More entries (actually the first in this blog, but not the first in the world) for
the Proof That Leonard Peikoff and the Ayn Rand Institute Have Totally
Lost It File:
"A proper war in self-defense is one fought without self-crippling restrictions placed on our commanders in the field. It must be fought with the most effective weapons we possess (a few weeks ago, Rumsfeld refused, correctly, to rule out nuclear weapons). And it must be fought in a manner that secures victory as quickly as possible and with the fewest U.S. casualties, regardless of the countless innocents caught in the line of fire. These innocents suffer and die because of the action of their own government in sponsoring the initiation of force against America. Their fate, therefore, is their government's moral responsibility. There is no way for our bullets to be aimed only at evil men."
-Leonard Peikoff, founder of the Ayn Rand Institute. (The link is to ARI's own
web page, for those who don't believe me.)
[ The emphasis in the quotation is mine. The total incredulity that someone
could draw the above conclusion from Ayn Rand's ideas is also mine. ]
________________________________________
Why do we have to set the clocks back in October? Who
does this benefit? Now, at 5:22pm, it is dark. I say we
band together and abolish this pernicious idea before it
goes too far and the entire country finds itself shrouded in
darkness for an extra hour every single year. You scoff? It
could happen. Believe it.
Unfortunately, Reagan didn't do enough. Everyone but evil
farmers agrees we need Daylight Saving Time all year round.
When will the world wake up to this?
________________________________________
In contrast to the message of the Come Mr. Taliban song...
"According to the New York Times there are 7 to 8 million people
in Afghanistan on the verge of starvation ... On September 16th,
the Times reported, I'm quoting it, that the United States
demanded from Pakistan the elimination of truck convoys that
provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's
civilian population. As far as I could determine there was no
reaction in the United States or for that matter in Europe. I was
on national radio all over Europe the next day. There was no
reaction in the United States or in Europe to my knowledge to
the demand to impose massive starvation on millions of people."
On a less philosophical note: Did you hear about the dyslexic, agnostic insomniac? He stayed up all night wondering if there really was a dog.
Unashamedly stolen from Stephanie--who is also the proud holder of the title 'First Blog Jim Ever Read' and 'Reason Jim Has a Blog of His Own.' Hi Stephanie!
________________________________________
"For the last three days I have spent much of my time doing one of
three things: First, I have been watching Bethlehem Television as the
lines of breaking news flashed on the screen. (We announce the death
of ... Citizens: Beware when walking in the streets or in your homes,
there are Israeli snipers in the hills. We announce the death of our
sister ... Citizens: Stay away from the area of Bab AL-Ziqaq, Israeli
tanks are headed there. We announce the death of 16-year-old ...
There are a large number of wounded, area hospitals request doctors
who are able to come assist. We announce the death of ... ) This is
just part of the succession of announcements that occurred in the
space of about two hours."
[ Alternet: Life Under Occupation, by Lori A. Allen ] via adnan It's a wonderful first-person account of what is happening, written by a grad student from the University of Chicago who is conducing research in the West Bank.
My cousins live in Bethlehem, which is in the West Bank. Lara is 21 and graduates university this year. Her sister Rana graduates high school this year. Rana got the highest score in Palestine on her G.C.E. exam. She wants to study speech therapy and is hoping for a scholarship so she can study abroad. Lara wants to get her masters in social work in Egypt. That's the deal if you have hopes of a normal life, you try and get out of the country.
A perfectly nice Jewish American lady I work with once asked me why all the Palestinians don't just leave. "Why don't they just go to some other Arab country?" she said. "If I was in Germany before World War II, I would have left."
What other country would take in millions of Palestinians? There is no economy in the Middle East that could support such a flood of refugees and even here in the U.S. jobs are scarce. I am sure that some Palestinians would rather flee and have a better life.
At the same time, I don't feel I have the right to argue that they should stay and defend their right to exist in the land they were born in... because how can I tell someone else that they ought to risk their life?
But these people are risking their lives.
My Jewish co-worker also tells me how important it is for the Jews to have a place like Israel: somewhere they can retreat to that they know is safe in case anything like the persecution and murder of World War II happens again. That's why she could say she'd have been willing to leave Germany--so long as Israel existed, there was a place for her in the world. But what is a Palestinian to do? Palestine is not our Germany, it is our Israel, to maintain the analogy. There is no other haven for the Palestinians. This is their home. I think it is honorable and noble for them to defend it.
________________________________________
"As more than one critic has pointed out, the arguments against
strong encryption could also be used against strong locks, since
criminals tend to hatch their plans behind closed doors. That
doesn't mean all of us should make extra sets of house keys for
the police in case they need to search our homes." (10/16/01)
There are two coal-fired ovens, one at either end of the room.
There is a large wooden table roughly center. And various
pieces of baking equipment, dough-mixers, etc., scattered willy-
nilly. And everywhere there is bread. PIETRO, a baker, is
working at one of the ovens with a long wooden spatula. RONNY
is working at the other oven. Actually, he is just staring in
the open door at the baking bread and burning coals. He's
dressed in black jeans streaked with flour, a white restaurant
shirt, white cotton gloves, and around his neck, a red
handkerchief. He is black-haired, handsome and intense.
ROCCO
Ronny!
RONNY
What!
ROCCO
Somebody here to see you.
Ronny turns and takes in Loretta.
RONNY
Have you come from my brother?
LORETTA
Yes.
RONNY
Why?
LORETTA
I'm going to marry him.
RONNY
You are going to marry my brother?
LORETTA
Yes. Do you want...
RONNY
I have no life.
LORETTA
Excuse me.
RONNY
I have no life. My brother Johnny
took my life from me.
LORETTA
I don't understand.
Everything in the oven room has stopped and everyone is
watching.
RONNY
And now he's getting married. He
has his, he's getting his. And he
wants me to come? What is life?
He picks up the wooden spatula and slides it into the oven.
LORETTA
I didn't come here to upset you.
Ronny slides a bunch of loaves out of the oven on the spatula,
turns them around, and slides them back in.
RONNY
They say bread is life. So I bake
bread, bread, bread.
(He's picking up
loaves of bread
from one of the
boxes on the floor,
and casually tossing
them across the
room.)
And the years go by! By! By! And
I sweat and shovel this stinking
dough in and outta this hot hole
in the wall and I should be so
happy, huh, sweetheart? You want
me to come to the wedding of my
brother Johnny?!! Where is my
wedding? Chrissy! Over by the
wall! Gimme the big knife!
CHRISSY
No, Ronny!
Barbara appears in the doorway and comes down the stairs into
the room.
RONNY
Gimme the big knife! I'm gonna
cut my throat!
LORETTA
Maybe I should come back another
time.
RONNY
No, I want you to see this! I
want you to watch me kill myself
so you can tell my brother on his
wedding day! Chrissy, gimme the
big knife!
CHRISSY
I tell you I won't do it!
RONNY
(to Loretta)
Do you know about me?
BARBARA
Oh, Mr. Cammareri!
RONNY
Nothing is anybody's fault, but
things happen.
(holds up his left
hand to Loretta)
Look.
He pulls off the glove. The hand is made of wood.
RONNY
It's wood. It's fake. Five years
ago I was engaged to be married.
Johnny came in here, he ordered
bread from me. I put it in the
slicer and I talked with him and
my hand got caught cause I wasn't
paying attention. The slicer chewed
off my hand. It's funny 'cause -
when my fiance saw that I was
maimed, she left me for another
man.
LORETTA
That's the bad blood between you
and Johnny?
That, ladies and getlemen, is from Moonstruck. You might imagine Nicholas Cage as Ronny, and Cher as Loretta. You might want to know that it was written by a guy named John Patrick Shanley.
I heard a Joni Mitchell song on the radio yesterday as I drove home from work. It was about 7:30, and because it's October it was already dark--night. And she was singing "We don't need no piece of paper from the City Hall / Keepin' us tied and true / My old man, keepin' away my blues."
Joni has one of the most beautiful singing voices, and I sat there in my car listening, and she sang "And he takes me in his loving arms / And he tells me all his troubles / And he tells me all my charms."
What it made me think of was just Joni--this girl Joni, maybe like you. She had a Dad, and she had to grow up and figure things out and be confused, and she met this guy and he was so wonderful ... that she wrote a song about him ... that she had to just sing about how happy she was.
Imagine how lucky a person can be, to have that happen to them?
________________________________________
If you want to be creative, don't try to do something new. Doing something new means not doing what's been done before, and that's a negative impulse. Negative impulses are frustrating. They're the opposite of creativity, and they never yield good ideas--not even in business or technology. Creativity starts when you put a line on paper. Then you talk to that line. You make it a partner in conversation. You see that the line can go in different directions: You can make it go left or right, or you can add branches to it. You can think critically about it; you can decide that it is too fat or too thin. You can envision what you want the line to look like. But, whatever you do, don't think about where you can't go.
A salesman who handles my work visited me this morning. He asked me what I've done lately that's "new." Salesmen always ask that question. But that's their problem, not yours. Novelty is a commercial concept; variety is an aesthetic and creative one. If you sit down at a drafting table with the intention of making something new, you'll end up flustered. Creative people always run the risk of making something that already exists, but its better to create something than nothing. You can throw it away or change it if you want to, but at least you've put down that first line--and started a conversation with yourself.
Eva Zeisel was born to a prosperous Budapest family in 1906. She designed and sold ceramics in Germany and in Russia, where she was charged with plotting to assassinate Stalin. (Lifelong friend Arthur Koestler borrowed from her prison experiences when writing his novel Darkness at Noon.) In 1938, Zeisel came to the United States, where she began designing dinnerware for Castleton China Co., Hall Craft, and Red Wing Pottery, and cookware for General Mills. Reproductions of her work are available from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and from many furniture design stores. Original examples of her work can be seen at the Museam of Modern Art and at the British Museum.
"Everyone knows it is a bad idea to try and board a plane carrying a
box cutter, a flight manual written in Arabic, or a sack full of
mysterious white powder. But with ultra-tightened airport security, a
book could also prevent you from boarding that plane.
No kidding. It happened just last week in Philadelphia."
In the words of Colin, who pointed this out to me, "the article gets more unnerving and astonishing the further you read."
________________________________________
The title
of this poem
is very misleading.
You might be expecting
a poem
about Athabasca Tar Sands
Or
some sort of story
telling about
the desolate prairies
and windswept plains.
Or
to be told about
thick mired sands
infiltrated with tar
and how the mines are
hypnotic with their
bold presence
as they are plucked clean
by thunderous machines
with timing
precise as clockwork
oiled for finesse.
You'd be wrong.
This isn't a poem about that.
It's about
relationships
that drag you down
and coat you
so you can't escape.
Its about
names and faces
you can't avoid
because they've become
part of you.
Its about
being so alone
you can't be found
even if you wanted to.
So you see
the title of this poem
is very misleading.
You might
be expecting tar sands.
Don't.
II
I promised myself
that I wouldn't
write these words.
And here I am
putting them down
on paper
in black and white.
Black and white.
How absurd.
After all,
once its been written
whats to keep it
from being seen?
The next thing you know
its been said
and then somebody does
something you can't ignore
until everybody knows
and...
well by then
its a whole new game.
Which is why
I promised myself
promised
that I wouldn't
write these words
wouldn't
wouldn't even think them.
But I did.
III
Are you confused yet?
Good.
You should be.
IV
Okay.
Lets get down
to the heart
of the problem.
The reason for
all this
coming in from
obscure angles,
trying to speak
in words
that don't give
anything away.
Wrong choice.
It hasn't helped,
has it?
I knew you'd agree.
See,
that's the problem.
Right there.
You.
Don't be so shocked.
It should have
been obvious.
Haven't I
been telling you
all this time?
Weren't you listening?
No,
I can't go
back to the beginning.
You'll just
have to pick it up
as you go along.
Just like the rest of us.
Like me.
Like it should be.
V
The title of this poem
is very misleading.
Its not about any of this.
Mostly its about
nothing at all.
Not really.
So you see,
the poem in this poem
is even more misleading
than the title.
Athabasca Tar Sands.
Right.
LAP Spring '91
________________________________________
"For the past few weeks, foreign peace activists ... have
been arriving in Jerusalem and the West Bank, joining
demonstrations, staying in the homes of threatened
Palestinians, turning themselves into human shields
between the Israeli army and its targets.
"A few days ago they were joined by one of the most
remarkable forces in British politics, a group of mostly middle-
aged or elderly campaigners called Women in Black UK. These
Hell's Grannies have moved straight into the front line, ensuring
that the brutality with which the Palestinians are routinely
treated now has international repercussions: Israel can't hurt
local people without hurting them too.
"In the Middle East such tactics are likely to be still more
dangerous, as Israeli soldiers have shown no hesitation in
killing protesters in cold blood.
" . . . these volunteer peacekeepers are seeking to do
precisely what foreign governments have promised but failed to
do: to monitor and contest abuses of human rights, to defuse
violence, and to challenge Israel's ethnic cleansing programme.
Their actions put us all to shame."
This is from a great article on the Women in Black, a group of (mostly Jewish) women putting their lives on the line for Palestinians. The Guardian is a British paper so they mention the UK arm of Women in Black, but the group is actually inernational and has a presence in the U.S. and even in Israel.
I heard about this, as usual, from adnan's web page. He had a link to someone else's blog that itself linked to an article about how this group, the Women in Black, is being investigated by the FBI. Here's a bit of the article:
"The FBI is threatening my group with a Grand Jury
investigation. Of what? That we publicly call the Israeli
military's occupation of the mandated Palestine lands
illegal? So does the World Court and the United Nations.
"That destroying hundreds of thousands of the
Palestinians' olive and fruit trees, blocking roads and
demolishing homes promotes hatred and terrorism in the
Middle East? Even President Bush and Colin Powell
have gotten around to saying so. So, what is to
investigate? That some of us are in contact with activist
Palestinian peace groups? This is bad?
"If the FBI cannot or will not distinguish between groups
who collude in hatred and terrorism, and peace activists
who struggle in the full light of day against all forms of
terrorism, we are in serious trouble."
The article ends with this proverb: "Peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice." ________________________________________
: And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
: Yea hungry for the lips of my desire:
: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! In my fashion.
________________________________________
Your Rights Or Your Safety, You Shouldn't Have To Choose
The U.S. Senate is preparing to vote on the "Uniting and Strengthening America Act (USA)." As an attempt to enhance the ability of law enforcement and government agencies to prevent terrorist acts this legislation is being put forth with the best of intentions. But no matter how good the intentions, the bill as actually written contains a dangerous definition of terrorism that should concern every American.
As written, this definition could lead to large-scale investigations of American citizens for supporting and engaging in civil disobedience and have the perverse effect of discouraging citizens from participating in the very essence of our democracy -- the right to peacefully protest.
[ Greenpeace ] wrote the words above, and is making it very easy to notify your elected representatives of your objection to this bill. Please go fill out their quick and easy on-line form. I did.
A Democrat from Wisconsin, Russ Feingold, was the only Senator to vote against passage of the bill. The legislation is now in the House. Here are some ammendments that Feingold tried to add to the bill that were ultimately rejected:
: Still allow police to perform "roving wiretaps" and listen in on any telephone that a subject of an investigation might use. But cops could only eavesdrop when the suspect is the person using the phone. The amendment was rejected, 90-7.
: Preseved the privacy of sensitive records -- such as medical or educational data -- by requiring police to convince a judge that viewing them is necessary. Without that amendment, the USA Act expands police's ability to access any type of stored or "tangible" information. The amendment was rejected, 89-8.
According to a good article about this in Wired, "Feingold's amendments would have rewritten only a tiny portion of the vast, 243-page bill. Even if they had been added, the USA Act still allows police to conduct Internet eavesdropping without a court order in some circumstances, lets federal prosecutors imprison non-citizens for extended periods, and expands the duration of an electronic surveillance order issued by a secret court from 90 to 120 days."
"Our most basic American values are threatened by an enemy opposed to everything for which our flag stands. That is why I call upon all Americans to submit to wiretaps, e-mail monitoring, and racial profiling. Now is not the time to allow simplistic, romantic notions of 'civil liberties' and 'equal protection under the law' to get in the way of our battle with the enemies of freedom."
[The Onion]
That crazy Onion. ;)
________________________________________
"In the Victorian period in England, the mail became affordable and reliable and engineered a social revolution quite similar to the social revolution of e-mail today."
Which is to say that today is the 30th anniversary of e-mail.
[E-mail has come a long way in 30 years] has more to say on the subject, but they don't say what the contents of that first e-mail message 30 years ago was. I understand that the message was almost certainly meant for private purposes, and it's possible that the senders had no idea that it would be historic here in 2001, but the fact is that the words in that message ought to rank right up there with "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you" and "What hath God wrought!"
Maybe the information is actually out there somewhere? If you find it, you know where to send it.
________________________________________
"You write in order to change the world,
knowing perfectly well that you probably
can't, but also knowing that literature is
indispensable to the world ... The world
changes according to the way people
see it, and if you alter, even by a
millimeter, the way ... people look at
reality, then you can change it."
Where have I been? Over at Adnan's web site, adnan.org.
I got there by clicking on a banner ad I saw that said something like this:
I am Afghani / Muslim / Middle Eastern, click here to send me hate mail.
Intriguing naturally, so I clicked.
Adnan is a Muslim and I disagree with him about one or two things. But I suppose it's natural that our thinking is pretty similar on a lot of Middle Eastern political issues.
Anyway, on his web site today I found a bunch of good stuff, a tiny portion of which is right here below, so you don't even have to go anywhere you lazy bastards.
________________________________________
I first heard of Noam Chomsky by reading about AI, linguistics, and evolution. Somewhere along the line I remember learning that he had "radical political views." I think I heard he was a socialist, and I remember thinking of him as that brilliant linguistics guy who was also a socialist.
I need to do more reading on Noam. A few months ago Saurabh showed me an article that Noam wrote and I found myself agreeing with whole wide swaths of what he said. Maybe Noam isn't a socialist. Or maybe Ayn Rand is turning over in her grave. ;)
Anyway, he was interviewed by MSNBC on the current geopolitical situation viz. Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden. Here is a snippet from an example Noam uses in the interview:
"Twenty years ago the United States launched a war against
Nicaragua. That was a terrible war. Tens of thousands of
people died. The country was practically destroyed.
Nicaragua did not respond by setting off bombs in
Washington. They went to the World Court with a case, the
World Court ruled in their favor and ordered the United States
to stop its “unlawful use of force” (that means international
terrorism) and pay substantial reparations. Well, the United
States responded by dismissing the court with contempt and
immediately escalated the attack. At that point Niagara went
to the UN Security council which voted a resolution calling on
all states to obey international law. They didn’t mention
anyone, but everyone knew they meant the United States.
Well, the United States vetoed it. Nicaragua then went to the
General Assembly which, two years in a row passed a similar
resolution with only the United States and Israel opposed. El
Salvador in one year. But of course, the United States is a
very powerful country. If it opposes lawful means, they can’t
be pursued."
By now I think everyone acknowledges that Amazon is the best e-commerce site in the world, and that in terms of user experience, it represents what on-line shopping is meant to be. (Unfortunately, Amazon is still losing money. They burned $360 million in cash in the first half of 2001)
Yesterday I fell in love with Amazon's recommendations section.
It's hard for me to describe what a good book or movie does to you, because the feeling--the state they can put you in--is so rare. You step outside of habit. It is like travelling, but instead of leaving your surroundings and going to a new place, you leave your way of living and try on a new one for a while. You stretch, from the comfortable (or at least the familiar) to the unfamiliar. Often from the limited to the limitless.
Look at it like this: Even if you are happy with your choices in life, the older you get the more you realize that you are constrained by your past decisions. A wise person chooses constraints that he does not regret. But they are still constraints. Family, career, friendship. I acquire relationships and responsibilities because they enrich my life. In the end they are a big part of what defines it. But every step in one direction erases infinite lives you might have lived. There's no going back in real life; no escape from time and the legacy of the past; no living two or three lives in parallel. That's the real world. It has limits. If you're wise, you make the choices that make you happy. But story transcends limits. Books and movies--stories--let you live outside of your constraints for a while.
Sometimes it is like a euphoria. And you return to your world with a realization that many of your limits are just choices. Sometimes this leads you to make different choices. Sometimes it reminds you why you made the original choices in the first place. You come back amazed with life.
I've been reading more, and I'm way happy about it actually. While I was at John's house, I stole "The Medieval Origins of the Modern State." I'm going to read the shit out of that book. I'm actually grinning here just thinking about it.
John's sister had Peter Pan too. Peter Pan is a great, great book. James M. Barrie wrote it, and his name is James so he has to be cool. If you haven't read Peter Pan it's easy to assume that there's nothing special about it, but I think it ranks up there with the best children's books of all time, which are basically the ones that an adult can read and appreciate.
This is all from the very beginning of the book, starting with a description of Wendy's mother, Mrs. Darling:
She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.
The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.
Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him.
I've been reading other things too, so more later.
________________________________________
So it's been a week or two since I posted. What happened?
(1) I didn't go to Chris and Erin's wedding.
(2) I felt like crap. Absolute total and complete crap.
(3) Courtney says I shouldn't feel so bad because it's not my fault I couldn't make it and Chris would understand.
(4) Chris and Erin changed their honeymoon plans (originally a trip to Hawaii) and instead took a road trip from California (where the wedding was held) all across the country to visit all the people (about 50, or 30? maybe 30, yeah) who couldn't make it to their wedding.
(5) a. Chris and Erin came to NY on Wednesday, September 26th and we (Chris, Erin, Jim, Vicky, Hachey, Erin's friends) partied until about 3:30am.
(5) b. Turns out Erin's roommates are pretty cool.
(6) Extreme happiness and dissipation of guilt feelings (see #2).
(7) I took Friday the 28th off and went up to Boston where more partying with Chris, Erin, Hachey, Vicky, and the Boston crowd (John, Suds) ensues.
(8) Hung over.
(9) Co-discover a natural hang-over cure. It's legal in Holland!
(10) Happy Birthday Courtney (today).
(11) Back to work. Indications from work are that Jim should maybe start applying to business school. Ugh.
________________________________________
Objectionable Content 
Tuesday, October 30, 2001
