time is for. I don’t know where I
go next, I guess thats the fun part.

When you start counting backwards, trying to find
where it all went, it all seems so similar. But then sometimes you find that somewhere
along the way you were able to do something that was worth keeping, noting,
remembering. And yes everything just gets filed away in large black file cabinets and
incinerated at death, but at least they were filed away. Kept--for what it was worth--as
something of worth. So now I have to go learn to how to try to be a playwright on the
side and a political theorist on the sly. Its nice to go to sleep hoping things won’t fall
apart--for at least a while--so that you have a chance to see where this all leads.

:: Jim Nichols 12/16/2002 01:16:00 AM [+] ::
...

So I guess it is working

If you blinked it was gone. But for just a moment I felt a wave of uncensored and uncontrolled power wash over me. And I was there in the moment. A complete connection and acceptance to life and the whole shebang, lost in oblivion, complete freedom. Slowly though, I began to recognize everything was in slow motion and was reactive to my own consciousness, and felt myself coming back down. I slid back into myself and it was over. I guess we can’t spend our lives sliding down mountains—no matter how beautiful and exihlerating—at some point people start checking id’s at the door and contrary to popular belief my genes want to thrive.

:: Jim Nichols 12/11/2002 10:46:00 PM [+] ::
...

Welcome to the Democrats' Misreading
How the Liberal Elite Keep Losing Big Elections to the 'Regular' Guys Like Bush and Reagan


People, like everyday people, really do eat up Bush's persona. I find it appalling but they do.

and this part was just funny : ...It is this last quality, he said, that liberal intellectuals don't understand. Americans prefer "sunny, optimistic presidents," Rogers theorized, whereas "intellectuals are tormented people. "Think about it," he said. "Have you ever met a really happy French philosopher?"

:: Jim Nichols 11/10/2002 01:09:00 PM [+] ::
...

Self Censorship: How Often and Why Journalists Avoiding The News

:: Jim Nichols 11/06/2002 10:24:00 PM [+] ::
...

its something to do with my reuptake system. That and my gaba system...
the existentialists had it all wrong even though they were right...kinda sorta

:: Jim Nichols 11/03/2002 05:58:00 PM [+] ::
...

So, this is what they call nothingness
Finally got up around noon or so but it took me a few hours to get going. Once I got going I didn't end up getting anywhere and mostly spent the day not doing anything but sifting through old emails I never got around to reading.

:: Jim Nichols 11/02/2002 06:23:00 PM [+] ::
...

How not to stimulate the economy
Bush proposal fails tests any successful stimulus package should pass

by Christian Weller and Laura Singleton


-------------

"Instead of a quick infusion of cash to energize the economy, the Bush Administration offers some proposals that would take years to become effective and some that would actually harm overall demand.

The President’s most costly “stimulus” proposal is to make last year’s tax cuts permanent after 2012. But in order to end the slowdown and prevent another recession, government stimulus is needed immediately, not 10 years from now.

Likewise, a major element of the Bush plan rests on the fast-track “trade promotion authority” that he recently obtained from Congress. But major trade agreements take years to negotiate. Such agreements as the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, even if eventually achieved, cannot possibly provide the near-term stimulus that the economy needs now.

Moreover, trade deals negotiated in the 1990s, such as the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, actually hurt the economy. The trade deficit has exploded since 1994 and shows no signs of abating. As a result, the United States has lost more than 3 million high-paying jobs, mostly in manufacturing industries like aircraft, electronics, steel, and textiles. And the deficit growth has required increasing amounts of capital inflows, turning the United States into the world’s largest debtor and putting its economic stability at risk.

As for the increase in contribution limits for 401(k) plans, proposed recently by President Bush at his economic forum in Waco, Texas: even if successful, this measure would not stimulate demand but rather would increase savings and drive down consumption. Consumer spending is the only part of the private economy that has contributed to growth over the past two years. A decline in consumption could push the United States back into recession."


-------------

"Any robust economic recovery to growth rates above 3% will require an additional economic stimulus in the form of more government spending. The only factor that kept the recession from deepening in the past year was the increase in federal government spending and tax rebates. Indeed, government spending is the most viable way to stimulate demand quickly.3 Without substantial short-run stimulus, the economy is likely to remain fundamentally weak well into 2003."

----------

"Another major source of future weakness is the growing share of consumption that has been financed out of debt. Consumer debt has remained at very high levels—more than 14% of disposable personal income—through the first quarter of 2002. Default rates reached record highs in the first quarter of 2002 as they jumped from 3.3% to 4.1% for all consumer loans and from 6.3% to 9.2% for credit cards. The growth in borrowing and default rates will make it harder for consumers to finance continued consumption with credit cards or other kinds of debt."

--------

"Finally, growth in spending by federal, state, and local governments so far has been the economy’s main salvation. However, state and local governments, which collectively spend almost twice as much as the federal government on consumption and investment (excluding transfer payments), are reeling from the budget impact of the recession. Fiscal crises at the state and local level are already exacerbating the recession by leading to spending cuts and raised taxes. These ongoing state and local fiscal crises will further dampen growth in 2003."

------------

Not only is the Bush plan too small, it targets the wrong people. None of the proposed policies would help those hardest hit by this recession, particularly low-wage workers, recently hired and fired welfare recipients, and the long-term unemployed. In fact, many of the president’s proposals, such as increasing the tax exempt contribution levels for 401(k) and IRA accounts, will only help the most affluent Americans, as currently less than 5% of individuals with 401(k)s—mainly high-income individuals—contribute the maximum amount allowed.

----------

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2002 09:35:00 PM [+] ::
...

Creon-- ....I wish I weren't alive.

Chorus-- Try to forget it. It is the only way.

Creon-- I invite Death. Do you only come uninvited?
Come and take me. I cannot bear to live.

Chorus-- No time for such thoughts now. You're still in charge.
You've got to see about these corpses, or
We'll all be polluted.

Creon-- I meant what I said.

Chorus-- No use in such prayers. You'll get what's destined.



---------

Chorus-- .... All old men have learned to be sensible;
But their juniors will not take the lesson as proved.

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2002 05:09:00 PM [+] ::
...

Ismene- I only hope you can, But its impossible.

Antigone-- Must I hang back
From trying, just because you say I can't?

Ismene-- If it's impossible, you shouldn't try at all.

Antigone-- If that's your line, you've earned my hatred
And that of our dead brother too, by rights.
Oh kindly let me go my foolish way,
And take the consequences. I will suffer
Nothing worse than death in a good cause.

*Antigone Sophocles

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2002 05:02:00 PM [+] ::
...

I got the new Tori Amos the other day. I haven't really had time to listen to it except in the shower. So I don't know what I think about it.
I don't know what I think about it. I think thats my quote of the day. But you know what... I don't know what I think about it.

wow... sorry... hehe... couldn't help myself on that one. Jesus its 4:50. The day is almost over. And I haven't gotten anything done.

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2002 04:52:00 PM [+] ::
...

this can be so vile
I'm not feelin it today. I have to finish my personal essay for transfering this weekend. I'm ready for this month to be over but then i'll just want march or may or whatever to be over so I can know where i'm gonna go spend the next two years of my life.

other things are far more important: but I didn't get a chance to read the paper today so I don't know what they are.

I have a new idea for a play. I need to sit down and write it out. WHo knows what'll happen. I'm really disappointed with the last one. But this guy at school is producing it at the end of the semester so what the fuck do I know. I don't have good taste... I make it up instead.

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2002 04:50:00 PM [+] ::
...

"One very important ingredient of success is a good, wide-awake, persistent, tireless
enemy." -- Frank Shutts

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2002 09:24:00 PM [+] ::
...

A future somewhere in there.... maybe?

My new facination of late has been--and I don't even know what exactly to call it--Sociobiology/neuropsychology/political pyschology. Anyhow for some reason i've become facinated by the whole brain, its genetic facts, the implication of those facts on a human beings reactions, views, beliefs; and the implication of those implications on human relations as a whole. This is, to be quite honest an area to which I have no background knowlage what-so-ever. I'm currently reading a book called How the mind works by Steven Pinker. I find it facinating, but then I read this artical The Origin of Specious And why reductionists are winning the Darwin wars. It just makes me realize how little I know about any of this stuff--maybe thats why i'm really enjoying it.
http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/17/blume-h.html

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2002 08:48:00 PM [+] ::
...

Hey look at that, the Anerican Prospect, has a blog.

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2002 08:33:00 PM [+] ::
...

I've really slacked on the blog. My idea was to learn to better communicate, but it started as a middle man shipping stuff I find intersting, off in neat packages. And since the begining of the semester a place to spit short catch phrases, quotes, and flames. I think I need to try to reattempt to throw up at least something worth wild every day. Consistency, got to work on that consistency--no matter how busy life gets.

Then again as I think of it, I shift quicker than the wind does. I think this is an interesting forum to at least expose those shits, to more honestly understand my inconsistency. Who knows?

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2002 08:30:00 PM [+] ::
...

At some point it becomes a game. One where you go 'and then... and then... and then...' and somewhere you finally find yourself lost. This is the punch-line. But you don't know it yet. This ends up being quite amusing but you won't notice it at first. The question becomes what you want to do with the random nothingness. Questions are useless. But tv advertisements are only posthumously reassessed--that guy that passes you will ask what/when/where/why. Thats where you insert the obvious, the needed, the answers. I guess this is whats called life, but I can't quite be certain. How do you reinvent when you don't know what can change? How do you stop caring, when its not even your brain? At some point it becomes a game, but i'm not sure if i'm there yet.

:: Jim Nichols 10/28/2002 08:57:00 PM [+] ::
...

"The aggression and paralysis entailed in conviction, its urgency and anxiety, remind us again that enlightenment is always bounded by encroaching dark, that in modernity truth has never really been fully convinced of itself." -Wendy Brown

:: Jim Nichols 10/26/2002 09:28:00 PM [+] ::
...

Something I must remind myself of tonight

"If you hate your parents, the man or the establishment, don't show them up by getting
wasted and wrapping your car around a tree. If you really want to rebel against your
parents: outearn them, outlive them, and know more than they do." -Henry Rollins

same goes for when you are infatuated with someone, no?

:: Jim Nichols 10/26/2002 08:15:00 PM [+] ::
...

Screw it... I think i'm gonna go to UC Santa Cruz major in philosophy and do nothing....

:: Jim Nichols 10/08/2002 11:58:00 PM [+] ::
...

LIBERTARIANISM: BOGUS ANARCHY


Libertarianism is
not anarchism, but actually a form of liberalism. It does, however, have
a point of origin that is traceable to the same juncture as anarchism's
marginalization. So in this limited sense there is a shared commonality.
To be more precise, the rapid industrialization that occurred within the
United States after the Civil War went hand in glove with a sizable
expansion of the American state.[16] At the turn of the century, local
entrepreneurial (proprietorship/partnership) business was overshadowed in
short order by transnational corporate capitalism.[17] The catastrophic
transformation of US society that followed in the wake of corporate
capitalism fueled not only left wing radicalism (anarchism and socialism),
but also some prominent right wing opposition from dissident elements
anchored within liberalism. The various stratum comprising the capitalist
class responded differentially to these transpiring events as a function
of their respective position of benefit. Small business that remained as
such came to greatly resent the economic advantage corporate capitalism
secured to itself, and the sweeping changes the latter imposed on the
presumed ground rules of bourgeois competition.[18] Nevertheless, because
capitalism is liberalism's raison d'etre, small business operators had
little choice but to blame the state for their financial woes, otherwise
they moved themselves to another ideological camp (anti-capitalism).
Hence, the enlarged state was imputed as the primary cause for
capitalism's ``aberration'' into its monopoly form, and thus it
became the scapegoat for small business complaint.

--------------
It is no coincidence that Libertarianism solidified and
conspicuously appeared on the scene just after the United States entered
an economic downturn (at the same time Keynesian economics was discredited
and neoclassical theory staged a comeback). The world-wide retrenchment of
capitalism that began in the late 1960s broke the ideological strangle
hold of a particular variant of (Locke-Rousseau) liberalism, thereby
allowing the public airing of other (Locke-Burke) strains representing
disaffected elements within the capitalist class, including small business
interests. Libertarianism was one aspect of this New Right offensive. It
appeared to be something sui generis. Libertarianism provided a simplistic
status quo explanation to an anxious middle class threatened by the
unfathomed malaise of capitalism and growing societal deterioration,

--------------------------

:: Jim Nichols 10/08/2002 10:02:00 PM [+] ::
...

Instant Runoff Voting

:: Jim Nichols 10/07/2002 02:49:00 AM [+] ::
...

a distinction you most likely can never see: just read/please
I notice that I cry when my jokes create no laughs--but only true tears fall honestly--so I
note: quite often I don’t know a joke, until I’ve heard no one laugh.

its so routine it's almost funny

{"And its not like I'm lost or anything. We're all too fucking middle-class to ever be lost.
Lost means you had faith or something to begin with and the middle-class never really had
any of that. So we can never be lost..." --Coupland, Douglas Life after God}

the nihilistic self-hatred of a non(politicized)American punk.
but the screams tell us that HTML1DocumentEncodingutf-8if you're not mad you're crazy
I think i'm writing another book

:: Jim Nichols 9/25/2002 06:25:00 PM [+] ::
...

one looks into the void and sees nothing but the void--there is no moral structure, there is no help, no one's coming, no one gets it, I have to do it.
--Joss Whedon

:: Jim Nichols 9/22/2002 06:10:00 AM [+] ::
...

There is more to come... I just need time, not blindsided emotion or fear. Just past the bridge, down the road, where the sun is setting. I know it can appear to be dancing alone. But its just a reflection, that sometimes reaction. A swing from extreme---swing back to extreme. Thats what life is. I wouldn't be suprised that I still haven't learned it, at least on my quieter days I know...that I know...that I know.

:: Jim Nichols 9/17/2002 10:07:00 PM [+] ::
...

It's Friday again


Slate--"today's papers"
Iraqnophobia
By Holly Bailey
Posted Friday, September 13, 2002, at 5:02 AM PT

"A report issued yesterday by the White House lists a familiar litany of Iraqi sins, the WP says, including human rights abuses, links to terror groups and efforts to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Everybody notes that this generated little surprise among prominent Iraq experts, but no one quite captures the color like USA Today, which actually quotes an expert's reaction as 'Ho hum'."

:: Jim Nichols 9/13/2002 02:46:00 PM [+] ::
...

So... I haven't been here in... lets see, wow, over a month. I started up another blog that I'm never telling anyone exists ( I mean I guess I just told you it exists but the point is you don't know where it is--meaning its for me not you) Me not you, thats a new concept for me. So surrounded I am by conceptions of you. What you think. What you react to. What you react as. How I should react to you. How I should react as to your reaction. The mindless cycle goes on and on. I hesitate to say anything here now. I feel constantly on gaurd. But all this week i've been thinking about who I am. And its slowly coming to me that i've been holding back too much. Too afraid. And isn't that always the way the story goes? But I think what i'm going to try to do is make this an every Friday evening... should I say recap... errr maybe friday excavation of whatever is in my head. I'm tired of trying to stick everything I see that I think is good onto one spot on the web. Why do I care? And the answer I found is I don't. I'm too much of an individualist to try to make up for others incompetance. I have my own to make-up for. I've been really busy with school. I can't tell if i'm taking too much on... or if i'm learning to handle a full load. Maybe a little of both. Maybe everything in life ends up being just another test?

I'm listening to the new Hot Water Music as we speak. I don't know what I think of it. But listening to it makes me think of how long I've been here (22 years). And it doesn't seem real to me. There isn't anything I could stand on if it really came down to it. WE all have our thoughts on existence... but really all they are, are thoughts. We still end up dancing alone to our own music. I can't tell if i'm moving on... giving up... or what exactly this, here, now, is. It can be whatever I want I guess. But I don't know where i'm supposed to make myself fit. What part of the puzzle do you choose to play? How do you know where you'll fit the best? How can you find out the answer to a question like that. Like that being something there is no right or wrong answer to.

I wrote a play this summer. I don't like it very much. And i'm not sure why I tried to write it. But I wrote it. And i'm happy I did. And maybe I can learn something about myself from it. Maybe I can learn something about the world from it. We exist. And that reality still fucks with my head to no end. Its a concept I so rarely grasp at. And I grasp at so much. Proabably too much. But we'll see how it goes. Me, and the grabbing. I don't think this is that important in the end. Thats why i'm okay with my constant need to digress and "fill in the blank" with all my own lines and concepts and interests. This story is about me. My story is about me. Everyone else has their own time and space. But I do think everyone needs to find a space... take a space... and make it their own, demand to be who it is that they need to be with no apology. I need to learn no apology. I need to learn no fear. I need to learn to lose my fear of you, all the you's, you's just playing me's. And me's are always the assholes shooting down the good ideas for the sole reason that they feel alone... and want everyone to feel the same way... so that everyone can be alone together. But you don't get to be alone with me... errr else I wouldn't really be alone.
And so much time has/is going by. I remember LA and what it meant to me. And I can't help but think that that expiriment was possibly wasted. Or maybe it was exactly what I needed at that time. Cause in the end when is the right time time to die? And could anyone really pretend to know why... to any of this?

:: Jim Nichols 9/06/2002 10:00:00 PM [+] ::
...

Shopping at wal-mart
So as i'm walking up to the door, to do my part to degrade labor standards throughout the world, I notice this blond and I are gonna make it at the exact same time, she notices too and we both kind of did the "i'm not gonna look at you...just slow down" thing--errr actually she was looking at me through the sunglasses; appearntly I too was cheating. So i'm saying to myself...quick quick...say something witty. We both laugh (after we did the stutter step stop dance) and I wave her on through...mind still racing... I didn't want to be a hick and say "pretty girls go first" and all I could think was... "my ego isn't big enough to go first"(which was true). But the timing was by then off (spent too much time on the pretty girl comment) and it just would have been creepy at that point. But its perfect... i'm gonna use it next time that happens (never). You say... sorry my ego won't let me go in front of you...for distraction purposes. And as they try to figure out what exactly that meant...you stay next to them and say. So, you want to share a cart? If they don't laugh, quickly walk away...

:: Jim Nichols 7/30/2002 03:07:00 PM [+] ::
...

God I find nothing more amusing
than a Natural Nuclear Holocaust... maybe i'm sick. But thats fucking humor.

Expert: Asteroid May Hit Earth but Don't Panic

hehe... paragraph 2:
The asteroid -- the most threatening object ever detected in space -- is 1.2 miles wide and apparently on a direct collision course with Earth.

Yes it appears that the asteroid was seen stumbling home from the bar with two large weapons in his hands. He was reported to have said that "earthlings have it coming." And something about not talking about his mama. Before this the greatest threat detected was a young star on an egocentric rampage... who was threatening to bring back the razor-scooter as a fad for the whole family.

:: Jim Nichols 7/24/2002 03:50:00 PM [+] ::
...

This is where the story start. Right here. This is where you the reader begin to follow along to my little hum-dee-dum. What I'm thinking is that you're going to hate it. What i'm thinking is, this is a waste of both our time. But i'm not going to tell you that. Instead i'm merely going to mention that this is where the story begins.

Like every story it just starts. Go to the library. Go to the second floor. Third to last row. Go to the top shelf. Yes the one all the way at the end of the aisle. Go grab any book on that specific shelf, and that story will begin just like this one does.

Unless you happend to hit the New Age/Occult section.

In which case you'll read about how this is a manual for the beginner. That you are a beginner. And that you too can learn Numerology. All those bad things in your life won't be so bad any more. It'll tell you this and you'll read on. By page four you'll be asking yourself about why your mother didn't love you. You'll do this because I asked you to. Not outright...but subtley. And you're hooked.

Don't worry. This isn't that book. I hope to god you didn't find me on that random top shelf that fucking ended up being the New Age/Occult section. This is a story. One of those of scary books. The kind of book your neighbor Ed's kid, the one that sits in his room all day and wears all black in 90 degree summer heat worships. My picture, the hero, is on this kids wall. Thats how fucking good this book is. But you don't know that yet. I really hope you stick around. I really hope I stick around.

But getting back to where I left off.

This is the begining. A story about love. A story about obsession. A story about a man who sleeps with an Ax under his bed and dreams of some day killing childern.

That guy, you'll see him in chapter 6.

I promise.

Now back to this story. Please keep on reading. I'm begging you. I know i've got nothing else to do but tell it. I know you've got nothing better to do than read it. We're both shit out of luck. There really isn't anything for us to do put pass the time before we die and take note of the random characters, the strange ones, that we run into and seem a little bit more interesting than the rest of this grey drab emptyness you're Aunt Marie calls God's great blessing.

Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against God. I just think he has bad taste. By the end of this you'll probably think I too have bad taste. Price you pay for being God I guess. May as well give away--if I haven't already--this is just a story. This is not a great blessing or even a blessing at all. And so we begin...

The kid had given me a funny look. He had been sitting two booths over from me drinking his cup of coffee. This kid told the waitress everything. All his little secrets. Apperently his cousin had commited suicide. This blue haired little devil went on and on about it. The overweight waitress Patty. She couldn't care less. But this kid, I don't even think he was talking to anybody really, this kid went on. Apperently he ran away from home at 12 got his G.E.D. by mail. Was accepted to Havard Business School last week. Apperently this kid--Tom, I would later find out--was a liar.

Tom.

This is where my story begins. And I really hope you're hooked cause I can't make you turn the page. But I will say this. On page four I will tell you why your mother never loved you.

I promise.

:: Jim Nichols 7/24/2002 01:59:00 AM [+] ::
...

Brazilian Democracy Faces Obstacles from the
North
by Mark Weisbrot

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL -- In this slum carved
out of the hilltops overlooking Rio de Janeiro,
Claudia de Andrade Burgo explains why she plans
to vote for Lula, the presidential candidate of the
Workers' Party, in Brazil's 2002 elections. "He is
from the people -- the poorer classes. The Workers'
Party is more likely to create jobs."

Claudia is a 31-year-old single mother with
two children, who earns about $40 a month for
childcare work. She has lived all her life in
Jacarezinho, a favela -- one of the slums
surrounding Rio, where drug dealers are often the
law and police fear to tread. She is ready for change
in Brazil.

But unknown to Claudia, her vote could be
cancelled by the decisions of Wall Street firms
some 5000 miles away. Last week Luis Ignacio da
Silva -- or Lula as he is popularly known -- pulled
ahead in the polls. He scored 38 percent, with the
nearest competitor at 16 percent.

Brazil's financial markets showed no
reaction, until the US financial giants Merrill Lynch
and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter downgraded
Brazilian bonds in response to the polls. The
Brazilian stock market dropped more than 4 percent
in one day, and the press broadcast Wall Street's
warnings far and wide.

The power of these firms to move financial
markets -- and thereby intimidate the electorate -- is
a growing threat to democracy in Brazil, as well as
in other developing countries.

In the case of Brazil, Wall Street's warning
seemed unfounded, and it raised suspicions of
political motives. The Workers' Party has made
clear its intention to honor the government's
existing obligations, and there is little reason to
believe otherwise. That's why Brazilian financial
markets showed no reaction to the poll results, until
Wall Street weighed in.

Indeed there is a strong case to be made that
the Workers' Party program makes economic sense,
and is sorely needed. Like most of Latin America,
Brazil has suffered a drastic slowdown in economic
growth over the last two decades. Income per
person has barely grown: 5 percent from 1980-
2000, as compared to 141 percent over the previous
20 years (1960-1980).

Yet the current government of President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso has kept real interest
rates here among the very highest in the world. This
pleases Wall Street and has made a few Brazilians
very rich, but it has stunted economic growth and
greatly increased the country's debt burden. Income
per person has grown by about one percent annually
since Cardoso took office in 1994.

Income inequality has also worsened. Of
course Brazil has long had one of the most unequal
distributions of income in the world. But in the
1960s and 70s, when income per person was
growing by 4.5 percent a year, the majority of
Brazilians experienced at least some improvements
in their living standards. That is no longer true.

The Workers' Party proposes to raise growth
with lower interest rates and investment in public
infrastructure. One of the most badly needed of
these investments is in sewer systems: 60 percent of
Brazil's households flush untreated sewage into the
waterways. Poverty and fiscal austerity are terrible
for the environment.

The Workers' Party has also proposed a
"zero-hunger" program for the more than 30 million
Brazilians who do not have enough to eat. This
would include a combination of food stamps,
increased minimum wages, and support for small
and medium-scale agriculture to produce for the
domestic market.

In a nation of 175 million people that is rich
in resources and has more land than the continental
United States, these are feasible goals. And most
observers agree that the Workers' Party has a very
good track record in the localities where it has
governed.

But there will be powerful opposition from
special interests, at home and abroad. From the
United States, it is not only Wall Street but also our
government that poses a threat to fair elections in
Brazil. During the 1998 election, the New York
Times reported that a large US loan package would
only be approved if Cardoso (rather than Lula) were
elected. Such threats did not determine the outcome
in 1998, but they could easily make the difference
in a close election.

Given the Bush administration's support for
a military coup against a democratically elected
government in Venezuela, and its open intervention
in last years' election in Nicaragua, we can hardly
expect better behavior this time around. Ironically,
most Americans believe we should let Brazilians
(and everyone else) choose their own governments.
But that kind of thinking has yet to trickle up to
Wall Street or Washington.

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for
Economic and Policy Research, in Washington
D.C. (www.cepr.net)

:: Jim Nichols 7/22/2002 01:00:00 AM [+] ::
...

Global Force for Afghanistan Urged

We've already invested money into bombing the country...someone else should stabalize it! duh....

:: Jim Nichols 7/21/2002 11:23:00 PM [+] ::
...

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war...and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." --James Madison, April 20, 1795

:: Jim Nichols 7/20/2002 04:33:00 PM [+] ::
...

"[T]o those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends." --U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, December 6, 2001

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's analysis of USA PATRIOT

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): "USA Patriot Act Boosts Government Powers While Cutting Back on Traditional Checks and Balances"

:: Jim Nichols 7/20/2002 04:11:00 PM [+] ::
...

“The modern Christian ‘fundamentalist’ who bravely continues to ‘believe’ in a real star of
Bethlehem or an actual Garden Tomb in Jerusalem from which Jesus rose from the dead is
making the same unimaginative mistake as Heinrich Schliemann when he dug in the sands
of Hissarlik and thought he was finding Homer’s Troy. Troy is in the Iliad, not in the
sand. And because of Homer, not because of the sand, Troy exists in the collective
consciousness of the human race.” --A. N. Wilson “Paul: The Mind of the Apostle”

:: Jim Nichols 7/20/2002 09:21:00 AM [+] ::
...

“The modern person can be dismayed as well as puzzled by what Paul has done. ‘None of
this happened.’ In a sense, such a sceptic, viewing matters (as Paul would say) ‘according
to the flesh’, is in the same case as the gallant modern ‘believer’ who would try to
assert--’Yes it did happen.’ Both believer and unbeliever would be trying to apply
post-Enlightenment standards of verisimilitude to stories which grew up in a different
imaginative world; and therefore the modern student of the New Testament finds herself
reduced to the absurdity of asserting the bodies really did come to life or float through the
clouds.” --A. N. Wilson “Paul: The Mind of The Apostle”

:: Jim Nichols 7/20/2002 09:15:00 AM [+] ::
...

Summer at 12: The Pool Grows, the Mystery Deepens
By SARA RIMER

I just thought this piece was absolutely brilliant...

:: Jim Nichols 7/19/2002 08:07:00 PM [+] ::
...

This was funny The New Bull Market by Michael Kinsley

"President Bush, who spent 56 years on this earth without revealing the slightest passion for corporate reform, now says life will be intolerable if he doesn't have a bill to sign within a couple of weeks."

"The politicians are only trying to ride the wake of popular outrage. But this public outrage is also a bit stagey. It seems that average citizens are so emotionally invested in the conventions of financial documents that discovering the cost of stock option grants in a footnote, rather than in the profit-and-loss statement, itself is enough to destroy their faith in the economy. Who knew?"

:: Jim Nichols 7/19/2002 07:11:00 PM [+] ::
...

"We don't need more leaders. We just need people to inspire each other." -- Dennis Lyxzén of The (International) Noise Conspiracy

:: Jim Nichols 7/16/2002 08:00:00 PM [+] ::
...

Thank you Cramyou have no clue how happy this makes me.

Read this one Jim, it's for your birthday! Excitement!
by Cram Anagram
Mon Jul 15 04:21:34 EDT 2002

I'd like to celebrate your birthday
but I'm not sure that I can,
another year of misery
is more than I can stand.

But I don't know if I'll be here
to wish to you again
so I'll wish you happy birthday
before my soul's condemned.

I'd like to get you presence
but I can't neglect the past
and I forebode the coming future
so let's both get real trashed.

Happy birthday to you
now that you're twenty-two
you're always so pissed
so stop reading the news.

It's now another anniversary
but one you won't forget
rhyme like in a nursery and plan out your regrets.
You've got alotta blessings
and lucky stars to thank
so pass the bottled Vendenge
and we'll both get real tanked.

Happy birthday to Jim
life's looking so grim
you're closer to death
than when forced to begin.
There's homeless in the gutters
starving children in the street
politicians in the White House
getting eight hours of sleep.
There is no God in Heaven
life's a reactionary fluke
that birthdays commemorate
to distract you from the truth.

We're breaking China's treaty
they're making nuclear bombs
force shields aren't gonna save us
the day reality finally comes.

How many clinics are we bombing
how many children have we raped
since we can't count all the bodies
count the candles on your cake!

There's garbage in the water
poison in the sky
it won't be very long until
we're all gonna die.

:: Jim Nichols 7/16/2002 05:53:00 PM [+] ::
...

Was it truly a gay Science oh bad joke sorry...

:: Jim Nichols 7/06/2002 11:32:00 AM [+] ::
...

There is a place outside this self, this thinking being. A place which this being can never fully understand.

:: Jim Nichols 7/04/2002 12:08:00 AM [+] ::
...

Possibly there is nothing within art. Quite possibly there is nothing within me--which may be best of all, for then there is nothing disappointing. Disappointment comes from expectations. No expectations no disappointment. Happiness in slavery yes, but not quite slavery after all, no?

:: Jim Nichols 7/04/2002 12:02:00 AM [+] ::
...

One of the greatest overcomings anyone must make, that of overcoming what was before. The greatest enemy of such things? A simple question--Why.



"When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed." -Anti-Christ Superstar

:: Jim Nichols 7/01/2002 03:13:00 AM [+] ::
...

"The day the world ends, no one will be there, just as no one was
there when it began. This is a scandal. Such a scandal for the human race
that it is indeed capable collectively, out of spite, of hastening
the end of the world by all means just so it can enjoy the show."

Jean Baudrillard
--Cool Memories

:: Jim Nichols 6/22/2002 02:22:00 PM [+] ::
...

Tuesday, June 25
----------------
Game 1: Germany vs South Korea at Seoul (South Korea) 7:30 am ET

Wednesday, June 26
-------------------
Game 2: Brazil vs Turkey at Saitama (Japan) 7:30 am ET


THIRD PLACE -- Saturday, June 29
================================
Loser Game 1 vs Loser Game 2 at Daegu (South Korea) 7:00 am ET


FINAL -- Sunday, June 30
========================
Winner Game 1 vs Winner Game 2 at Yokohama (Japan) 7:00 am ET

:: Jim Nichols 6/22/2002 01:55:00 PM [+] ::
...

"For 'existentialism' like 'Enlightenment' denotes not so much a historical period as an attitude, a style, and a message. The attitude is that of respect for freedom and for being. The style is authenticity. And the message is the optimistic reminder: You can always make something out of what you've been made into." --Thomas R. Flynn "Existentialism and Beyond"

:: Jim Nichols 6/21/2002 02:10:00 PM [+] ::
...

"[I]n the current circumstances, devolution from the federal government to the state level is disastrous. The federal government has all sorts of rotten things about it and is fundamentally illegitimate, but weakening federal power and moving things to the state level is just a disaster. At the state level even middle-sized businesses can control what happens. At the federal level only the big guys can push it around. That means, that if you take, say, aid for hungry children, to the extent that it exists, if it’s distributed through the federal system, you can resist business pressure to some extent. It can actually get to poor children. If you move it to the state level in block grants, it will end up in the hands of Raytheon and Fidelity—exactly what’s happening here in Massachusetts. They have enough coercive power to force the fiscal structure of the state to accommodate to their needs, with things as simple as the threat of moving across the border. These are realities. But people here tend to be so doctrinaire. Obviously there are exceptions, but the tendencies here, both in elite circles and on the left, are such rigidity and doctrinaire inability to focus on complex issues that the left ends up removing itself from authentic social struggle and is caught up in its doctrinaire sectarianism. That’s very much less true there. I think that’s parallel to the fact that it’s less true among elite circles. So just as you can talk openly there about the fact that Brazil and Argentina don’t really have a debt, that it’s a social construct, not an economic fact—they may not agree, but at least they understand what you’re talking about—whereas here I think it would be extremely hard to get the point across. Again, I don’t want to overdraw the lines. There are plenty of exceptions. But the differences are noticeable, and I think the differences have to do with power. The more power and privilege you have, the less it’s necessary to think, because you can do what you want anyway. When power and privilege decline, willingness to think becomes part of survival." -Noam Chomsky "Expanding the floor of the Cage"

:: Jim Nichols 6/20/2002 11:54:00 PM [+] ::
...

Generation X: So very...Blank, and still undefined.
by Jim Nichols

To try to place magic words of description on a generation seems at first shallow and of little intellectual virtue, merely a vapid exercise in self-gratification or else a blame game of petty patriarchal names, hypocritical false statements, and historical misnomers. The name, the description, the cultural label given to a generation--upon closer examination--is always full of contradictions. Ironically enough as I began to try to codify my generation, Generation X born between 1964-1981(Washburn 54), within a single description, I realized that by semantic fluke it is the only generation to stay true to its description. Not only does it retain its labels of apathetic, slacker, and undefined, but it is the first generation entirely born into an economic Superpower.

These two truths at first seem disconnected and of little consequence, but the connection is glaring and of much importance if one is to understand my generation. Generation X was the first solely manufactured generation of the century, slacker and apathetic were not self-anointed descriptions of a chosen path, but an afterthought, a symbolic way of saying and showing that there was never a path created--economically restrained, by the choices and paths earlier generations made or couldn't help but make; politically repressed, due to its lack of size; institutionally controlled, by a major shift in the political views of the country--a generation lacking the power and self-motivation that other generations were allocated and entitled to, it callously had no other choice but to fall into the description it had been given: X, undefined.


The century began with a bang, 3 successive generations, with romantic titles and romantic expectations. After the Spanish-American War the country grew from a small-time-nobody to another player on the world's stage. Both the Industrial Revolution and the Europe's asinine tendency to kill one another created for the G.I. Generation born from 1902-1925, the Silent Generation from 1926-1945, and the Baby Boomers from 1945-1964 (Washburn 54), a vacuum in which U.S. geopolitical self-interest could take the driver seat after World War II. Back home this had made for an economy that saw great expansion and growth, and a perception that with hard work (the giant government intervention in the economy is always left out of the equation) one could achieve success and prosperity.


With the superpower stalemate of the Cold War, the rebuilding of the industrial centers of (West) Germany and Japan, and the expansion and growth of infrastructure within the country itself complete, the country no longer had realpolitik as a stimulating force in its leniency towards the la-di-da of egalitarianism and idealism. The dismantling of the Bretton Woods system of financial regulation in the early 70's created an international environment that put an end to the concept of the Welfare State as politically viable--business was finally allowed to run free. Profits over people became the new mantra, the business world was able to more efficiently look internationally while humans were forced to make do within their own country. This is what Generation X was born into, a major shift in the global economy and political infrastructure. Where earlier generations had expansion and dominance on their collective minds, Generation X found themselves constrained conceptionally and politically to the Nation-State while the world moved towards a Multi-National Corporate hegemony.


These new economic changes meant, as Abby Ellin wrote in her article "Generation X, Still Undecided", that "it...[has] become clear that we [will] not follow in our parents' footsteps--no 35-year job, no four-bedroom house in the suburbs before the age of 30." Where other generations had expansion or social change to defuse the energy of the young, Generation X came of age lacking such traditional paths. The right of passage had been blocked by international stability and rounded off in the cul-de-sacs of suburbia. But these new realities did not only affect our own perceptions of the world, all generations were effected. A new ideology of "me" became the rule, with a conservative movement leading the way to vilify and cut back on social spending which was not privately profitable to investors short term (all the while increasing spending within the pentagon/high-tech sectors of the economy). As the infrastructure became more and more underfunded (cuts in spending for schools, health care, day care) the true cost of these "savings" became more apparent, in "all those abstract problems like youth crime and teenage pregnancy" (Lynch "Taking Stock").


When I asked one Gen X'er what a word like Generation X meant, she told me she didn't feel "a part of any name." Many in Generation X feel estranged from any idea of a group in which they are bound together by some commonality. But when asked what words like Trickle Down Economics, Reagan, and Nicaragua said to her, without pause she sighed, "the 80's. They screwed their own children over... kinda funny when you think about it." This is the sardonic wisdom, exposed by my generation, at its best. This disdain and distrust of what society wants of them, in such a broad and general fashion, would be shocking in a pre-Vietnam, pre-Watergate era. In this generation it is merely one of the many hats being worn.


From this disdain and distrust another label has befallen on this generation, that they are apolitical. Once again you find a situation, quite common to Generation X, where external realities are brushed over and the actions are magnified. Instead of asking why there is a generation of people unwilling to take part in a process that has great effect over their lives, the conclusion is drawn that they don't care. A true calibration of Generation X's political views would more than likely find a group that feels that their voice can not be heard within the current process. Their small size creates a situation where the other, larger, generations concerns retain greater focus and have greater sway over what little influence the public sector now retains. The validity of the straight and narrow within the political realm may be destroyed but Generation X is also the generation that showed up in Seattle to shut down the WTO meetings. They have organized many other anti-corporate globalization demonstrations in the past few years since, as well. Political apathy apparently shows up as hard dedicated organizing these days.


Generation X found itself manufactured, a transition age where everything flipped. A society which moved from the modern to the postmodern, not the text but subtext; the liberal to the neoliberal, not the ideal but the bottom line. Hightech subsidy's became the internet and once again the public was privatized--except we were the generation in charge of that transition--our expectations and goals were channelled and opportunity was finally ours for the taking, or so we were told. As Generation Y is making its way into the real world the Business pages are reading the obituary for that great transformation of Dot-COMs, and Generation X is once again looking for new work, new places within which to entrust our expectations, channel our goals. The great diaspora that is Generation X, always being told not to worry, that the Promised Land is just around the corner, continues.


To be the 13th generation from the founding of our country is rather fitting. A generation that felt it had no place, got to be the testing ground for truly making this country a place where the minority of the opulent are protected from the majority, as one of our founding fathers had aspired (or was that conspired?) to create. We didn't even demand the handouts given to every generation before us, because as Orwell once noted "circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip" (Barsamian at al. 80). We were trained to not ask questions and not have expectations, manufactured to respond that we were apathetic and didn't know what we wanted to do. Even when the rough edges show up, the seedy underbelly of years of neglect, it was explained away as mere wandering. Generation X never really was any of those things specifically, it got labelled as a negation, undefined. But a negation can be anything, our disunity and lack of direction fit within that anything, but any other generation's could have done the same--in us it comes out as our validation in others their hypocrisy. It wasn't like Generation X asked for such purity(sic), in fact we've been a generation constantly at odds with being labelled.


Yes Generation X truly is, was, and will always be X. Undefined. But that's not saying anything about us, about who we are and what we dream. That's just another label for a generation that grew up with labels and is a little embarrassed to keep telling people that broad generalizations will not fit--if only because we won't allow it to happen. I asked a friend, a fellow early twenty something in college(a late Gen X'er), to sum up the Generation. "Maybe Richard Hell and the Voidoids's 'Blank Generation' might apply. That's not to say blank as in nothing, but blank as in fill in the blank line." In the end it probably doesn't matter how we define our own generation, I've been told we tend to whine about everything anyway. If that is true, I can't help but think that if we hadn't been given so much to whine about, quite possibly, we wouldn't.


---------------

Barsamian, David, and Noam Chomsky. Propaganda and the Public Mind. Cambridge: South End Press, 2001.
Ellin, Abby. "Generation X, Still Undecided." New York Times 17 Jun. 2001, sec. 3:10.
Lynch, Stephen. "Taking Stock of Gen X: It's Fallen Sharply." The Washington Post 25 Apr. 2001, CO8.
Washburn, Earl Trey R. "FAAP." Physician Executive, Jan./Feb. 2000, vol. 26(1), p. 54.

:: Jim Nichols 6/19/2002 12:18:00 AM [+] ::
...

There is something I find fascinating about reality, but i'm not really sure how to explain it.

:: Jim Nichols 6/19/2002 12:13:00 AM [+] ::
...

See Change?

good points. good one-liners.

:: Jim Nichols 6/09/2002 09:01:00 AM [+] ::
...

Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition

:: Jim Nichols 6/09/2002 08:54:00 AM [+] ::
...

Scientific Boehner:
The new creationism and the congressmen who support it. by Iain Murray

"ID is not, however, true science. According to the eminent modern philosopher Karl Popper, the defining characteristic of science is that its assertions are falsifiable. In other words, if we have no means to prove a theory wrong -- by experiment, observation, and the like -- then it is not scientific. And theories that cannot be falsified simply have no place in science books or classrooms."


"The only scientific theory of life's origins thus far is the theory of evolution. ID may have a genuine role to play in the classrooms of philosophers or comparative theologians, but it certainly does not belong in the science lab. If creationists want to have their views taught, they must first meet the biggest challenge in history: proving the existence of God."

:: Jim Nichols 6/09/2002 08:46:00 AM [+] ::
...

And the Emmy Could Go to: Comedy Actresses Worthy of the Statuette

Lauren Graham should win everything. I mean like lotto, an emmy, MVP for the National league....

:: Jim Nichols 6/07/2002 07:09:00 AM [+] ::
...

"I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the
wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other
countries and in this. But I do say, that in all disputes between them
and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of
the people."

Edmund Burke
--Reflections on the Revolution in France

:: Jim Nichols 6/07/2002 03:19:00 AM [+] ::
...

ABC Plays God, Bleeps "Jesus"

:: Jim Nichols 6/07/2002 03:16:00 AM [+] ::
...

Dee Dee Ramone, Rock Singer and Artist, Dies at 49

:: Jim Nichols 6/07/2002 03:12:00 AM [+] ::
...

Putin Tries Weaning Russia Off the Oil Barrel

:: Jim Nichols 6/06/2002 01:49:00 AM [+] ::
...

EU Market Recognition is Linked to Gas

From Evil Empire to potential cheap labor in under 20 years.

:: Jim Nichols 6/06/2002 01:45:00 AM [+] ::
...

NATO Plans New 'Military Concept' for New Threats

New "military Concept" for terrorism... its not new. Its called counter-terrorism. And its the exact same thing, except its done by the (do the bunny-ear fingers with me people) "good guys".

:: Jim Nichols 6/06/2002 01:30:00 AM [+] ::
...

been sing to myself... all the live long day

"Morality enforcement based on the interests of a state, coerced into concordance and threatened into place. It's not just isolated incidents of cop-jocks kicking ass. It's a fucking war machine protecting the wealth of the employing class." --Propagandhi

:: Jim Nichols 6/06/2002 01:13:00 AM [+] ::
...

"The means of... communication..., the irresistible output of the entertainment and
information industry carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits, certain intellectual
and emotional reactions which bind the consumers... to the producers and, through the
latter to the whole [social system]. The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they
promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood... Thus emerges a
pattern of one-dimensional thought and behaviour." --Herbert Marcuse

:: Jim Nichols 6/06/2002 01:02:00 AM [+] ::
...

Found a great web site.... called Voice of the Shuttle.

Dandy of a humanities web site, if I do say so. And I do. So I have. There you go.

(okay i'm going to edit that "great"... it has a bunch of dead links...but what it does have is still really good)

:: Jim Nichols 6/06/2002 12:49:00 AM [+] ::
...

Well geezz the U.S. actually won a world cup game

U.S. 3
Portugal 2

It was an excellent match to watch.

:: Jim Nichols 6/05/2002 03:56:00 AM [+] ::
...

I'm tired of people always talking about how they want "the world to work." The world works just fine, it always has and always will--no matter what we infinitely unimportant beings ever do. What they mean to say is that the world is not working the way they'd like it to.

:: Jim Nichols 6/04/2002 09:27:00 AM [+] ::
...

I always doubt what I know is right and I tend to be correct in that assumption.

:: Jim Nichols 6/04/2002 06:28:00 AM [+] ::
...

My whole tendency and, I believe, the
tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion
was to run against the boundaries of language. This running against
the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far
as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate
meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no
science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But
it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally
cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it.

--Ludwig Wittgenstein

:: Jim Nichols 6/03/2002 03:52:00 AM [+] ::
...

4.003 Most propositions and questions that have been written about philosophical matters are not false but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness. Most questions and propositions of the philosopohers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language. They are of the same kind as the question whether the Good is more or less identical than the Beautiful

:: Jim Nichols 6/03/2002 03:21:00 AM [+] ::
...

6.53 The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing
except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science--i.e. something that has
nothing to do with philosophy--and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something
metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in
his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person--he would not
have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy--this method would be the only
strictly correct one.
--Ludwig Wittgenstein "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"

:: Jim Nichols 6/03/2002 03:13:00 AM [+] ::
...

So much he says confuses me, but I still see something in him that fascinates me as much as Nietzsche

5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

5.61 Logic pervades the world; the limits of the world are also its limits.So we cannot say in logic, 'The world has this in it, and this, but not that.' For that would appear to presuppose that we were excluding certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case, since it would require that logic should go beyond the limits of the world; for only in that way could it view those limits from the other side as well. We cannot think what we cannot think; so what we cannot think we cannot say either.

5.62 This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism. For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.

5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)

--Ludwig Wittgenstein "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"

:: Jim Nichols 6/03/2002 02:58:00 AM [+] ::
...

You know you've become a pirate when you've already read 80% of the articles before seeing the critique Economics Reporting Review:May 18 - May 24

I actually have gone back this week and started rereading his "Social Security: The Phony Crisis" book... its amazing how little one's mind will retain.

:: Jim Nichols 5/31/2002 02:08:00 AM [+] ::
...

And now And now And now

The past is always what just happend and beyond. The future is what is just about to happen and beyond. The present, I can only seem to find by noting it--"And now And now And now"--as it goes...



----------------

:: Jim Nichols 5/30/2002 11:02:00 PM [+] ::
...

U.S. Exports Misery to Africa With Farm Bill

Instead of spending this money retraining people for more advanced cutting edge jobs we're still growing extra food.

"According to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which monitors fiscal policies in industrialized countries, farm subsidies already are distorting the economics of agriculture in the United States. Of every $1 in U.S. farm revenue, about 25 cents comes from the government, according to OECD analysts. In 2000, government support averaged $20,800 per farmer."

:: Jim Nichols 5/27/2002 04:29:00 PM [+] ::
...

The centre of me is always and eternally a terrible pain.

Bertrand Russell
--The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The Public Years
1914-1970

:: Jim Nichols 5/25/2002 07:24:00 PM [+] ::
...

I think that there are no forces on this planet more dangerous to us
all than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism, of all the species:
Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as
well as countless smaller infections. Is there a conflict between
science and religion here? There most certainly is.

Daniel Dennett
--Darwin's Dangerous Idea

:: Jim Nichols 5/25/2002 07:23:00 PM [+] ::
...

The beauty of the democratic systems of thought control, as
contrasted with their clumsy totalitarian counterparts, is that they operate
by subtly establishing on a voluntary basis - aided by the force of
nationalism and media control by substantial interests -
presuppositions that set the limits of debate, rather than by imposing beliefs with
a bludgeon.

Noam Chomsky
--After the Cataclysm


-----

:: Jim Nichols 5/25/2002 07:22:00 PM [+] ::
...

Cannes VIPs Walk Out on 'Irreversible' Violence

Its always good to see people pushing the limits, though from past experiences of expecting other peoples limits to be very far, I'll probably have to see it for myself to know if it does.

:: Jim Nichols 5/25/2002 07:03:00 PM [+] ::
...

"At this time of distress people naturally recalled old oracles, and among them was a verse which the old men claimed had been delivered in the past and which said: War with the Dorians comes, and a death will come at the same time. There had been a controversy as to whether the word in this ancient verse was 'dearth' rather than 'death'; but in present state of affairs the view that the word was 'death' naturally prevailed; it was a case of people adapting their memories to suit their suffering. Certainly I think that if there is ever another war with the Dorians after this one, and if a dearth results from it, then in all probability people will quote the other version." --Thucydides "The Peloponnesian War"



---------

:: Jim Nichols 5/25/2002 09:39:00 AM [+] ::
...

Production data weaken eurozone recovery hopes

economics still baffle me

:: Jim Nichols 5/24/2002 06:47:00 PM [+] ::
...

Does Poverty Fuel Terror?


-------

:: Jim Nichols 5/24/2002 06:44:00 PM [+] ::
...

Decision on euro membership economic, not political, Blair says


The Wall Street Journal the other day said that Blair's internal polling was showing that they've closed the gap and are within the margin of error for joining the EU. I bet we'll see a big push soon.


-------

:: Jim Nichols 5/24/2002 06:37:00 PM [+] ::
...

Radical Farmers Storm Polish Agriculture Ministry


----------

:: Jim Nichols 5/24/2002 06:33:00 PM [+] ::
...

US farm bill plan arouses African fury

oh this is a good one....

"Bono said. 'We can't have people in Congress who agree with debt cancellation and want to do something on Aids and then sponsor the farm bill.' "

noooo...
Hate to break it to you, we can... and we just did. And yes, when Bush II was explaining to those backwards peoples about the need for free trade... he had no cloths on. But nobody said anything.

:: Jim Nichols 5/24/2002 05:08:00 PM [+] ::
...

And the angels came forth from the heavens

Telling the people the good news they said. "Your heavenly father has spoke, your
semester is over."

And the people danced and sang.

And there was much rejoicing.

:: Jim Nichols 5/24/2002 04:26:00 PM [+] ::
...

She gave me this sheet. A character analysis. This list of things she wanted to know (or was it "I" wanted to know). Physique, posture, marital status, obsessions, beliefs, ambitions, sexual history. And I kept thinking, what the hell? What she wanted was a storyteller... well shit. Thats what I wanted too. And if I wasn't gonna get one, then why should she get one either. You know what I can give her, I can give her words, and they'll taste like salty water... cause.... fuck her. Thats why.

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 02:13:00 AM [+] ::
...

I cut my hair again. Its like being 15 all over again. And you know.. a hair cut is not a lifestyle. But it sure is funny to watch all the people get so mad. What I mean is that it sure is nice to know that everyone does hate you, that its not just a hunch you have.

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 02:02:00 AM [+] ::
...

He said we should evolve. And I said I didn't even know what we should do. It was then that I knew it was never going to end, and that when it truly did, I wouldn't even get to enjoy it.

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 01:57:00 AM [+] ::
...

All they could ask was "why". And all I could think was, yeah thats what I wanted to know too. But you don't see me getting stuck on that anymore do you? Nevermind.

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 01:50:00 AM [+] ::
...

"What good is intellect if it leaves us immobile and frozen in indecision? At some point, despite all the other options, you have to commit yourself to a path. Being flexible is fine, it's maybe the greatest talent you can have, but in order to define yourself, you need to pursue your passion. There will always be good reasons not to do something, or to do something else, the world is full of women more beautiful than your wife, you can never choose the best car, there's always a cheaper air fare. What's most important is that you choose and get on with your life."

- CHUCK PALAHNIUK

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 01:39:00 AM [+] ::
...

"I am Jack's complete lack of surprise" -yeah so I don't have a lot of influences

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 01:35:00 AM [+] ::
...

"... and God asks me, "Why?"
Why did I cause so much pain?
Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness?
Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love?
I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong.
We are not special.
We are not crap or trash, either.
We just are, and what happens just happens.
And God says, "No, that's not right."
Yeah. Well. Whatever.
You can't teach God anything." -Fight Club

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 01:33:00 AM [+] ::
...

"That old saying, how 'you always hurt the one you love', well it works both ways." -Fight Club

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 01:22:00 AM [+] ::
...

drinking margarita's is studying... right?

You know what... I don't like tests at all. I mean I just don't see how memorizing something is worth anything in the world. Your boss won't say... give me this by 5 pm... oh and no looking anything up asshole. Maybe its just cause whenever someone tells me to learn.... blank. I don't learn... blank... so I can prove that learning...blank...isn't really necessary. I have yet to learn that proving this gains me nothing. Still I do it...and just feel like a complete asshole. You'd think i'd get used to it by now.

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 01:12:00 AM [+] ::
...

I don't like this Jim Nichols shit they stick at the end of every post... if I'd known it'd be like that i'd have signed up as So says God...
and then everything would end... "so says God"

that would make me laugh

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 01:04:00 AM [+] ::
...

and she goes... "wait, what do you mean"

and I go... "exactly"

she didn't get it

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 01:02:00 AM [+] ::
...

"Foucault values the brilliant opacity, the dark superficiality, the casual profundity of those writers who inhabit the silent places left by the discourse of 'normal' men. His debt to them would permit us to place him among the anarchists--if he shared their utopian optimism; or among the nihilists--if he possessed any standard by which to justify his preference for 'nothing' over 'something'. But Foucault has none of the directness of his heroes. He cannot say anything directly. And this because he has no confidence in the power of words to represent either 'things' or 'thoughts'." -Hayden White

maybe this is why I quote instead of speak...

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 01:01:00 AM [+] ::
...

"Information can be transmitted in two ways: either by coding it in a shared language or by drawing attention to it, by displaying it." -Dan Sperber

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 12:50:00 AM [+] ::
...

in two days I will be done.
and then I get a week
to do nothing but read.
i'm looking forward to that


------

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 12:48:00 AM [+] ::
...

sometimes naked
sometimes mad
now the scholar
now the fool
thus they appear on earth
the free men

-Hindu verse

:: Jim Nichols 5/23/2002 12:45:00 AM [+] ::
...

half a pound of apathy... two 10 page term papers... and a bottle of I wanna sleep forever

i was gonna type something... but I don't feel like it anymore. it wasn't important anyways.

:: Jim Nichols 5/22/2002 11:28:00 PM [+] ::
...

The "Oh Really?" Factor Bill O'Reilly spins facts and statistics

FAIR does it again. I should go learn how to do better reaserch and go work for them. Hell I should just go learn something...

:: Jim Nichols 5/22/2002 05:43:00 PM [+] ::
...

Stop Wasting Anti-Drug Ad Money

-------

:: Jim Nichols 5/19/2002 03:57:00 AM [+] ::
...

Netherlands moves right, but faces political gridlock

---------------

:: Jim Nichols 5/19/2002 03:49:00 AM [+] ::
...

The Cato Institute published a report in 1998 under the name 'protecting the homeland,
the best defense is to give no offense'. The Cato Institute is a nonpartisan public policy
research foundation headquartered in Washington, D.C. The report can be found here in pdf



--------

:: Jim Nichols 5/19/2002 03:46:00 AM [+] ::
...

Ralph Nader attacks post-Sept. 11 response of corporate America, Bush and Western Europe


--------

:: Jim Nichols 5/19/2002 03:25:00 AM [+] ::
...

Improving U.S.-Russian relations may face some setbacks

-------------

:: Jim Nichols 5/19/2002 03:22:00 AM [+] ::
...

East Timor to Be World's Newest Nation

------------

:: Jim Nichols 5/19/2002 03:19:00 AM [+] ::
...

U.N. says corpses bobbing in Congo River tributary, expresses concern after uprising against rebels


---------------

:: Jim Nichols 5/19/2002 03:17:00 AM [+] ::
...

"Because of the instinct of rebellion, man has never been content, finally, with the limits of his life: it has caused him to deny death and to war with morality. Man is a rebel. He is committed by his biology not to conform, and herein lies the paramount reason for the awful tension he experiences today in relation to Society."
--------
"Today, in the struggle between man and Society over the issue of conformity, Society is winning becasue man, the rebel, does not yet know how to rebel successfully--positively. his protest is expressed in negative forms, in ways which may discharge somewhat the energy of his rebellious instinct but which yield him little profit; indeed, in ways which are often actually harmful to himself and to the community. Non-conformity, as it is now conceived, is largely exhibited as psychosis, neurosis, crime, and psychosomatic illness; or it appears as pitifully hopeless and vain little defiances of convention and custom in dress, manner, opinion and taste. All of these ways are negative, unproductive, totally inadequate to meet the situation man faces."
-Robert Linder "The Pressure of Conformity and the Instinct of Rebellion"
----------

:: Jim Nichols 5/19/2002 03:10:00 AM [+] ::
...

Done been gone for a while

"phosphorus glowbugs in the night sky crazy german guy discovered that
element...
never cleaned out his bathtub...
sulphur, brimstone, oh and chlorinated water syterms,
aw, you all just wanted to be argon with his magic chalck, yo ne?
but where do we draw from here?
it's so noble, this neeling painful sorrow
but baby, that bow, and we take a deep breath, and dive off the stage
again,
my friend, and again and aga8n and agian and again.........." -Tonja H.

I take things. These itty bitty moments--picture the sky as small and then wonder what big is--moments. I take them one by one. And capture them in thought, phrase, image. Repition is God, God is Repition. 180 pages of qoutes.... I know I know stop passing on what others are saying and say it. Say that thing thats on the tip of your tongue. Say it and stop trying to make others see you through others. Its not my fault. I grew up in this prison of you's not wanting to hear me. And me's not wanting to work the magic, take the time, to bend the sculpture into something you could finally see. Something that was finally understanding. A close call at actually taking that little part of me that flashes past/just now/and just now/now/now... and moving somewhere to within you. THe you. You. Other side of the Universe from where i'm standing... cause you don't break that silence of never reaching the insides of the other's I. My I is not your I. Or is it... could it be...thats what i'm trying. That second just a second where it works out. You've seen it before. Its how I know its so near to possible. In a laugh. In a smile. Its not a definite. Not an answer. But christ if you don't get it by now that i'm done with answers. I'm on the other side reasons, back over on the unreason. They say our mysterys are something special. SOmething unique and all our own. But its lonely to every few years...stop... look down and see all the madman steps you've taken...and just laugh. Brillant to know that the walls you've built. The images you love. The catch-phrase redundant repitition is where you find it. Thats why I like them, Quotes... or Qoutes... or Qoui... they bend. They break. Misused and abused. they mean only what you bring to them. They fold into tight little pretty corners. They burn so bright you can see for miles again... and so seldom do we ever want to see for miles anymore. I like it... I miss it... its what I do try so hard to do.... See for miles again.

:: Jim Nichols 4/28/2002 12:00:00 AM [+] ::
...

ICC Passed
66 countrys as of April 11th. Should be interesting to see what happens.

Nations line up...

:: Jim Nichols 4/14/2002 10:48:00 PM [+] ::
...

Can't be neutral on a moving train
Last night I finally listened to System of a Down, people have been telling me for a long time now that i'd like them. I had liked that one single but never got around to listening to anything else. Went nuts last night and downloaded a ton of songs. I likes, I likes. Metal and Hardcore are the same in my book, I have to have the lyrics before I think there is any quality in it. Hell I listen to Assuck and thats not even music. Plus anybody who quotes Howard Zinn in a song is okay in my book.

:: Jim Nichols 4/14/2002 01:13:00 AM [+] ::
...

"People have a careless way of talking about a 'born liar,' just as they talk about a 'born poet.' But in both cases they are wrong. Lying and poetry are arts--arts, as Plato saw, not unconnected with each other--and they require the most careful study, the most disinterested devotion." -Oscar Wilde --The Decay of Lying

:: Jim Nichols 4/14/2002 01:03:00 AM [+] ::
...

I stayed away for a few days!! Which is always a good thing I guess. Info overload--wake up arguing with myself-- and just don't care to process anything new. Oh I saw this movie this morning before I went to sleep called Over the Edge. I was about this planned community called New Grenada (sic) and these "crazy--out of control" kids. Its sooo bad. I loved it. I wonder if thats what The Wipers song of the same name is from. Its gotta be, around the same time at least. I saw Ghost World, my dad kept trying to get me to go when it was in the theatres, finally got around to renting it. It was good, I enjoyed. Pure disillusionment, great lines, strange secondary characters. Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi were a hoot...

:: Jim Nichols 4/14/2002 12:50:00 AM [+] ::
...

It's The Occupation
by Bill Thomson
excerts:

"As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan put it in a letter to Prime Minister Sharon on March 19, 'In this connection, I feel obliged to call your attention to disturbing patterns in the treatment of civilians and humanitarian relief workers by the Israeli Defense Forces .... Judging from the means and methods employed by the IDF - F16 fighter bombers [supplied by the United States-BT], helicopter and naval gunships [supplied by the United States-BT], missiles and bombs of heavy tonnage [also supplied by the United States-BT] - the fighting has come to resemble all-out conventional warfare.' "

"How are we, as Americans, to interpret such events? Why didn't the Palestinians accept former Prime Minister Barak's "generous offer", which would have given the Palestinians "most of what they wanted"?
Imagine that someone comes to you and makes the following proposal: I am going to let you and your family finally live in your home, relatively undisturbed. Most of the rooms will be yours to do with as you see fit--all I want is one room, the hallways, and control over who goes in and out your front and back door. You may occasionally have to ask my permission to go to the bathroom or into the kitchen to prepare a meal, but I will usually let you pass with only a quick glance. However, remember that anytime I want, I can seal up the hallways and make you go to your room. I understand that you are willing to let me have the rest of the neighborhood. I just need a little bit more to make me feel safe. And I'll be happy to give you a few acres out by the city dump in exchange for the room in your home."

"In a 1998 article, Rumania & Bar-Tel point out that both Israelis and Palestinians both perceive only themselves as historical victims, and both have legitimate claims to the land. Through systematic internal indoctrination, each sees the other as an invader. Palestinians fail to understand the Israeli obsession with security, based on Israeli's self-perception as an island in an Arab sea, recognizing that to lose a war is tantamount to disappearance as a nation. Israelis' fail to understand Palestinians' legitimate claims to the land and need for a viable state, and that Palestinians see themselves as having borne the brunt of an oppressive military occupation for many decades. Both sides assume that through violence they can prevail, without carefully and logically considering the ultimate outcomes of such violence."

"Finally, what is the role of America in this process? Unfortunately, our claim to be an "honest broker" in this process is transparently false. One need look no further than our long history of financial and military support of Israel over the last five decades ($92 billion), or the recent declaration of support of Israel by 70 members of the US Senate. Of such actions is not honest-broker ship made. It is long past time for us to retire to the sidelines, and allow this issue to be dealt with by the United Nations, the European Union and other appropriate international bodies. The alternative is more decades of oppression, violence and fear."

:: Jim Nichols 4/10/2002 04:46:00 AM [+] ::
...

On Bush's recent (un)speech about the Middle East conflict
Bush's Speech By Robert Fisk (my italics)

"On it went, 11 September-speak applied to the Middle East. Israel's enemies must be eliminated - Al Aqsa, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbollah, which yesterday beat up a UN observer on the Lebanese border in the most dangerous incident of its kind since the Israeli withdrawal in 2000. The whole Bush speech revolved around Israel's well being, with scarcely three minutes devoted to the Palestinians and their 35 years under occupation. Israel should, Mr Bush decided, show a "respect'' for and "concern'' for the Palestinian people.

There was some ritual mention of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which calls for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1967 war but which Mr Sharon has already said he cannot accept, and an appeal to halt settlement building. But Jewish settlements are still being built, at an ever-faster rate, on Palestinian land.

Only a heart of stone could not respond to the suffering of those Israeli families whose loved ones have been so wickedly cut down by the Palestinian suicide bombers. But where was Mr Bush's compassion for the vastly greater number of Palestinians who have been killed by the Israelis over the past 19 months, or his condemnation of Israel's death squads, house demolition and land theft? They simply didn't exist in the Bush speech.

The money for "martyrs" does not, of course, only go to the kin of suicide bombers - it goes to families of all those killed by Israelis, most of whom have been struck down by American-made weapons. Certainly, America has never offered to make reparations for the innocents killed by the air-to-ground missiles and shells it has sold to Israel."

:: Jim Nichols 4/10/2002 04:26:00 AM [+] ::
...

" It is simply extraordinary and without precedent that Israel’s history, its record- from the fact that it… is a state built on conquest, that it has invaded surrounding countries, bombed and destroyed at will, to the fact that it currently occupies Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian territory against international law- is simply never cited, never subjected to scrutiny in the U.S. media or in official discourse…never addressed as playing any role at all in provoking’Islamic Terror’."

Edward Said in " The Progressive," May 30, 1996.

:: Jim Nichols 4/10/2002 04:16:00 AM [+] ::
...

So i've been stuck at an ethical fork in the road... its 20 bucks to go to san fran for the solidarity march... do I go? Because I know I should. I know I would be important as another number, which is the only way people with signs and banging on drums ever are, its such a joke. But the bigger the better. No publicity is bad publicity ya know. But at the same time, being selfish (and self-rightous), do I want to spend the day muttering under my breath "I don't like you" "You're a moron" "You are doing this cause some mythical being told you to be nice" "You're a fascist, like me" (we don't like our own). THe brilliance of the system is to change anything it takes organization or money... and organization means you have to stand your fellow human beings. And fact is I don't. Its an irrational pyschological creation of mine, but the rational side of me understands my own pettyness... so I split the differece. I'm sending the 20 bucks to the Sacto peace action network... organization or money. I'll pay some bills at least. Plus I can spend that day working on school... which is quite a radical action for me.

:: Jim Nichols 4/09/2002 11:27:00 PM [+] ::
...

"Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry." -Spanish Proverb

:: Jim Nichols 4/09/2002 10:48:00 PM [+] ::
...

Dear Cancer "You are not likely to be impressed by strong overbearing actions that try to lead you down a certain path." shocking was all the audience could say

:: Jim Nichols 4/09/2002 10:46:00 PM [+] ::
...

The Taxonomist: The unrelenting corporate welfare lobby By Robert S. McIntyre

"So here we are, with corporate taxes down to historically low levels, last year's big upper-income tax cuts phasing in, and deficit spending and raids on the Social Security trust fund as far as the eye can see. The Bush administration's relentless drive to reprise "That Early '80s Show" continues unabated."

:: Jim Nichols 4/09/2002 10:43:00 PM [+] ::
...

Poor oppressed conservatives
You know why the media is more liberal than the average american... cause they're more fucking educated fuck nuts...

I never said it wasn't a good thing that others actually take the time to make more mature rational arguments... I just said I'm not gonna do it....

Label Whores By Geoffrey Nunberg

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF CONSERVATIVE MEDIA CRITICISM. by Jonathan Chait

:: Jim Nichols 4/09/2002 10:36:00 PM [+] ::
...

oh that
triskaidekaphobia \triss-kye-deh-kuh-FOH-bee-uh\ (noun) : fear of the number 13

It's impossible to say just how or when the number thirteen got its bad reputation. There are a number of theories, of course. Some say it comes from the Last Supper, because Jesus was betrayed afterwards by one among the thirteen present. Others trace the source of the superstition much farther back, to ancient Hindu beliefs or Norse mythology. But if written references are any indication, the phenomenon isn't all that old (at least, not among English speakers). Known mention of fear of thirteen in print dates back only to the late 1800s. By circa 1911, however, it was prevalent enough to merit a name, which was formed by attaching the Greek word for "thirteen" --"treiskaideka" (dropping that first "e") -- to "phobia" ("fear of").
Merriam-Webster, Inc.

:: Jim Nichols 4/09/2002 10:08:00 PM [+] ::
...

Is Israel's Present America's Future? By Robert Wright


best points:

"Sharon's basic approach to fighting terrorism has been to find terrorists and kill them, a tactic that also lies near the heart of Bush's strategy. But so far, at least, the more terrorists Sharon kills, the more Israelis get killed by terrorists. You get the picture"

"The problem goes beyond suicide bombers (who obviously don't meet standard game-theory assumptions about rational self-interest), extending well up the chain of command. In January, Israel assassinated Raed al-Karmi, a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Would this deter the group by sending a chilling message to its surviving leaders? Apparently not. Prior to the assassination, the Al-Aqsa Brigades had confined its terrorism to the occupied territories. Since the assassination, it has moved into Israel proper and has launched more suicide bombings than Hamas or any other group."

"Killing terrorists doesn't just fail to discourage aspiring martyrs—it can actually create more of them."

"Bush, similarly, says we need to address the sources of Islamic discontent, including poverty; but when it came time to open American textile markets to Pakistan—which Gen. Musharraf had requested in exchange for his courageous alliance with America—Bush balked."

"It's true that Bush was finally shamed into increasing foreign aid. It will go up by as much as $5 billion a year. But that's about one-tenth of the projected increase in annual Pentagon spending in the wake of 9/11."

"The point isn't that we shouldn't hunt terrorists. Obviously, it's good news that Bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah was just nabbed in Pakistan—and that his high-level colleague Mohammed Atef was killed during the Afghan war. But, in deciding when, where, and how to hunt terrorists, we should bear in mind that hunting them is more fraught with downside than, say, hunting bank robbers."

:: Jim Nichols 4/09/2002 10:02:00 PM [+] ::
...

"Anti-militarists would be more effective in their work if they could see how safeguarding elite interests is the prime engine behind U.S. military expansion. The work we do to block certain weapons systems must be done in conjunction with organizing to undermine the for-profit, market-based economy that institutionalizes greed, concentration of wealth, and a class-based society that reinforces hierarchy and privilege at every turn." -Cynthia Peters

:: Jim Nichols 4/09/2002 09:33:00 PM [+] ::
...

Earth at Night

Cool shit... click the pic its great...

:: Jim Nichols 4/09/2002 08:09:00 PM [+] ::
...

Communism with a young face By James Pitkin

Eastern Europe's push west is still not going over as well as it was desired. Which is probably good for Democracy.

:: Jim Nichols 4/09/2002 07:43:00 PM [+] ::
...

“I knew that I shouldn’t have, but I did it all the same; and there you have my epitaph, or one of them, because my grave is going to require a monument inscribed on all four sides with rueful mottoes, in small characters, set close together.” -Wonder Boys

:: Jim Nichols 4/08/2002 01:05:00 AM [+] ::
...

"Many of the most valuable structures devised.... may require considerable effort to acquire. Music, mathematics, science and human rights are just a few of the systems of thought that must be built up layer by layer and integrated. Although understanding or creating such constructions is difficult, the need for struggle should not be grounds for avoidance." -Alan Kay

"Humans are predisposed by biology to live in the barbarism of the deep past. Only by an effort of will and through use of our invented representations can we bring ourselves into the present and peek into the future." -Alan Kay Computers,Networks and Education

:: Jim Nichols 4/08/2002 01:05:00 AM [+] ::
...

Found Another Movie
Flix has been playing this movie Out of it
some funny lines...oh its bad....but its got Jon Voight
Paul Williams directed it... he's the guy who directed The Revolutionary (also with Voight and Robert Duvall) which I have honestly yet to see...

I think i've found a name for my movie addiction.... "Offbeat, low-budget youth flick" maybe its cause I think I am one.

:: Jim Nichols 4/07/2002 05:54:00 AM [+] ::
...

Oh-oh tuesday is going to be a NEW Stars Hallow extravaganza! "There's the Rub" (I need a life) anyways here are some gems from "Lost and found":
LORELAI: Oh, I’m fine. I’m just being dramatic. It’s what I do.
-----------------------
LORELAI: I’ve never seen so much stuff. It looks like a white trash Hearst Castle in here.
---------------------
LUKE: We can paint it.
JESS: You mean I can paint it.
LUKE: We can paint it together.
JESS: Great, then we can hold hands and skip afterwards.
------------------------
JESS: So we get curtains.
LUKE: Well, you’ll have to help me put them up.
JESS: Great, then we can hold hands and skip afterwards.
LUKE: Stop saying that.
---------------------
KIRK: I’ll give you fifty-five cents.
GYPSY: It’s sixty-five.
KIRK: Fifty-five cents.
GYPSY: Kirk, it’s for charity. There’s no haggling.
KIRK: Oh no, there’s always haggling. Sixty cents.
-------------------------
LORELAI: And to make matters worse, she spots it: the single bed.
LUKE: What's wrong with a single bed?
LORELAI: You know what they say.
LUKE: No, what do they say?
LORELAI: Never, ever date a guy who owns a single bed. It means he's not open to a commitment.
LUKE: What?
LORELAI: It says there's no room in this life for anybody but me.
LUKE: No, it says there's no room in this bed for anyone but me.
----------------------
LUKE: Ten properties? What are you, buying up the town?
TAYLOR: Not yet, but someday – who knows?
LUKE: But why isn’t anyone stopping you?
TAYLOR: Because, my friend, people are lazy. They don’t wanna think about the proper fabric for an awning or the correct historical color for a building. They just slap any old thing up on a wall and sleep like babies. But soon, hopefully, the city council will put an end to that.
LUKE: Taylor, you cannot tell people what color to paint their buildings!
TAYLOR: Well, someone has to.
LUKE: No, they don’t. We don’t live in a fascist country.
TAYLOR: Oh, this isn’t about the fascists – who, by the way, had their faults but their parks were spotless.
LUKE: I have to get out of here.
----------
[Cut to Luke's, Jess is reading and listening to music as Luke walks in and takes a sledgehammer out of the closet. He walks across the room and swings the sledgehammer through the wall, then hands it to Jess.]
LUKE: That’s your room. Finish up. We’ll hold hands and skip afterwards.

:: Jim Nichols 4/07/2002 05:16:00 AM [+] ::
...

Ah..hemmm.... U.S. taxpayers
"All I ask is that, in the midst of a murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder and to make a choice. After that, we can distinguish those who accept the consequences of being murderers themselves or the accomplices of murderers, and those who refuse to do so with all their force and being. Since this terrible dividing line does actually exist, it will be a gain if it be clearly marked." -Camus

:: Jim Nichols 4/07/2002 04:35:00 AM [+] ::
...

A little old but still a good article for clarity of intentions Israel's True Intentions in Removing Arafat
By R.S. Zaharna
December 4, 2001
some major points:

"The sustained and myopic focus on the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, has little to do with stopping "terrorism." What removing Arafat will do is induce a Palestinian civil war and, by extension, give Israel a pretext for re-occupying the Palestinian territories."

"The Palestinian leader himself was reluctant to attend the talks at Camp David because he knew the mood among Palestinians was unfavorable to doing so. Under intense pressure from Clinton, he did come to Camp David. Despite repeated American assurances that the Palestinian leader would not be held accountable for potential setbacks, that is exactly what happened. Arafat was personally singled out as the reason for the failure at Camp David. Only months later did American officials privy to the talks reveal that it was the Israeli delegation that stalled."

"The Israelis, by intensifying the focus on Arafat and Palestinian “violence,” were able to downplay Israel’s continuing military occupation and Palestinian disenchantment with military occupation and the peace process that had perpetuated the occupation. The more Israel focused on Arafat and Palestinian “violence,” the more Israel was able to obscure the brutal realities of its military occupation."


"Israeli actions in early spring 2001 clearly suggest that Israeli actions to "maintain security," had a dual, longer-term, strategic purpose. First, the Israelis, by cordoning off the major Palestinian towns from each other and constructing a network of check points and trenches, were able to effectively isolate major segments of the Palestinian population from each other. The "power" of the Palestinian Authority was reduced to noncontiguous pockets of limited control."

"This is the beauty of an effective media campaign. So long as one can control perceptions through intensify and downplay techniques, the reality of the situation on the ground is meaningless. It is the perception that matters"

"The reality on the ground is that Arafat does not and cannot control Palestinian suicide bombers or attacks against Israelis. Both are the direct result of the continued Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories. So long as the Israeli occupation continues, Palestinians will persist in their efforts to end that occupation, by whatever means. Israeli settlers and soldiers are particularly vulnerable to continued Palestinian attacks because they are viewed as the means and instruments of the Israeli occupation."

"If Arafat does yield to Israeli and American pressure to arrest all Palestinian militants (who are perceived by the Palestinian population as legitimately resisting Israeli occupation) Arafat will be removed from power and a Palestinian civil war will likely ensue."

:: Jim Nichols 4/07/2002 04:16:00 AM [+] ::
...