On October 17, 2006 the current U.S. president, in accordance with every legal form and procedure, signed into law the “Military Commissions Act of 2006” – also known as the “Torture Bill” – and thus made legitimate much of what the administration had been doing all along. Stripped to its essentials and focusing on the worst, the new law permits the federal government to:
- Arrest and detain any non-U.S. citizen whom administration officials label an “enemy combatant.” [1]
- Do this off the battlefield and on U.S. soil.
- Without giving the detainee access to a public court.
- Indefinitely.
- Torture the detainee.
Yet a hasty reading of the Act gives the impression that it outlaws torture. And so it does, in a way. The catch is that a sly paragraph defines torture, when perpetrated by the U.S. government, vaguely – and substantially out of existence. We elaborate below.
Torture was illegal before the Act, though the folks in the administration scoffed at the law. Now there is not much law to scoff at. Far from outlawing torture, the Act undoes torture’s illegality by whittling away at the idea of what constitutes torture.
The Act allows any interrogation method that is less severe than an extremely high, and vague, standard it calls “serious physical pain or suffering.” From page 28 of the Military Commissions Act:
... OFFENSE.—Any person subject to this chapter who commits an act intended to inflict severe or serious physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions), including serious physical abuse, upon another within his custody or control shall be punished ... as a military commission under this chapter may direct.
... DEFINITIONS.—In this paragraph:
... The term ‘serious physical pain or suffering’ means bodily injury that involves—
(I) a substantial risk of death;
(II) extreme physical pain;
(III) a burn or physical disfigurement of a serious nature (other than cuts, abrasions, or bruises); or
(IV) significant loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty.
If the torture – let’s call it by its right name – involves a not-so-substantial risk of death, serious physical pain, burns and physical disfigurement of a minor nature (major laceration and bruises no problemo), and minor permanent mental and physical impairment – the administration can now do it in the open.
The Act ensures against torture by defining it away. The Act raises the bar for what the government considers torture so the government can deny it is torturing people – while it is torturing them. [2]
In a White House interview on October 24, one week after the Act became law, Vice President Cheney said:
“We don’t torture. That’s not what we’re involved in. ... But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture ... .” [3]
Torture? No, that’s not what they’re involved in ! They don’t torture, they “robustly interrogate.”
A “fairly robust interrogation program” is a euphemism for institutionalized torture. Other nice phrases the government uses are “harsh interrogation,” “coercive interrogation,” “hostile interrogation,” “aggressive interrogation” and “enhanced interrogation techniques” – never torture. Cheney ignores the many prison accounts of head and body trauma, and of men robustly interrogated to death.
If the interrogator – who may enjoy his work – takes inflicting pain and suffering right up to the Act’s ill-defined limit, and in his enthusiasm – or bungling – goes over a bit, well, highway speedsters get an extra five miles-per-hour or so grace.
When we should never have gone down this road.
America has been going down it for several years now, but the authors of the Act knew how to deal with that. The Act makes its torture legal retroactively. [4] With this trick the administration’s prior crimes in this line – when torture was at least nominally illegal – are now, apparently, beyond prosecution. [5]
Doubtless one reason Bush and those in his administration wanted this Act was that they feared a saner future would prosecute them for their crimes. Such fear might have come to a head when the Supreme court, in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld, November 2004, mandated that the executive branch must not indefinitely deny habeas corpus to prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. (Habeas corpus is a central principle of Anglo-Saxon law which requires that the government show the legal basis for holding a prisoner.) [6]
One last comment on the Military Commissions Act of 2006: It does not forbid or even mention “rendition,” whereby the CIA flies the detainee to a foreign country and has him tortured there instead of here.
Ayn Rand says in her essay “For the New Intellectual” that the intellectuals – the men of words in the humanities – are the guardians of our culture. And she explains how the intellectuals, from the time of the Industrial Revolution to modern times, betrayed that trust. As in an earlier age Attila the Hun got moral support from his resident witch doctor, so today’s dictators and would-be dictators get moral support from the intellectuals. She looks forward to an era when a new kind of intellectual will lead us out of the mess the earlier ones had created. A few quotes from her essay will help make this clear.
The intellectuals, she says, bungled their job:
“Professional intellectuals are the voice of a culture and are, therefore, its leaders, its integrators and its bodyguards. America’s intellectual leadership has collapsed.”
“A country without intellectuals is like a body without a head. And that is precisely the position of America today. Our present state of cultural disintegration is not maintained and prolonged by intellectuals as such, but by the fact that we haven’t any.”
“A free society has to count on the honor of its intellectuals: it has to expect them to be as efficient, reliable, precise and objective as the printing presses and the television sets that carry their voices.” (Not to mention personal computers and the Internet, which had yet to be invented when this was written.)
“It was not the businessmen or the industrialists or the workers or the labor unions or the remnants of the feudal aristocracy that began the revolt against freedom and the demand for the return of the absolute state: it was the intellectuals. It was the alleged guardians of reason who brought mankind back to the rule of brute force.”
“And, paving the way for Attila [that is, the barbarians], the intellectuals are still repeating, not by conviction any longer, but by rote, that the growth of government power is not an abridgment of freedom ... that dictatorship is not dictatorship if nobody calls it by that abstract name – and that none of us can help it, anyway.”
Instead, we need a new kind of intellectual with fresh ideas:
“The New Intellectuals must assume the task of building a new culture on a new moral foundation, which, for once, will not be the culture of Attila and the Witch Doctor [that is, of barbarians and their apologists], but the culture of the Producer [free-market capitalists independent of government].”
What did the Ayn Rand Institute and its affiliates – our alleged New Intellectuals – have to say about the establishment of government torture and the other aspects of the Military Commissions Act that legalized Attila’s methods, during the congressional debate when public protest mattered the most? Keep in mind as you read the following that until last minute changes, the Act was even worse than what passed: it applied to U.S. citizens as well as foreigners.
Here is what the Ayn Rand Institute said in its countless Op-eds and Press Releases and Letters to the Editor:
[This space intentionally left blank.]
Here is what Impact, ARI’s newsletter, wrote while the Military Commissions Act was still in Congress:
[This space intentionally left blank.]
Here are the comments in the Fall issue of The Objectivist Standard: A Journal of Culture and Politics, whose writers are largely ARI associates:
[This space intentionally left blank.]
Here is Robert Tracinski’s The Intellectual Activist on the prospect of the Military Commissions Act:
[This space intentionally left blank.]
In Mr. Tracinski’s TIA Daily newsletter, before the Act was passed we read:
[This space intentionally left blank.]
Here is Capitalism Magazine, an online collection of editorials which, though not run by an ARI associate, frequently publishes articles by ARI writers that ARI itself does not:
[This space intentionally left blank.]
Leonard Peikoff paused long enough from working on his forthcoming book The D.I.M. Hypothesis: The Epistemological Mechanics by which Philosophy Shapes Society to observe:
[This space intentionally left blank.]
And not to be outdone, Harry Binswanger said bluntly:
[This space intentionally left blank.]
Witness the new intellectuals ! Or rather don’t witness them. The official, ARI, “new intellectuals” were out to lunch, engineers asleep at the switch, total no-shows. They might as well have been for the installation of government torture, playing Witch Doctor to the neocons’ Attila.
In the Cheney interview mentioned above, after Cheney praised the administration’s “robust interrogation program” he continued:
And thanks to the leadership of the President now, and the action of the Congress, we have that authority, and we are able to continue [the] program.
Not to mention: Thanks to the Witch Doctors at the so-called Ayn Rand Institute.
How did ARI react when the Act passed and Bush signed it into law? Still there is nothing, with one exception. The one exception is by Robert Tracinski, writing in TIA Daily.
That Mr. Tracinski would approve of the Act comes as no surprise. Back during Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld when the Supreme Court found against Rumsfeld, he complained about the result in “Judge Upends Terrorist Prosecutions” TIA Daily November 9, 2004.
Now, when Bush signs the Military Commissions Act into law, Mr. Tracinski complains again – not against the Act, rather against the ensuing storm of protest. The protest was heard not only in the patriot/libertarian parts of the alternative media but in some quarters of the mainstream media as well.
In the TIA Daily for that day – October 17, 2006 (the issue however is misdated the 13th) – Mr. Tracinski praised the Act in the article “A Law for Unlawful Combatants.” He begins by summarizing the Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld decision, which was the springboard for the Military Commissions Act:
“... the Supreme Court’s Hamdan decision found that a terrorist captured by American intelligence forces could not be held at the Guantanamo Bay military base without due process.”
We interrupt his jaundiced history. The Supreme Court’s decision applied to all the detainees, and no objective evidence existed against many if not most of them. The point of the Court’s decision was to ensure that those labeled terrorists really were terrorists. Mr. Tracinski continues:
“They further held that rules of procedure for any military trials conducted for the punishment of such a prisoner could not be written by an agency of the executive branch. They would have to be written by Congress. ... they held that terrorist detainees are legally entitled to the Geneva Conventions’ Common Article 3 prohibition against ‘outrages upon [the] personal dignity’ of prisoners of war ...”
And he goes on to say that detainees are not so entitled, because
“the treaty only applies to the combatants of an enemy government captured in the uniform of their armed services.”
So as far as outrages upon your person are concerned, no uniform and you’re out of luck. Mr. Tracinski prefaces some of these remarks with “As if there weren’t a war going on” and “Incredibly.” After a bit more of this he writes:
“After conferring with the president, Congress drew up procedures for military tribunals that would allow the use of secret evidence and allow methods of coerced interrogation, short of torture [yeah, right] that would probably [how about certainly] be considered illegal ‘humiliation’ [how about ‘torture’ – and without derogatory quotes] under the Geneva Conventions. Today the president signed that measure, the Military Commissions Act, into law.”
Mr. Tracinski then reviews – or thinks he reviews – Senator Russ Feingold’s response to the Act. The trouble is, Mr. Tracinski inadvertently quotes and links to what Sen. Feingold said years earlier, on October 25, 2001, about another bill entirely. [7] However, what Sen. Feingold said then does more or less apply to the Military Commissions Act. We will go along with Mr. Tracinski’s mistake because we are reviewing this new intellectual’s reaction and beliefs.
“He [Sen. Feingold] compared the measure to ‘The Alien and Sedition Acts, the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, the internment of Japanese-Americans, German-Americans, and Italian-Americans during World War II, the blacklisting of supposed communist sympathizers during the McCarthy era, and the surveillance and harassment of antiwar protesters, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during the Vietnam War.’ He then went on to enumerate the many extra-judicial powers the law gives the president.
“Sen. Feingold describes the technical contents of the law accurately. His comments should be taken as a warning against any attempt to abuse the new law.”
As if the administration were not abusing the Act at the very time he was writing this ! As if the administration had not been abusing the content of the Act all along ! Mr. Tracinski tries to fit the reader with the same pair of blinders that he wears.
“But his [Sen. Feingold’s] whole argument, like that of the Supreme Court, evades the de facto war in which the United States is now engaged.”
War, that magic word, justifies everything. Mr. Tracinski goes on to consider the pitfalls of Congress declaring war, then writes:
“Yes, Congress should declare war. But even if they did, that would not answer Sen. Feingold’s complaint because it equates abuses of power like the FBI surveillance of Marin Luther King with the necessary war-fighting powers President Lincoln exercised—and President Bush needs to exercise.”
! ! ! Lincoln not only suspended habeas corpus for Northerners and Southerners alike, he arrested and jailed Northern congressmen and newspapermen who opposed his policies. [8] And Lincoln should be Bush’s role model?
Criticizing these “new intellectuals” is really unnecessary. Just sit back and watch as each mounts the scaffold, loops the noose around his neck, and jumps.
Mr. Tracinski then quotes from a blog called The Belmont Club belonging to “Wretchard,” the nom de blog of one Richard Fernandez “of Filipino birth [and upbringing] and Australian citizenship” – as Mr. Fernandez says elsewhere. The entry Mr. Tracinski admiringly quotes is entitled “The double-bind” dated September 29, 2006. After some general remarks Mr. Fernandez writes:
“... on the subject of the detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects Democrats focused on the dangers to liberty and the possible inhumanity the bill presented without providing a plausible alternative path to how terrorists could be effectively questioned or put away.”
All the Democrats need have said is that a non-confession is worth more than a tortured confession, and that someone can be “put away” – that is jailed – without torturing them.
Mr. Fernandez continues:
“This was a psychological nonstarter. Answering that ‘waterboarding’ was cruel to the question how do you get information to protect the public was to miss the point.”
He misses the point. The point is Western civilization, and if one sets aside Western civilization the point is that waterboarding and other tortures of suspects do absolutely nothing to protect the public. Mr. Fernandez continues:
“You can tell a man about to jump from a plane [that] his parachute is defective, but unless you offer [him] another [parachute] he’ll jump with the defective [one] rather than none at all.”
Clever if illiterate, no? In other words, torture may not be so hot but gosh we must do something. Mr. Fernandez continues:
“A position largely based on negation has no depth.”
Like the Bill of Rights, which is a string of negatives: The government may not do this to you and may not do that. Mr. Fernandez’s sound-bite may sound good, but look what the man is selling.
Elsewhere in his blog this Filipino/Australian endorses Alan Dershowitz’s plan for “torture warrants” for Americans. What amazes is that Mr. Tracinski felt he had to reach so far as this nincompoop in order to find someone he agrees with.
The next day, October 18, perhaps in response to an outcry from his readers, Mr. Tracinski abruptly – and transiently – changed his tune. He wrote of the Act:
“... this solution will create problems of its own.”
and without further comment linked to an interview conducted by Keith Olbermann, providing a brief quote. Too little too late. Mr. Tracinski then dropped the subject entirely – a bump and run.
And that’s what we have from ARI and its associates regarding the Military Commissions Act of 2006, one of the lowest points in U.S. history.
_________
1 The final version of the Act that Congress passed, if taken precisely as written, is restricted to foreigners. The existence of earlier versions containing no such restriction, and the complex legalese in which they all were written, led to some debate among commentators over whether the Act applies to U.S. citizens as well as foreigners. See
“Final Military Commission Act Does NOT Apply To U.S. Citizens (?)”
by Joel Skousen, World Affairs Brief.
www.rense.com/general74/final.htm
But as Mr. Skousen points out, in spite of the Act’s wording the ever pragmatic administration may well apply it to Americans. And, we observe, once a bureaucracy gets comfortable torturing foreigners, branching out won’t be so difficult.
The worst parts of the Act may indeed apply to American citizens, even as written. The following is from page 4 of the Act:
“... JURISDICTION.—A military commission under this chapter shall have jurisdiction to try any offense made punishable by this chapter or the law of war when committed by an alien unlawfulenemy combatant ... .”
This may sound as if U.S. citizens, unlike aliens, are safe from the military commission. But consider the two cases, aliens and citizens. According to the Act, if an alien gets labeled an enemy combatant that’s the end of it, he may not invoke habeas corpus to challenge that designation. Apparently a citizen, too, may be labeled an enemy combatant, but then he may – being a citizen – invoke habeas corpus and challenge it. Still, if he loses that challenge he will, apparently, end up interrogated and tried by the same military commission as the alien. The Act is less than clear but you can be sure the administration, whether Bush’s or some future one, will interpret the Act to its advantage.
For more legal commentary see (I know, the second is by a blasted leftist, but some leftists are better in some respects than most conservatives – and everyone at the Ayn Rand Institute):
“Bush signs Military Commissions Act”
Jurist Legal News and Research, University of Pittsburgh School of Law
www.jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/10/bush-signs-military-commissions-act.php
“The Legalization of Torture and Permanent Detention”
www.glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/legalization-of-torture-an_115945829460324274.html
“How to Make a Power Grab ‘Mundane’ ”
by James Bovard
www.jimbovard.com/blog/2006/10/18/the-washington-post-makes-dictatorial-powers-mundane
The day Bush signed the law, the White House provided a “Fact Sheet” interpreting the law for us yokels:
“The Military Commissions Act Will ... Allow Us To Prosecute Captured Terrorists For War Crimes Through Full And Fair Trials.”
This must be parsed carefully, since the purpose of a trial is to determine if a suspect, not a criminal, is a criminal. The Act streamlines the process. It allows hearsay evidence, confessions obtained under let’s-not-call-it-torture torture, secret evidence, and evidence obtained without a warrant, while the administration is both judge, jury and executioner. “Full And Fair Trials” is a Soviet-style lying-truth.
The “Fact Sheet” says that the Act:
“Provides legal protections that ensure our military and intelligence personnel will not have to fear lawsuits filed by terrorists simply for doing their jobs;”
Or fear lawsuits filed by anyone about being abused. But that’s me, not the fact sheet.
“Spells out specific, recognizable offenses that would be considered crimes in the handling of detainees – so that our men and women who question captured terrorists can perform their duties to the fullest extent of the law;”
Torture now being within the law.
“Complies with both the spirit and the letter of our international obligations.”
This lie colors what the “fact” sheet claims next, that the administration’s interrogation methods have saved American lives. It’s even less believable than the WMD claim.
“Fact Sheet: The Military Commissions Act of 2006”
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061017.html
2 Much as in the earlier Justice Department memo of August 2002, drafted for Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee by John Yoo and signed by Alberto Gonzales. Though on the surface the Act’s it’s-not-torture limit is lower than that of Yoo and Gonzales, thugs are not known for making fine distinctions. Here is what Yoo/Gonzales wrote in their memo:
“Physical pain amounting to torture [in other words, to be considered torture] must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”
www.tomjoad.org/bybeeintro.htm
The Justice Department seemingly revised this stand in a 2004 opinion, but Mr. Yoo in his recent book, War by Other Means, says – approvingly – that the opinion:
“included a footnote to say that all interrogation methods that earlier opinions had said were legal were still legal. In other words, the differences in the opinions were for appearances’ sake. In the real world of interrogation policy nothing had changed. The new opinion just reread the statute to deliberately blur the interpretation of torture as a short-term political maneuver in response to public criticism.”
In other words, eyewash for the masses.
3 “Interview of the Vice President by Scott Hennen, WDAY at Radio Day at the White House”
The Vice President's Office October 24, 2006
CIA spokeswoman Michelle Neff:
“While we do not discuss specific interrogation methods, the techniques we use have been reviewed by the Department of Justice and are in keeping with our laws and treaty obligations. We neither conduct nor condone torture.”
Properly defined. And not counting “rendition.”
“Cheney confirms that detainees were subjected to water-boarding”
McClatchy Newspapers October 25, 2006
4 Specifically, it is backdated nine years. From page 36 of the Military Commissions Act:
“RETROACTIVE APPLICABILITY.—The amendments made by this subsection, except as specified in subsection (d)(2)(E) of section 2441 of title 18, United States Code, shall take effect as of November 26, 1997, as if enacted immediately after the amendments made by section 583 of Public Law 105–118 (as amended by section 4002(e)(7) of Public Law 107–273).”
I haven’t followed all the twists and turns of these references, but clearly this is a major criminal laundering in progress.
5 We might pin some hope on the Supreme Court, but not much. As Paul Craig Roberts points out (in “The Fault Lies in Ourselves,” October 26, 2006), even before 9/11 many civil liberties had been so eroded that they were dead-letter rights, violated with impunity. “The Bush administration’s recent detainee and torture legislation merely took some of these dead-letter rights off the books. Even if the Supreme Court puts the rights back on the books, they have been eroded by legal precedent and neglect.”
6 The Department of Justice wasted no time implementing the Act:
“Immediately after Bush signed the act into law ...” “[the Justice Department] formally notified the U.S. District Court here [Washington D.C.] that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. “... the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that ‘no court, justice, or judge’ can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.”
“Court Told It Lacks Power in Detainee Cases”
Washington Post October 20, 2006
“We Are All Torturers Now”
The New York Times January 5, 2005
www.markdanner.com/articles/show/27
* Correction: At various times Mr. Tracinski has been an ARI guest writer, senior writer, senior fellow, and the ARI editorial director. Though ARI issued no public statement about the departure of one of their most visible and prolific writers, it turns out Mr. Tracinski is no longer employed by ARI. Mr. Tracinski himself says he chose to end his employment in order to focus on The Intellectual Activist. His last article published by ARI is dated January 12, 2004. The trouble for us is that Capitalism Magazine published an article of his as recently as April 2006 under the designation ARI guest writer.
7 Mr. Tracinski quotes
www.feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/statements/01/10/102501at.html
from October 25, 2001, about the first proposed so-called Patriot Act, when he should have quoted
www.feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/statements/06/10/20061017.htm
from October 17, 2006. Sen. Feingold also spoke against the Act on September 28, 2006, the day after it passed:
www.feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/statements/06/09/20060928.htm .
(Sen. Feingold was less outspoken during the Act’s debate. Apparently he is just another congresscritter going through the motions.)
8 See the Civil War section of the Links page on this website. Mr. Tracinski, judging from his past articles, is aware of this history.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Eye on ARI
The best of the Ancient Greeks, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, purged of their errors and contradictions – that’s one way to describe Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Ayn Rand justified human freedom and dignity with a consistency and eloquence as had no one before.
Though nothing can undermine that achievement, the spread of her ideas has been hampered by her extraordinarily unfortunate choice of associates. In her own lifetime eventually all but a few of them betrayed her, afterwards heaping her with abuse.
Ayn Rand died in 1982. She willed her entire estate, including the copyrights to all her books, to Leonard Peikoff, an associate of some 30 years. She told him she trusted him to use it well. In 1985 Mr. Peikoff founded the Ayn Rand Institute – ARI – to promote her ideas, called Objectivism.
The September 11, 2001 attack soon revealed the true colors of many people and organizations. The National Review magazine (which Ayn Rand had loathed when she was alive), the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Accuracy in Media, and many other professed advocates of limited government, turned out to be advocates of a police state – so long as neocons are in charge of the police.
What staggers honest students of Ayn Rand is the likewise unmasking of ARI. It turns out ARI too promotes the essence of the neocon agenda, dressed up in Objectivist verbiage. This betrayal of Ayn Rand, by the last of her former associates, could hardly be more perverse.
The man responsible is Leonard Peikoff. Though not on ARI’s official board of directors, he ultimately controls ARI. He has veto power over anything ARI would publish, through Ayn Rand’s estate he largely finances it, and he appointed its director, one Yaron Brook. Besides Leonard Peikoff, two other of Ayn Rand’s former associates now at ARI are Harry Binswanger and Peter Schwartz.
ARI writers advocate the expedient suspension of the U.S. Constitution, self-sacrifice, and torture. They evade, they ape Ayn Rand’s style of expression, they lie. They call all who disagree with them pragmatists, leftists, and America-haters. Let them hang by their own utterance.
Vice is ugly, but it does one good to see it properly labeled.
Though these knaves and bunglers would destroy the intellectual legacy of Ayn Rand by marrying it to an agenda totally foreign to her ideas, one can take some solace in an aphorism by Friedrich Nietzsche: “The first adherents of a creed prove nothing against it.”
If you were expecting another Ayn Rand hater, you have come to the wrong place. My target is the “Ayn Rand” Institute, because I respect the work of Ayn Rand.
Though nothing can undermine that achievement, the spread of her ideas has been hampered by her extraordinarily unfortunate choice of associates. In her own lifetime eventually all but a few of them betrayed her, afterwards heaping her with abuse.
Ayn Rand died in 1982. She willed her entire estate, including the copyrights to all her books, to Leonard Peikoff, an associate of some 30 years. She told him she trusted him to use it well. In 1985 Mr. Peikoff founded the Ayn Rand Institute – ARI – to promote her ideas, called Objectivism.
The September 11, 2001 attack soon revealed the true colors of many people and organizations. The National Review magazine (which Ayn Rand had loathed when she was alive), the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Accuracy in Media, and many other professed advocates of limited government, turned out to be advocates of a police state – so long as neocons are in charge of the police.
What staggers honest students of Ayn Rand is the likewise unmasking of ARI. It turns out ARI too promotes the essence of the neocon agenda, dressed up in Objectivist verbiage. This betrayal of Ayn Rand, by the last of her former associates, could hardly be more perverse.
The man responsible is Leonard Peikoff. Though not on ARI’s official board of directors, he ultimately controls ARI. He has veto power over anything ARI would publish, through Ayn Rand’s estate he largely finances it, and he appointed its director, one Yaron Brook. Besides Leonard Peikoff, two other of Ayn Rand’s former associates now at ARI are Harry Binswanger and Peter Schwartz.
ARI writers advocate the expedient suspension of the U.S. Constitution, self-sacrifice, and torture. They evade, they ape Ayn Rand’s style of expression, they lie. They call all who disagree with them pragmatists, leftists, and America-haters. Let them hang by their own utterance.
Vice is ugly, but it does one good to see it properly labeled.
Though these knaves and bunglers would destroy the intellectual legacy of Ayn Rand by marrying it to an agenda totally foreign to her ideas, one can take some solace in an aphorism by Friedrich Nietzsche: “The first adherents of a creed prove nothing against it.”
If you were expecting another Ayn Rand hater, you have come to the wrong place. My target is the “Ayn Rand” Institute, because I respect the work of Ayn Rand.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Blog course
I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.
It covers:
- The best blogging techniques.
- How to get traffic to your blog.
- How to turn your blog into money.
I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Leave of Absence
At this point, with the changes in my personal life, I find myself unable to create posts for this blog.
I do not want to delete the blog in the hope of restarting later.
So this will be a hiatus, I hope.
I thank those that are reading this for traveling here. I appreciate it.
Crazyman Bob
I do not want to delete the blog in the hope of restarting later.
So this will be a hiatus, I hope.
I thank those that are reading this for traveling here. I appreciate it.
Crazyman Bob
Sunday, November 18, 2007
The "Earliest Memory Game"
I was tagged to do this from Fiery here.
THE RULES
1. Describe your earliest memory where the memory is clear enough to provide at least 3 details.
2. Give an estimate of your age at the time.
3. Tag some other bloggers with this thread.
Early memories. They are a bit of a minefield for me. But lets give it a shot.
I remember being in my living room with several giant people around and mom. I kept running around the room and back to mom. Mom kept telling me to get my hand out of my pants. I assume this is a really early memory based on the relative size of the adults, but I don't know how old I was. And it doesn't qualify as I don't remember details.
So, next I can remember sharing a bedroom with my brother. This was before we moved to the basement which was rented out at this time. What I remember about sharing a bedroom with my brother is laying there in my bed as quiet as I could be scared he would come over and hurt me if I was too loud. He was three years older than me. I don't remember him actually hurting me at any point but that is my earliest memory of sharing a room with him. I don't know the age here either. Though still pretty young. Still no good details.
I remember a young grade school memory. I went to a small grade school for christians. So I didn't have many classmates. There were like 9 or 10 other kids in the class. My hair was cut all through grade school by my dad who literally put a bowl over my head and cut my hair around it. He gave me and my brother one choice. Did we want our hair to cover our ears or not? We always chose to have it cover our ears. I don't know why as the old photos show that to be a hideous look. Though maybe we were worried about the safety of our ears. A possibility.
All the other kids in my grade school class liked to make fun of me to their delight. The most popular was to make fun of my hair. My hair is straight. It likes to stand up in the middle even if long. So the hair would kind of fan straight up with static electricity on the top of my head.
One of the kids decided to call me fern because of it. It stuck as a nickname for the next 6 or 7 years till I went to High School. I hated that nickname. This was in 1st or 2nd grade.
I try not to remember things from when I was young. The memories, even when they start out fun, do not remain that way when I dig a little deeper. Childhood sucked for me on many levels.
As for who I will tag... No one. I do not have many readers anyway and I would not inflict this assignment on any of them.
THE RULES
1. Describe your earliest memory where the memory is clear enough to provide at least 3 details.
2. Give an estimate of your age at the time.
3. Tag some other bloggers with this thread.
Early memories. They are a bit of a minefield for me. But lets give it a shot.
I remember being in my living room with several giant people around and mom. I kept running around the room and back to mom. Mom kept telling me to get my hand out of my pants. I assume this is a really early memory based on the relative size of the adults, but I don't know how old I was. And it doesn't qualify as I don't remember details.
So, next I can remember sharing a bedroom with my brother. This was before we moved to the basement which was rented out at this time. What I remember about sharing a bedroom with my brother is laying there in my bed as quiet as I could be scared he would come over and hurt me if I was too loud. He was three years older than me. I don't remember him actually hurting me at any point but that is my earliest memory of sharing a room with him. I don't know the age here either. Though still pretty young. Still no good details.
I remember a young grade school memory. I went to a small grade school for christians. So I didn't have many classmates. There were like 9 or 10 other kids in the class. My hair was cut all through grade school by my dad who literally put a bowl over my head and cut my hair around it. He gave me and my brother one choice. Did we want our hair to cover our ears or not? We always chose to have it cover our ears. I don't know why as the old photos show that to be a hideous look. Though maybe we were worried about the safety of our ears. A possibility.
All the other kids in my grade school class liked to make fun of me to their delight. The most popular was to make fun of my hair. My hair is straight. It likes to stand up in the middle even if long. So the hair would kind of fan straight up with static electricity on the top of my head.
One of the kids decided to call me fern because of it. It stuck as a nickname for the next 6 or 7 years till I went to High School. I hated that nickname. This was in 1st or 2nd grade.
I try not to remember things from when I was young. The memories, even when they start out fun, do not remain that way when I dig a little deeper. Childhood sucked for me on many levels.
As for who I will tag... No one. I do not have many readers anyway and I would not inflict this assignment on any of them.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
More Objectivist Humor!
Why don't Objectivists wear pocket protectors? So that people won't mistake them for accountants.
How many Objectivists does it take to change a light bulb? You second-hand, evading social metaphysician, Ayn Rand has already changed it. The world just hasn't noticed yet.
What's two plus two? Whatever Ayn Rand said it was.
What's two plus two? Ayn Rand said it was "four," but she never followed up on her own groundbreaking insight. Now, thanks to the work of David Kelley, we're finally able to verify her result independently and give it the attention it deserves.
Why was Ayn Rand so paranoid? Because of her psycho epistemology.
Why did the non-Objectivist chicken cross the road? To mooch off the productive achievements of the Objectivist chickens who had already shown the way to the other side. (Fortunately, since A is A, a tunnel collapsed on it and it died as it deserved.)
How many Objectivists does it take to change a light bulb? You second-hand, evading social metaphysician, Ayn Rand has already changed it. The world just hasn't noticed yet.
What's two plus two? Whatever Ayn Rand said it was.
What's two plus two? Ayn Rand said it was "four," but she never followed up on her own groundbreaking insight. Now, thanks to the work of David Kelley, we're finally able to verify her result independently and give it the attention it deserves.
Why was Ayn Rand so paranoid? Because of her psycho epistemology.
Why did the non-Objectivist chicken cross the road? To mooch off the productive achievements of the Objectivist chickens who had already shown the way to the other side. (Fortunately, since A is A, a tunnel collapsed on it and it died as it deserved.)
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Even more humor
If the image is too small to read, click on it and it should load in your browser larger.
More Humor
Ayn Rand’s A Selfish Christmas
In this hour-long radio drama, Santa struggles with the increasing demands of providing gifts for millions of spoiled, ungrateful brats across the world, until a single elf, in the engineering department of his workshop, convinces Santa to go on strike. The special ends with the entropic collapse of the civilization of takers and the spectacle of children trudging across the bitterly cold, dark tundra to offer Santa cash for his services, acknowledging at last that his genius makes the gifts — and therefore Christmas — possible. Prior to broadcast, Mutual Broadcast System executives raised objections to the radio play, noting that 56 minutes of the hour-long broadcast went to a philosophical manifesto by the elf and of the four remaining minutes, three went to a love scene between Santa and the cold, practical Mrs. Claus that was rendered into radio through the use of grunts and the shattering of several dozen whiskey tumblers. In later letters, Rand sneeringly described these executives as “anti-life.”
Some humor to get through the day!
The 25 Most Inappropriate Things An Objectivist Can Say During Sex
by Jason Roth
- "Before we continue, there's something I have to ask you. Will you still accept the axiom that existence exists tomorrow?"
- "I appreciate the thought, but I consider it an act of self sacrifice for you to swallow."
- "I believe in the complete separation of the left leg from the right."
- "Now that's what I call standing up for what you believe in."
- "Emotions are the mind's near-instantaneous evaluation of a perceived fact or idea as either good or bad for the individual. Hence, my wet panties."
- "You sure smell better down here than the collectivists I've slept with."
- "To say 'Fuck me harder' one must first know how to say the 'me'."
- "No, I don't always object to you sticking your finger there. But that's a borderline case."
- "So dear, shall it be the steel magnate position tonight, or the A is A? Oh, damn, we're all out of Cool Whip. So much for the A is A."
- "I haven't had this much fun since I rejected the concept of God."
- "There's no such thing as a collective orgasm. But let's try our best."
- "Would you like me to concretize that for you?"
- "Contradictions do not exist. You can't insert it there and there at the same time. Wait a second. Open up the top drawer of my nightstand."
- "Good for you, you finally found my G-spot. Score one for goal-directed action."
- "No, you're not my first. But you are the first man whose penis has made me understand the role of measurement omission in the act of concept formation."
- "Don't you have any Tchaikovsky? Rachmaninoff is fine for 69s, but nothing beats Tchaikovsky when it comes to anal."
- "What do you mean, it's 'possible' that you had an orgasm? Are you saying that you have some evidence that you had an orgasm, but not sufficient evidence?"
- "No, I don't need Viagra. It's this damn non-objective pornography."
- "You feel warm and fuzzy? Check your premises."
- "It's time for me to teach you the difference between Platonic love and Aristotelian love."
- "You selfish bitch! You greedy, selfish bitch! What? You don't like my pillow talk?"
- "It doesn't really matter whether I come or not. I believe that man's tongue is an end in itself."
- "Don't construe my liking that as an instance of the sanction of the victim. Now excuse me while I wipe off my face."
- "There's nothing like grasping the objectivity of values. And what values they are."
- "John? Who is John?"
Friday, November 9, 2007
Life change
My life mate wants to leave me for an internet lover and move half way around the world to be with him, taking one of our two children with her.
We have been together, though I admit not happy all the time, for 15 plus years.
I can’t sleep. My health is in the pisser. I am an emotional wreck.
For 15 years we have stuck it out through thick and thin. Through a lot of shit.
I always thought that we would somehow work it out. It would turn into what we both wanted if we tried hard enough, long enough.
I was wrong. Maybe I was silly. Or stupid.
All I know is that it is over now. All that time, all that effort, all that sweat and tears led to this. Failure.
I guess it was over years ago and I just didn’t know it.
I will admit that I have been miserable for many of the years we have been together. And so has she. I couldn’t give her what she wanted. I was inadequate. I was a fool.
I still don’t know how to emotionally deal with this. Because even though it is “over”, it isn’t.
We have tons of details to work out. If she stays until the plans are all ironed out, she will be with me in my house for months, or a year. Always there, causing pain just by being there.
But if she leaves immediately and goes to her parents until the big move, I lose my son that much sooner.
Do I get an attorney and fight in court for custody rights for both kids? I don’t have the money for the attorney and I am unsure of my abilities to single Dad two kids. Especially when I want them to continue to be home schooled. I have to keep working. I don’t know how to keep income coming in, raise and educate both kids by myself.
Life is hard. It just got harder.
How do I move on with my life? How do I get through this?
I don’t know what to do.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
“What would you change in your life if you could go back in time and change it?”
Starhawk’s answer is that he wouldn’t change anything. “I would never give up those experiences. Good or bad, right or wrong, it’s those experiences that have made me who I am.”
In my life, though there have been lots of key decisions, there was one major turning point. There was a point where a different decision would have guaranteed a completely different life path. A path where I wouldn’t have ended up in the
But that is as far as I can see. I can’t see down that path to see if it would have been a better choice. Many times in the past 17 years I have assumed it would have. But there is no real way to know.
The things I do know.
I would never have met my wife. Or my kids. I would never have held my babies in my arms. Or ended up home schooling them.
I would not have discovered Ayn Rand and Objectivism. Which led me down a philosophical path that completely changed me as a person.
My current life path is not perfect. There are many changes that need to be made to improve quality of life and create happiness.
But I have to agree with Starhawk. I couldn’t give up this path. I worked to hard on this path to throw it all away.
Now, the premise of this question is obviously flawed. Even if I would go back in time to change things, I obviously couldn’t. There is no time travel.
This is it. Whatever life path you are on is the only one you have. But you are not stuck with it. Peter McWilliams said that everything you have done in your life up till this moment is nothing but a prelude in the book of your life; your story begins now.
You can change your life path. You can change where it is going in the future. You can throw it all away and try a different path. You can change it radically or desperately. Or you can modify your life path and change it for the better incrementally. Keeping what you have already built that is good and adding elements to your life that you need to improve it.
The trick is to not turn into a zombie and just stagger through your life unthinking. Letting the irreplaceable years drift by with no plan to improve your life. With no goals. That is the tragedy too easily seen all around. People who have given up.
I don’t believe acceptance is a virtue. It can have it’s time and place. But blanket acceptance is a cop out. It’s giving up.
Don’t give up. Never give up.
An Apology
I have been online for a total of 10 or 15 mins total for the last two or so weeks.
Thank you so much for continuing to check back.
I am finally back online!!!!! Yeah!!!!
Now if I can just stay healthy this blog should keep rolling and maybe even expand a bit.
That is my hope anyway.
Thank you again.
Crazyman
Thank you so much for continuing to check back.
I am finally back online!!!!! Yeah!!!!
Now if I can just stay healthy this blog should keep rolling and maybe even expand a bit.
That is my hope anyway.
Thank you again.
Crazyman
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Four Years
My daughter is 14. In other words, she just started High School.
Now this means something a little different at our house than most because we are home schooling our kids.
The final four years of home school. Finally!
This is what I have been waiting for her whole life. For her to be mentally capable of learning all the stuff I want to teach her. And she is ready!
Now I can teach her all the science, philosophy, history, literature, writing, and logic courses I have been itching to teach her for all this time.
Here is where you might expect me to take a sharp turn in the direction of this post and say something like: Now that the time has come I am terrified or unsure what to teach or something to that effect.
Nope! I am just excited. Giddy even. I keep reworking the curriculum order. Tweaking it.
All the lectures I have waiting for her, all the books I can’t wait for her to read, all the great figures in history for her to discover. All the intellectual discussions waiting.
Now it begins.
Now this means something a little different at our house than most because we are home schooling our kids.
The final four years of home school. Finally!
This is what I have been waiting for her whole life. For her to be mentally capable of learning all the stuff I want to teach her. And she is ready!
Now I can teach her all the science, philosophy, history, literature, writing, and logic courses I have been itching to teach her for all this time.
Here is where you might expect me to take a sharp turn in the direction of this post and say something like: Now that the time has come I am terrified or unsure what to teach or something to that effect.
Nope! I am just excited. Giddy even. I keep reworking the curriculum order. Tweaking it.
All the lectures I have waiting for her, all the books I can’t wait for her to read, all the great figures in history for her to discover. All the intellectual discussions waiting.
Now it begins.
At Worlds End
I started writing a review of the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie a while back. It was to be a rather negative review with nods to entertaining parts of the movie. A mostly thumbs down review.
Then something odd happened to me. I was at IMDB researching certain details about the film for my review: actual length of the film, correct spelling of actors names, that kind of thing. Then I got sidetracked by the various links that IMDB always has for movies: Trivia mainly, but also quotes, gaffs, references to other movies in this movie.
I started learning more about the film. The more I learned about the film and why they made various plot choices, the more I liked the film. This may seem obvious and I have noticed this about other films I have liked, but that’s my point really. I usually only research into the background of movies I like. Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc. I don’t usually waste any more time than the viewing for a film I don’t like.
And I didn’t like At Worlds End. Not at first.
What I found out was that this film, and Dead Man’s Chest before it, really delves into pirate lore. I thought of them before as just action comedy fluff movies. Not epic movies that have had a lot of thought put into them.
But these are Epics. This trilogy deserves to sit beside such great epics as the Star Wars saga and the Lord of the Rings movies.
I knew little to nothing about pirate lore before seeing these films you see. I still don’t know lots. But now I am aware that there is a rich mythology of pirates and this trilogy is a grand homage to that mythology.
Davy Jones, Calypso, The nine pirate lords, the pieces of eight, the east India trading company, and so much more.
I don’t know how true the movie makers of this trilogy were to the original mythology or how much they made up and added to it. All I know is I have come full circle and find myself giving these big thumbs up.
There be substance to these there movies, matey! Arrr!
But maybe you need to really like pirates to appreciate it. I am starting to.
Then something odd happened to me. I was at IMDB researching certain details about the film for my review: actual length of the film, correct spelling of actors names, that kind of thing. Then I got sidetracked by the various links that IMDB always has for movies: Trivia mainly, but also quotes, gaffs, references to other movies in this movie.
I started learning more about the film. The more I learned about the film and why they made various plot choices, the more I liked the film. This may seem obvious and I have noticed this about other films I have liked, but that’s my point really. I usually only research into the background of movies I like. Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc. I don’t usually waste any more time than the viewing for a film I don’t like.
And I didn’t like At Worlds End. Not at first.
What I found out was that this film, and Dead Man’s Chest before it, really delves into pirate lore. I thought of them before as just action comedy fluff movies. Not epic movies that have had a lot of thought put into them.
But these are Epics. This trilogy deserves to sit beside such great epics as the Star Wars saga and the Lord of the Rings movies.
I knew little to nothing about pirate lore before seeing these films you see. I still don’t know lots. But now I am aware that there is a rich mythology of pirates and this trilogy is a grand homage to that mythology.
Davy Jones, Calypso, The nine pirate lords, the pieces of eight, the east India trading company, and so much more.
I don’t know how true the movie makers of this trilogy were to the original mythology or how much they made up and added to it. All I know is I have come full circle and find myself giving these big thumbs up.
There be substance to these there movies, matey! Arrr!
But maybe you need to really like pirates to appreciate it. I am starting to.
Hospitals and Clinics
Starhawk made a comment a while back about near death experiences and how they can change the course of your life.
I have been thinking about that. Especially after my latest extended hospital stay.
During this ER – hospital visit (five days) I was told at one point that I had congestive heart failure and was bleeding into my lungs. That’s the kind of thing that can really scare a guy! At least it scared this crazyman.
I later found out that that statement was not accurate. (a kind way of saying that the doctor lied to me) But the shock and fear that this pronouncement produced in me is still with me.
I am no longer confident in my health. I have to admit that until now, I never truly believed I was vulnerable to major health problems. If I am to be honest, and honesty is important to me, I still don’t truly believe I will die. Not really.
But the possibility of living in a severely crippled miserable state close to death has come down on me like a ton of bricks.
I still distrust the methods and motives of the big pharmaceutical companies but I no longer feel I can avoid taking the pills from them to deal with my severely high blood pressure. I now feel the urgency of taking those pills day and night.
I still think they may be a slippery slope for the drug companies. Pills for original problem. Followed by more pills for the side effects caused by first pills. Followed by even more pills for side effects of second set of pills.
But I am now on that slope, twice a day. Alarms set so I don’t forget.
I don’t like seeing the doctor at the clinic regularly and modifying my doses. But I like the ER and the hospital even less. So to avoid more ER visits, I will visit the clinic regularly.
I don’t want to go the ER anymore. The novelty has worn off.
I have been thinking about that. Especially after my latest extended hospital stay.
During this ER – hospital visit (five days) I was told at one point that I had congestive heart failure and was bleeding into my lungs. That’s the kind of thing that can really scare a guy! At least it scared this crazyman.
I later found out that that statement was not accurate. (a kind way of saying that the doctor lied to me) But the shock and fear that this pronouncement produced in me is still with me.
I am no longer confident in my health. I have to admit that until now, I never truly believed I was vulnerable to major health problems. If I am to be honest, and honesty is important to me, I still don’t truly believe I will die. Not really.
But the possibility of living in a severely crippled miserable state close to death has come down on me like a ton of bricks.
I still distrust the methods and motives of the big pharmaceutical companies but I no longer feel I can avoid taking the pills from them to deal with my severely high blood pressure. I now feel the urgency of taking those pills day and night.
I still think they may be a slippery slope for the drug companies. Pills for original problem. Followed by more pills for the side effects caused by first pills. Followed by even more pills for side effects of second set of pills.
But I am now on that slope, twice a day. Alarms set so I don’t forget.
I don’t like seeing the doctor at the clinic regularly and modifying my doses. But I like the ER and the hospital even less. So to avoid more ER visits, I will visit the clinic regularly.
I don’t want to go the ER anymore. The novelty has worn off.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Childhood Dreams
I am almost 40 years old. Time for a midlife crisis.
Actually I have been having a midlife crisis for the last 10 years or more. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be going away.
I made plans for what I wanted to do in my life when I was 18. I even set dates for certain accomplishments. One for when I was 25. One for when I was 30. And One for when I was 32. These were not necessarily good plans, mind you. I was 18 and not a very good thinker. But I had a great passion for my goals.
I stayed "on track" until I was 21. At 21 I hit a road block. I could have gone around it. I could have taken a different route so to speak.
Instead I just stopped. To my shame, I just stopped. Looking back, it is obvious that the road block didn't have to stop me. It wasn't even very big. But I never even tried to continue on.
Well, thats not quite true. I did make one abortive attempt to go on years later. But by then it was no longer the moral choice.
I didn't get into the specifics because this is all just background info for what I wanted to write about.
I don't understand why I can't let this stuff go. It is all old news. All childhood dreams. I have been on a different path for many years now and all I can think about is how I screwed up my life because I didn't stay on that first path. And it isn't even a BETTER path. Not really. Not when I really think about it fairly. It's all just a grass is greener thing.
But it doesn't matter how much I think about it, and try to accept it. It builds up inside of me until I can't take it anymore. I just lose it emotionally. I know I have the rest of my life ahead of me. But I don't know how to reconcile the past. Or let it go.
Actually I have been having a midlife crisis for the last 10 years or more. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be going away.
I made plans for what I wanted to do in my life when I was 18. I even set dates for certain accomplishments. One for when I was 25. One for when I was 30. And One for when I was 32. These were not necessarily good plans, mind you. I was 18 and not a very good thinker. But I had a great passion for my goals.
I stayed "on track" until I was 21. At 21 I hit a road block. I could have gone around it. I could have taken a different route so to speak.
Instead I just stopped. To my shame, I just stopped. Looking back, it is obvious that the road block didn't have to stop me. It wasn't even very big. But I never even tried to continue on.
Well, thats not quite true. I did make one abortive attempt to go on years later. But by then it was no longer the moral choice.
I didn't get into the specifics because this is all just background info for what I wanted to write about.
I don't understand why I can't let this stuff go. It is all old news. All childhood dreams. I have been on a different path for many years now and all I can think about is how I screwed up my life because I didn't stay on that first path. And it isn't even a BETTER path. Not really. Not when I really think about it fairly. It's all just a grass is greener thing.
But it doesn't matter how much I think about it, and try to accept it. It builds up inside of me until I can't take it anymore. I just lose it emotionally. I know I have the rest of my life ahead of me. But I don't know how to reconcile the past. Or let it go.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Welcome Starhawk
A grand welcome to the second visitor to my blog. I enjoy your comments on Fiery's blog and thought you might enjoy my meager attempt at a blog.
I am keeping this invite only until my confidence and ability to maintain a blog increases. The long term goal is to eventually turn this blog out to everyone.
I value your opinions and input so feel free to comment on everything and anything. Or just read. Its up to you.
Thanks for climbing aboard.
Crazyman
I am keeping this invite only until my confidence and ability to maintain a blog increases. The long term goal is to eventually turn this blog out to everyone.
I value your opinions and input so feel free to comment on everything and anything. Or just read. Its up to you.
Thanks for climbing aboard.
Crazyman
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Hello Fiery!
Welcome to my blog!
I know it's you reading this because right now it is invite only, and I have only invited you! :-)
A little intro:
I am currently posting whatever I have done when I start a post and then continuing to edit later. So the posts are not really done when they first appear. I will not continue this practice when I open up the blog to everyone later, it is just something I wanted to do now.
And I wanted you to be able to read them, even if they are not done!
Happy Reading!
Crazyman
I know it's you reading this because right now it is invite only, and I have only invited you! :-)
A little intro:
I am currently posting whatever I have done when I start a post and then continuing to edit later. So the posts are not really done when they first appear. I will not continue this practice when I open up the blog to everyone later, it is just something I wanted to do now.
And I wanted you to be able to read them, even if they are not done!
Happy Reading!
Crazyman
The Doctor
A couple of Fridays ago I had to leave work suddenly in an ambulance to go to the emergency room. Everyone thought I was having a heart attack. I was just confused at the time.
Don't get me wrong; I didn't know I wasn't having a heart attack. I just knew something was wrong but didn't know what.
I was sitting in my office doing my work as always. The night was going well actually.
Then suddenly I was losing concentration. Every thing seemed more dreamlike and unreal. I could feel my heart pounding away and something about it seemed off but I wasn't sure what.
So I called in a co-worker. Let's just call him Dan. "Dan, could you come in here for a moment?"
He came into my office and looked at me questioningly. "Dan, you were an EMT right? Could you check my pulse? Is it going as fast as it seems it is or am I imagining it?"
"Sure." Dan tips his head down and checks my wrist for a while. Then he straightens up and grabs the phone and immediately dials 911.
I start to protest but Dan just reassures me that everything will be ok and to just sit back and relax. Don't move too much. I didn't want to go to the hospital but I listen and sit back.
The Fire Dept. shows up first. Then the ambulance. They hook up the sensors to my chest. Then seem to really panic but try not to show it. They roll me out to the ambulance and take me to the ER, setting up IVs and spraying under my tongue with nitro and giving me chew able aspirin on the way. The aspirin was a tasty orange i remember. The nitro tasted bad.
They got me to the ER and rolled me in.
I don't remember much about the next couple hours. It was basically a blur. I just remember shorts bits.
Like everyone around the bed looking at the heart readout and being confused. Then I remember them telling me they were going to inject me with something that will briefly slow down my heart.
Oh and you might feel something. Feel something. Might. Well, I sure did feel something. I felt a huge pain in my chest and I thought I was going to die for the first time that night! I felt like they must have screwed up cause this was it! The end. Then in another second or so, it passed and I felt better. I tugged weakly on a nearby nurses sleeve. "Can we please not do that again?" I asked weakly. She assured me that they wouldn't but that it was a good good thing they did. And that they had learned a lot. I felt better then. I don't know who she was, but I thank her for the moment of reassurance.
I was then told that I was not having a heart attack. (Later I was told again that according to their tests I had never had a heart attack. I have no idea how they can tell that but it was nice to hear!) I had an... elevated heart rate. Which sounded like no big deal until they told me I had a resting heart rate of 168. Holy crap! My heart monitor would go ballistic if I got even close to that when I exercise!
They were able to bring the heart rate down with drugs. Then they slowly (it took about 2 hours) eased off the drugs and my heart stayed normal. And is still normal to this day.
So gold stars all around to the EMT's and the entire ER staff that night. Thank you very much!
The part that really unsettles me is that I don't think I would have gone in at all on my own. I really don't like hospitals. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't gone in. Maybe it would have self-corrected after a while. ... Maybe not.
So what it really boils down to is, I am pretty sure Dan saved my life that night. He didn't ask, he just picked up the phone and did the right thing.
Thank you Dan.
Don't get me wrong; I didn't know I wasn't having a heart attack. I just knew something was wrong but didn't know what.
I was sitting in my office doing my work as always. The night was going well actually.
Then suddenly I was losing concentration. Every thing seemed more dreamlike and unreal. I could feel my heart pounding away and something about it seemed off but I wasn't sure what.
So I called in a co-worker. Let's just call him Dan. "Dan, could you come in here for a moment?"
He came into my office and looked at me questioningly. "Dan, you were an EMT right? Could you check my pulse? Is it going as fast as it seems it is or am I imagining it?"
"Sure." Dan tips his head down and checks my wrist for a while. Then he straightens up and grabs the phone and immediately dials 911.
I start to protest but Dan just reassures me that everything will be ok and to just sit back and relax. Don't move too much. I didn't want to go to the hospital but I listen and sit back.
The Fire Dept. shows up first. Then the ambulance. They hook up the sensors to my chest. Then seem to really panic but try not to show it. They roll me out to the ambulance and take me to the ER, setting up IVs and spraying under my tongue with nitro and giving me chew able aspirin on the way. The aspirin was a tasty orange i remember. The nitro tasted bad.
They got me to the ER and rolled me in.
I don't remember much about the next couple hours. It was basically a blur. I just remember shorts bits.
Like everyone around the bed looking at the heart readout and being confused. Then I remember them telling me they were going to inject me with something that will briefly slow down my heart.
Oh and you might feel something. Feel something. Might. Well, I sure did feel something. I felt a huge pain in my chest and I thought I was going to die for the first time that night! I felt like they must have screwed up cause this was it! The end. Then in another second or so, it passed and I felt better. I tugged weakly on a nearby nurses sleeve. "Can we please not do that again?" I asked weakly. She assured me that they wouldn't but that it was a good good thing they did. And that they had learned a lot. I felt better then. I don't know who she was, but I thank her for the moment of reassurance.
I was then told that I was not having a heart attack. (Later I was told again that according to their tests I had never had a heart attack. I have no idea how they can tell that but it was nice to hear!) I had an... elevated heart rate. Which sounded like no big deal until they told me I had a resting heart rate of 168. Holy crap! My heart monitor would go ballistic if I got even close to that when I exercise!
They were able to bring the heart rate down with drugs. Then they slowly (it took about 2 hours) eased off the drugs and my heart stayed normal. And is still normal to this day.
So gold stars all around to the EMT's and the entire ER staff that night. Thank you very much!
The part that really unsettles me is that I don't think I would have gone in at all on my own. I really don't like hospitals. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't gone in. Maybe it would have self-corrected after a while. ... Maybe not.
So what it really boils down to is, I am pretty sure Dan saved my life that night. He didn't ask, he just picked up the phone and did the right thing.
Thank you Dan.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Dilbert
Or maybe I should have named this post my obvious post.
I am a huge Dilbert fan. His comics are consistently funny and amazingly accurate about life at work. The pointy headed boss is my favorite.
Where I work the passwords on all the computers are the same. Thats right, the same. Once you know the password you can get on any computer including the owners. So why have a password? Work here long enough and you learn not to ask why.
So then Scott Adams has this great cartoon. He just nails it! All I had to do is change the "123" on the copy taped to my monitor to the password at work and viola!
Our local paper (even though it is a Pulitzer prize winning paper) isn't worth the paper its printed on. It is delivered to where I work every morning though. So I just pick it up, read the new Dilbert, and go on with my day smiling.
Thank you Scott Adams! Keep up the good work!
I am a huge Dilbert fan. His comics are consistently funny and amazingly accurate about life at work. The pointy headed boss is my favorite.Where I work the passwords on all the computers are the same. Thats right, the same. Once you know the password you can get on any computer including the owners. So why have a password? Work here long enough and you learn not to ask why.
So then Scott Adams has this great cartoon. He just nails it! All I had to do is change the "123" on the copy taped to my monitor to the password at work and viola!
Our local paper (even though it is a Pulitzer prize winning paper) isn't worth the paper its printed on. It is delivered to where I work every morning though. So I just pick it up, read the new Dilbert, and go on with my day smiling.
Thank you Scott Adams! Keep up the good work!
1408
It all started at work.
Co-workers coming up to me and saying "Have you seen 1408?" "No." "But its awesome. You have to see it!" "I'm not interested." "But its so good! Here I will loan you my dvd!" "I don't want to watch it!" and on and on.
Finally, I admit it, I caved. "All right, I'll watch the damn movie." "Oh it's going to be great. You'll love it." "Right. Now let me get back to work."
I don't like to give into peer pressure as a rule. And yet here I am, first post on my blog, caving to peer pressure.
But frankly, I started to get curious. What the hell was it about this movie that got them so worked up! Plus I tend to like John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. So fine, I will go home and watch this thing.
So, thats what I did.
Now before I give my review, so to speak, let me give you a little context. I don't believe in the supernatural. At all. No gods, devils, angels, demons, ghosts, spirits, gremlins, no life after death, etc, etc, etc. There is the natural world. That's it. Also, I don't really like horror movies in general.
So no, this isn't really a good choice of movie for me. But the thing of it is, my coworkers know this about me. Which made me curious as to what it is about this movie that made them think I would like it? Or maybe they just want to hear about my reaction to it. I will find out tomorrow.
SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!
Actually, I don't think there really will be any spoilers but that seems to be what you do in reviews so I thought I would throw that in here. On the other hand, if you don't want to read a negative review about a movie you are looking forward to see, you might want to stop now and move on.
What did I think of it? Not much on any level. Oh the startling type of surprises worked on me. They always do. Having a guy jump out suddenly and start swinging will get me every time. But so what? That is startling, not scary.
The best thing I can say is that John Cusack did a great job with what he was given to do. He did a great job acting. I mean the kind of acting that makes you forget you are watching an actor. He truly is very good.
He just wasn't in a very good script. I didn't find the plot very thrilling. I found the movie predictable. Not moment to moment, but in broad strokes there were no surprises. I haven't watched horror movies for years and yet this one had every trick I can remember predictably thrown in.
But more to the point, I don't think that supernatural thrillers can work very well unless the person watching has at least a smidgen of belief in the supernatural. If you don't, it makes it like watching a movie about a math teacher that is teaching students with all his heart and soul but the math is all 2+2=5 and 6x7=8. You just don't buy it. Every time the movie starts to pull you in, the ridiculousness of the math breaks you out of it and you just sit there thinking "what the hell?"
Now I have enjoyed all sorts of fantasy movies and shows like Heroes and fantastical sci-fi. I even like playing wizards in D&D. But there is a difference. In all those others, I could except the premise of the situation and just go with it, because there were heroes and good guys to root for. Plus the writing was better. (yes, even in the D&D games, the writing was better)
In this movie, while you are obviously supposed to pull for the Cusack character, I just couldn't get into it. They put in a back story that the room could use against him to continue to show how evil this room was. But it seems like thats all it was for. Put there so the room could use it.
I thought Cusack did the character about as good as anyone could. I just couldn't relate to the character as written. An actor can only rise so far above the script.
They set up the main character this way. He never before has seen evidence for the supernatural. You know he is going to in this room, thats the point of the movie. So all that is left is waiting to see what actually happens. And because they wanted to do so much in the room, they can only build it up so much.
They did spend a fair amount of time before he enters the room. But they state boldly that no one lasts longer than an hour in there. So that leaves out any real suspense in the room. Shit has to go down and soon once he gets inside. So instead of suspense horror, it is action horror I guess. Based on this movie, action horror doesn't work for me.
I find this a challenge to write about because it would be easy to just say it is ridiculous nonsense and leave it at that. Plus, left to my own I would never have seen it to begin with. But I did want to try to make a post out of the experience. So I thought I should say more than: "1408 It's about supernatural shit. Avoid it. "
Co-workers coming up to me and saying "Have you seen 1408?" "No." "But its awesome. You have to see it!" "I'm not interested." "But its so good! Here I will loan you my dvd!" "I don't want to watch it!" and on and on.
Finally, I admit it, I caved. "All right, I'll watch the damn movie." "Oh it's going to be great. You'll love it." "Right. Now let me get back to work."
I don't like to give into peer pressure as a rule. And yet here I am, first post on my blog, caving to peer pressure.
But frankly, I started to get curious. What the hell was it about this movie that got them so worked up! Plus I tend to like John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. So fine, I will go home and watch this thing.
So, thats what I did.
Now before I give my review, so to speak, let me give you a little context. I don't believe in the supernatural. At all. No gods, devils, angels, demons, ghosts, spirits, gremlins, no life after death, etc, etc, etc. There is the natural world. That's it. Also, I don't really like horror movies in general.
So no, this isn't really a good choice of movie for me. But the thing of it is, my coworkers know this about me. Which made me curious as to what it is about this movie that made them think I would like it? Or maybe they just want to hear about my reaction to it. I will find out tomorrow.
SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!
Actually, I don't think there really will be any spoilers but that seems to be what you do in reviews so I thought I would throw that in here. On the other hand, if you don't want to read a negative review about a movie you are looking forward to see, you might want to stop now and move on.
What did I think of it? Not much on any level. Oh the startling type of surprises worked on me. They always do. Having a guy jump out suddenly and start swinging will get me every time. But so what? That is startling, not scary.
The best thing I can say is that John Cusack did a great job with what he was given to do. He did a great job acting. I mean the kind of acting that makes you forget you are watching an actor. He truly is very good.
He just wasn't in a very good script. I didn't find the plot very thrilling. I found the movie predictable. Not moment to moment, but in broad strokes there were no surprises. I haven't watched horror movies for years and yet this one had every trick I can remember predictably thrown in.
But more to the point, I don't think that supernatural thrillers can work very well unless the person watching has at least a smidgen of belief in the supernatural. If you don't, it makes it like watching a movie about a math teacher that is teaching students with all his heart and soul but the math is all 2+2=5 and 6x7=8. You just don't buy it. Every time the movie starts to pull you in, the ridiculousness of the math breaks you out of it and you just sit there thinking "what the hell?"
Now I have enjoyed all sorts of fantasy movies and shows like Heroes and fantastical sci-fi. I even like playing wizards in D&D. But there is a difference. In all those others, I could except the premise of the situation and just go with it, because there were heroes and good guys to root for. Plus the writing was better. (yes, even in the D&D games, the writing was better)
In this movie, while you are obviously supposed to pull for the Cusack character, I just couldn't get into it. They put in a back story that the room could use against him to continue to show how evil this room was. But it seems like thats all it was for. Put there so the room could use it.
I thought Cusack did the character about as good as anyone could. I just couldn't relate to the character as written. An actor can only rise so far above the script.
They set up the main character this way. He never before has seen evidence for the supernatural. You know he is going to in this room, thats the point of the movie. So all that is left is waiting to see what actually happens. And because they wanted to do so much in the room, they can only build it up so much.
They did spend a fair amount of time before he enters the room. But they state boldly that no one lasts longer than an hour in there. So that leaves out any real suspense in the room. Shit has to go down and soon once he gets inside. So instead of suspense horror, it is action horror I guess. Based on this movie, action horror doesn't work for me.
I find this a challenge to write about because it would be easy to just say it is ridiculous nonsense and leave it at that. Plus, left to my own I would never have seen it to begin with. But I did want to try to make a post out of the experience. So I thought I should say more than: "1408 It's about supernatural shit. Avoid it. "
Monday, August 27, 2007
Family
What is a family? Something you are born into? Something you create? A burden to bear? A source of joy?
Is it different for everyone? Can one choose what it is or do you just discover what yours is as you go? Why do people choose to have a family?
What if you don't choose and one happens anyway? Then what? Run? Hide? Bear the responsibility as best one can?
Does one mistake have to destroy the rest of ones life? Or does it take two mistakes?
And what about the bastard that make those two mistakes? Is he forever doomed to a life of hell?
After a certain point, the "what if" of the past is no longer worth pursuing and yet, the pain has not left yet. The debilitating pain that leaves one crumpled in the corner.
Why does it always end in tears. Not a man. Not a soldier. Just a wussy boy crying in the dark. Embarrassed of himself and the worthless fat slob he has become.
Nothing to look back in pride at. Nothing to look forward to being proud of.
Just more pain. and more pills. and more embarrassment.
Faking through one day after another. Making people laugh to stop the tears from flowing.
Always aware that he is just one step away from disappointing someone again. Its just a matter of time.
It is always just a matter of time.
Is it different for everyone? Can one choose what it is or do you just discover what yours is as you go? Why do people choose to have a family?
What if you don't choose and one happens anyway? Then what? Run? Hide? Bear the responsibility as best one can?
Does one mistake have to destroy the rest of ones life? Or does it take two mistakes?
And what about the bastard that make those two mistakes? Is he forever doomed to a life of hell?
After a certain point, the "what if" of the past is no longer worth pursuing and yet, the pain has not left yet. The debilitating pain that leaves one crumpled in the corner.
Why does it always end in tears. Not a man. Not a soldier. Just a wussy boy crying in the dark. Embarrassed of himself and the worthless fat slob he has become.
Nothing to look back in pride at. Nothing to look forward to being proud of.
Just more pain. and more pills. and more embarrassment.
Faking through one day after another. Making people laugh to stop the tears from flowing.
Always aware that he is just one step away from disappointing someone again. Its just a matter of time.
It is always just a matter of time.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
The Sentence
A twenty-five year sentence. Fifteen years in. Only ten to go. The hardest ten. I thought it might get easier. Just accept and let the time flow. But instead it feels like I am in solitary and it just gets worse and worse.
I can’t do it all. I can’t do all the responsibilities by myself. I never could. I wasn't ready. I'm still not ready.
My rock is crumbling. When I couldn’t handle it, she was there. She said we would make it.
My rock is crumbling and there is nothing I can do about it. Now it feels like solitary.
Without a rock to lean on.
So I try ativan. Sorta works. Sometimes doesn’t. Not even when I up the dose. It’s not the same as my rock, that’s for sure.
I’m just getting older.
By the time the sentence is up, what is there left?
Where are the answers? I have looked and looked and looked for answers for fifteen years. Where are the goddamn answers?
aaaahhhh.It is finaly kicking in. About damn time. 6 mg this time. More than usual.
But at least it worked.
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