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The Things We Eat

2010-06-17T22:19:00.000-07:00

According to an NPR story even though Americans are exercising more, more Americans than ever are obese.

Americans are again one of the most obese countries in the world. This strikes close to home for me, as I have have been overweight since the age of six. A quick survey of my father's fridge, freezer and pantry leads to one very obvious problem. Even though my dad has a mostly healthy diet since his stroke several years ago I found only ONE fresh vegetable anywhere: the broccoli I bought. There is more fresh fruit than I would expect, apples, oranges and bananas. There is also a tomato and an onion and some garlic. He has lost about ten pounds in the years since his stroke, and that's after quitting drinking. So what's the problem?

If you aren't eating vegetables, you are filling your stomach with something less than spectacular. Pita chips and hummus is my weakness. My dad enjoys tortilla chips. In order to lessen the effect of random acts of food I have moved to a five meals a day plan.

Of course, I still don't eat enough vegetables.

It seems to me that one of the main causes of obesity is the average portion size of an American meal.

Solution: (1) Five meals a day, smaller meals at each mealtime. (2) Three to five servings of vegetables per day.

Obstacle: Fewer local growers than ever before. Americans are supermarket fanatics. Our fridges are generally bigger than our European counterparts. The ideal situation would be having a corner store, like in Italy.

My solution: If I don't have fresh vegetables in the fridge I will walk to Albertsons to get some. This way I get fresh vegetables and exercise too.

This is NOT a Test

2010-06-16T17:50:00.001-07:00

Time to step it up and work on my physical health.

So here's the deal. I have studied enough improvement and motivational books to be an amateur life coach. Of course, who wants to live an amateur life? Regardless, I clearly have an interest in this sort of product or service, and most of the time I can talk to someone and recommend one of a hundred books, programs, seminars or other related technology that will help them get from where they are at to where they want to go. More importantly, I actually enjoy helping people find an honest road to goals in tune with their life situations. Is this something I can do seriously or professionally? Not yet. Why? Good question.

First of all is my physical shape. I am overweight at best and obese at worst. In my teens this was a problem because it made me seriously depressed. In my twenties it was a problem because it meant I had fewer sexual partners than I would have liked to have (this is subjective of course). On the edge of thirty I am starting to be more concerned with the health issues of carrying around over a hundred extra pounds of weight. My knees have been injured in the past and they are getting worse every step I take. I am getting back pain for no apparent reason. But worst of all are the things I can't see or feel - fat deposits around my organs, diabetes risk, heart disease risk.

Having taken a quick but ruthless self-examination this is one of my biggest barriers to having a healthy balanced life (I believe balance is one of the most important aspects of a life well lived, and I will go into my ideas of what balance means in the future). In order for me to achieve success on every level I have to strive to step up the parts of my life that out of synch with the rest of my life. The first of these parts was my financial health, and since I now have gainful hourly employment and the starts of a business as well the next major goal is to get my physical health up to par.

Project P90X

Vision: I am committed to this program. I will work the program every day in the morning with the proper equipment. When it comes to individual exercises I will give my best, but not push myself to the point of injury or health risks. I will also get enough rest every night, getting at least seven hours of sleep. I have used a training nutrition program before, and I will use this same program (which I will describe later).

Next Action: Procure the proper equipment by July 1, 2010. On this date I will start the program and post my before pictures.

An Unalterable Commitment

2010-04-18T00:55:00.001-07:00

I will go into the title of this post a bit later on. As of right now I am detailing a new project: the books I will read before I hit 30. Based on this list I found on this list. Both very good lists.

When I read the 30 before 30 list I was depressed to see how many fine books escaped my attention throughout the years. Some of these books I have read part of, but very few I have finished. I was also surprised that I have a B.A. in English focusing on Contemporary Literature without having read War and Peace.

So here they are in the order I plan on reading them, and a few notes about each:

Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
I've read most of this one already, so it's a slam dunk first book. Complicated poetry? No problem. Eliot's The Waste Land was the subject of at least four papers (all with different theses) at Berk.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau
NOT EASY, NOT SHORT. I've tried reading this wholly twice now, and failed both times. But the rhetoric contained in this book is very prevalent in a green society.

1984 by George Orwell
Read all but the last thirty pages in Jr. College. Good recovery from Walden.

To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
No problem.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
I don't know much about this one. I expect it to be complicated and full of satire and allusion.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The beast. If I finish this before September I will consider myself on track.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Great book, on my list because it's been like fourteen years since I have read it.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Great book (again), and I've read bits and pieces. I know it will be hard tog et anything from this one without some kind of analysis.

The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton
Never heard of it.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Two never "heard of it" in a row. It's a gamble on this one.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickins
The magician?

Catch 22 by Joseph Helley
Looking forward to this on.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
How have I never read this? I must be afraid that I am a Manchurian candidate or something.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I have read this book. But it was for school. So I skipped around a bit >>:)

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
As above >>>:)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Like the Salinger, again, how?

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Read this one about ten years ago.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Never heard of it.

The Republic by Plato
Why am I ending with what will likely be the most difficult to consume text on the list? I can only imagine War and Peace being more difficult than Plato's masterwork.

If I finish all these before February 23, 2011 (thirty.. shit...) I will come up with some sort of amazing achievement award. Sex in a library sounds appropriate. With the cougar librarian who is staring me down as I read Plato's Republic? I think so.

Two Professors

2008-04-22T23:09:00.000-07:00

Two professors were walking behind me on my way home to TKE today. The conversation went something like this:

"Yes, but polarity is important so you can see the electron valence and..."
"Sure, it's important, and according to the Aufbau principle, the electrons of an atom occupy quantum level..."

Or something like this. I know very little about chemistry and even less about the atom. But I was struck at the historicity of this discussion (I can't rightly call it an argument since I could not distinguish two sides even though it may have been exactly that). But the historicity was readily apparent. This was not an undergraduate discussion, this was a discussion that was years in the making with multiple lectures, notes, experiments and textbooks involved in order for these two men two effortlessly talk about a subject in such a way that it was basically a different language for me.

That's when I realized what the life of a scholar or theorist meant. It meant continuously training the mind until one can speak about fetishization, reliquaries, the trafficking between thing and object, Platonics, tropes and instantly realized obsolescence until you are well-versed in what basically accounts for the language of an intellectual microsociety. And I wondered if that was what I want before I realized that I was already on the road leading to a world of theorizing and critically analyzing every aspect of life as it is lived.

And I decided that life is a grand adventure. Beyond that, it is also something that can be analyzed and dissected. But this is a spice one must use sparingly. Some analysis makes you positive you get life, you really get it. In fact, you are getting more out of life at every minute than most people are. And you are happy about that, not because it makes you better, but because it makes the world better. But at some point you analyze something too much, you see the joke so clear that it is no longer funny. You understand the recipe so well that the joy of the mysterious aroma is dead. Life becomes death at the moment you know everything about it.

So a toast to those of us who know just enough to know that we don't want to know too much more. And a sad lament to those who have gone so far down the road without knowing where it leads only to realize at the last moment that they can't turn back.

Of course, no one can ever turn back. Being on the road has it's perils.

My New Favorite Movie (after Fight Club)

2008-04-15T16:10:00.000-07:00

In the last three days I have watched Donnie Darko several times. I have not watched it all the way through every time, but I certainly have noticed that every scene has infinite meaning compacted into it. My two favorite scenes are first the scene where it cuts back and forth from Donnie burning down the Cunningham house and second the first montage showing the character of the school. I will be discussing the shot where Donnie burns down the house.

The shot begins with Donnie leaving the movie theater, and over his shoulder is the marquee displaying the movies The Evil Dead and The Last Temptation of Christ. Donnie Darko is set in 1988, Evil Dead came out in 1981 and Last Temptation DID come out in 1988. Donnie has a sick little grin on his face, and there seems to be a question of which marquee is actually the caption to Mr. Darko. Is he a Christ-Like figure, or he is simply the conglomeration of horrific comedy? This is the central argument to the entire movie, is Donnie actually crazy, or is he able to mold reality to his own liking? This question cannot be answered with a review of this scene alone, and there are arguments to both sides. The importance is not the question itself, but to how much we can identify or impose the question on our own lives. Are we crazy, or can we make a difference? Is there one possibility in the infinite amount of possibilities that we can choose?

Moving forward we cut scene to the talent show that Donnie's little sister Sam is performing in. This show is the complete antithesis of the question inherent in Donnie's character. For the audience is not filled with people who ask these sort of questions, the audience is filled with gawkers laughing at the artistic portrayal in dance by Sherita who have likely never questioned reality or their subjective place in reality. These are the other's, people who will never be able to understand Donnie or reality in any way other than it is different and therefore beyond their scope.

I could go into much more detail, but for the sake of brevity I will skip ahead to the part I particularly enjoy. It's when Sparkle Motion starts their dance. Their dance is perfectly anti-personality. All the girls look the same, move the same, are dressed the same, and have the same facial expression-blank (the same as the people in the airplane escape manuals in Fight Club). They cease to be human and represent only that spectacle for which the audience can understand because the spectacle is all they know. As a friend of mind says, how can you ask a fish to describe water? The people watching the show are the fish, the spectacle is the water. They don't see it, because they can't see it! (By the way, friend, you can learn to see things completely different with an internal reference point) The girls are robots, that is why they sparkle and move. Is that all humanity is?! To these people, yes. The spectacle has reduced them to a point where all they desire is to sparkle (appearance) and go through the motions (to be an object).

I haven't even got to the fire and everything going on when that happens. I will have to do that in a subsequent post.

My Former Co-Worker

2008-04-14T00:57:00.000-07:00

So I used to work with this gal named Loma. I say Gal because she surely wasn't a girl, yet she had somehow retained enough of the boisterous energy so often found in that race that I would feel uncomfortable calling her a lady. Loma was hot blooded, not in the typical quick-to-temper manner, but in as that she was always hot. She had to have a fan pointed at her at all times, and she would complain profusely and with as little tact as possible and in the most passive-aggressive way possible. This consisted of commenting on how hot she was constantly, and asking if the temperature on the thermostat was set at the right level. This inevitably involved her turning down the thermostat to increase the cold air blowing on her from every direction possible. And on it would go until someone noticed that the office was freezing. At this point, one of her co-workers would come out and complain first about the air-condition and then about Loma because she was always turning the AC on too high. Our boss was always concerned because she wanted to save money, and the girl that complained was the girl who was most likely the most deceptive and egotistical in the office. She wanted a promotion every three months, was looking for something to brag about, something to tell people was important enough about her so that she could feel better about herself, something to convince her small mind that she was better than you when deep down what she really believed was that she wasn't better than anyone; or at least she wasn't worth a damn until mommy or daddy told her that she was. I of course never noticed all these things at the time, because I was far too ignorant to notice these things day in and day out.

Now day I notice these things, not day in and day out, but moments like these when you think about a person and see past all appearances to the things that really motivates them. I see this, and I ask myself, how can one not be a pessimist? Dear reader, did you like the people that I described above? Well let me tell you something, the first gal was one of the most caring mothers on earth, she would watch her grandson at any time, would brag about her son constantly, and would do anything for her daughter-in-law that she would ask for. The girl was one of the friendliest, charming and charismatic girl you had ever seen, and she was at the time dating my brother. You could not have asked for better people to surround yourselves with.

Witch brings me to the boss. A woman it is still hard for me to find faults in. She owned apartment buildings, threw parties whom she welcomed people from all over the place too, and over-indulged all her employees. I can't tell you how many free lunches (fresh sushi nonetheless), contacts and bonuses I received from this woman. Did I mention I was paid for the lunches? Did I mention she bought me a plane ticket to Oklahoma, and gave me a week to go to Oklahoma and be with my girlfriend? This woman cared so much for the people around her that they would do almost anything she asked them to do.

Yes, these are real people. The complexity of character is not so much shocking as unbelievable. The effort it takes to see these things all at once is alarming; not one of the characteristics would naturally point to all the others. This is the reality of complexities of character. Not every unique character trait points to every other character trait in that person; one may point to one, which may point to another, and another, and another on down the line until you can go from saint to sinner in a metaphysical game of 6 Degrees of Separation. This is how Loma could be the selfish worker and the doting mother in the same person. This is how the other girl (whose name completely escapes me) can go from loving and charming girlfriend to conniving courtier in the same person.

We are not one dimensional, two dimensional or three dimensional. We are the living embodiment of infinite dimensionality... of character.

The boss owned apartment buildings that she rented at a comically high rate to those who were looking for the status symbols to get that promotion they were hunting for in their jobs. She threw parties for her elite circle-peopled by those as rich as her-and invited her lower income friends to some of them so that she could remind the rich people that she still cared about people less fortunate than her, over-indulged her employees so that they would do whatever she wanted for her, gave away free lunches and vacations so that she could keep her businesses in the red (and usable as a write off from the money she made renting apartments). She also gave me a week of vacation so that she could test out other writers without committing to that fact that she was looking for a new writer. It was genius; look for a new writer while keeping the college student on staff in order to have enough time to decide if it was worth keeping on staff for the measly paycheck I earned every week. I was also paid under the table; I don't want to go into how many benefits this was for her.

After I got back she told me she had to hire an outside writer to do some work while I was away. I told her she could have called me and I would have done it while on vacae, but she was sweeter than honey and she didn't want to bother me. The next time it was because we were all over-booked and she didn't want to give me any extra work. I understood-and it was another way she could see how far down she could turn the thermostat.

One day I want from writing press releases to doing graphical work and calling radio stations. I didn't feel the cold air. I had just gotten out of high school, and I had no idea how the world worked. I also didn't want to spend so much time seeing how the world worked. Hindsight is 20/20. I thought I learned a lot while I worked there, I realize I learned a lot more after I left.

And me? Well I was personally happy to take the vacation-I was going to get laid a lot. I also didn't mind working less-I was able to avoid traffic by coming in later. I didn't really care about the company, the people in it were cool, and I liked the cash I was getting paid. I was also happy I had my own office so I could play stupid video games when I knew I could get away with it. I didn't care about that office-it had nothing to do with me at the time.

Of course, it did. And for all the time it took me to figure this out, I wonder how long it will take me to figure out the lessons I am learning right now. Experience is invaluable.

Goodnight.

On Writing

2008-04-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

Marx said: "The writer naturally must make money in order to live and write, but he should not under any circumstances live and write in order to make money"

I have forgotten this recently.

DJ always said that he chose not to be a writer because he wasn't good enough to make money from it. This was true. But what he forgot was the purpose of writing was not to make money, and therefore a writer is not someone who makes money from writing. The greatest art ever created was not created for any other reason than it forced it's way from the artists soul through his ego and burst from his brain because it could not be withheld. That is to say, it was created for the ease of the artist and no one else.

There are no ends to art, art is an end in itself (Rivera).

So the reality was the DJ never chose to not be a writer, he was just really good at forcefully imprisoning those things within him that needed creation. He was not a writer also because he forgot the reason to write. For his entire life he thought writing was about quality, to show a presentable and pleasing form that evoked some sort of emotion from his audience. But *slap* there is no audience in art's perception, only in the fool's belief's is an audience necessary.

In a world full of liars, the biggest crime is lying to yourself. Lying to yourself means you don't think you deserve to see the truth. As soon as you realize this, you are slapped. Or not really, you are just hopeful.

So this brings us to emancipation. The veins pop at the very thought of the world, the effort upon which it fights constantly to stifle emancipation. This is not a societal struggle, it is the struggle of one man.

Net Neutrality

2008-02-13T14:20:00.001-08:00

A new chance to support Net Neutrality. This is important. Check this out as soon as possible and do something to change the way the internet will be used in the future.

read more digg story

The Free Press Action Fund Team is at

http://www.freepress.net/

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

Is This Interesting?

2008-02-06T14:40:00.000-08:00

I'm a little distracted right now because there is this really cute Asian girl wearing a pleated short skirt and black stalkings walking around the computer lab... three of my favorite things all put together. It's like brown paper packages tied up in string, you know what I mean. Oh, she left :(

Right, back to my intellect. I have just discovered this guy named Ray LaMontagne, who is a folk artist with this voice that is just incredible. It reminds me of everything that is good about music. I suggest everyone check him out on Pandora. I just imagine from his voice that he has been through some tough times, some really great experiences, and come out of it the other end slightly jaded, but also with a sense of the importance of things.

Which brings me to something new, the importance of things. I don't mean things in the sense of things around us. I mean things that happen. Everything that happens is so nice, it proves that life is just a beautiful tide rolling in and out. And we're all in it, trying to make sense of something that really makes no sense. And we obsess over it, try and control it. And the artists always have a better idea. The artists are always trying to show everyone else that life is just something that happens, and that makes it more beautiful, not less beautiful.

And yes, it can end at any time, for any reason. So what are we supposed to do in the meantime? I don't know, but I guess there are some popular answers. Some people think the point of life is to find love. I think this is a very romantic gesture, but I personally think that the person looking for love is going to be the last person to find it. Every time it has happened to me it was when I wasn't looking. Some people think that survival is the only purpose in life. I think this is a very scientific view that fails to account for everything that a beautiful mind (as they all are) can offer a world of confusion to help others understand that which they are caught up in. Some people say it is to pass on your genes. This seems rather fatalist to me, as if one could drop dead after they have kids. Some people say everyone has a different purpose, and while I agree I don't think this is a useful answer for anyone.

Sometimes I wish I had the words of a poet, or even a songwriter so I could explain some of these things that I have the compulsion to try and explain. As it is my words never do the job I send them out to do. They try their best, and fight like good little soldiers, but they get confusing orders and the supply lines end up getting cut off every time.

I hope life means as much to you as it does to me. I hope you can see how much life means to me.

And just a question, inspired by Forest Sun, where would the poets be without the rain?

This is not a normal cold...

2008-02-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

So Tuesday-Thursday I had this cold, with a fever of 103. I don't even get out of my bed. Friday I feel better. Saturday I feel good enough to socialize. Today I wake up, fever again, and I have to go shopping for a Superbowl party that could have anywhere between 75-100 people attending. And tomorrow I have to cook the food. This cold is evil.

Noticing Things

2008-01-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

I've been starting to see things differently these days. First I want to make several observations that I hope will stir up some good conversation:
1) Everything is connected.
2) Very few people see how everything is connected
3) There still remains an unconscious feeling that everything is connected (Re: Jung)
4) Because everyone knows that everything is connected, and because they fail to see that connection, people do as much as they can to create separateness in a world where in the end they are really small and insignificant.
5) When a person can realize that all their attempts at separateness and egotism will fail, they can start to see how everything is connected, and they will then be able to understand that they are not small or insignificant because they are connected to everything.

What does this all mean? Well, of course I don't know. I can only attempt to understand.

Everything is connected: At one time we all came from some infinite origin, something that we really cannot understand because before it there may have been nothing. Thinking about this is troublesome, first there is nothing, then there is something. Regardless of what we call this great creation we can derrive two points from it: one that whatever was before is beyond our comprehension, ie: we will likely never know; two that at one point we were all part of the source of everything. As I've heard many smart people say "we are all made of starstuff." So if everything was once connected the only way we could say that things are now disconnected would be to say that the process of original creation is over. Of course, it is not. Everything that is happening now is an echo of the origin. It's possible that this entire ball of wax is just getting warmed up. On an infinite time line anything is possible. Just because the world makes sense for the most part, doesn't mean it always will. So I would have to say that everything is connected because of these points.

Very people can see how everything is connected. It's good enough to understand what I just said, but it's very hard to see. We go through our daily lives on our cellphones, text messaging, talking, breathing, eating, and the whole time we don't stop to think that everything has a history that brought it to the point in time we are currently in. Even points of data have a history, an origin, and a future. It's not because this is impossible to see, but it is because there is so much in existence that has absolutely nothing to do with us that we are still a part of. It creates a very interesting paradox, how can something have absolutely nothing to do with me yet I am still part of it? When two people in Russia have a conversation about the recent snowfall it has nothing to do with me, at least in their minds they aren't thinking about me when they have this conversation. And that is the important part, we are not consciously aware of everything so we think that we can't be connected to everything. Of course, we are.

Just a timeout here: I know people write entire books about any one of these topics, but I am ranting here so bear with me.

The collective unconscious. I'm just going to explain this on my own terms. Every once and a while we are hit with a moment of serendipity that takes us by no surprise at all. Maybe you run into that person you were thinking of all day, maybe you just do perfect on a videogame you are playing. The point is, on some level we take these things for granted. What are the chances of running into that person? Who can really tell. In the grand scheme of things, over the millions of years of the past, the chances are an infinity to none. let me try and explain, since our atoms came from the same origin, the chances of them bumping into each other again given an infinite amount of time and (possibly) and infinite amount of space, the chances of that same bunch of atoms bumping into each other again is zero. Yet it happens all the time, and does not surprise us. If you are following what I am saying, then you should understand that we should be thankful for each other, and quite honestly thankful and spellbound by every second we have. But we're not, because to be spellbound by our own existence would not be very productive.

People create a separateness. Of course we do, if we didn't would there be any individuality available? This may be the one thing that separates us from the animals: we seek an individuality, where they frankly have no concept (except in some cases in the great apes) of an individuality. Our individuality then becomes a self-feeding fire that could very well be our undoing. I may talk about this more later. To my last point...

Failure: Total separateness would mean death. You can't remove yourself from this world, yet people are always trying to be individuals and let their egos take control. Of course we do. Being an individual is great. But you gotta know when to draw the line. I may talk about this more later too. For now, I have to get to class. Let me know what you all think.

This Site Needs Something

2008-01-24T16:02:00.001-08:00

I really want to change the graphical components of this page, of course since I know like nothing about HTML and Web Design it is going to take a long time to get to a point where I can design graphics and post them on this page. So far every attempt I have made has created not a change of scenery, but rather no scenery at all. I must say this is vexing, and I don't mind being vexed about something so trivial. So I have been surfing the web and talking to friends trying to figure out this HTML stuff. I've been referred to webmonkey.com but as classes have just started I haven't been able to get anything done on this front.

On a separate note, my class about Lying seems to be interesting. When I came to Berkeley I never expected to be taking a class titled "Towards an Interpretation of Lies and Liars." One of the thoughts I had about it today is that if one can never know anything (as Aristotle says) than is there ever truth? And if there is never truth, than is it possible to lie when you never know the truth? So thinking about this just makes me want to read the book our professor was talking about titled On Bullshit. The discussion today was an introduction to Hippias Minor. In this text Socrates shows Hippias to be a liar when he claims to know Achilles. I haven't read the text, but the premise is that all pretense to knowledge is a lie. So I assume that Socrates succeeds in proving that it is impossible to truly know anything, as the Socratic Maxim is "I know that I do not know." Of course even in this lies a dillema, and an paradox. How can one know anything given that statement, even if the knowledge is that you know nothing? And how can Aristotle claim that his life's work is the pursuit of knowledge when he acknowleges that there is no such thing possible? Of course, he says it is the pursuit that is important.

But something that came up that I enjoyed was one of the questions that a student asked. She asked if Hippias was responsible for his ignorance. The answer was more of a question, as the professor explained that Hippias's entire education was a matter of memorization, and that the idea of critical thought was not part of the system.

Which leads me to this question: can one question a system if the system does not provide the ability to question? Can one question any part of reality if it is so ingrained that that not only is it impossible to question, but that questioning isn't even an option?

Privacy

2008-01-23T14:27:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine recently posted in her Facebook blog "I have no secrets, really. No secrets because nothing embarrasses me. Nothing embarrasses me because…I don’t know. Because my life is currently a result of adult choices?" I thought about this for a while, because as a part of me desires to have a "online diary" a much more conservative part of me wants to reserve a piece of a private life. Everything I am reading these days points to the fact that at some point everything we say do and possibly even think will be digitized, blogcasted and browseable. Hopefully all intellectual rights laws will be deleted, because I am afraid of my memories being charged for the copyright infringements.

Ok, so my rant just went in an odd direction right there. But I don't like the idea of all of my experiences being data ready for download, all of my stories being available without my consent. It's bad enough that every picture taken of me can be posted and anyone with the right friend access (which doesn't mean friends with me) can see pictures of me at my best and at my worst best. Is everyone else comfortable with this? One of my cousins used to say that she didn't want her picture taken because she believed it stole her soul. How far from the truth is this?

You say, "So DJ, why do you have a blog then?" I've been thinking about that for a while. Part of the answer is that I honestly believe that sharing some of your thoughts leads to the benefit of humanity. In fact, people's thoughts interact in such a strange way there is no way to predict who will be affected and how. That is an exciting thing. Another part of the answer is that I believe that we should share our opinions on what is happening in our world. If people see other people thinking the same way about something they may gain the courage to voice opinions previously held captive by fear.

But at the same time will I ever post my private things? Well, how private is this post right now? Honestly, you can probably figure out a few things about me from this post, but I don't know exactly what. I like my secrets, and I want to keep them that way.

Everything that gets put forth into the world is a calculated effort whether you know it or not.

This just in: "ending an unpopular war is the political kiss of death"

Listening to: Arctic Monkeys "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not"

Reading: Wilde, "Soul of Man Under Socialism" - Marx, "Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof"

New Semester

2008-01-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

Well, it's a new semester for me at UC Berkeley. Here are some of the things I am excited about:

Getting Straight A's (AT BERKELEY!)
Trying out for Club Boxing
Spring Break in Las Vegas
Red Carnation Ball
Berkeley's Calendar Page
Lots of Good Reading

I still haven't decided what I want this blog to be about. But I'm sure I will figure it out as things go on. I'm all for the organic development of a creative project (which is what I believe this to be).

What I am reading right now: 48 Laws of Power

I'm on Law 17, which means I am not even half way done. My impression of this book so far is that there is some good stuff, and some stuff that really only applies to the most paranoid of would-be despots. If you are interested in taking over the world, read this book first.

Classes start on Tuesday, I'm enthusiastic about this.

FAIR and a Lapel Pin

2007-10-10T15:14:00.000-07:00

I'll be the first to admit that I am currently out of the loop with the presidential campaign; albeit it has been going on since the last re-election and one can get out of the loop in one day (or one hour it seems) I am woefully under informed. I wish this wasn't the case, but honestly term papers and mid terms are taking a priority at the moment. But I did watch the Daily Show today! Besides the fact that Lynne Cheney is going to be interviewed tomorrow--and I am excited about that--I took away the knowledge that Mr. Obama is catching hell for not wearing an American flag pin on his lapel. Somehow this has made it evident that he is not ready to be president. In my email I got a report from FAIR (10/10/07) criticizing reports for reporting on such a petty issue:

The New York Daily News (10/5/07) similarly compared Obama to "the average college sophomore who has lately discovered political activism," and also suggested that Obama "did more damage to his White House hopes than a bomb bursting in air."

and later:

Actually, if candidates' "position papers and stump speeches" did receive serious and probing attention from the press, attention spent on frivolous issues like Obama's missing pin or Hillary Clinton apparently bizarre laughing wouldn't be so distressing. Serious political issues are on the table: possible war with Iran, new revelations about the White House sanctioning torture, congressional debate about warrantless wiretapping and so on. Does anyone in the media really think that Barack Obama's years-old decision about wearing a flag pin really compares to those stories?

While the New York Daily News compares Obama to a sophomore I would consider the reporter of the same mind of that stereotypical newb reporter who turns an issue of style into an issue of a candidates credibility. Isn't the media as a whole acting like a gossip mill by drawing attention to something that would have more relevancy in a high school election?

Yes, I am under informed, but do I really need to know that a presidential candidate isn't wearing an American flag? Should my decision on the leadership of my country be based upon this? The media seems to be answering with a "Yes! How dare you even ask that question?"

Well, maybe they just don't want to talk about the possible war with Iran or the White House sanctioning torture because they think it wouldn't interest me. Well, whether it would interest me or not, I would feel rather secure knowing that the media is telling us important things that we should know even if we don't want to know instead of supplying more sophomoric conversation pieces made for the water cooler. I get enough water cooler conversation from the Daily Show.

Something

2007-09-26T00:43:00.000-07:00

It's now been 8 days since I have smoked a cigarette and I am quite the guy to get along with now. I have threatened immediate death to no less than three people, thrown pens, bottle of water, and other random objects. The worst part is I miss half the time because my nerves are so shot. My foosball skills have gotten better, but I'm afraid it's just because I am really mad whenever I play. I never understood why my brother always was such a jerk when he quit, but now I do. So if you encounter me, and you get my good side, you should consider yourself blessed: the people I live with find me insufferable at the moment. Not that I care what they think (sorry Jez, Kevin, it should be temporary).

On another note, I have decided that foosball is the ultimate way to improve your reactions and reflexes. Paul Winzer is the master at the reflex shot against me. He has scored no less than 15 reflex goals against me on defense. This has of course inspired me to learn the reflex shot. I got three off on Oki-san (Onisan) just a couple hours before present. I won that game 10-9. I had to come back from 6-9, which I did. Hmmmm, coming back from 6-9, anyone care to psychoanalyze this?

I am currently reading Emma for my Novel Theory class and Pamela for my English Novel class. They are 400 pages and 500 pages respectively. And since I am so behind on my reading I will no doubt spend the next few days and nights in the library instead of going to an invite, or a bar night, or any kinds of nights. This is a great idea.

What Interests Me Today

2007-07-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

So since it is officially summer break for me I find myself with a bit more time on my hands than I am used to. And since I can only milk goats, go on nature walks, and drive quad-runners around for so long I am back to my intellectual pursuits regarding information, the flow of information and the presentation of content with the primary goal to be a more active, involved and informed member of society. So I am going to blog about a couple issues that are interesting to me right now.

Net Neutrality:

The basic idea of net neutrality as I understand it is that all information on the internet is treated equally as far as how it gets from one point to another. So no information is given priority treatment over others. This means my email travels from my computer through the internet to whatever agency I am sending it to as fast as whatever agency I am contacting would send information to me. This end-user relationship means that no data in any data stream is treated differently right? Ok, so that may all be coming to an end since the FCC is no longer enforcing this policy. What is the FCC good for these days anyway? So what would this mean? One example I can think of would be this: I use the Berkeley server for my internet, and Berkeley for whatever reason likes Google more than Yahoo, and they create a system so that all Google data is delivered faster than Yahoo data, making Google the faster search engine. That example is only a hypothetical, but it is possible. It is far more likely that a company such as Sprint or SBC will allow websites and corporations to pay for this preferential treatment in order to gain an edge on their competition. This makes me ask the question, is this fair in a capitalist market? From a capitalist perspective I would assume that the market for this type of system would be one sides. As a user I would not be interested in using an internet provider that does not support net neutrality. So if I was an ISP, and I knew selling bandwidth priorities would open one market while closing another I might not take this course of action. There would be a cost benefit analysis of course, and if every other ISP was selling bandwidth priorities I would know that there would not be an alternative choice for my users to go to. This would make me consider selling the priorities if the profits were high enough.

But here is the problem. Without multiple ISPs competing in one area, there will be cases where a user has no other place to go in order to get broadband internet access. This makes it unfair in my opinion. Since the broadband market is still establishing itself, when users have only one choice it is unfair to force them to deal with an ISP who does not subscribe to net neutrality. This could easily lead to a situation where what you see on the internet is filtered by your ISP because some websites paid for priority in an exclusive contract (i.e. one search engine or news site) while other websites were left wondering where their traffic went. In essence, this controls the information we are able to access. In my opinion limited access to information leads to an uniformed and woefully ignorant public. This may be just fine for some people, but I happen to believe the world will be a better place when the general public is as informed as possible on all issues.

Now, here is an interesting discussion of the topic: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=392

There is a lot more here than I can offer in my simple ramblings. It just seems to me that some people want to be ignorant and some companies want people to be ignorant. I want people to not be ignorant. The lack of net neutrality would lead to greater ignorance. If you agree with me, you should let your member of congress know because they don't think it is important. Yes, I am linking to the openleft, and I am conservative. It seems lately to me that the left is more informed than the right, and also more concerned with the general public being informed. I think EVERYONE should be informed, left, right or center.

Mountaintop Removal:

So I don't know much about this, but I am looking stuff up about it because my dad is interested. So I went to the first place I always go when I want a broad overview of something I don't know anything about, wikipedia. After I type in mountaintop removal it links me to a site (link) that tells me that this is a new form of coal mining where up to 1000 feet of mountaintop are leveled using explosives and the debris are dumped into the river. This happens mostly in Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. It went on to say that Hose bill H.R. 2169 would effectively stop valley fills, though it does not mention anything about mountaintop removal for the mining of coal itself. Just what is done with the debris. Some of you may be thinking that you don't care about what happens in TN, WV, VA and KT. The excess mineral deposits in dump sites alone is killing species of aquatic life in the rivers, lakes and streams around these sites. A decrease in population spreads out from the center affecting every habitat involved in the same ecosystem. If I lived around where this was happening, and I saw my rivers getting filled up with dumped rubble from mountaintops in order to get a small amount of coal, I would be pissed. Anyway, I plan on telling my member of congress all about it. Besides, if we let it go in these states, it will surely spread. Reckless disregard of the state of our ecosystems and the impact we have on the planet is what leads to the loss of habitat, the extinction of species, and the weakening of life in general. I really am reminded of the commercial where the lumberjack cuts down a tree, and the domino effect comes full circle and lands on him. Drastic changes are never good. One of the many sites offering information and ways to get involved is ILoveMountains which is what my dad linked to me in order to get me informed on this particular subject.

I think that's it for now. Back later when I have more free time.

Summer Post CalSO

2007-07-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

The first step is the hardest. Isn't that the way it goes? Everything in our lives started with a first step, every accomplishment, every failure, every detail long forgotten, every friendship and everything else all has a beginning. I have to remind myself every day that nothing can be done without being started. But at the same time, I have to remind myself that if I think too much about that first step it doesn't get done. I wont take the step if I have to do it. Anytime someone tells me to do something, I will resist, fight back, try and be intimidating and create mean faces. I do this to myself when I tell myself I have to do something. This is a thought that has a recurring role in my life. In order for me to get something done, I have to let go of wanting it done.

This is a dedication to my fellow counselors. I am uncharacteristically a jumble of emotions today because I think I wasted my summer. I am the one who is saying at the end of it all how I wish I got to know you all better, how I wish I let you all get to know me better. I've been told that I come off as "too cool." For the first time I wish this wasn't the case. Against my better judgment I have fallen in love with you all, and never let any of you know it. I guess that means that it has finally hit me. I'm not too cool.

I remember something Meegan said at the beginning, when she asked me why I was doing this (a good question at the time). I didn't really have an answer, but I will get to that later. One thing she said after I told her the answer was "I think you are the only one who looks at this like a job." I don't know if I was the only one, but CalSO was a job for me. I would say it was a job for me until there were about 4 programs left. Then it was a passion. And at some point it became something more. I was there for the students, but I was really there for the counselors. I would do anything for you all. I don't know how this happened, because I really didn't want this to happen. I think I would have been happy either feeling this way in the beginning, or not feeling this way at all. All I want is to go down the hall and visit Scott, Eric, Irene or Jen, or go downstairs and see the people that I didn't visit as often like Anna, Tristan (either), Minisha or Jean. I want to spend time with every single one of you. And I have to wait. This is more than annoying. So how much of my summer did I waste by not doing this? In the end I wish I payed less attention to my job and more attention to my coworkers. So I am going to ask you all a favor, when I call you and ask you if you want to hang out, say yes. I NEVER do this, it's a huge stretch for me. If you say no I probably wont ask again. It's part of the whole "too cool" thing I am so good at. If any of you think I am a cool guy (and I'm sure almost all of you do) you need to get to know me better. Ask Jen A., who knows me the best probably, if I am cool and she will probably say "Yes, but not in the way you think."

This can't be the end for you and me. Letting go without more would be a crime. I'm good at writing people off; I don't want to write any of you off.

Busy Summer

2007-05-23T09:39:00.001-07:00

So since I am working from 9am to 10pm every day I am not able to find much time to post. I am actually in between lectures right now and my boss could yell at me at any minute. So hopefully I will get around tonight and post some updates. See you soon.

First Post

2007-05-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

I think it's time for a change in my life. I believe that posting that change on the web will make it more real, and make me more likely to succeed in this change.

The change is thus: stop wasting time, start making life the way I want it to be.

Now then, this hopefully will not be a Franklin/Gatsby type of list and schedule to conform my life into the life I want it to be. I believe that my life is how I want it to be all the time, and putting time constraints on what and where I do and go is more restricting than freeing. I am hoping that this transformation will be more organic, and more action oriented than plan orientated. With that being said I will go ahead and tell you my goals for this website in particular, not the goals of my changing life which I will keep private for now.

I want to create a place for me to describe the processes I am going through, and a place to sound off on my beliefs, actions and passions.

So since I am talking about changes, I am going to rant a little about how I think change occurs. Change happens either from an internal motivation or an external motivation. Those from external motivations are the simple sort (i.e. putting on more blankets when it is cold). Internal motivations deal more with our emotions, passions, beliefs, goals, desires, and thoughts. Internal motivations are necessarily more complex than external motivations. Most often my internal motivations center around pain, dissastisfaction and dissapointment in myself and others. A mentor once told me that you will learn from either pleasure or pain. Clearly, I learn from pain more than pleasure. This is not a bad thing, as long as there is learning taking place. Going through the same pain over and over again is what happens when you don't learn. After you learn you can take actions to change based on your internal motivations. Actions is what makes changes. Actions over a long period of time creates new habits, and this is the change.

My final thought on change and motivation is that change is not easy even though it occurs every second of every day. It is the fact that it is always happening that makes it hard; this is because for every change you make in one direction there will be another change that you might not be willing to live with. If you change your nutritional habits, it will create a change in your thought process and many of your physical processes. Not only that, but it will create cravings, strong physical effects such as hunger, and it will make you want to go back to your old diet which was homeostasis for you. Going from homeostasis into any change is resisted by every cell of your body, even if it is a beneficial change.

Right now, I am very hungry, cranky, and generally mad at the world. I better get used to this. I've been told to feed off the anger. Hopefully that will mute some of the pain. That and a lot of good punk rock: punkradiocast.