Keep Your Aliens off my Body

I haven't been posting very much recently, and it is a bit discouraging to me. Despite having internet access in my new apartment, I have been very tired at the end of each day as I get used to my new profession as Construction Laborer, or as I sometimes call it, "Constructor". Actually, I've never called it that, but you know, like, idioms and shit.

But I did have two thoughts today that warrant some posting.

Thought the first: the more contact I have with "regular" American people, like for example, people who have lived their whole lives in rural areas, the more I understand why this country is messed up.

For example (or, THE example) is bigotry converting into racism. Why is the system racist? Because people in control of the system are able to tweak and shift the system so that they can cut corners at certain demographics' expense. They can get away with this because there is a good solid percentage of the population that doesn't care if the system is racist, and therefore will not unite to hold the powers that be to any sort of systemic equality. The people don't care if lack of nationalized health insurance affects people with black or white skin (or any other color or shade for that matter), the issue isn't an issue just because they don't care about people other than white people. So bigotry allows racism to exist. It isn't that the powers design the system to be racist because they get some sick kick out of it, it is just that they have no reason to design it equally, and therefore it does what it does, along race/class lines. You could find the same sort of thing happening with class for sure; the system takes advantage of poorer people. Why? Simply because most Americans don't care about poor people. Not that they want to enslave them, they just don't give a shit, because someone who is poor must be a waste of humanity, in the same way a bigot views another race/ethnicity. This also explains why bureaucrats will endlessly defend a system against racism. Of course the system is not supposed to be racist, it is only a general sentiment of bigotry that allows a system to be racist and yet pass as "the way things are".

I thought of this after seeing an advertisement for a pro-immigration reform rally. The slogan was, "Immigrant Rights are Basic Rights". Well, all very good sounding to the liberal, reformist mind. Everyone should have basic rights, so if immigrant rights are basic rights, then we should implement immigrant rights. Perfectly logical.

The problem is, the people who are halting immigrant rights are not people who believe in basic rights for everyone. In fact, the basis of their position is that immigrants should have less that basic rights! The only thing they want for immigrants is a kick in the teeth and a ticket back to where they came from, and that is at best. Our immigration system is horribly oppressive and fascist towards certain people, only these certain people are hated by a large amount of the population, so the system can keep doing it without much fuss. How do you present the "save 'em" argument to people who have already decided a long time ago, "fuck 'em"?

It is the inverse of why the "Abortion is murder" argument, in graphic billboard form or not, will not convince anyone who is pro-choice that they are wrong. Their opinion is not based upon whether or not they think there should be a law against murder. Their opinion is that abortion is not murder, just like bigots think that immigrants are not people (at least not comparatively).

I could relate this to my funny observation that unwanted pregnancies are the ultimate interloping aliens. They even look like aliens. Abortion would then be the ultimate answer to the alien problem, and the CIA, Planned Parenthood, and the Minutemen could all finally resolve their differences and get at the root of the problem.

But really, this is a good example of how argumentation and sloganeering typically serves to just further argumentation and sloganeering, rather than reach the root of the problem or develop any positive solution. No one learns anything that they didn't already know, and no one develops a course of action different than the one they already were planning.


Now I can't remember the second thought. Oh well, I guess this was long enough for one post.

Of Cities, Concrete, Commerce, and Contextualism

I'm a little behind on the posting, as was sure to happen. But here's the catch up.

Cincinnati: city of almost Kentucky. I visited the illustrious Charlie Campbell, and his institution, the University of Cincinnati. Or perhaps Charlie is the U of C's institution.

Either way, I had the pleasure of coming face-to-stomach with secretary of war/president/chief justice/pioneer of international arbitration/renowned "large man" of history, William Howard Taft.

I think it is interesting that his statue depicts him as the Chief Justice, which although he had a a much longer term in this position than as president, is certainly not what he is most famous for. Additionally, his career as justice certainly would be much more politically "embarrassing" from a current point of view, because of the strict contextualist readings of the constitution that upheld segregation, restricted the freedoms of the bill of rights, and passed on regulating child labor.

In addition to musing upon the career of Mr. Taft and constitutional construction, we considered 1970s-era poured concrete construction.

Such as in this fine example at the U of C.

I wish I had taken more photos of the rest of the surrounding complex and parking structures, that totally exemplify how the architects must have thought this technique was the wave of the future.

The entire area mimics the parallel/angular form, sort of appearing as if the thing was meant to fold together in some sort of Transformer style. Pedestrians are able to walk through the area without leaving what appears to be a solid, massive flow of uninterrupted grey concrete.

Charlie thought it reminiscent of Stalinist architecture. I thought it reminded me of Gattaca, a movie as horrible as the architectures it invokes.


This is a picture of Charlie holding court in what appears to be a bunch of left over building materials from the Chamber of Commerce, but what is most likely actually a monument to Commerce in some classical mode.


Frank Zappa is on Charlie's T-Shirt. Zappa was not into drugs, although he may have often partaken of commerce.

After Cincinnati it was on through Indiana, and into the midwest.You can see it is the midwest, because all of a sudden it is really flat.

You can not see the large number of anti-abortion billboards, because I did not take pictures of them.

I also saw (me, not you) a bumper sticker that read "God is Pro-life". I thought this was pretty ironic. God kills people, babies, animals, and whole cities all the time. I do not think that Job's family would think that God is pro-life.

The strange "portal thing" in the center of the windshield is where my rear-view mirror used to be. It fell off after Cincinnati. Just another brick crumbling out of the wall. I can't see out the back anyway because of all my stuff, so the loss is actually better, because now my forward-view is improved. The real tragedy is that the mirror fell on my poor succulent, Orchid, who is now struggling to regain his strength.


Next stop, sweet home Chicago. A sweet home, but not my home. Nor Jesus' home, because he left, and headed down to New Orleans. But I'm not going there, just to Chicago.

More Chicago pictures, and perhaps additional blues references, will follow. I would predict a "El" car or two, maybe a giant burrito, maybe a giant shiny bean, probably a Chicago-style wooden fire escape, and maybe even Steve Erickson. Only time and digital imagery will tell.

Cho Seung-Hui and the rest of the world

I'm having a hard time comprehending the descriptions of Cho Seung-Hui's writing. (sample.) I read the plays that are out on the internet, and while they are certainly bizarre, I feel like they are really being misconstrued. They are being depicted as a example of lunatic incarnate.

Now, I'm not defending them as having literary value. I do think that if they were actually presented to a class, it obviously represents a loud cry for help. But I have this weird feeling like they are going to be intentionally printed out just so they can be burned at the stake.

Look at the first comment on the blog where the plays were posted. The person says "It reads and sounds like something a 9th grader might write." That's exactly what I thought! It sounds like a pre-pubescent mallrat with a bowl cut calling every person who passes "dumbass" or "a fag" or some other such stupid meaningless insult. Three 17 year-old characters screaming "ass-raper" and "mutha----er"? That's not "horrible, inconceivable macabre violence." It's just idiotic.

Then the poster is chastised by others for not realizing "why they are posted". The plays MUST be recognized as "written about his twisted mind." Others mention: "How was he not kicked out of school for this? My alma mater would not have permitted it." Who would even accept anyone with that writing ability? That's my question. Any fan of horror films could come up with material far worse. What worries me is how this could be authored by a supposedly socially and psychologically competent adult.

My first thought when I read the plays is that they were fakes. However, articles quote various teachers and students regarding the content, so I assume they were actually presented to be workshopped in an english class. It seems obvious that the guy had some issues, if he would present these to a college class. But what was he even doing there? Why didn't people realize that there might be something behind his creepy, bizarre behavior other than a vague, uncomfortable threat? Any person can think up a violent fantasy. Cho Seung-Hui doesn't have shit on Burroughs, Steven King, or even CSI's writers. But who presents work like this to a college class as if it was actually something of substance? I think, only someone who either doesn't care, or someone so warped emotionally and socially as to have no sense of connection with outside reality.

I think that people should probably be asking more questions about his personality and life than simply showing this as another piece of evidence that he was simply a psychopath. Because what does that mean? We already know he shot 33 people, including himself. I think we know that he was crazy, the massacre itself is a pretty horrible piece of evidence to that end. But why? Is it simply that he was just one of those 'evil, dangerous, stalker-criminals' that are lurking all over the place, primed to explode? Or was it more complicated than that? Unfortunately, we'll probably never know now.

Oh yeah. In other news, 157 people were killed in Baghdad (don't you know there's a war on?) and abortion is a bit more illegal that it was before. [update: as of 12pm thursday, it was up to 183 killed.]

Another day in the world, eh...