one question

Dov'è il tedesco?

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fuck you, indiana

Ind. joins legal challenge to health care overhaul

By RICK CALLAHAN (AP) – 1 day ago

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana is joining 13 other states in challenging the nearly $1 trillion health care overhaul signed into law last week by President Barack Obama.

State Attorney General Greg Zoeller (ZEL'-ur) said Monday that Indiana will be added to an amended version of the lawsuit targeting the law that's expected to be filed soon.

Zoeller says the 14 states that will then be plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in a federal court in Florida will split the costs of the legal challenge. He says it's unclear how much Indiana's share of that bill will be.

Zoeller says the federal health care law raises serious constitutional questions, including whether Congress has the authority to enact the law's mandate that most Americans purchase health insurance.

chordae tendineae

I'm alone on a Saturday night. Several glasses of cherry-flavored vodka and cola have brought me here. I am here to provide an update about my current self. Things are not good. (Typical situation, right? Yeah, well, fuck you.) About ten days ago things began to slowly drift southward. Now I am here. At the bottom. My heart strings (anatomically known as the chordae tendineae) are heavy this late evening. Heavy because yesterday I spoke to mother, and her health hasn't improved; in fact, it has worsened, although she may finally be nearing a diagnosis. I have previously written, albeit briefly, about mother's ailing health, so I will not rehash the details. She's lost nearly 60 pounds since the onset of the illness last October. She believes she has found a name for the sickness that has left her unable to ingest practically anything. The condition is called gastroparesis, and it occurs when the muscles of the stomach fail to properly propel food into the small intestine. The food consumed goes nowhere and ostensibly rots in the stomach. Because there is no cure for gastroparesis, she may have to rely, possibly exclusively, on a feeding tube to deliver necessary nutrients. She will hopefully know more after she visits her doctor – the doctor who thus far has been unable to diagnose her illness – on April 12.

Me: I submitted my applications for the ______ and _____ ____ Registered Nursing Programs last week. Each program accepts 40 applicants, which are accepted on a 223-point-scoring system. I scored 212, so I should be a lock for at least one of the campuses. I should be excited about this potential development, but I am not. It's difficult to maintain a gasp of optimism when everything is suffocated by pessimism and dread. This hopelessness is frustratingly elusive, because when I attempt to define what drives it, I find nothing but a maze of fragmented ideologies, concepts that seem sensible but simultaneously have no foothold on my reality.

Is this contrast a result of the fact that life has no discernible purpose?

I have wrestled with nihilism for years, yet it remains. I still wait for the individual (and his accompanying religion) to convince me that our species has an irrefutable purpose. A beaver, for example, possesses an innate sense to construct a dam so that it may then build its lodge in the resulting pond. Are we stripped of sense and purpose because our consciousness floods our existence with questions? Yes. The beaver does not question his dam building activity because his survival depends on that activity. And what about us? Is our sole purpose survival? If so, then why is survival a relative question based on class and wealth? I could use this question as a vehicle to question capitalism, but the hour is late and my eyelids are heavy.

I'll close with this: I would like to believe that our purpose is simply survival – survival of the individual and his fellow man. But in this country and throughout the world, the system of capitalism dictates otherwise. As Karl Marx wrote in Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. III, "Production comes to a standstill not at the point where needs are satisfied, but rather where the production and realization of profit impose this."

Are we stripped of sense and purpose because our consciousness floods our existence with questions (and thereby motives)?

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finally

Now that major health-care reform is just a president's signature away, I thought I would share Sen. Dick Lugar's response (complete with facsimile signature), which I received last December, to my letter about the importance of real health-care reform. I realize the body of this letter was probably a blanket response to all health-care reform inquiries, but it symbolizes why the Republican party will never be a serious voice in the arena of health-care reform. For example, Lugar offered that as an alternative to the Democratic legislation, "health promotion and disease prevention" should be considered; further, he believed in programs for young people that will aid them in healthy decision making.

The services and concepts he mentioned are obviously important, but the matter at hand was health-insurance reform, not bolstering health and wellness programs. Nowhere in his response did he offer a solution for the 30 million Americans who don't have health insurance. Preexisting conditions were not mentioned. Nor was access to affordable, quality health care. The bill that awaits the president's signature is certainly a huge step forward, but I and millions of others wanted more aggressive legislation, most notably a public option. It's no coincidence that the S&P 500 Managed Health Care Index is up nearly 60% over the last year. Senators, Congressmen and women, PLEASE DO NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THE PUBLIC OPTION.

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two great albums

How fucking good is the latest from The Brian Jonestown Massacre? For those who find nothing appealing about TBJM (yes, the three of you out there, somewhere), give Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? a listen. And turn it up. Loud. I love the tribal-like textures that slither throughout the album; the rhythms prevent the music from falling into shoegaze-electro territory -- it rides the crest of that wave and keeps your head bobbing in the process. I especially love the nod to Joy Division in "This Is the One Thing We Did Not Want to Have Happen." I highly recommend Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?. (Listen to the entire album at brianjonestownmassacre.com.)

Another album you should be listening to is the debut from Phantogram, Eyelid Movies. This duo, from Saratoga Springs, New York, is the States' answer to Massive Attack. And that isn't hyperbole. Eyelid Movies strikes a perfect balance between hip hop, electro, post-punk and rock, and it's easily my favorite release of this young year.

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three for thursday and two for the weekend

A goodie box from Amazon arrived today:

Bukowski because I've neglected him for too long.
The Marxism is for enlightenment.
And Reality Hunger because I read this.

My Netflix weekend will be fulfilled by The Panic in Needle Park and The Hurt Locker.

My presence here has been limited by a lack of inspiration and desire. I haven't written anything creative for months (August 12 of 2009, to be exact); I wonder if the bridge between imagination and the written word will ever be repaired. In the meantime, this blog has mutated into "just another blog." When I began this space, I wanted 80% of the material to satisfy my creativity, that primal need to express myself; the remaining 20% was to function as a soapbox. I suppose I wanted this blog to be an open journal, something intimate, unique. I didn't want to fill it with opinions, because we all have those. What all of us don't possess, however, is the ability to express the unspoken essence of life and memory, and, in my humble opinion, I have, in a few posts, accomplished that. Some of those posts were fiction shorts, and others were real, raw expressions of my reactions to my life. Perhaps I've become too self conscious of who I am in life and what I am at this address. (Should there even be a distinction between the two?) Or maybe I've simply lost the spark of creative expression.

I don't know where my creativity is, and I can't seem to find that perch of observation. Maybe Bukowski can shovel me out.

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funny and oddly fascinating

Check this out: Epic Beard Man -- Why It's the Fastest Public Fight Meme Yet

And visit the "Epic Beard Man" page at knowyourmeme.com for an exhaustive look at the video and its characters. There is a transcript of the fight, video of the fight's aftermath, interviews with those involved, and a video of Epic Beard Man getting tased at a baseball game -- a video that was uploaded in August of '09. The endless abyss of resources available on the Internet never cease to amaze me. Unbelievable.

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awesome pic

From the the White House's Flikr photostream: "Bob Dylan shakes President Barack Obama's hand following his performance at the 'In Performance At The White House: A Celebration Of Music From The Civil Rights Movement' concert in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 9, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)"

movies for the weekend

This weekend I have Inglorious Basterds and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Last weekend I watched The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and American Psycho. Many years ago I attempted to read Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho and failed. Instead of finishing the novel, I sold it on eBay for five bucks. I decided to give the movie a chance because I'm a fan of Christian Bale; plus, the film received high praise upon its release. FAIL. I hated the movie as much as I hated the book, and like the book, I couldn't finish the experience. I realize the film/book is a dark satire about the excesses of modern life in America -- I get it -- but I don't need Patrick Bateman's mind numbing descriptions to drive home the point. I don't know, maybe some day American Psycho will click with me, but in the meantime, I give this flick one star out of five. Ugh.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, however, was spectacular. I initially gave this film four stars out of five, but the more I think about it, the more I like it, which, in my mind, is the mark of a truly great film. I think it could have been about thirty minutes shorter; regardless, the story is solid, the cinematography is beautiful (is there anyone better than Roger Deakins*?),and the acting is flawless. James was an enigmatic figure in his own right, but you could dedicate an entire film to Ford and his post-assassin psyche. Don't pigeonhole The Assassination of Jesse James... as a Western -- it's much deeper than that.

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* - The criminally overlooked Coen brothers' film The Man Who Wasn't There, in my mind, solidified Deakins as a genius.

you are here

Twenty years ago NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, which still operates today, took the following picture. The "pale blue dot" is Earth from 4 billion miles away.

Read more about this historic photo here.

Carl Sagan wrote the following in response to the Voyager 1 image:

Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

you gotta watch this

Shane Smith, co-founder of Vice magazine, gives us a rare look inside North Korea -- well, more precisely, it's the North Korea Pyongyang wants you to see. This three-part series is fascinating because it vividly captures the disparity between reality and propaganda, a gulf that's so immense it's difficult -- and heartbreaking -- to believe that a country's people can exist in such a secluded, solitary state.

The series was posted on Vice magazine's VBS.tv way back in March 2008, but, for some reason, CNN, which is where I discovered the series, recently posted a blurb about it and VBS.tv, calling the site a "transparent approach to journalism."

During part one, Smith calls the border between North and South Korea "the end of the world." Indeed, after getting such a rare glimpse inside North Korea, it would be hard as a North Korean to imagine anything existing beyond your borders. "Vice Guide to North Korea" made me appreciate the World Wide Web -- and my freedom. There are too many memorable moments to mention, so watch all three parts. Great stuff.

(Also check out Boston Globe's "Recent Scenes from North Korea" for some interesting pics.)

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recent stuff

As good ol' Sarah Palin was giving her keynote speech at the National Tea Baggers Convention Saturday night (she really had cheat notes scribbled on her hand? Seriously?), I was watching Moon. The film, which was an official selection at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, stars Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell and—well, no one else, really. Sam is nearing the end of his three-year contract as sole inhabitant of the moon base Sarang. The base is operated by Lunar Industries – a corporation that has pioneered the science of harvesting the moon's rich supply of helium-3. Helium-3, as we discover in the opening seconds of the film, has become the earth's primary, and eco-friendly, energy supply. Astronaut Bell's primary responsibility is to oversee the mining operations, but he has his mind on other things, because in a matter of weeks he will begin his three-day journey back home. At least that's the plan. His final days in the base are troubled by hallucinations – or are they?

I accidently stumbled upon Moon many months ago when I discovered Clint Mansell – the man behind the music of Darren Aronofsky's films – had written another film score. And it's a very good film score. In fact, Moon is the first film I was inspired to see simply by listening to its soundtrack. If you find Moon's music intriguing, odds are you'll like the movie. Moon is all about atmosphere, and Mansell has exquisitely trapped the solitude and sadness of Sam's existence inside the notes of the film's score.

Take a trip to Moon – you'll enjoy the journey. Four stars out of five.

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During the last several months, eMusic, which was known as the "indie iTunes," has brought aboard corporate record labels, and the eMusic subscriber has paid the price. I used to get 75 downloads a month for $20; I now get 50 for $21. I don't like paying more for fewer downloads, but the extra cost is worth the price, especially when I can now discover great albums like 39 Songs: Live at the Olympia by R.E.M. I've always appreciated and respected the Athens, Georgia, band, but the two-disc live album solidifies R.E.M. as a national treasure. The album opens with a searing version of "Living Well is the Best Revenge," and is followed by, what is in my opinion a quintessential R.E.M. tune, "Second Guessing."

Live at the Olympia showcases why R.E.M. is one of the few, truly great American rock bands, which is strange to say, because a teenager, as he grows listening to modern rock music, never expects that the band he's listening to will become prolific, great, and respected worldwide. It's one thing to, as a '90s teenager, listen to a great classic rock band, like The Who, Pink Floyd, or Led Zeppelin, but it's another thing to grow up with a band that will eventually reach the timeless status of their forefathers. We're all getting older, but with bands like R.E.M., aging sounds all right.

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I've also been liking the latest Spoon album, Transference. None of Spoon's previous work clicked with me, but Transference does. I like it because it comes across as a sloppily compiled album – and that's a good thing. Much of Transference sounds unfinished, as if it leaked on the Net months before it was actually finished, which, again, is a good thing; I love how the abrupt end of "The Mystery Zone" bleeds perfectly into the hazy "Who Makes Your Money." The imperfect quality of Transference gives its songs plenty of breathing room; with each listen the songs sound a little bigger, more defined. The album's closer, "Nobody Gets Me but You," provides a perfect snapshot of the album's being. The song begins as a tight composition featuring voice, bass and drums, but descends into a beautifully disjointed affair in which a broken piano interjects obtuse notes; everything falls away, and the final four seconds are flooded by the sounds of a distorted organ. To love Transference is to love the imperfect beauty of an underdeveloped photograph. I really like this album.

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you very funny man, mr. bill

In an effort to gain credibility(?), Bill O'Reilly earlier this week aired his interview with The Daily Show's Jon Stewart. You can watch the two-part interview here and here. However, it's what Fox News axed from the broadcast that's truly worth watching. Throughout the aired interview, O'Reilly attempts to be the lovable bully - you know, instead of simply beating the lunch money out of your pockets, he mocks you with sarcasm and peppers you with poorly written one-liners. And then beats the lunch money from you. Really trite stuff. O'Reilly comes off as a pathetic, sad man. In the unaired portions, though, Stewart nails O'Reilly and pins the bully down with his -and his network's - own inconsistencies. Stewart comes off smelling like a rose because, unlike O'Reilly, he doesn't crudely interject his arguments with zingers and ha-ha-that's-funny-no-wait-it's-not lines. In the end, it's the fallacies of Fox News and the GOP that provide the true comedy gold.

Watch the unaired portions here.

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the blog is mightier than the canon

Friday was a bad day for conservative Republicans. It began in Kansas and mercifully ended in Baltimore. Indiana Congressman Mike Pence organized a question-and-answer session with President Obama at a Republican retreat in the Maryland city. For 70 minutes the President schooled House GOP leaders over issues like health-care reform, the economy, federal spending, and the stimulus package. The entire session was broadcast live on MSNBC (it was also aired on Fox News, but the GOP TV machine refused to air the final twenty minutes – I wonder why) and made for enthralling political theater. It was very similar to Britain's "question time," in which lawmakers in the House of Commons have direct access to the prime minister. It was also encouraging to see the Obama that I voted for – the fire, the passion, the common-sense approach to national issues.

The questions were sharp and the President's responses were pointed, both of which were refreshing because the presidential response is usually sanitized and the questions dignified, but these questions were coming from House Republicans, and what do they know about dignity? After the President's opening remarks, Pence asked the first question, a question in which he used "a little boy, an African American boy, named David Cater, Jr." as a pawn for tax cuts. "The first question I would pose to you, Mr. President, is would you be willing to consider embracing – in the name of little David Carter, Jr. and his dad, in the name of every struggling family in this country – the kind of across-the-board tax relief that Republicans have advocated?" The very premise of this question was absurd (as were most of the following questions, the President would later label such deceitful questions as "talking point[s] for running a campaign") because Pence met the child and his father at a Salvation Army homeless facility – little David's father wouldn't be rich enough for a Republican tax cut. And how are such "across-the-board" tax cuts supposed to help the economy? Under the leadership of ol' W. such tax breaks were in place for nearly eight years, the culmination of which was the birth of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

After the session MSNBC's Luke Russert spoke off the record to a Republican official who said that allowing the "cameras to roll like that" was a "mistake." Indeed, the President articulately demonstrated that the chasm between reality and the GOP's demagoguery is large enough to swallow the entire Republican Party, which is probably why Pence, when he later appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews, scoffed at the idea of instituting a regularly scheduled question-and-answer session with the House. I just wish more people had been paying attention.

Minutes before the President began his dismantling of the Right, Conservatives were dealt their first blow when anti-abortionist hero Scott Roeder was convicted of first-degree murder of abortion doctor George Tiller. On 31 May 2009 Roeder allegedly drove from Kansas City to Tiller's church in Wichita, Kansas, where he, in front of other churchgoers, shot the doctor point-blank in the head. The defense never disputed the facts of the case and wanted the jury to consider a voluntary manslaughter charge, a charge based on the premise that Roeder killed Tiller to "protect unborn babies"; Judge Warren Wilbert ruled against the manslaughter charge. After deliberating for just 37 minutes, the jury found Roeder guilty of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault. The 51-year-old gun-toting crusader faces a minimum sentence of life in prison. He'll be sentenced 9 March.

It is true that some Right-wing groups have condemned the murder of Tiller, but some groups see the murder, like Roeder, as a justified act. When will Americans see that the real terrorists are not bearded cave-dwellers in the Middle East, but middle-aged white men who embrace the radical ideologies of the Right? Indeed, the Right wants you to believe the real terror threat comes from overseas (the land of brown people, more specifically), but it's the Right who are not only attempting to delegitimize a black President by questioning his citizenship, but encourage its fringe elements to take action against a "radical" President who wishes to void the Second Amendment; a "communist" who believes in expanding government into every home (remind me, who penned the Patriot Act?); and a "socialist" who wishes to institute a national health-care plan in which "death panels" determine who lives and who dies. The true threat to America and its freedoms does not reside in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, or Iran; it lies within our borders, and it uses a holy text to justify its motives. Indeed, the threat is among us. And Islam is not its religion.

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j.d. salinger obit

Leave it to The Onion to pen the best J.D. Salinger obit.

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