14 Sep 2001 (updated 14 Sep 2001 at 19:13 UTC)
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We live in a nation of illusions. A sausage of a country;
we love it, but we don't want to know how it is made.
My wife is very down because she says that she always felt
secure until now. Her family always made sure that she knew
that they would protect her. And now all that is gone. "It
was an illusion," I told her.
"I like my illusions," she replied. Now a few of them are
gone. How many more will remain is another matter.
Will we hide ourselves in our electronic boxes and wrap
ourselves in the comfort of the flag and let the powers
that be do what they feel has to be done to protect the
recipe of our "way of life"? No nation is more lied to and
no nation loves the lie more.
What disgusts me the most is that legislators will ride the
waves of bodies to promote their pet projects: CIA, NSA,
military, missle defense, electronic espionage, etc etc
etc. What
is privacy when we are at war? We must FIGHT
to protect our freedoms YADAYADAYADA even if that means
eliminating
them. None of there actions will have any effect on the
type of groups that will want to duplicate the events in
NYC and at the Pentagon.
If they really cared about all this they would investigate
the agencies
that that trained Bin Laden. Has it been worth it? Can
you really say that now? What other Bin Laden wannabees are
currently on the CIA dole?
I read the writings that others have linked to here (Noam
Chomsky, Michael
Moore, John Pilger) and
think they're right. I think that these people are heros
for speaking up about this stuff. Does it make you
unamerican to ask
why, why these people want to do this? If it does than the
times ahead will very troubled indeed.
Talked to Manly's wife Wennie. She had several stories of
friends of her's that had close calls. Her brother works at
the Pentagon in the area of the crash. Was running late
becuase he wife called him to tell him about the crash at
the WTC, walked into the building just with the plane
crashed. Very close. Niel, who along with me was a member
of their wedding party, got out of the subway just in time
to see building 2 collapse.
Suddenly San Francisco earthquakes seem like a walk in the
park.
On the software front, I've been meditating about a new
type of database datatype besides text and multimedia for
the project: Event. I've been trying to define events and
create structures that interlink them. The main features
that are different that a simple text object is that they
have a time of happening, a duration, a location and they
relate to other events.
The main purpose of this datatype is for reference works,
like the lives of the great composers, etc, also useful for
annotating standard text files. The complexity is going to
be the dimensions of the events, i.e. people and documents
that relate to them. Need to flesh this out, maybe read up
on advanced database design a bit to see how others are
doing it. The latest search engines are doing some awesome
stit in this area.
Steves all
gung-ho about python and I can't blame him. I'm trying to
stick to this Java cold-turkey shit right now even tho
Python looks like a language that I will very much fall in
love with once I get into it. As much as I love Perl, I
think that my personality will mesh very well with the more
facist side of the language.
The main reason I guess that I'm doing this giant session
of a brain dump right now is that I'm bummin pretty hard
about not getting this gig that I was real close to
landing. It really sucks right now doing what I do. Next
week I'll probably be delivering pizzas and calling people
up asking them if they want to switch long distance
providers. I must confess that many days during the dot-com
insanity I missed my days as a messanger. Healthy work,
fun, get to flirt a lot, wacky people. Now, I'm back to
square one.
I figured that I was pretty safe being one of the few
people in the company that actually built something. The
goto guy. The guy that stayed up all night so that this
turd could fly and they could get another fix of funding.
Wrong. Suddely my resume has all the value of single-ply
toilet paper. I worked for shit, I made shit, it ended up
as shit. I knew it yet I liked the green. PAYBACK TIME
BOY
All this shit of the last few days puts it into
prespective. I ain't got shit for problems. Still,
suffering is relative. I keep trying to cast myself as
something of value, but I'm tired of this shit. Doing
drywall or driving a truck might just be a nice contrast.
Nothing stopping me from coding my own shit and then it's
sans bullshit.
Started looking for a quote in the Bible to put up on the
carol site.
Didn't end up putting it there even though it's pretty
powerful stuff. Reminded me about debates I used to get
into in Pastor Anderson's bible study class back when I was
a
choir director. I consider myself a radical, yet one whose
culture is Christian, yet I am very drawn to Zen and
Buddism. We were talking about the quote of Jesus about
rich people having a less of a chance of getting into
heaven the a camel going through the eye of a needle.
Everyone was hemming and hawing about the quote trying to
explain it away.
I spoke up asking them why doesn't it mean just what it
means. Why do we need to explain away what is a very clear
message. They got very mad and after some shouting we gave
up for the day. Later on Pastor Anderson laughing told me
how much he enjoyed the diuscussion. "You know, " he
wispered laughingly to me as we shook hands of fellow
members of the congregation, "most of the people in that
room were millionares."
Anyway, here's the quote that seemed to speak to me most,
even though I doubt many people in this country could
swallow it given the current climate.
"Love your enemies, do good to
those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other
also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from
taking your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what
belongs to you, do not demand it back.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to
you? Even `sinners' love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who are good to you, what
credit is that to you? Even `sinners' do that.
And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment,
what credit is that to you? Even `sinners' lend to
`sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full.
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them
without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward
will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High,
because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn,
and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be
forgiven.
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed
down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into
your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured
to you."
Luke 6-27
