Daily Archives: July 4, 2002

4th of July

What are we celebrating on the Fourth of July?

In 1776 American colonists fought for freedom against a mighty empire, an act of self-determination we still celebrate on the Fourth of July. But we also use the Fourth to maintain a mythology about our role in the world that, while mostly true in 1776, is wholly false 226 years later.

In 2002, we are the empire.

As this holiday comes to a close, i am still asking the question that got me into so much trouble for so many years. Call me unpatriotic, call me a cynic, call me a psycho, but i still don’t get how we can stand up every year and celebrate our systematic oppression of people worldwide under the guise of independence and freedom. We are not free and we will not be free until all people are truly treated equally, respected as individuals and permitted to pursue their notion of happiness in a society of mutual respect. We will not be free until we tolerate everyone’s differences and respect their decisions and needs. We will not be free until we value others’ needs over our own. We will not be free until we stop raping, pillaging, bombing, massacring, hating, all under a flag with an artificial notion of liberation. We will not be free until we lay down our privileges and stand up for those for whom we’ve made life untolerable.

And until we truly try to seek freedom, i will continue to turn my back to the man who is not the president of me. And no matter how much i crave the beauty of fire, no pretty pyrotechnic explosion can convince me to stand falsely united under an oppressive flag or a colonialist pledge or participate in an event that flaunts a bomber plane.

we drove the car to the top of the parking ramp
on the 4th of july
we sat out on the hood with a couple of warm beers and watched the fireworks
explode in the sky
and there was an exodus of birds from the trees
but they didn’t know we were only pretending
and the people all looked up and looked pleased
and the birds flew around like the whole world was ending

No matter what your cause, i just don’t think that war is ever noble.

thesis hatred

i’m having another one of those thesis hatred moments… thankfully, my embittered friend kindly re-reminded me that i was on severe crack for thinking that grad school could be fun…. and yes, i’d rather read another book. ::slap:: won’t let myself. won’t let myself.

luckily, i’m not alone. there’s grad school barbie – am i delusional or outright masochistic? of course, some brilliant grad student has made an entire procrastination site out of grad school comics..

and finally, while i may not believe in the existence of hell, i still appreciate the grad school comparisons:

TOP TEN SUBTLE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GRAD SCHOOL AND HELL:

10. It doesn’t rain in Hell.
9. Everyone has heard of Hell.
8. It’s a lot more fun getting into Hell.
7. You can’t fail out of Hell.
6. At least you can sleep in Hell.
5. Hell is forever; grad school just seems like it.
4. People smile in Hell.
3. You only have to sell your soul to go to Hell.
2. There are hot men and women in Hell.
1. You wouldn’t tell a friend to go to grad school.

nick blackman: go to hell

Ok, so even when i bounce spam, i keep a copy of it for myself, for curiousity sake. I mean, how can i study the digital realm without paying attention to what hell people go through in dealing with nuisances? Well, today definitely irritated the hell out of me. On one of my websites, i keep a public email address for fans to contact me with more information. After i receive a valid email from them, i put them into a list of non-bouncable people so that they don’t continue to get messages saying that this email address is invalid. But, needless to say, 99% of the traffic to that email address is spam, based on web robots. Well, today, a Mr. Nick Blackman from a valid roadrunner domain in Rochester NY decided to spam bomb me (and perhaps many other netizens). Every 2-3 minutes, i received a 40KB scr virus from him, along with notices of someone named Amy’s address and forwards about a friendship screensaver. Knowing full well that he was getting a bounce for every message, i ignored him. But, after the 20th message, i decided to contact abuse@rr.com. They did nothing. After the 700th message, i actually became noticably irritated. I mean, i know how to script out my mail to /dev/null, but i know that most people don’t and i had to imagine how many people had their email systems crash due to Mr. Blackman. Needless to say, roadrunner never responded to any of my 6 messages of abuse. So, instead i just have to wish a digital curse on Nick Blackman for his irritating while loop, which is currently at the 1477th message.

But, apparently, i’m not the only one with a spam problem this week.

RAVE Act

Ah yes, once again, the gov’t is after those of us who like to dance. Check out the latest: Reducing American’s Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act (RAVE Act Bill# S2633). As i grow older, i’m more and more fascinated by these bills – the large efforts to which members of our government go to in order to stop subcultures before of drug paranoia. And i can’t help but imagine them discussing this bill at the local pub, inhaling yet another gift from Philip Morris, guaranteeing that their liver/lung failures will increase my medical premiums.

I forget who told me that you know that you’ve hit the next stage in your life when you stop being angry about everything you disagree with and start laughing at the absurdity of it. I still waiver between the two, but i’m starting to truly understand what it means to just be stunned stupid because of the hysteria. Ah.. and the word hysteria… i guess my womb is off and running again. ::laugh::